Acquired gluten intolerance is very very common now.

Acquired is different from Celiac's which involves genes that do not work right in the GI tract.

After reading some studies done in 1999 which revealed that suppressing Cox-2 levels (which NSAIDs and aspirin do), lead to increased GI permeability to peptides and bacteria in the gut, I have come to think that ACQUIRED gluten intolerance may be becoming more common now, and later in life based on how much a person uses NSAIDs for pain and arthritis.

Cox-2 was shown in the studies to be the family of cytokines active in the GI intestinal walls that act as a barrier to large molecules which normally DO NOT PASS into the bloodstream from things we eat and drink. When suppressed, then that protective barrier is weakened, and opens up to things like the
gliadin protein from wheat and some other grains.(barley and rye also have it, not just wheat).

This is a very good collection of data, that has been published about gluten, by one of our members here, jccgf.

http://sites.google.com/site/jccglutenfree/

There is a section there on neurological damage, and in fact ataxia and neuropathies have been shown in papers to be connected to gluten. (and over the years I have seen some diagnosed with MS get better going GF too).

So basically timing is out the window. It would vary from person to person, just like the BBB varies. (Zonulin channels in the BBB and GI tract allow things to cross--and I've posted in the past about that and won't go on with it here).

Previous ratios of incidence concerning Celiac used to be 1:3000 or so. Now estimates have come down to 1:150 and even lower, 1:65 in some studies. This is an epidemic of great proportions, and anyone with a neuro condition would be a candidate for the GF diet, IMO.

There are people now succeeding on GF who show no blood antibodies in the Ig testing. They may have no GI symptoms, and still improve on the GF diet. Some of them do show positive results however on the stool testing that is available. So some doctors still pooh pooh the whole thing.

Reverett, I find your posts on this very helpful, and I hope some here try the diet as well.