It is a reality that does not go unnoticed: more and more people with allergies, more and more children with atopic dermatitis and increasingly food intolerances, among which stand out children with gluten intolerance, which is what we know as celiac disease. It is estimated that about 7% of the population is gluten intolerant, and there are still many children who are and suffer without knowing it.
The reason is that a blood test and sometimes even a biopsy are needed to detect the disease. Now, thanks to a new technique, a single prick in the finger will be enough to know if our son has celiac disease or not.
Why are there more and more allergies and intolerances?
This is a question that we all ask ourselves, whose answer is difficult to explain because the cause is not just one and because in reality it is not very clear. One of the hypotheses that seems to have more strength is that of excess hygiene: by drastically reducing the number of challenges that the environment offers to the human being, thanks to the fact that we are now very aware of hygiene in every way, the immune system tends to train less and worse, causing some diseases to be now more serious than long time.
That is why there are studies that show that it is better to wash the dishes by hand, that it is better to buy meat on a farm and that it is better to live with animals: when hygiene is not excessive our immune system has work, it works better and don't make the mistake of fighting things you shouldn't.
In addition, it seems that the way of birth can also affect, because Babies born by caesarean section are not contaminated with the mother's bacteria but with those of the hospital environment, and that seems to also affect the immune system increasing the probability of allergy: this is what we talked about a few days ago when we explained that a simple but effective strategy has been devised based on passing a gauze stuck in the mother's vagina by the face of the baby, at birth by caesarean section, to be contaminated with it.
In relation to celiac disease, the hypothesis of excessive exposure to gluten, or what is the same: now children take more gluten than us and this, combined with what we have just said, increases the probability of suffering from intolerance. And it's not just because of the amount of carbohydrates that contain gluten, but because the wheat we consume currently contains more gluten (due to the work and grace of the transgenic alteration of cereals) which contained the one our parents and grandparents ate. In addition, it should be added that the diagnosis has been greatly improved and that can also cause more cases than in the past, when many children with celiac disease had not yet been diagnosed.
Now we will know with a finger prick
They tell us in 20 minutes, where they explain that some scientists from the University of Granada have managed to develop a system through which, with just one prick in the finger, it can be known if a child from 2 to 4 years suffers silent celiac disease, which is the one that usually goes unnoticed for causing minor symptoms.
The test is done in just 10 minutes and costs between 10 and 12 euros per device. This is great, of course, but the best thing about this breakthrough is that you can know the diagnosis without having to do a blood test or other tests.
This invention joins Celifast, a similar system that we talked about a few months ago and also detects celiac disease with a drop of blood.
Now we just need to know how to prevent this from continuing to increase, because at this step we will all end up allergic to something or intolerant, a disease that affects, above all, the populations of developed countries.
