Oats no problem for people with celiac disease?

It's been a common belief among people with wheat and gluten allergies that oats were off limits. Now, new research is showing that this isn't necessarily the case.

Naturally occurring cereal compounds (gliadins, secalins, hordeins, avenins, etc.) typically cause problems for people with celiac disease (CD). CD is an inherited condition that produces symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, bone pain, breathlessness, depression, diarrhea, fatigue, muscle cramps and vomiting due to proteins found in grains, especially gluten and the related protein, gliadin.

In a test-tube study by Italian researchers that appeared in the July 2001 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the authors found that "oats have no harmful effect on celiac disease" and they concluded that "oats can be safely included in a gluten-free diet."

Mary Schluckebier, national president and executive director of the Omaha, Neb.-based Celiac Sprue Association (www.csaceliacs.org), told Better Nutrition, however, that "all celiac disease organizations are cautious about including oats in a gluten-free diet." She added that a "consensus of research is building to indicate that oats may not evoke an immune response in some people with celiac disease," although it may be best for sensitive celiac sufferers to avoid oats. "If you're not senstive," Schluckebier said, "you might try oats to see if you can tolerate it, and go get an antibody test after a couple of symptom-free months to see if your IgG, IgA and other celiac-disease markers have changed." The American Gastroenterological Association recently estimated that as many as one in 250 Americans may suffer from some form of celiac disease.