In the spirit of Celiac Disease Awareness Month, Science of the Times brings you the story of Kelly Courson, a 37-year old receptionist who was confronted with a bewildering array of symptoms in her early twenties. After years of misdiagnosis by doctors,  she recognized her illness as Celiac disease and began treating herself.

Now she helps other Celiac sufferers adjust to a gluten-free lifestyle through her website Celiac Chicks.

Correction:

The video refers to celiac disease as an allergy to gluten, which is technically incorrect. A true food “allergy” involves IgE antibodies circulating in the blood stream that trigger an immediate allergic reaction. According to Dr. Peter Green’s book “Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic”, celiac disease is better defined as a “delayed type of immune reaction.”

TRANSCRIPT:

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Food…it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures. One that we often take for granted.

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But what if the food you loved…was unknowingly making you sick?

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That’s what happened to Kelly Courson, a 37 year-old receptionist who lives in Queens, New York.

KELLY COURSON: The symptoms came on hardcore when I was 21… I just had a lot of gastrointestinal issues, lost weight, the general malaise, the dermatitis herpetiformis, the sores that appear on different regions of people’s bodies. But for some reason they like to come out on my face.

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Unknown to Kelly she was suffering from Celiac disease, a severe allergy to gluten, which is a molecule found in wheat and other grains.

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According to an estimate from the National Institutes of Health over two million Americans may suffer from Celiac disease. Although, like Kelly, an unknown number live without a doctor’s diagnosis.

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The most common symptoms of Celiac Disease, diarrhea and malnutrition, are caused by damage to the small intestine.

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The small intestine’s role in the body is to break down and absorb nutrients.

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It is lined with a carpet of tiny, finger-like structures called villi that help to maximize its surface area.

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The villi, in turn, are covered by millions of cells called enterocytes.

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These cells absorb nutrients and pass them into the blood stream for use in the body.

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Gluten, like any nutrient, is normally digested and absorbed by the enterocytes.

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But occasionally, undigested gluten sneaks past the enterocytes into the lining of the gut

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In normal people its no problem. But in people with Celiac disease, the immune system perceives a threat and mounts a chemical attack.

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This damages the enterocytes and prevents them from doing their job of absorbing nutrients.

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Outwardly, the damage usually appears as diarrhea, vitamin deficiencies and malnutrition.

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But sometimes Celiac disease displays other symptoms. This makes it difficult for doctors to distinguish from other illnesses.

DR. PETER GREEN:

Celiac disease can really be regarded as a great imitator, because there are many different conditions that have similar manifestations….irritable bowel syndrome…peripheral neuropathy…balance disorders…lupus…chronic fatigue syndrome and all of these may actually be manifestations of Celiac disease.

NARRATOR:
Dr. Peter Green is the director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. He says that only about three percent of Americans with Celiac disease are ever diagnosed.

DR. PETER GREEN: The main hindrance to people getting diagnosed is doctor’s not being aware of the condition, not being aware of how common it is, and how easy it is to actually diagnose.

NARRATOR:
In Kelly’s case, doctors had failed to recognize her symptoms.

KELLY COURSON: I’d go to clinics and ask them to test me for mono or hepatitis and they just wouldn’t ask a lot of questions and run the blood test and be like, “you’re fine.” I don’t know if there is anything worse than to be sick and not know why.

NARRATOR:
It was her mom that finally put the pieces of the puzzle together.

KELLY COURSON:
My mom read a Prevention magazine article about celiac disease and she put together everything–the gastrointestinal symptoms, skin problems and the depression or lack of energy combined and said why don’t you try this diet because it sounds what like you have, it makes sense, it’s everything all together.

NARRATOR:
Kelly tried a gluten free diet. Currently the only treatment for celiac disease. She had to eliminate all wheat and other sources of gluten.

KELLY COURSON:
There’s a huge learning curve, learning what ingredients mean. All these words like, what is maltodextrin and does it have gluten it?

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She saw immediate results…

KELLY COURSON: It was like a miracle cure. In two weeks my skin was clear and I felt stronger and we were definitely headed in the right direction and I wanted to continue with the diet.

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Twelve years and many gluten free meals later Kelly’s symptoms haven’t returned. She says this is the reason she has never gotten a formal diagnosis from a doctor.

KELLY COURSON: As I mentioned, my mom’s research you could say and then my trial and error with the diet and the results that I saw, that I was self-diagnosed. Now., learning more and more about the disease and the tests that have become available I would have to go through what’s called a gluten challenge and eat gluten for at least a month, if not more, in order to get a biopsy, intestinal biopsy and sacrificing my health to do that,isn’t worth it to me.

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Dr. Green says this isn’t uncommon…

DR. PETER GREEN:
We often see patients who are already on a gluten free diet, they self-diagnosed it or they went on an weight reduction Atkins diet and they got better, they’re really on a gluten free diet. Now if they’ve been on the diet for six to 12 months, the biopsy would be negative, more than likely and the blood tests would be negative. What we would do then is offer them a gluten challenge. We’d say you should eat bread or pasta or the equivalent for one to three months and then have a biopsy. Some people say “yes I want to do that because the diet’s expensive, its socially inconvenient and I want to make sure I have it.” Other people say “I feel so good, I don’t want to eat that stuff again” and that’s a very reasonable approach, it’s reasonable for them to say they have Celiac disease if that’s better for them to get a gluten free diet under all the other circumstances.

NARRATOR:
In 2002, Kelly decided to turn her illness into something positive. She started a blog with a co-worker who also had Celiac disease. They named it Celiac Chicks. It provides gluten-free recipes, restaurant reviews and links to gluten-free products.

NARRATOR: Although Kelly receives some compensation for her efforts–Google advertising pays for the cost of running the site and she gets to keep free samples of the products she reviews—she says that isn’t her primary motivation from Celiac Chicks.

KELLY COURSON: I like to think that my blog has had a good impact on people and has helped them in some way, as I mentioned the business owners on their end that are trying to help us, that we’ve somehow helped them to survive as a small specialty business and then for the people who this is their new lifestyle change, which is pretty drastic in the beginning, that its helped them to put a positive spin on it and make it more of a fun adventure, than just a drag and feeling like they’re alone and can never enjoy food again. So that’s what I hope that I have done.

CREDITS:

Written, Directed & Edited by Eric R. Olson
Camera by Eric R. Olson & Melissa Schisler
Narrated by Melissa Schisler

Within every cell of our bodies is a chaotic symphony of molecular and chemical interactions that are difficult or impossible to see with the naked eye.  Scientists rely on experimental ’snapshots’ to give them an idea of what’s happening at the microscopic level. Then they work backwards, reconstructing a sequence of events from these rather abstract clues.

The field of biomedical animation helps us to visualize what can never be observed by the naked eye.  Animators  take the scientist’s mental model of events and render out a real-time 3D visual representation. With the advent of cheaper and faster computers, biomedical animators are producing startlingly life-like animations that rival those found in Hollywood movies (often with a soundtrack to match). Below are three beautiful examples that caught my eye.

Which biomedical animations have caught your eye? Post your favorites in the comments.

Also check out:

Scitimes Video: How the Flu Virus Jumps Species (my own attempt at 2D biomedical animation)

TRANSCRIPT:

Only a subway ride away from Manhattan, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is located on a sandy atoll in the middle of Jamaica Bay, Queens. It is a small sanctuary for both aquatic birds and turtles.

As you cross over a bridge on the way to the sanctuary, you get the feeling that the subway has magically transformed itself into a boat. The water sits only a few feet below the bottom of the train.

Although technically still in New York City limits, the train drops you in a neighborhood that evokes the feeling of a small beach town. The streets are packed tightly with small, simply-constructed houses.

The first sign that you are near a refuge are the broken clam shells that litter the nearby parking lots. Seagulls drop the shells from on-high, seeking to extract the sweet clam meat from inside.

A newly renovated nature center, operated by the National Park Service greets you at the entrance to a two-mile long trail.

The trail circles around a giant brackish pond that is the home to hundreds of seabirds including swans, Canadian geese, snow geese, seagulls, egrets and various kinds of ducks.

Songbirds find refuge here as well. Take a moment to listen.

Nesting Canadian geese step out to greet you but hiss a warning that you’d better stand back–this is their turf.

Divided from the trail by tall thickets of vines and bushes, a sandy shell-strewn beach beckons for hot and weary feet.

However, this beach is off limits. It’s used as a breeding ground for the endangered diamond-back terrapin turtle.

In this dry environment, succulent plants and even small cactuses  emerge from the sandy soil.

Vegetation on other parts of this little atoll can be dense, as the plants fight for the precious rays of the sun.

The vines of the invasive Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) don’t fight fair. They strangle the other plants in their skyward quest.

In the middle of a flat, marshy, expanse full of debris, park service employs have constructed a nesting platform for ospreys–also known as seahawks.

If you look closely, you can just barely make out something stirring in the nest.

Students from New York and New Jersey recently put their robotic LEGO designs to the test,  in the BUILD IT final design challenge held at  Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. “The underwater environment really throws them a curveball,” says Beth McGrath, director of Stevens’ Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education. “It’s a lot like a space environment.”‘

The goal of the BUILD IT program, administered by  Stevens’ science education center,  is to determine how to get more U.S. kids interested in science and engineering careers.  From 1980 to 2000, the number of U.S. science and engineering jobs increased by about four percent but the number of  science and engineering degrees awarded only increased by about about one percent, according to a 2008 report from the National Science Foundation. The program seeks to close this gap.

TRANSCRIPT:

NATURAL SOUND:

3-2-1 and go!

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Racing robotic lego submarines might sound like fun to kids of any age. But this about more than just fun–it’s the final competition in a program designed to get school-age kids interested in science and engineering careers.

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Last week more than 200 students from schools in New York and New Jersey competed in a final design challenge at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken.

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During the school year teams of five students designed and built their own underwater contraptions. Along the way students learned about design,engineering, computer programming and concepts like buoyancy and torque.

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Now they race their inventions against the clock, trying to score points by moving whiffle balls into various plastic containers. It’s harder than it sounds.

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Jishnu Desai and his teammates from Beck Middle School in Cherry Hill, New Jersey are competition veterans. They hope this year goes better than last.

JISHNU DESAI:

We went with a strategy that we had last year but we kind of refined it and improved it.

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They need to trap as many whiffle balls as they can under this plastic container. The clock starts and they trap 1..2..3…4…5…6 whiffle balls. Not bad, but less than the perfect score they’d hoped for.

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The BUILD IT program is in its third and final year and has enrolled over 2600 students. The program was funded with a 1.2 million dollar grant from the national science foundation and
$50,000 from the Motorola company.

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Testing data from the program shows that students improved their conceptual understanding and also showed an increased interest in science and engineering. Stevens Institute hopes to expand the program on a national level, starting with schools in Texas and Ohio.

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But for now, the submersible lego robots have reached the end of the line.

[Visit Science of the Times to view video]

TRANSCRIPT:

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The flu virus can infect all kinds of animals from ducks to chickens, pigs, humans and even whales.

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But scientists think that flu viruses in all of these animals, originally came from aquatic birds, like ducks.

DUCK:

Quack!

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So how can a flu virus jump species, from birds, to other animals and ultimately to humans?

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To answer this question,we need to look at the structure of the virus and how it survives.

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Influenza is an RNA virus, meaning that it’s filled with strands of RNA,a genetic material similar to DNA. The outside of the virus is coated in proteins.

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In order to infect a cell, the virus must dock up and deliver it’s RNA. A protein on the outside of the virus, known as hemagglutinin, sticks to receptors embedded in the cell’s outer membrane.

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Once inside the cell, the viral RNA goes to work, co-opting the cell’s own molecular machinery in order to replicate itself and create proteins that will form new viruses. These new viruses, known as virions, disperse and infect other cells.

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Humans CAN contract flu viruses from birds, but this rarely leads to an infection. The receptor proteins in birds and humans are different ENOUGH that the virus can’t easily dock to a cell.

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However, viral RNA is not static. During replication, errors can accumulate and these can change the hemaglutinin protein just enough. Now the bird virus can infect the cells of other creatures, including humans.

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But typically, that other creature is the humble pig. A pig’s cells have both the human-type and bird-type receptors. This means that both bird AND human flu viruses can infect a pigs cells. In other words, pigs act as a kind of viral middleman.

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And it’s no coincidence that most flu pandemics of recent years are thought to have originated in South East Asia, where people often keep pigs and birds in close proximity.

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What’s more, is that inside of a pig, flu viruses can become more infectious. Cells infected with both bird and human strains of influenza become incubators for new viral strains. The RNA can reshuffle, which could lead to new viruses with the worst traits of the two original strains.

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Flu vaccines are a defense against viral infection. They stimulate antibodies against the proteins on the virus’ surface. This prevents it from docking and unloading its RNA.

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But as long as the flu virus survives SOMEWHERE, in pigs for example, it can mutate again, changing its outer proteins and a newly infectious strain is born.