As many of you know, I am currently researching the role of digestion in the prevention & treatment of eating disorders for my graduate studies at Plymouth State (Eating Disorders Institute Certificate). I wanted to share an article I found – it is a link from the Something Fishy website. The article explains a possible connection between celiac disease and eating disorders. I believe most of the reseach talks about celiac disease being present once anorexia, bulimia or binge eating have been diagnosed. The question is, could celiac be a contributor?
Celiac – More Digestive Distress
Since celiac destroys the micorvilli of the small intestine — basically creates leaky gut and malabsorption of nutrients — it is another illness in the category of digestive distress. There are many ways that digestion can be compromised, including eating disorders. And there are many contributors to digestive distress before eating disorders begin.
Drugs or Not?
Recently, a reader asked me about taking drugs for eating disorders. As I am not a healthcare professional, I make no recommendations about drugs. I will say that each person should treat a doctor’s recommendation for drugs the same as you would a doctor’s recommendation for surgery. Get a second opinion and a third. Educate yourself. Then do what you feel is in the best interst for your health. Remember to consult a variety of health professionals, like Naturopaths (e.g., British & American Naturopahthic Associations) and Doctors of Environmental Medicine .
Educate Yourself
If you do decide to take drugs, remember that drugs are not nutritional repair tools. Their goal is to allieviate the disordered eating behavior or associated depression. The underlying nutritonal deficiencies and digestive deficiencies still exist. Educate yourself on how you can heal your body, so that depression, anxiety, IBS and other typical complaints can be healed. As you know, The Body Ecology Diet, by Donna Gates is a favorite of mine, along with Digestive Wellness, by Elizabeth Lipski. Take a leadership role in your recovery and use your medical and healthcare professionals as guides along the way.
by Emily
07 May 2006 at 15:54
Hmm, very interesting! I truly appreciate you sharing the fruits of your research with us!
I was struck by a funny realization as I read the article you linked to: BED is the acronym both for Body Ecology Diet and Binge Eating Disorder!
Also, I have a question for you (I forget if this has come up before…): Have you done any research or do you have an opinion on the use of nutritional yeast? I find myself craving it and love to sprinkle generous amounts of it on my food. However, I sometimes wonder whether it may contribute to more water retention. Also, do you know if it would aggravate candida? Is there a differentiation between “good yeast” and “bad yeast”?
I hope you had a fabulous weekend!
love,
Emily
by Heather
07 May 2006 at 22:13
Hi Emily, I just realized the Body Ecology Diet and Binge Eating Disorder acronym issue today in class — funny you should mention it! I’ll have to be really clear in my future posts! Regarding your question on nutritional yeast — brewer’s yeast — it can be a problem for candida and they say not to use it if you think candida is an issue. If you do have candida, it’s entirely possible that you could experience bloating from eating brewer’s yeast.
You can do a test on Donna Gates’ Body Ecology website (bodyecology.com) to see if candida may be a problem (or in her book). Brewer’s yeast does have a lot of B vitamins, so two things could be at play here: (1) you crave it because the yeast/candida wants to be fed or (2) your body needs B vitamins. It’s entirely possible that your body wants a source of B vitamins since bulimia reduces B vitamins in your body (as does leaky gut and malabsorption from food allergies).
Consider looking for some food sources of B vitamins, including fermented vegetables and sea vegetables (especially Nori for B12). B12 is in animal protein, if you eat that. If you are taking a B complex, it may help, although if you are like me, your body may not absorb it — even with supplements — until your digestion is fixed.
With love,
Heather
by karen
08 May 2006 at 08:50
Heather, when you entered into recovery, did you stop the b/p cold turkey or was it a gradual process of cutting back? Also, is there any information about how your husband has handled everything on your site?
by Heather
08 May 2006 at 11:20
Hi Karen, My recovery took about 4 years — the first 1.5 years I quit cold turkey with the help of a medical intuitive. Although I did start overexercising quite often because I still binged a lot (it was on healthy food, so it was really much better, but still a bad habit). I think I still had a lot of yeast/Candida in my system at the time (I still had bad digestive pain) and wan’t eating right to kill the yeast.
After that I had several ups and downs until I started The Body Ecology Diet. The first day I started it, I stopped b/p. I really was committed to making changes in my life, so that helped. And also, the digestive pain stopped. I was committed to not overexercising– and doing what felt right for my body. And I had removed a lot of stress from my life. All of this together really helped. For me, just the act of getting enough sleep was healing as well.
I do have a couple of posts about telling my husband:
This post was written by my husband regarding how he felt when I told him.
This post is about some of my feelings after talking with my husband.
This post is about reactions for others or a spouse when telling them — including Do’s and Don’ts
If you have any other questions that weren’t answered by they posts, let me know!
With love,
Heather
by karen
08 May 2006 at 14:35
Is the medical intuitive a rehab center?
by Heather
08 May 2006 at 18:06
Hi Karen, Rhonda’s work is not related to a rehab center. When people see her for addictions, they generally go to her home office in Vermont. Typically, you’d stay in a local B&B and have a series of 3 appointements with her. She works one-on-one with you during those three appointments.
When I left after the first appointment, I had no desire to engage in b/p. It was amazing. The next two appointments, we went deeper into emotional healing. Take a look at her website for more information — and I just wrote about her in today’s blog entry, if that helps.
With love,
Heather
by sue
29 Jul 2006 at 17:03
You said: “most of the reseach talks about celiac disease being present once anorexia, bulimia or binge eating have been diagnosed. The question is, could celiac be a contributor?”
I say: ABSOLUTELY. I also saw that ‘Something Fishy’ article, but disliked their suggestion that EDs cause CD. I say it’s the other way around. I had CD symptoms from early childhood, LONG before I began using bingeing and purging. Unfortunately my mom mistook my celiac bloated belly as ‘fat’ and ask my pediatrician for a diet. In the 50s no doc would suspect a child with chronic constipation had CD, but now constipation is a common CD symptom.
I binged and purged for 36 years despite therapy, learning nondieting and mindful eating and long abstinence periods from those habits. 2 years ago I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease with gluten, dairy and soy intolerances. I KNOW I used bingeing to cope with CD induced constipation and purging to relieve digestive pain for a few hours afterwards before the digested sugar/simple carbs from the binge burned up and dumped my blood sugar.
I alsomoderated a board for women recovering from ‘disordered eating’ (for the past few years). Several of those women were celiac. Others had lactose intolerances or food allergy/intolerance symptoms and possibility undiagnosed CD. CD is one of the most misdiagnosed diseases in this country. Average time from when a patient suspects CD until they get an accurate diagnosis is 11 years. I spent about 12 years being misdiagnosed with ‘IBS’ and given the IBS diet which recommended I eat more wheat bran and drink more milk (gluten and dairy!!). I would love to share my recovery experiences with you and other observations from women who struggled with ‘disordered eating’ and CD symptoms.
SUE
by Heather
30 Jul 2006 at 00:34
Hi Sue, Thank you so much for writing in with your experience!!! I really appreciate it. I absolutely agree with you about celiac and other digestive illness contributing to eating disorders. I even suspect that diabetes or borderline diabetes contributes — but this is my theory. I want to talk to some doctors about this, which I plan to do in October.
Anything that creates an imbalance in the body digestively — leaky gut, IBS, celiac, diabetes, candida, gastroparesis, constipation — any of these can create emotional disharmony because of chronic physical pain. The same thing happened with ulcers — doctors were taught it was all in the person’s head, then they found the pathogen H. pylori and realized it was the pain that was causing the emotional symptoms rather then the other way around.
Sue, what a resilient survivor you are — to have made it through so many years of suffering before you got answers. I would be very interested in learning more from you and seeing if we can put some of these pieces together. Perhaps I could interview you for my research paper — I’m hoping to talk with some doctors and researchers who could help get more studies and information into the mainstream.
I am grateful for people like you who are so dedicated to finding answers!
With love,
Heather
by sue
30 Jul 2006 at 13:57
I would love to share more with you about my own experience and what I learned from women on my board for disordered eating and the members of my celiac support group. However, most mainstream docs are clueless about CD. Many celiacs are diagnosed with ‘IBS’ and given IBS treatment which doesn’t work. Read “The IBS Solution” by Stephen Wangen (my naturopath). The author is a celiac who’s been through the medical system dead ends and misdiagnoses and also heard from patients who went that route before learning they had CD. Feel free to write to me at penguinea@hotmail.com or visit my board at http://p092.ezboard.com/brecoveryrebellion
SUE
by Heather
07 Aug 2006 at 22:30
Hi Sue, I thank you so much for those resources and your offer to talk with me — I appreciate it! I am looking forward to reading The IBS Solution and your website. I will also contact you once I catch up from being back from vacation! I am really looking forward to it!
With love,
Heather