The link between gluten and epilepsy has long been know, but that does not make it widely known.

This is unfortunate because there must be quite a few people out there taking medication to control their seizures, when eliminating gluten may solve the problem.

This does not mean that all seizures are caused by gluten. Still, it is something to watch out for.

If you have celiac disease, you will need to eliminate all gluten in any case, as the health effects of even small amounts of gluten can be serious (cancer for example).

Another symptom of celiac that is relevant here is cerebral calcifications, which can eventually lead to seizures.

The point is that people who experience epilepsy or other types of seizures should eliminate gluten from their diet and see if this improves their condition in any way.

However, when celiac disease is involved, seizure symptoms may not be reversed by eliminating gluten if these symptoms are allowed to continue without treatment for too long. Treatment in this case means eliminating all gluten from the patients diet.

The most common source of gluten in the Western diet is wheat, so a wheat-free diet takes care of most, but certainly not all of a gluten-free diet

Gluten Allergy information product

Internal Links

• Gluten Allergy Symptoms
• Celiac
• Gluten
• Celiac vs. Gluten
• Top 20 Food Allergies with Delayed Reactions
• Self-Testing for Food Allergies
• Allergy Symptoms

External Links

• Wikipedia on Epilepsy
• Wikipedia on Seizures
• jccglutenfree
• Is the prevalence of celiac disease increased among epileptic patients? (scientific paper)
• Detecting Celiac Disease in Your Patients (American Family Physician article, technical but not academic)
• Epilepsy and Celiac Medline Abstracts
• Alternative & Complementary Strategies for Epilepsy

Technorati Tags: Celiac Gluten Wheat Allergy Epilepsy Seizures