Why Don’t I Feel The Cold?
It’s been cold today in London, but I didn’t really feel it.
100,000 Newborn Babies Set To Have Their DNA Fully Decoded
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the FT.
This sub-heading gives a few more details.
Genomics England programme aims to extend the number of treatable conditions detected to about 200.
I am coeliac and I do wish, I had been diagnosed at birth.
But more importantly, my youngest son, who would have been fifty this year, might still be here.
He was probably coeliac and worked as a sound engineer in the music business.
He lived the rock-and-roll lifestyle on a diet of ciggies, Subways and high strength cannabis.
He probably had an immune system, with all the strength of a plastic colander.
Consequently, he died at 37 of pancreatic cancer.
My First Christmas Snack Supper Of 2022
I saw the first of Marks & Spencer’s gluten-free Turkey Feast Christmas sandwiches in their Finsbury Pavement store today.
Note.
- The only allergens in the sandwich are egg and mustard.
- The cranberry sauce is real, but there appear ti be not enough cranberries to affect my Warfarin-controlled INR.
- Although the Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5 % is labelled as containing gluten, it seems to have no adverse effect on my body.
- I have discussed this with the brewer and they have told me, that there is so little barley in each bottle, that some might find the beer appears to be gluten-free.
I do think it the best humble sandwich, I’ve ever tasted.
Battersea Power Station – 14th October 2022
I went to Battersea Power Station today and took these pictures.
Note.
- The picture of my jacket was taken in the toilet. All male toilets should have a hook for jackets.
- The crane is still in place.
- There are a number of shops still to open.
- There was no food store, although a Marks and Spencer’s food store is coming soon.
- The only place to have a coffee and cake and sit down was Starbucks. But I never eat in an American cafe or eat American food, as I don’t trust their gluten labelling.
One guy I met described it as Dubai without the sand.
I have some thoughts.
Getting There
There are two main routes.
- Northern Line to Battersea Power Station station.
- Thames Clipper to Battersea Power Station pier.
I went by the Northern line, changing both ways at Tottenham Court Road station to and from the Elizabeth Line.
- This interchange is a short walk and step-free, if you use the lift.
- There are no trains to Battersea Power Station on the Bank branch of the Northern Line.
- There are five trains per hour (tph) to Battersea Power Station, with an extra two tph in the Peak.
- There are no Night Tube trains to Battersea Power Station.
I can see this service being improved.
Arriving At Battersea Power Station By Underground
Punters were certainly arriving.
Gluten-Free Food
There was absolutely none, that I could find.
At least though a Gordon Ramsay restaurant is opening soon.
Signage
It wasn’t good. But then I have found several modern shopping centres work on this principle.
Conclusion
Canary Wharf is better.
- Partly because the shops are more useful and to my taste.
- But mainly because it is on the Elizabeth and Jubilee Lines, and the DLR.
- All rail lines go through Canary Wharf rather than terminate there.
Battersea Power Station might be better, when the Northern Line is extended to Clapham Junction station.
One Of The Three Best Pastas That I’ve Ever Eaten!
I like pasta and regularly cook myself a quick pasta dish, like this one in Serial Cooking – Pasta With Yogurt Sauce For One.
I was staying in the Premier Inn by Chester railway station last night, so I popped in to the Modern Italian Restaurant next door called The Yard.
It was one of the three best pasta dishes, that I’d ever eaten and the others had been in Michelin-starred restaurants in Italy.
The chef had one pasta dish on the main menu, but it wasn’t gluten-free.
So he happily modified it for me.
Coeliacs On A Gluten-Free Diet And The AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine
I am coeliac and I am on a strict gluten-free diet.
I have not had a serious dose of Covid-19, but I may have had a very mild dose, after a meeting with about twenty Chinese students, that I described in Did I Have A Close Brush With Covid-19?
That would not be possible to check now, but I did have a bad reaction after my AstraZeneca vaccine, which I wrote about in July 2021 in Hay Fever, Coeliac Disease And The AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine. I also told my GP about it and he said he’d heard similar tales.
I had no reaction to my second AstraZeneca vaccine.
This year my hay fever was even worse. Is this due to my immune system being boosted by the vaccines?
Yesterday, at a funeral, I met an old friend, who is on a strict gluten-free diet and she had not had a serious dose of Covid-19. But like me, she did have a serious reaction to her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
I’d like to hear any experiences of coeliacs on a gluten-free diet during the pandemic.
Coeliac Disease And Atrial Fibrillation
I am 75 and coeliac and I had or have atrial fibrillation. Cardiologists tell me that, the atrial fibrillation led to my stroke in 2011.
I should also say, that my father was an undiagnosed coeliac and he died from a stroke younger than I am now.
I typed the title of this post into Doctor Google.
I found this paper on Cureus, which is entitled Celiac Disease and Risk of Atrial Fibrillation: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review.
I will show two paragraphs from the Abstract,
This is the Introduction.
Several studies have found celiac disease may be associated with a variety of cardiac manifestations. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common arrhythmias that can cause significant morbidity. However, the risk of atrial fibrillation in patients with celiac disease according to epidemiological studies remains unclear. The aim of this meta-analysis study is to assess the risk of atrial fibrillation in patients diagnosed with celiac disease compared to controls.
And this is the Conclusion.
A significant association between celiac disease and risk of atrial fibrillation was reported in this study. There is a 38% increased risk of atrial fibrillation. Additional studies are needed to clarify the mechanistic link between atrial fibrillation and celiac disease. Some of the limitations of this study are that all were observational studies, some were medical registry-based and there was high heterogeneity between studies.
One of the paper’s conclusions is more research needs to be done.
I know that I have a supercharged immune system, in that it seems to protect me from flu and the dreaded covids and it gave the AstraZeneca vaccine a good kicking. Research from Nottingham University has also shown, that coeliacs on a gluten-free diet have a 25 % lower risk of cancer compared to the general population.
So I asked Doctor Google if there was any link between the immune system and atrial fibrillation.
I found this paper on PubMed, which is entitled The Role Of Immune Cells In Atrial Fibrillation.
This was the Abstract.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia, but its mechanisms are poorly understood. Recently, accumulating evidence indicates a link between immune response and AF, but the precise mechanism remains unclear. It should be noticed that the relationship between immune response and AF is complex. Whether immune response is a cause or a result of AF is unclear. As the functional unit of the immune system, immune cells may play a vital role in the immunological pathogenesis of AF. In this review, we briefly highlight the evidence on relationships between immune cells and AF, and discuss their potential roles in AF pathogenesis. We hope this review could provide new orientation and enlightenment for further research on AF mechanism.
One of the paper’s conclusions is more research needs to be done.
Conclusion
I feel a lot of research concerning coeliacs, their immune systems and atrial fibrillation should be done and this could lead to a better understanding of atrial fibrillation.
Ease Up IPA Goes Gluten Free!
The title of this post, is the same as that of this page on the Adnams web site.
I am now 75 and I have been drinking Adnams beer, almost exclusively since I was thirteen.
My father introduced me to halves of Adnams bitter, whilst playing snooker at Felixstowe Conservative Club.
Part of his logic behind doing this was to teach me to drink alcohol responsibly, like he did and to prevent me ending up like his father, who was a drunk, who died before the age of forty.
The other thing, that my father’s teaching did was give me a preference for good real ale. And especially Adnams!
As I write this, I’m drinking a bottle of their 0.5 % Ghost Ship.
I drink it for three reasons.
- Obviously, I like the taste.
- It is low-alcohol, so it doesn’t affect the action of the Warfarin, that stops me having another stroke.
- I also find, that because the beer is made with low amounts of barley to keep the alcohol low, it doesn’t affect my gut, despite the fact that I’m a coeliac.
I have yet to find a low-alcohol beer, that has had an adverse effect on my body.
But Will Ease Up Be Safe For A Coeliac To Drink?
These paragraphs describe how Ease Up is brewed and the testing of the product.
When producing Ease Up, we now use an enzyme called Clarex® which breaks down gluten-type proteins, reducing gluten content to below 20 parts per million (ppm). Only foods that contain 20ppm or less can be labelled as ‘gluten-free.’ According to Coeliac UK, research shows people diagnosed as coeliac can consume products with gluten present at or less than this level, but customers are advised to consider their own individual tolerances.
Clarex® is added in the fermentation vessel, where it mixes well during a normal, vigorous fermentation. Our beer is tested at the end of fermentation and then, after packaging, it is put on hold while it undergoes a thorough external validation process before it is confirmed gluten free and released. Just look out for the new, updated branding.
Note the phrase about individual tolerances.
Conclusion
It looks like Adnams have produced the ideal real ale to have in your pub, club or house, if you have some coeliac customers, family or friends.
Never did I think, I would ever write about disruptive innovation in the brewing industry.
Statins Are Not To Blame For Most Muscle Pain, Scientists Conclude
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the first two paragraphs, that outlines the study.
Fears over statin side effects are unfounded as they only lead to muscle pain in 1 per cent of patients, a comprehensive study has shown.
University of Oxford scientists say they have “definitively” proven wrong the widespread belief that statins are a common cause of muscle symptoms.
Can my experience, add anything to the argument?
- I am seventy-five years, 170 cms. in height and weigh just over sixty-two kilograms.
- I have been taking statins, at least since I had my stroke ten years ago.
- I have been diagnosed with arthritis in my left knee. I put this down to the fact, that my wife and I had three small children fifty years ago and lived in a fifth-floor flat with no lift. All the carrying up the stairs damaged the knee and it flares up every ten years or so!
- I have constant minor pain in my left humerus, which was broken by the school bully, when I was fourteen.
- When I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went gluten-free, a lot of my muscle and joint pains were reduced.
- The pain levels seem to have risen again since going on statins.
This page on the NHS web site is an overview of Coeliac Disease.
In a section, which is called Who’s Affected?, this is said.
Coeliac disease is a condition that affects at least 1 in every 100 people in the UK.
But some experts think this may be underestimated because milder cases may go undiagnosed or be misdiagnosed as other digestive conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Reported cases of coeliac disease are around 3 times higher in women than men.
I also believe that the number of diagnosed coeliacs, is also affected by the fact that there was no test for coeliac disease in children until 1960 and that a reliable genetic test wasn’t available until the 1990s. This will lead to numbers of undiagnosed coeliacs in the older population.
Coincidence Or Just Facts?
Note that statin side effects only lead to muscle pain in one per cent of patients according to the report in The Times and one per cent of the population are coeliac.
Conclusion
I’m no medic, but I am a coeliac and an analyser of data. I believe that better analysis of the data may add some new insight.
For instance, as coeliac disease is three times higher in women, then if it is involved, then it would mean that the muscle pain ratios will have a sex component.
I also believe, that all medical research databases, should record, whether the participants are coeliacs.
Vitamin B12 For Stroke Recovery: Understanding The Benefits & Safety Tips
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the FlintRehab web site.
I have posted the link, as I was talking to a doctor earlier and they might like to look at it.
Consider.
- I am coeliac on a strict gluten-free diet.
- Since the coeliac diagnosis in 1997, I have had a B12 injection every three months.
- I had a serious stroke ten year ago.
- Some doctors feel, I have made an excellent recovery from my stroke.
Could my regular B12 injections have aided my recovery?
Note, that I have cleaned up the Vitamin B12 tag in this blog.
The Anonymous Widower 