Wheat population in developed countries. There is evidence that most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated. The only known effective treatment is a strict lifelong gluten-free diet. While coeliac disease is caused by a reaction to wheat proteins, it is not the same as a wheat allergy. Other diseases triggered by eating gluten are non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, (estimated to affect 0.5% to 13% of the general population), gluten ataxia and dermatitis herpetiformis. The following table shows the nutrient content of wheat and other major staple foods in a raw form. Raw forms of these staples, however, are not edible and cannot be
Anti-gliadin antibodies in food products. Some of these antibodies can recognize only wheat prolamins or very closely related grass seeds; others can detect antigens over broad taxa. The G12 antibody is the newest example which detects the most immunotoxic fragment, a 33-mer peptide from �-2 gliadin; available from Romer Laboratories and the Spanish company Biomedal. It recognizes the toxic fraction of wheat, barley, rye and also of oat. The R5 sandwich assay is another such assay. This assay can recognize wheat, barley and rye, which makes it ideal for evaluating the presence of contaminants in gluten-free foods that do not contain oat.