Please include your first name, surname initial and postcode in your comment to be eligible for the giveaway.
At
last the old soap on a rope is back! The only difference is its good
for you - the largest bar of goats milk soap in Australia and on a rope!
(Approx 150g)
INGREDIENTS: Pure Fresh Goats Milk, Virgin Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Vegetable Oil, Rainwater and Castor Oil.
Thank you to everyone who entered our Monthly Giveaway. For your chance to win stay tuned to the Healthy Shelf Blog for our September 2012 Monthly Giveaway starting soon!
Please include your first name, surname initial and postcode in your comment to be eligible for the giveaway.
HAPPY BABY
POUCHES are shelf stable sweet and savoury Organic meals. Using only
the freshest organic fruit, vegetables, grains, meats and fish, our
pouches are ideal for mums on the run.
Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Soy Free, Kosher, No Added Sugar
INGREDIENTS: organic pear, organic mango, organic spinach, organic lemon juice concentrate, ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
Preservative
Free - these sealed pouches also allow us to naturally preserve all of
our organic purees without additives. The pouch packaging allows us to
cook all of our baby food at a lower temperature than jarred baby
food-giving them not only great flavor, but a significantly higher level
of nutrition.
Environmental
Advantages - an independent Life Cycle analysis revealed that the
pouches take less energy and fewer materials to make and produce less
air pollution than glass, tetra pak or PET plastic bottles. Because
they`re so lightweight, our pouches outperform other alternatives by
adding far less waste to landfills and saving fuel when they`re being
delivered to stores.
Pouch packaging is BPA and Phthalate Free
Find more great Baby & New Mum Care products here on your Healthy Shelf.
COMPETITION TERMS AND CONDITIONS:
Please include your first name, surname initial and postcode in your comment to be eligible for the giveaway.
This
competition closes midnight (WST) Sunday September 2nd 2012 and is open to
residents of Australia only.
Please include your first name, surname initial and postcode in your comment to be eligible for the giveaway.
TraxIt is the first wearable underarm thermometer. This thermometer can be worn for up to two days and may be left on for bathing. The first reading is available 2-3 minutes after applying TraxIt. Thereafter temperature readings are instant by just lifting the arm to read.
TraxIt is ideal for babies or adults where taking and tracking an accurate, quick temperature can be a problem.
Wide temperature range; 35.0°C to 41.9°C
Accurate to 0.1°C
Latex free.
Mercury free.
Continuous reading; patients' temp is available to be taken instantly at any time.
TraxIt should be placed deep in the armpit.
Store under normal room temperature conditions.
Two on a card, great value.
NexTemp Thermometers are low cost, very accurate and reusable for up to 5 years.
Easy to use
Always ready
Professional 0.1°C accuracy
Unbreakable
Mercury free
Flexible and comfortable to use
Ideal for travelling or to keep in your bag for emergencies
The NexTemp Thermometer is stored in the pocket (top right) of a credit card shaped storage device. The patient's name is written on the name plate, so handy for infection control. This card can be stored in the bathroom cupboard, beside table, handbag, or wherever is most convenient. The NexTemp Thermometer can be used repeatedly for up to 5 years.
Find more great Body Care products here on your Healthy Shelf.Please include your first name, surname initial and postcode in your comment to be eligible for the giveaway.
This
competition closes midnight (WST) Saturday June 30th 2012 and is open to
residents of Australia. The winner is drawn at random and will be
posted here on our Healthy Shelf Blog and on the Healthy Shelf Facebook page after the close of the competiton.
Please
contact us via mail@healthyshelf.com.au with your postal address and we
will send your Onya Black/Pink Retro Bag to you
shortly.
Thank you to everyone who entered our Monthly Giveaway. For your chance to win stay tuned to the Healthy Shelf Blog for our June 2012 Monthly Giveaway starting soon!
By Jason Tye-Din, Postdoctoral Scientist at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Originally published on 'The Conversation' blog on 7th May 2012.
Disclosure Statement
Jason Tye-Din is affiliated with The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and The Royal Melbourne Hospital. He receives funding from the NHMRC. He consults for ImmusanT Inc. and is co-inventor of patents related to the use of gluten peptides in diagnostics and therapies for coeliac disease.
The Conversation provides independent analysis and commentary from academics and researchers.
Founding and Strategic Partners are CSIRO, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, UTS and UWA. Members are Deakin, Flinders, Murdoch, QUT, Swinburne, UniSA, UTAS, and VU.
Thinking of jumping on the gluten-free bandwagon? Better think again.
The Neolithic Revolution introduced a whole range of new foods and proteins into the human digestive tract. But this phenomenal change created the perfect conditions for the rise of coeliac disease.
While most proteins were readily consumed, some people’s immune systems struggled to tolerate others. Wheat was the first cereal to be widely domesticated, and in the case of the gluten protein from wheat, the result of this struggle was coeliac disease.
When people with coeliac disease consume gluten, an abnormal immune reaction occurs causing inflammation and damage to the small bowel lining. This impairs absorption of nutrients and can lead to a wide range of symptoms and medical complications.
Ancient condition, 20th century treatment
The second century Greek physician Arateus is credited with coining the term coeliac disease, or “koiliakos”, after the Greek word koelia (abdomen), to describe patients suffering typical symptoms of diarrhoea, weight loss and anaemia.
Wheat was finally identified as the culprit of the reoccurring health problems. Joana Hard
Reports from the 19th and 20th century reveal considerable suffering and mortality associated with coeliac disease, particularly in infants. An effective treatment didn’t arise until the middle of the 20th century, when gluten was identified as the culprit.
The discovery was fortuitous – a wartime bread shortage led Dutch paediatrician Willem Dicke to observe improved health in children with coeliac disease, and note their relapse shortly after food drops of bread returned wheat back into their diet.
The work of Australian physician Charlotte Anderson established it was the gluten component of wheat (and also rye, barley and oats) that caused coeliac disease. It was the 1950s and the age of treatment with a gluten-free diet had begun.
Prevalence and the reasons why
Far from being a medical rarity, coeliac disease is very common today, affecting more than one in 100 Australians. And in the last half century, it has become approximately twice as common every two decades, similar to the rise in other immune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes.
The increased prevalence of the disease may be due to hyper-conscious hygiene practices.
Why the prevalence is increasing remains unknown, but a variety of environmental factors and the “hygiene hypothesis” have been proposed.
Today, people are typically diagnosed in adulthood and are mostly female. Alarmingly, 80% of Australians with coeliac disease remain undiagnosed. This is because symptoms are wide-ranging and largely non-specific. And coeliac disease still remains “off the radar” for many doctors.
Many symptoms but simple diagnosis
In people with coeliac disease, gluten causes widespread inflammation not limited to the bowel. Patients are commonly troubled by gut upset (such as bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhoea and/or constipation), lethargy, anaemia, and nutrient deficiencies, such as low iron. They can also suffer loss of fertility, migraine headaches, abnormal liver function, arthritis and autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes and autoimmune thyroid disease.
Bones are more likely to be thinned out (osteoporosis) and patients can develop certain cancers, such as lymphoma. The good news is that early diagnosis and treatment can greatly reduce the chances of these complications.
A blood test is a simple way to indicate whether you may have coeliac disease.
A simple blood test is used to screen for coeliac disease, although making a definite diagnosis requires demonstrating the characteristic small bowel changes of flattened and inflamed lining (“villous atrophy”) under the microscope. Small bowel samples are readily obtained by gastroscopy, a ten-minute procedure performed under sedation that introduces a flexible instrument via the mouth into the small bowel to allow samples to be taken.
It’s vital that a gluten-free diet isn’t started before testing for coeliac disease, as this can cause false negative results.
Genes and the environment
Coeliac disease shares certain predisposing genes with autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes (which explains why these conditions often occur together). These genes control how the immune system “recognises” and responds to foreign proteins and are fundamental for disease to develop.
But genes alone are not enough to cause coeliac disease and environmental factors are thought to play an important role in “triggering” disease in those with genetic susceptibility. Some factors appear to increase coeliac disease risk (such as rotavirus infection in infancy) while some may reduce the risk. Breastfeeding at the time gluten is introduced to an infant, for instance, may protect against developing disease.
The challenge of gluten-free diets
Excluding all dietary sources of gluten from wheat, rye, barley and oats allows the small bowel damage to heal and symptoms to resolve – but it’s far from easy. Wheat flour, the most common and significant source of gluten, is found in many foods, such as bread, breakfast cereals, cakes, biscuits, pasta, pastries and pizzas.
People with coeliac disease have to learn how to pass up the pastries.
There are also “hidden” sources of gluten found in sauces and processed foods and less obvious items, such as malted foods and beer. While gluten-free alternatives are increasingly available, they’re much more expensive and generally much less palatable – anyone who has ever tried gluten free bread will know how dense and crumbly it is!
Compounding its complexity, cost and poor palatability, the gluten-free diet needs to be very strict to work – even small amounts of gluten (about 50 milligrams – less than 1/100th of a slice of bread) can cause bowel damage.
That’s why patients need to be obsessive about excluding gluten – for people with coeliac disease the gluten free diet is not a fad but a serious medical treatment.
Is gluten free for everyone?
It’s hard to miss the ever-expanding sections of supermarkets dedicated to selling gluten-free food and many restaurant menus list gluten-free options. The gluten-free food industry is booming, with a global market projected to well exceed US$4 billion over the next three years.
Interestingly, a recent market survey commissioned by Coeliac Australia indicates that approximately 10% of Australians are currently following a strict or significantly reduced gluten diet. This is ten times greater than the total number of Australians thought to have coeliac disease.
A gluten-free diet isn't all that tasty, and not necessarily the healthiest option.
It’s likely that alternative health practitioners, disease advocacy groups, proliferating internet blogs and forums, and the gluten-free food industry are directly or indirectly fuelling the mounting public perception that a gluten-free diet is intrinsically “healthy” or suitable to treat a variety of symptoms and illnesses.
But medical evidence to support undertaking a strict gluten-free diet outside of coeliac disease is minimal. If people do choose to follow a gluten free diet, it’s medically important that coeliac disease is excluded first so that testing isn’t compromised – a missed diagnosis of coeliac disease can be disastrous for long-term health.
While many people feel their symptoms might improve on a gluten-free diet, this doesn’t necessarily mean they have coeliac disease. Nor does it mean a gluten-free diet is the most appropriate treatment for them.
Many cases of perceived wheat or gluten intolerance reported by patients is not due to gluten itself but intolerance to the wheat’s carbohydrate component (fructans). For some, a diet reducing fructans and other fermentable carbohydrates, a low FODMAP (fermentable oligo-, di-, mono-saccharides and polyols) diet can be a more effective and appropriate treatment than going gluten free.
Awareness, diagnosis and management
Inadequate and delayed diagnosis of coeliac disease remains a major problem in our community so improving awareness and testing is a major goal to reduce the burden of this disease.
Excitingly, there’s been significant progress in understanding the genetic and immunological basis for why gluten is toxic in people with coeliac disease. Immune cells called T cells are the key mediators of damage in coeliac disease. These T cells are stimulated to cause damage by specific gluten fragments, which have now been identified.
Such insights are allowing a variety of potential treatments for coeliac disease to be explored, some of which will supplement and some of which could one day replace the gluten-free diet altogether.
Unfortunately,
due to circumstances beyond our control, the Happy & Healthy Families Expo Fremantle 2012 has been cancelled.
Please contact Additive Free Kids if you have purchased tickets and
require a refund.
