Not sure if you caught the Dr. Oz show this afternoon (12/10) but the first 25 minutes or so was all about Celiac Disease and eating Gluten Free. The show featured Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Dr. Peter Green and did as good a job covering the disease and diet as you can in 20 minutes.As of yet, I have not been able to find the video anywhere out there but if I do, I'll update this post.
A couple thoughts on the episode...
- Love or hate her, Elisabeth Hasselbeck is raising awareness for Celiac Disease. The more doctors are educated on this, the more diagnosed cases there will be and the more GF products there will be for us to eat. Increasing general knowledge among the public is also good thing so that restaurant workers and people hosting parties can cater to us.
- I had a few issues though with Elisabeth... mainly that after they focused on Celiac and the "G Free Diet" as she calls it (I don't like that term), they spent some time saying that the GF Diet is good for others as a weight loss diet. I truly believe she is saying this to sell books as everything I read clearly says that only folks with Celiac or Gluten Intolerance benefit from the GF Diet. There is no research conducted on how eating GF affects normal folks and in fact the GF Diet often lacks many key vitamins/minerals which need to be supplemented. I wish Elisabeth would stick to the science and discuss CD/Gluten Intolerance and leave the diet part out. This can turn eating GF into a fad which will give me more to eat, but only on a temporary basis.
- At the end of the show, Dr. Oz went over his recap and said something along the lines of "If you suspect you have Celiac Disease, try going Gluten Free for 3 weeks.... if you feel better, then ask your doctor to get you tested for CD"... This is simply not the way to diagnose CD. The blood test involved requires a person with CD to be eating Gluten in order for the antibodies to be produced. This type of misinformation can severely limit proper diagnosis. A more correct statement would have been a multi-staged approach to a 100% true diagnosis of Celiac.... 1) Blood test (while eating gluten)... if positive, 2) Endoscopy with biopsy of small intestine to check for damage to villi. Multiple sites need to be sampled by an experienced GI who is used to looking for Celiac damage - it often is not uniform... If damage is present then, 3)Eat a Gluten Free diet and if you feel better after a period of time (depends on extent of damage found in 2), then bam - you're officially a member of the Celiac club. I'd be happier if Dr. Oz said this instead.
Overall, it's good to see Celiac being mentioned as the epidemic it truly is on a show seen by 3.5 million people on average. According to the latest ratings, the Dr. Oz show (only in its first season) has very similar ratings (and could soon surpass) to the widely successful and long running Dr. Phil show. Dr. Phil is rated 2nd behind Oprah as the most watched daytime TV show in the US.
What are your thoughts?
