Summer 2006
Welcome to the second issue of Celiac Disease News. This e-newsletter announces the launch of the Celiac Disease Awareness Campaign. The newsletter brings you ongoing updates about the campaign, a service of the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NDDIC). The NDDIC is a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of celiac disease among health care professionals and the public. Additional campaign information is available at www.celiac.nih.gov. Any questions or comments about the campaign should be directed to celiac@info.niddk.nih.gov.
In This Issue
- NIH Officially Launches Celiac Disease Awareness Campaign
- Restaurants Increasingly Cater to People with Celiac Disease
- Celiac Resources
- Did You Know?
Campaign News
NIH Officially Launches Celiac Disease Awareness Campaign
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently launched a campaign to heighten awareness of celiac disease among health care professionals and the public. The campaign is the result of recommendations from an independent consensus panel convened by the NIH in 2004.
The consensus panel concluded that as much as 1 percent of the U.S. population has celiac disease, but the vast majority remain undiagnosed. To address this disparity, the panel recommended that the NIH spearhead efforts to educate health care providers and the public about the disease.
Initially, the campaign will focus on increasing awareness among health care professionals about the prevalence of celiac disease, its disparate symptoms, and the blood test to detect it. Other campaign messages will address the array of health consequences related to celiac disease with the goal of dispelling the common misperception that it is only a gastrointestinal problem.
The campaign website at www.celiac.nih.gov provides access to
- educational materials and services
- current NIH research about celiac disease
- additional campaign information and resources, including an e-newsletter
The Celiac Disease Awareness Campaign is an initiative of the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the NIH.
Celiac Feature
Restaurants Increasingly Cater to People with Celiac Disease
Gluten-Free Foods Featured on More Menus
Chinese restaurants have long been a danger zone for people with celiac disease. Avoiding wheat-laden noodles is simple enough, but steering clear of sauces—including the ubiquitous and usually wheat-containing soy sauce—can be a serious challenge.
At P.F. Chang’s Chinese Bistro, a nationwide chain, people with celiac disease can indulge without worry—they can order more than a dozen menu items without gluten, including noodle dishes made with rice sticks and a wheat-free soy sauce.
“We were seeing a huge number of emails on our website with people wanting information about what to order,” said Laura Cherry, a P.F. Chang’s spokesperson, who said the new menu has been in place for 2 years. “There was a need to come up with new items.”
Industry Trend
P.F. Chang’s is among the growing number of restaurants identifying or creating gluten-free menu items that cater to an increasing population of people diagnosed with celiac disease. People with the disease cannot process the protein gluten—found in wheat, rye, and barley—and suffer from such diverse symptoms as bloating, delayed childhood growth, and infertility.
The chain bought a soy sauce to serve patrons with celiac disease, developed its own Asian-inspired “Gluten-Free Sauce,” and launched an intensive effort to train chefs and servers in preparing gluten-free food. Cherry said the company takes pride in making meals to order and suggests that customers speak directly with the chef to ensure there is no misunderstanding about what they want.
“It’s something we take very seriously,” she said of the unadvertised menu, which can be found online at www.pfchangs.com/menu.shtml.
Outback Steakhouse offers a gluten-free menu that teaches patrons how to order to avoid negative food reactions. The Mexican eatery Don Pablo’s also suggests celiac-safe menu items and Subway, a nationwide sandwich chain, identifies which items contain gluten.
Resources
The NIDDK Reference Collection
Looking for a hard-to-find resource on celiac disease? Try the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases’ (NIDDK) Reference Collection. This free, online, searchable database helps health care professionals, health educators, patients, and the general public find educational materials typically not referenced in commonly used databases. The NIDDK Reference Collection currently houses more than 8,000 records that include a resource’s title, author(s), publisher, abstract, and keywords. While the records do not include full text, they do provide information about how to get copies of non-journal resources including foreign-language materials, books and book chapters, brochures, pamphlets, fact sheets, CD-ROMs, coloring books, bibliographies, audiovisual materials, posters, computer programs, government documents, product descriptions, newsletters, and manuals. To access the NIDDK Reference Collection, visit www.catalog.niddk.nih.gov/resources.
From the Celiac Disease Website
Consensus Statement and Celiac Fact Sheet
The Celiac Disease Awareness Campaign is an outgrowth of the Consensus Development Conference on Celiac Disease convened by the National Institutes of Health from June 28 to 30, 2004. A copy of the conference consensus statement is available on the Celiac Disease Awareness Campaign Web site, along with a celiac disease fact sheet prepared by the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse. For copies of these documents, visit www.celiac.nih.gov.
Did You Know?
The Celiac Disease Guideline Committee of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) has created clinical practice guidelines for diagnosing and treating pediatric celiac disease. To review the guidelines, please go to www.celiac.nih.gov.
Editor’s Note: You are receiving this email because of your past commitment to the National Institutes of Health’s celiac disease education efforts. We seek to keep stakeholders engaged as the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases proceeds with its initiative to educate health care professionals about the diagnosis and treatment of celiac disease. We welcome your story ideas and opinions, and occasionally may poll you about specific celiac-related topics. To offer your feedback, please write to celiac@info.niddk.nih.gov. You also may subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter by sending an email to the same address; type “Subscribe” or “Remove” in the subject line.
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