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If you actually have gluten sensitivity and not celiac disease, you may be able to get away with eating gluten from time to time. Just make sure you remember those pesky false negatives and misdiagnoses, and make sure you don’t have celiac disease if you’re going to indulge.

Some people are told they’re gluten sensitive when they really do have celiac disease. If that scenario applies to you and you continue to eat gluten, even if it’s just every once in a while, you could do some serious unseen damage, not to mention you may continue to suffer unpleasant symptoms.

On the other hand, if you do have celiac disease and you want to improve your health by following a gluten-free diet, you’re going to have to do it 100 percent. A “gluten-free lite” diet won’t get rid of your symptoms, and it will continue to damage your body. The next few sections explain why.

Compromising your health

If you have gluten sensitivity or celiac disease and you continue to eat gluten, you are compromising your health, even if you don’t feel any symptoms. Even the tiniest amount of gluten will cause you problems because you’re still setting off autoimmune responses and your body is being robbed of important nutrients that it needs to function properly and stay strong.

When you have celiac disease, every bit of gluten you eat affects your intestinal tract adversely and keeps you from making healthy progress. That means you’ll need to be extremely careful about reading labels, choosing ingredients, and avoiding contamination while cooking.

Developing associated conditions

Certain conditions are associated with celiac disease. It’s usually tough to tell which one developed first, but because awareness of other conditions is higher than that of celiac disease, people are usually diagnosed with the other one first.

It’s important to understand the association between conditions for a few reasons:

✔ Someone who has one condition is more likely to have the other.

✔ If you don’t give up gluten, your chances of developing an associated condition may increase.

✔ An associated condition is a red flag that you may also have gluten sensitivity or celiac disease. If you have one of these conditions, you should be tested for gluten sensitivity or celiac disease.

✔ If people in your family have an associated condition, you may want to consider urging them to be tested – and being tested yourself.

Autoimmune diseases

Several autoimmune diseases are associated with celiac disease, including

✔ Addison’s disease (hypoadrenocorticism)

✔ Autoimmune chronic active hepatitis

✔ Crohn’s disease

✔ Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (type 1 diabetes)

About 6 percent of people with type 1 diabetes have celiac disease, but many don’t know it. They often find managing blood sugar levels much easier on a gluten-free diet!

✔ Myasthenia gravis

✔ Raynaud’s phenomenon

✔ Scleroderma

✔ Sjögren’s syndrome

✔ Systemic lupus erythematosus

✔ Thyroid disease (Graves’ disease and Hashimoto’s disease)

✔ Ulcerative colitis

Studies have shown that if you have celiac disease, the earlier in life you go on a gluten-free diet, the lower your risk of developing associated autoimmune diseases. And sometimes symptoms of other autoimmune diseases, like multiple sclerosis, improve on a gluten-free diet.

Mood disorders

Some of the mood disorders associated with gluten sensitivity and celiac disease include

✔ ADD (attention deficit disorder) or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)

✔ Autism

✔ Bipolar disease

✔ Depression

Nutritional deficiencies

Because gluten sensitivity and celiac disease affect the small intestine, nutritional deficiencies usually develop. These can include

✔ Specific vitamin and mineral deficiencies

✔ Anemia

✔ Osteoporosis

✔ Osteopenia (low bone mineral density)

✔ Osteomalacia (soft bones)

Neurological conditions

Some neurological conditions are associated with gluten sensitivity and celiac disease, including

✔ Epilepsy and cerebral calcifications

✔ Brain and spinal cord defects (in newborns born to mothers with celiac disease who are eating gluten)

✔ Neurological problems, such as ataxia, neuropathy, tingling, seizures, and optic myopathy

Other conditions

Several other conditions are commonly associated with celiac disease, including

✔ Cancer (such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma)

✔ Down syndrome

✔ Internal hemorrhaging

✔ Organ disorders (of the gallbladder, liver, spleen, or pancreas)

✔ Tooth enamel defects

✔ Cystic fibrosis