SOME RICE BASED FOOD FOR PEOPLE WITH CELIAC DISEASE CONTAIN RELEVANT AMOUNT OF ARSENIC

Rice is one of the few cereal grains consumed by people with celiac disease, as it does not contain gluten. However, it can have high concentrations of a toxic substance -- arsenic -- as revealed by the analyses of flour, cakes, bread, pasta and other foods made with rice, conducted by researchers from the Miguel Hernández University of Elche, Spain. The European Union is working to establish the maximum quantities of arsenic in these products.

Celiac disease affects almost 1% of the population of the western world, a group which cannot tolerate gluten and is thus obliged to consume products without it, such as rice. But this grain, depending on its origin, can also contain worrying levels of arsenic, a toxic and carcinogenic substance.

For the majority of consumers this does not pose any problem because they do not eat much rice every day, but this is not the case for celiac disease sufferers. Researchers from the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) have analysed the presence of arsenic in flour, bread, sweets, pastas, beers and milk made with rice and intended for this particular group of the population.

The results of the analyses, presented in the journal 'Food Additives & Contaminants', warn that some of these products contain "important contents" of total arsenic (As-t, up to 120 µg/kg) and inorganic arsenic (As-i, up to 85.8 µg/kg). Total arsenic is the sum of the organic arsenic, which is combined with carbon, and inorganic arsenic, which reacts with other elements such as oxygen, chlorine and sulphur, and is more harmful.

With these figures the As-t and As-i contents only of rice used as a main ingredient -- leaving aside the other components of the food products -- were estimated and were found to be as high as 235 and 198 µg/kg, respectively..

Moreover, the daily intake of inorganic arsenic by celiac disease sufferers -- a consequence of their consumption of rice products -- was calculated as between 0.45 and 0.46 µg/kg (micrograms per kilogram of body weight) for women and men weighing 58 and 75 kg respectively. And, in the case of children (up to the age of five), these figures are even higher, ranging between 0.61 and 0.78 µg/kg, according to another study published in the 'Journal of Food Science'.

A panel of experts from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) of the EU established in 2009 that there is evidence to suggest that an intake range of 0.3 -- 8.0 µg/kg of body weight per day entails a risk of developing lung, skin or bladder cancer. The estimated intakes in the two studies therefore vary within this range.

As Ángel Carbonell, co-author of the studies, explains: "These figures show that we cannot exclude a risk to the health of people who consume these kinds of products," although he recognises an important point: "The European Union has not yet established legal limits for the maximum content of arsenic in rice and rice-based foods, though it is currently working on this."

Lack of legislation

The researchers' recommendation is clear: "What is needed is for health agencies to legislate to limit the levels of arsenic that cannot be exceeded in rice-based foods intended for consumers who suffer from celiac disease." Until now, celiac disease was diagnosed predominantly in children, but in recent years the profile has changed and one in every five people with the disease is over 65 years old.

Currently, every EU country is taking samples of these products, analysing them and conveying the results to the EFSA to draw up a database broad enough to be able to make decisions. The Spanish Agency for Consumer Affairs, Food Safety and Nutrition (AECOSAN) has recently sent the Spanish report, put together in collaboration with the researchers responsible for this study..

Another important recommendation they make is to include quality information on labels: "The inorganic arsenic content in every food product should be indicated, and the variety of rice used and its provenance should be identified clearly, because some are more recommended than others," affirms Sandra Munera, one of the authors.

Arsenic is naturally present in Earth's crust, but in some regions its abundance is greater than in others, and its concentration also increases with the use of pesticides. The substance then spreads through water to rice, one of the few plants that is cultivated when flooded.

One of the 'cleanest' types of rice is from the Doñana National Park, as the use of pesticides has not been permitted here and arsenic is not naturally present in large quantities. On the other hand, in countries like India and Bangladesh, where waters are contaminated with inorganic arsenic and rice constitutes a staple food for the population, the result is currently one of the largest mass poisonings in history.

Celiac Gluten And Neuropathy

Today's short post from time.com (see link below), with links to expand your reading, centres on a new Swedish study that shows more evidence of the link between celiac disease and neuropathy. Basically, celiac disease is gluten intolerance and as you probably know, gluten intolerance is one of those buzz-word deficiencies that dominates health forums on the internet at the moment. There has long been an assumed link between celiac and neuropathy but it has been difficult to prove and many doctors dismiss it as patient-driven sickness association (mention one and popular opinion assumes the other). One thing is sure, many people with nerve damage who cut gluten out of their diet, see an improvement in their neuropathy symptoms. That said, taking on a gluten-free diet is no mean feat and for many people proves both 'boring' and difficult to maintain. You need to do your own research, try things out and make your own mind up. A first step would be getting screened for celiac disease but you may need to convince your doctor that that is a reasonable option.

The Weird Link Between Celiac Disease and Nerve Damage
Mandy Oaklander @mandyoaklander May 12, 2015

A new study on every celiac in Sweden

Celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes intestinal damage when a person eats gluten, is still something of a medical mystery. But a new Swedish study adds another piece to the puzzle.

People with celiac disease have a 2.5-fold increased risk of developing neuropathy, or nerve damage, found a new study published in JAMA Neurology. In the new nationwide study, pediatrician Dr. Jonas F. Ludvigsson, professor of clinical epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and his team wanted to look at the risk of developing neuropathy in a sample of people diagnosed with celiac disease. They gathered data from every person diagnosed with celiac disease in Sweden between 1969 and 2008—28,232 celiac sufferers in all. Each of them had been tested with a small-intestine biopsy.

(Most of them, interestingly, were women. About 60% of people with celiac disease are women; more females than males are diagnosed with autoimmune disorders, Ludvigsson says, for a reason researchers haven’t yet determined.)

For every celiac patient, Ludvigsson also found five people identical in age, sex, birth year and place of residence in Sweden as controls. He followed them for an average of 10 years to see who developed a diagnosis of neuropathy.

MORE: You Asked: Do I Have a Gluten Allergy?

The researchers found that having celiac disease was associated with a significant increased risk of developing nerve damage later. “It’s quite a high figure, compared to many other outcomes in celiac disease,” Ludvigsson says. Having a diagnosis is automatically a risk factor for getting a diagnosis for any other disease, he explains, since going to the doctor for one thing boosts the chances the doctor will find something else—a phenomenon known as surveillance bias. But the increase here is too high to merely be due to bias, he says. “There is a real association between celiac disease and neuropathy…we have precise risk estimates in a way we haven’t had before.”

Previous work has shown that in the U.S., 39% of people with celiac disease also had symptoms of neuropathy. About 1% of the population has celiac disease, and that number is similar in Sweden and the U.K.

“I think this paper could actually change clinical practice somewhat,” Ludvigsson says. When a neurologist diagnoses a patient with neuropathy but finds no obvious cause, he might consider screening that patient for celiac disease, Ludvigsson says. “Some of these patients will be diagnosed with celiac disease, will have a gluten-free diet and will actually feel better and be healthier.”

http://time.com/3854589/celiac-gluten-neuropathy/