No chapattis
Satnam Singh detests wheat chapattis. On being force-fed, he shouts and cries loud. Satnam is not throwing tantrums ; he is also not suffering from anorexia. In fact, this four-year old from a small village in Punjab's Ambala district associates wheat chapattis with acute stomach aches, followed by vomiting and acute diarrhoea. His parents, who earlier thought this to be a ploy to avoid food, now know that their son is suffers from celiac or wheat allergy.
The disease is prevalent in the northern parts of the country, but people at large remain ignorant about it. According to B R Thapa, additional professor at advanced paediatric centre (apc), Post Graduate Institute of Medial Education and Research (pgimer), Chandigarh , "Even many doctors do not suspect the disease on first inspection. So on most occasions, celiac remains undiagnosed and unreported.'
Thapa heads the celiac clinic at apc, that receives a large number of patients from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, every Wedensday and Saturday. Over 1,000 celiac patients regularly come for follow-ups and another 10-15 sufferers are added to this list, every month.
The disease Celiac is caused by permanent hypersensitivity to gluten