2019-05-01_Discover

(Marcin) #1
64 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

BY DOUGLAS G. ADLER

containing gluten remains a staple of the
human diet around the world, providing
sustenance to billions.
So why this apparent backlash against
gluten?
While the protein is a vital part of the
human diet, for some people, it really is
unsafe. The path to this seemingly simple
discovery was long and tortuous, dating
back to a particularly bleak period of
World War II.
Holland was suffering in the winter of
1944-45. The country was under siege,
and the Nazis had cut off vital supplies.
Starvation was rampant. The combination
of extreme cold and famine came to be
known as the Hongerwinter, Dutch for
“Hunger Winter.”
“It was an act of war, Nazi retaliation
after a railroad strike by Dutch workers,”
says Anne van Arragon, co-editor of The
Hunger Winter: The Dutch in Wartime,
Survivors Remember. “Grocery stores
were empty, and soup kitchens served
only a thin, watery soup. Those who still
had some physical strength traveled a
hundred miles or more to rural areas,
mostly on foot, to beg or barter for food.”
Yet out of this horror came a medical
breakthrough, one that still reverberates
around the world today and helps mil-
lions of people every year: the treatment
for celiac disease.

THE CELIAC SITUATION
Celiac disease — also known as celiac
sprue, or sometimes simply sprue — is a
chronic autoimmune disease that affects
the small intestine, the main organ that
absorbs food into the body. People with
classic celiac disease can’t digest the
gluten found in wheat and other grains.
Untreated, this intolerance can interfere
with overall digestion, leading to severe
diarrhea, malnutrition, weight loss and,
eventually, death.
People with celiac disease can literally
starve to death in the presence of food.
Their reaction to gluten blocks absorption
of what nutrients they can safely consume.
Celiac disease, which is hereditary and
can develop any time after a person starts
eating gluten-containing foods, has been

The Grim


Origins of


‘Gluten-Free’


It took an act of war for doctors to learn
how to treat celiac disease.

The term “gluten-free” seems to be everywhere these days:
food labels, restaurant menus, cookbooks, even water bot-
tles. While it’s become trendy to avoid gluten — a protein found
in popular foodstuffs like bread and pasta — humans have safely
and enthusiastically consumed it for thousands of years. Food

People
with celiac
disease
can literally
starve
to death
in the
presence
of food.

O«


HISTORY LESSONS


During the 1944-45
“Hunger Winter,”
a man searches for
fuel and food at an
illegal rubbish dump
in Amsterdam-Zuid.

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