It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, and that means that Custom Choice Cereal in cooperation with our advisor Dr. Stephen Wangen offers you another Q&A session.
You are encouraged to ask this renown expert who has celiac disease himself anything you always wanted to know about following a gluten- or wheat-free diet. Feel free to have a look at the Gluten Free Doctor’s impressive resume and expertise on our Custom Choice Cereal people page.
But now to the important things, here is how it works:
1. Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
2. We’ll send all questions to Dr. Wangen
3. Dr. Wangen’s answers will be published in reply to your comments
4. Key: First come – first serve. And we have to keep it to 5 questions
We at Custom Choice Cereal are excited that Dr. Stephen Wangen agrees to provide this great service to you. Please understand that he has a busy schedule that we therefore have to limit each session to 5 questions. Thank you very much!
The Wall Street Journal’s Health Journal columnist Melinda Beck wrote a great article on who has to stick to a gluten-free diet (celiacs, people with a wheat allergy, and those with a sensitivity to gluten). I was pretty impressed by the thoroughness of the research that was done and wanted to share it with you as part of our customer service. It particularly struck me that
Melinda described many of the most common symptoms that ‘glutened’ celiacs experience
it is not well understood how gluten can cause psychiatric and behavioral changes (keyword: leaky-gut)
7% of the population has anti-gliadin antibodies (‘AGA’), as do 18% of people with autism, and 20% of those with schizophrenia
The article also points out that much more research is needed to understand why the various conditions that benefit from a gluten-free diet are so much more prevalent today than several decades ago. While celiac disease was initially believed to begin only during childhood, it is now know that it can start at any time during the life of a person with the genetic predisposition.
In a little video, Melinda Beck also explains that the gluten-free diet is not a weight-loss diet, and that one should not embark lightly on a gluten-free diet.
We at Custom Choice Cereal are happy to offer you another Q&A session on celiac disease, gluten intolerance, and living gluten-free or wheat-free with a renown expert in the field, Dr. Stephen Wangen.
Suffering from celiac disease himself, Stephen has devoted his life to educating and providing help to people effected with digestive issues of various kinds. You can read about The Gluten Free Doctor’s impressive credentials on our page about our advisors.
The whole things is pretty simple and works in 4 easy steps:
1. Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
2. We send all questions to Dr. Wangen
3. Dr. Wangen’s answers will be published in reply to your comments
4. Key: First come – first serve. 5 question limit per session
This great service could not be provided to you without Dr. Wangen’s goodwill. We at Custom Choice Cereal are very thankful that Stephen continues to offer these monthly Q&A session on our blog. At the same time, we’d like to thank you for understanding that out of respect for Dr. Wangen and his time we have to limit each session to 5 questions.
We at Custom Choice Cereal just closed another one of our gluten-free 3-second-polls, and the new survey is already up (hint: top left corner of this blog). A big Thank You! goes to all of you who answered our last question
Are you completely gluten-free or do you “cheat” sometimes?
Thanks to 61 answers total the results are becoming more representative. The results below also show that the vast majority of you are entirely gluten-free and don’t eat a food if you are not sure about the ingredients. That’s a very smart decision given research indicating that not switching to a gluten-free diet significantly increases the mortality rate for celiacs. Here are the detailed results of our 3-second-poll:
54.1% (33 out of 61) of you said that you are 100% gluten-free and don’t eat the food if you don’t know every ingredient
26.2% (16 people) said that accidents (unfortunately) happen
11.5% (7 out of 61) cheated once but will never cheat again
8.2% (5 of you) admitted to sometimes giving in to a “gluten craving”
For those of you who like graphs as much as I do and prefer them to text I have displayed the results in the chart below.
In addition to conveniently delivering taste and variety to your gluten-free cereal bowl, we at Custom Choice Cereal try our best to keep you informed about the latest developments in celiac and gluten-free research. The University of Alberta now revealed results from an interesting study of 43 children and teens with celiac disease between the ages of three and 18.
The study found that these children tended to have low bone density, which may result from poor intake and absorption of vitamins and minerals. Researcher Diana Mager, a professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science at the U of A, says that supplementation of bone-boosting vitamins D and K could help mitigate these issues:
“Children with celiac disease are at risk for poor bone health, but by adding vitamins K and D to their diets, it can help reduce the risk of fractures and osteoporosis.”
The study also recommends daily physical activity outdoors since levels of vitamin D can also be raised through increased exposure to sunlight. At the same time, exercising builds bone strength and thus helps mitigate the risk of unhealthy bones.
We previously wrote about a relief drug for celiacs called Larazotide Acetate under development by U of As researches. It’s exciting to see that celiac disease so high on the agenda at the U of A. We applaud you and hope you keep up the great work!
We have great news to share with you and are very excited about this! Custom Choice Cereal was able to win Gini Warner as a nutritional advisor! This adds another level of competence in essential parts of our daily business to our team and helps us to serve you better. Gini Warner, who can be contacted through her website Health by Gini, is a Clinical Nutritionist who received her Master’s Degree from New York University in Health Education and Nutritional Science. Her specialization on gluten intolerance, celiac disease, diabetes, and weight loss makes her the perfect fit for Custom Choice Cereal, and we can rely on her wealth of experience and knowledge. Her goal is to
“… help you learn more about the foods that are right for your individual needs. I will teach you how to dine out, to prepare meals for yourself and your family, and to make a mind-body connection.”
Gini also offers nutritional counseling via telephone and online for those who are unable to come to her office (she is located in California). In addition, she writes her own blog where she gives great advice on a healthy and nutritious diet.
Here is how it works, just follow these simple steps and you’re fine:
1. Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
2. We send all questions to Dr. Wangen
3. Dr. Wangen’s answers will be published in reply to your comments
4. Key: First come – first serve. 5 question limit per session
The Custom Choice Cereal team is very happy that Dr. Stephen Wangen agrees to provide this great service to you. Thank you for understanding that out of respect for Stephen we have to limit each session to 5 questions!
The entrepreneurial spirit in the Triangle is very alive, and rarely does a week pass since having started Custom Choice Cereal where I don’t meet at least one other local entrepreneur. Being located in the Research Triangle Park, many of these entrepreneurs operate in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, or IT.
That’s why I am very excited to have met the people behind Local Yogurt, “Durham’s first independently owned frozen yogurt shop!” They offer delicious frozen yogurt in four flavors and plenty of toppings. The best part: the yogurt is gluten-free! How awesome is that??
With the heat hitting North Carolina and the 4th of July weekend ahead, this is the perfect treat for anyone, but especially for those with celiac disease and everyone on a gluten-free or wheat-free diet. Go ahead and visit LoYo this weekend at one of their three locations in Durham, Raleigh or Greenville!
Since I have often been asked about the difference between celiac disease, gluten intolerance, and a ‘gluten allergy’. First of all the latter actually does not exist. The key difference is that allergies can be immediately fatal while celiac disease and intolerances are not (though research indicates a higher mortality rate for long-term untreated celiacs). But enough said, I let Cynthia explain the differences in much more detail in the video below. Enjoy!
If you have any further questions, our next Q&A with Dr. Stephen Wangen is coming up on July 7th. Don’t miss this great chance to ask a renown expert anything you’ve always wanted to know about celiac disease and living gluten-free!
Tina’s wall post made us at Custom Choice Cereal wonder about the connection of breastfeeding and celiac disease, and a quick google search revealed some interesting information. Of course the decision to breastfeed or not is up to each individual family. But please keep on reading!
A 2001 study by German researchers around U. Peters observed 143 children with celiac disease and 137 randomly selected non-celiac children. They found that breastfeeding for 2 or more months has a protective impact and decreased the risk of developing celiac disease by a whopping 63%. The Celiac Sprue Association and Lippincott’s Nursing Center provide more details on this study and other research in the context of breastfeeding and celiac disease.
We at Custom Choice Cereal aren’t doctors and cannot give anyone medical advice. However, our takeaway from these results is that Mother Nature simply knows it best!
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It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, and that means that Custom Choice Cereal in cooperation with our advisor Dr. Stephen Wangen offers you another Q&A session. 
