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Insights from Your Hands: What They Reveal About Your Food
I often suggest cutting out or greatly reducing gluten from your diet. Many patients ask me about testing for Celiac disease or gluten intolerance. While I can test for Celiac disease, I usually advise against testing for gluten sensitivity.
Why do I discourage testing for gluten sensitivity?
The reason is simple. Whether someone is sensitive to gluten or not, gluten has been linked to various health issues like Multiple Sclerosis, Schizophrenia, Parkinson’s Disease, and Alzheimer’s Disease, among others. Many of these problems may not appear until many years later. So, I believe it’s wise to limit gluten intake to lower the risk of these illnesses.
Different people react differently to gluten. Symptoms can vary from person to person.
How to Determine if You Have Gluten Sensitivity
One thing you can do is look at your hands for Braly’s Sign…
Braly’s Sign was first noticed in 1953 by a British stomach doctor named Dr. James Braly. Many people with Celiac disease have a short pinkie finger, which is what Braly’s Sign is about. This observation was noted in medical journals like the J Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition in 2000 and the NEJM in August 1999.
