Corn Gluten

[realtormatt]

I don't know if this has been posted before, but this is pretty interesting to me, even if its a 2 year old posting.

http://www.glutenfreesociety.org/gl...dies-in-celiac-crohns-and-ulcerative-colitis/

Basically it asks 3 questions, but doesn't give answers:
1.Does corn gluten contribute to these diseases?
2.Do these disease causes leaky gut and create a secondary reaction to corn?
3.If #2 is true, does the continual consumption of corn continue to keep these patients from getting better?

What are your experiences with corn? And not just corn kernels, but eliminating corn chips or even corn syrup.

 

[Cookie]

I am on a gluten-free diet, but I have noticed that corn is not exactly a preferred substitute. I do eat things made with corn flour, but I try to limit it because I have noticed that I feel worse when I eat it too often. I was assuming it had something to do with GMOs, but that hypothesis is is probably just founded in my cynicism against big agri-business. I would love to cut corn out of my diet too, but admitedly, it is hard. I try to do organic, non-GMO when possible.

 

[Beach]

I think corn causes my gut troubles, along with wheat. The only grain that seemed to be safe is rice. I'm not eating rice any longer either, but recall in the past that it wasn't a trouble maker.

 

[Crohn's Mom]

In my opinion, I absolutely think that Corn is a big issue with my daughters disease. She was allergy tested due to chronic hives when she was around 10 years old and it was found that her main issue was Corn. We immediately put her on a corn free diet. Boy, was that hard! We found that if it comes in a package, box, bag, etc, you can pretty much guarantee that there is a form of corn in it. The diet helped her tremendously for nearly 2 years. She got tired of the diet (understandably) and decided to start re-introducing foods with the least amount of corn in them into her diet. While most of the products didn't show an outwards problem (hives), anything such as corn itself, or say corn chips etc, would immediately cause her body to break out. I still wonder what those small amounts of corn every day has been doing to her internally, even tho we couldn't always see it externally.
Interestingly, we decided to try to add a daily allergy pill to try and help so that she could enjoy more of a variety of foods. It was Zyrtec. The hives got worse and worse every day and we just couldn't figure the problem out. So out of curiosity I decided to research the Zyrtec allergy pill and guess what....it has corn it it !! She was allergic to the allergy pill !

She is 18 now and off to college so I have absolutely no say in her diet anymore. Thankfully she has realized that she will never be "ok" with any form of corn in her body, and she does her very best to stay away. It leaves her with a very limited diet, but she has come to accept it now.

I truly believe that the build up of corn gluten, corn anything, in her body since birth had a major impact on the severity of her disease. Again, this is all my theory, but I just can't stop believing it. I dream of a corn free world for her and in my dreams that is HER cure We all have to have our dreams right....

 

[realtormatt]

Crohn's Mom, does your daughter exclude anything else from her diet? Gluten or Dairy in particular?

 

[Crohn's Mom]

Yes to Dairy. She can't tolerate that either. Nor can she tolerate red meat very well, but that gives her stomach ache - not allergy.
She has been tested several times for gluten intolerance (Celiac ?) but it's always been negative. Wheat products actually seem to be one of the few things she can tolerate (when they don't include corn).

 

[GFinDC]

This was posted recently on celiac com. It is about corn reactions in celiacs, but might be relevant. Basiclally they tested some people with celiac and found 5% have antibodies to corn protein.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/d6723t3n722317x5/

Maize is used as an alternative to wheat to elaborate foodstuffs for celiac patients in a gluten-free diet. However, some maize prolamins (zeins) contain amino acid sequences that resemble the wheat gluten immunodominant peptides and their integrity after gastrointestinal proteolysis is unknown. In this study, the celiac IgA-immunoreactivity to zeins from raw or nixtamalized grains, before and after peptic/tryptic digestion was evaluated and their possible immunogenicity was investigated by in silico methods. IgA from some celiac patients with HLA-DQ2 or DQ8 haplotypes recognized two alpha-zeins even after peptic/tryptic proteolysis. However, digestion affected zeins after denaturation, reduction, and alkylation, used for identification of prolamins as alpha-zein A20 and A30 by MS/MS sequencing. An in silico analysis indicated that other zeins contain similar sequences, or sequences that may bind even better to the HLA-DQ2/DQ8 molecules compared to the already identified ones. Results concur to indicate that relative abundance of these zeins, along with factors affecting their resistance to proteolysis, may be of paramount clinical relevance, and the use of maize in the formulation and preparation of gluten-free foods must be reevaluated