Article: Who Has the Guts for Gluten?

NY Times: Who Has the Guts for Gluten?
WE know that the proteins called gluten, found in wheat and other grains, provoke celiac disease. And we know how to treat the illness: a gluten-free diet. But the rapidly increasing prevalence of celiac disease, which has quadrupled in the United States in just 50 years, is still mystifying.

Scientists are pursuing some intriguing possibilities. One is that breast-feeding may protect against the disease. Another is that we have neglected the teeming ecosystem of microbes in the gut — bacteria that may determine whether the immune system treats gluten as food or as a deadly invader...

I do not necessarily buy the hygiene hypothesis for auto immune disease. I grew up in a rural area and was outside alot and was exposed to many immune provoking agents in the outdoors, yet is still have ulcrative colitis and celiac disease; I was also breast fed as a child. I did however eat a lot of wheat containing products as a child.

There's also the theory about how hybridization of wheat has resulted in a wheat with tons of gluten, and lots of aberrations in its genes and DNA that results in a food we cannot digest.

Gutszilla,

You hit the nail on the head:

hybridization of wheat has resulted in a wheat with tons of gluten, and lots of aberrations in its genes and DNA that results in a food we cannot digest.