Diagnosing Celiac Disease May Be Getting Easier
If you are someone who suffers from celiac disease, you know that the road to an official diagnosis can be lengthy and painful. Scientists are now hopeful they will soon be able to offer a quicker diagnosis with one simple blood test.
If you are having issues symptomatic with celiac disease, which include bloating, vomiting, diarrhea, steatorrhea (fatty stools), weight loss, and anemia, the current diagnosis process requires several blood tests to start and consumption of various quantities of the foods thought to cause celiac disease to determine your level of discomfort during digestion. Foods containing gluten, such as pasta and bread, are the biggest offenders. This is due to a protein that is found in the wheat, rye, or barley used to make them. The problem with current blood tests is they are far from definitive. Even if you test negative, there’s still a small chance you could have the disease.
According to Medical News Today, scientists have identified biomarkers that could form the basis of a much more reliable blood test for celiac disease. By testing individuals who have already been diagnosed with celiac disease, they were able to determine a rise in certain inflammatory molecules in the bloodstream of individuals with the disease.
Having this blood test for diagnosis could be a game-changer because it will be able to provide results in a matter of hours instead of days or weeks. The advanced blood test will only require limited gluten exposure for those being tested, making the testing procedure much more tolerable for potential celiac sufferers. The test will also be helpful in ruling out celiac disease for others more easily, so they can be guided to more suitable methods of treatment sooner.
The Discovery of a New Gut– Brain Connection
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have spent years trying to understand the well-known satiety hormone leptin and its connection in causing obesity in some people. What they discovered is a hormone produced in the gut of both mice and humans, which they refer to as GIP (gastric inhibitory polypeptide), that is responsible for managing the body’s energy balance.
According to the study in which mice are fed a high-fat diet, it is the GIP that travels through the blood to the brain and hinders this vital satiety hormone. As a result, the mice in the trials continued to eat and gain weight. Once the researchers were able to block the interaction of GIP, the leptin in the brain was restored and was able to do its job of inhibiting the appetite resulting in weight loss.
Another benefit of the study is it confirmed the connection between those who consume solely high-fat foods in the diet as opposed to those who eat a more balanced diet that includes leaner foods, whole foods, and little to no junk or processed foods. Mice fed a healthier diet did not experience issues with processing leptin, so their GIP did its job of managing energy balance.
While researchers feel further studies are needed, they are hopeful that these results may one day be translated into effective weight loss strategies via restoration of the brain’s ability to efficiently respond to leptin by controlling the anti-leptin effects of GIP.
That’s Good to Hear!
There is good news coming out of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine regarding hearing loss. Scientists studying the malady have been attempting to locate molecular signals that trigger the formations of hair cells that sense and transmit sound. This discovery is apparently in their grasp. Using genetic tools on mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have identified a pair of proteins that precisely control when sound-detecting cells, known as hair cells, are born in the mammalian inner ear.
These proteins may hold the key to future therapies to restore hearing in people with irreversible deafness. “These hair cells are a major player in hearing loss, and knowing more about how they develop will help us figure out ways to replace hair cells that are damaged,” says Angelika Doetzlhofer, PhD, an associate professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Problems with these hair cells, directly and indirectly, are reportedly responsible for 90 percent of genetic hearing loss cases.
In these cases, the precision and timing required in the development process has been thrown off, causing haphazardly developed cells. In cases of deafness attributed to exposure to loud noises or certain viral infections, the hair cells become damaged over time. In either case, researchers are encouraged that their recent findings will help them find ways to work with the proteins to develop a treatment process for hearing improvement and restoration.
