Geomedicine: What could it do for Celiac Disease?
Comments (0) We’ve talked in the past about our love of TED and how many of its big picture talks can help us frame new ways of thinking about the gluten free diet (”GFD”) and Celiac Disease (”CD”). In the video below, Bill Davenhal discusses the impact that geography has over health.
Davenhall walks through his own live, having lived in several “red zones” for health; he grew up in PA, lived in Louisville, KY, which he proclaims as “Rubbertown”, and then moved to smoggy Los Angeles.
His approach to geomedicine, as he terms it, is broad and long term. Having lived years in these places, he claims, that his physicians;
Never asked about the water put in my mouth or the food that I ingest in my stomach.
For CD, the implications might be more profound with a more tactical approach to data. If every restaurant someone with CD visited in the past month had poor options for those on the GFD, then the probability of gluten ingestion is higher than for those who made different choices. Davenhall makes a brief case using big time periods; the impact appears as if it might be more profound if smaller periods of time and a more detailed focus on location were made. Think restaurants, not states and the impact on CD becomes more profound.
Davenhall closes with a quote from respected physician Jack Lord;
Geography is destiny in medicine.
