Dr. David Clark, DC explains how your gluten-free diet can be sabotaged by milk products.
Let's talk about the connection between milk products and gluten sensitivity.
A few weeks ago I put up a post about coffee and gluten sensitivity, and what we were talking about is something called cross-reaction. So let back up a few steps.
When you have a sensitivity to gluten or any of the wheat compounds, you begin making antibodies to those them. An antibody, if you want to think about it this way, is like an adhesive flashing strobe light made to stick to a specific invader (gluten/wheat compounds in this example).
So, for example, as a child if you had chicken pox you got exposed to chicken pox, your body made antibodies to the chicken pox that will only stick to the chicken pox and therefore you have an immunity to it.
Well, when you have a gluten sensitivity problem, when you eat gluten you have made these antibodies. The antibodies find the gluten and they bind onto it....the antibodies flash and tell your T-cells, "Hey, come on in and destroy this invader that we found."
That's essentially what happens when you have a problem with gluten. And by the way, Celiac is not the only kind of gluten sensitivity. (see more here) It's one kind of gluten sensitivity.
So what I'm telling you about applies to anyone that has any type of gluten problem.
There's a problem with milk products called cross-reaction. These antibodies that are for gluten-- they're only supposed to stick to the gluten---they can actually stick to things that are not gluten and cause your immune system to have the same type of gluten immune system response.
To your immune system, the "cross-reacting" food is the same thing as eating gluten.
So you could be on a gluten-free diet BUT also consuming milk. Milk is a known cross-reactor. The milk fat and the milk proteins... they're close enough to gluten for your immune system to "cross react."
Close enough for gluten antibodies to bind onto and direct your immune system to come and try to kill this non-gluten food.
The result? You suffer an inflammatory reaction as if you were still eating gluten.
I've seen a lot of people in my practice that had been doing well on a gluten-free diet ---but had kind of plateaued. Most of these people, when I finally got them to go on a milk product-free diet, they felt 30% to 40% better
For several years I've been telling people that if you have an autoimmune condition, you MUST NOT eat the Unholy Trinity:
- gluten
- dairy
- soy.
But some people don't comply until they hear the recommendation from a third party. The people to thank for this is Cyrex Labs and Dr. Aristo Vojdani.
What do YOU do with this information?
If you know that you're gluten sensitive, get off of all milk products.
So I'm talking about anything made from cow, sheep or goat's milk...
- yogurt
- kefir
- butter
- cheese
Just get rid of it and see if you don't feel better.
Now, of course, there is testing you can do. Cyrex Labs offers some testing, but there's not really a good way to absolutely confirm with a lab test that you're having cross-reaction. As I understand it, there's not really a way to test to prove for sure that you're cross-reacting. We just know that in the lab setting it can happen.
There's a very good probability, almost 100 percent, that if you're gluten sensitive you're probably going to have a reaction to milk products anyway. So the best thing to do is just get off of them.
Now, you know, in the "alternative" world we've known for a long time about some of the problems with milk products. For example, if a kid who's 1-year old has had chronic ear infections the very first thing you do is you get them off all dairy products. And what happens almost 100% of the time? No more ear infections.
That's a separate issue, of course, but we know that milk proteins can certainly cause a problem. There's research to show that there's a protein called butyrophilin which has a direct relationship to some types and some cases of Multiple Sclerosis.
This is a big deal. We're not just talking about a little upset tummy.
Even with me personally.... I thought, "I don't have a problem with cheese." ...Until I got rid of it. I have Celiac Disease and some autoimmune stuff myself. When I got rid of cheese and milk products I saw a huge improvement in my health.
The danger of milk products and gluten sensitivity is cross reaction. Antibodies for gluten can bind onto things that are not gluten, and cause you to have an inflammatory response.
Cross reaction will make all autoimmune problems worse.
It makes Hashimoto's Thyroiditis worse....
...makes rheumatoid arthritis worse.
...makes scleroderma worse.
The list goes on.
If you're gluten sensitive get off all milk products.
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© 2012 David Clark. All Rights Reserved.
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Dr. David Clark, DC
Functional Neurologist
Diplomate College of Clinical Nutrition
Functional Endocrinology
Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist
Vestibular Rehab Specialist
214-341-3737
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