United Airlines has been bitten with the gluten-free bug and is planning to elevate the flying experience for celiacs by expanding its food options for premium and economy cabin travelers.

Starting in summer, the airline will debut their new GF meal options for those in premium cabins on long, international flights. These will be prepared in conjunction with the new FDA ruling of less than 20ppm. Summer can’t get here soon enough, but economy flyers won’t have to wait as long since starting next month, United will change over their salad dressing to one that is gluten-free. This will be the second menu option for GF eaters as United currently offers a gluten-free soup. Click to continue reading »

We’ve been hearing from more and more of you that your churches are beginning to offer gluten-free options for communion (see our 2012 article here)

A woman from Madison, Wisconsin, who has celiac disease, says that she has a special arrangement for communion at St. Dennis Catholic Church in Madison. She avoids taking a wafer and drinks out of a separate cup to avoid cross contamination.

“Sometimes other people dip wafers, containing gluten, in the common cup or discharge particles into it. That contaminates the wine for a celiac,” she says.  Click to continue reading »

As the market for gluten-free products dramatically increases for a variety of different reasons, supermarkets are offering more extensive gluten-free sections to compete with demand. Roche Bros, headquartered in Wellesley Hills, MA, are the latest to stock their shelves with hundreds of new gluten-free items.  Click to continue reading »

While Dunkin’ Donuts is pulling gluten-free items from their menu, Gardein, the award-winning maker of meatless foods such as Chick’n and Turk’y is introducing a new line of GF items which will include Beefless Ground, Veggie Burger and a Black Bean Burger.          Click to continue reading »

With new gluten-free products hitting the shelves each day, GF eaters are finding it easier and easier to discover new items that they love to munch on. There’s no doubt that this will continue to trend in 2014 and beyond; a survey conducted by the HAIN Corporation found that at least seven out of 10 “health conscious” consumers frequently purchased products labeled gluten-free and at least four in 10 stated they planned on buying more GF products in the coming year. Click to continue reading »

Last June, celiacs and gluten-free eaters rejoiced as Dunkin’ Donuts rolled out a big campaign to announce that they would soon be adding two GF items, a cinnamon sugar donut and a blueberry muffin, to their menus nationwide. Nearly six months later, DD is quietly canceling those plans and scrapping the idea as a whole.  Click to continue reading »

Much has been written about the link between celiac disease and Type 1 Diabetes, and the challenges of living with both. Unfortunately, when you suffer from an autoimmune disorder such as these, your odds of developing another are increased. For this reason we are always interested to hear about new research with a goal of reducing the instances of these conditions.

Research has shown that the intestinal microbiome plays a large role in the development of Type 1 Diabetes and now, recent research at Mayo Clinic has found that gluten in the diet may modify the intestinal microbiome, increasing instances of Type 1 Diabetes. Click to continue reading »

A recent Swedish study finds no link between celiac disease and autism spectrum disorders.

The study’s lead, Dr. Jonas Ludvigsson of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, says that this is one less thing for people who have celiac disease or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to worry about.

According to Ludvigsson, people who were diagnosed with an ASD in the study were no more likely to be diagnosed with celiac disease than people without an ASD.

Ludvigsson and his colleagues linked several Swedish databases to compare the celiac disease diagnoses among people with ASDs to a group of people without the developmental disorders. The researchers had data from 250,000 people.

Roughly 44 people per 100,000 were diagnosed with an ASD before they were diagnosed with celiac disease. That compared to about 48 people per 100,000 who were diagnosed with an ASD but not with celiac disease.

The study did find, however, a link between ASDs and a positive blood test for celiac disease, which alone is not enough to diagnose someone with the condition. A celiac disease diagnosis requires both a positive blood test and evidence of damage to the small intestine.

Ludvigsson cautioned that the link between ASDs and a positive celiac blood test is based on a small number of cases. There could be a real relationship between the two or it could be a result of doctors overtesting people with ASDs, he said.

The study also does not shed any light on whether a gluten-free diet improves ASD symptoms. The study is published in JAMA Psychiatry.

http://medcitynews.com/2013/09/study-finds-link-celiac-disease-autism/

Gluten-free folks here in the US are more than familiar with our friends at Udi’s. Now it’s the UK’s turn to try Udi’s goodies! Boulder Brands have launched their Udi’s bakery range in up to 800 Tesco stores this week.

Nineteen products are being introduced in the UK, including fresh sliced white and brown sandwich bread, bagels, breakfast bars and Udi’s new ancient grain crisps. The company plan to launch up to 50 more of their gluten-free products over the next year.

The $500m business revealed in May that it was planning to launch in the UK when they acquired Cheshire based gluten-free operation, Davies Bakery. Click to continue reading »

Further trials of a drug which could some day treat celiac disease have been approved and will begin later this year. Trials will be carried out in two-parts (single and repeated) in 32 patients at a world-leading site for celiac disease research in Finland. The study will be a double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose escalation study of the drug, currently named BL-7010

The primary objective of the study is to assess the safety of single and repeated ascending doses of the drug in well-controlled celiac patients.

So, what exactly is this drug and how does it hope to treat celiac disease?

BL-7010 has a high affinity for gliadins, the proteins in gluten which cause celiac disease. By segregating these proteins, the drug effectively masks them from enzymatic degradation and prevents the formation of peptides which trigger the immune system. The drug is eventually excreted with gliadin from the digestive tract, preventing the absorption of these peptides into the blood. This significantly reduces the immune response triggered by gluten.

“We are very enthusiastic about this unique product, which is generating a lot of excitement from both the scientific and medical communities. Despite the unmet medical need and the huge size of the celiac market, there is no available treatment for the disease apart from a lifelong gluten-free diet, which is extremely difficult to maintain. Since there are also very few products currently in clinical-stage development, we see a significant opportunity in this market for our product.” – Dr. Kinneret Savitsky, Chief Executive Officer of BioLineRx (the biopharmaceutical development company developing the drug).

We look forward to hearing more about this trial and it’s findings!

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/biolinerx-announces-regulatory-submission-for-phase-12-trial-for-novel-treatment-of-celiac-disease-2013-09-24

Post authored by Laura (Gluten Free Traveller) http://glutenfreetraveller.com/