Disease and Illness Can Take a Toll on Your Relationship

When your sweetheart suffers from any kind of illness or disease it can take a great toll on your family and relationship.  Having someone who understand what you are going through can make a huge shift for you and your love.  Rustie MacDonald gets you - she understands when it comes to living with Celiac Disease.  She hosts a weekly radio show Living and Thriving with Rustie: Inspiration on Tap.

In the meantime, check out this article below.

Living With Celiac Disease - Top 5 Tips To Help Living With Celiac Disease

Our immune system is ever vigilant, ready to mount an attack against invaders. It uses inflammation to contain and destroy microbes and other substances that it recognizes as foreign, or not belonging to the body. Have you ever had a splinter in your finger and not removed it right away? The area around the splinter turned a bit red, swollen, and maybe a little warm to the touch. That was your immune system working, using inflammation to contain any harmful microbes before they could invade your body.

In autoimmune diseases something horrible happens. Your body makes a huge mistake! It identifies part of itself as an enemy and mounts an inflammatory attack against itself. Scientists believe that autoimmune diseases are caused by genes we inherit, and environmental exposures that trigger the genes to express themselves. There are at least eighty autoimmune diseases that have been identified, with more being added to the list. Different autoimmune diseases affect different parts of the body. For example type1 diabetes affects the insulin making cells in the pancreas, psoriasis affects the skin and sometimes joints, autoimmune thyroid disease affects the thyroid, rheumatoid arthritis affects the lining of the joints, and celiac disease affects the small intestine.

Although celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that damages part of the digestive tract, not all the signs and symptoms at first appear to be related to digestion. When a person who has celiac disease eats foods containing gluten, as found in wheat, rye, and barley, their immune system responds by attacking the small intestine, the site where most nutrient absorption takes place. Without proper absorption of nutrients, a person can eventually develop many symptoms and disorders including additional autoimmune diseases, anemia, osteoporosis, infertility, or cancer. Delaying diagnosis or consuming any gluten products will increase damaging inflammation.
Celiac disease can develop at any age from infancy to adulthood.

Given that celiac disease occurs in genetically predisposed persons, a genetic test can help rule out the possibility of developing the disease. Even if a person does carry the genes that are related to celiac disease, it does not mean that they will develop the disease. Genetic variants that seem to increase the risk of celiac are found in 30 percent of the general population, but only 3 percent of persons with the gene variants develop celiac disease. Scientists believe exposure to something in the environment, and changes in other genes, may trigger the development of celiac disease.

A PubMed study found that a number of autoimmune connective tissue diseases may be associated with exposure to drugs, chemicals and environmental factors.

Living with celiac disease is not easy but can be easily improved by following the 5 following tips:

• Eliminate all toxic chemicals from your home
• Supplement your alimentation with probiotics (Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium lactis)
• Make sure your diet has enough Omega-3. Omega-3 fatty acids reduce inflammation
• Choose gluten-free personal care products (especially lipstick and lip balm)
• Take gluten-free fibres supplements to make sure you get enough prebiotics and fibres that are usually deficient in gluten-free diets

Sophie Gratton is a busy mother of 3 who is dedicated to inform others about the dangers of toxic household chemicals and their potential effects on our health. Click here for more tips on how to make your home a safer place.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sophie_Gratton