I did a quick search and didn’t see a topic on this. Lucy posted a new video where she discusses on-going health issues and finally getting a diagnosis:
TL/DW: She has Celiac’s.
Amazed she’s raced at all while being glutened and having a gut full of holes. I was an anaemic injury-prone weed until I realised, and even now if I eat an oatcake I have to spend the whole next week in zone 1 or on the sofa.
It’s no joke
Amazed she’s raced at all while being glutened and having a gut full of holes. I was a pale injury-prone weed until I realised, and even now if I eat an oatcake I have to spend the whole next week in zone 1 or on the sofa.
It’s no joke
That was my same though.
A few years ago I went through a period of very severe GI issues, and it took a while for the doctors to figure it out: many rounds of anti-biotics, colonoscopies, endoscopies, Chron’s suspicion, Celiac’s, and plent of other GI issues short of cancer (because of my age). It was so debilitating to have your GI tract not work properly, and I can’t imagine how one could train/race at that level when your gut is not working 100%.
Didn’t watch the video yet but it’s amazing how much these types of autoimmunity diseases seem to increase.
I don’t buy the old standard reply that we’re simply best better at testing and reporting when I’ve seen so many first hand instances of issues developing over time in people I know.
Chronic exposure to various substances that artificially (intentionally or not) stimulating the immune system have a cumulative effect.
It’s unbelievable the results she has achieved so far given her condition. Especially winning the Ironman World champion which must take such a beating on the gut.
If she gets her condition under control and improves from it, she is going to be phenomenal (more than she already is).
I don’t buy the old standard reply that we’re simply best better at testing and reporting when I’ve seen so many first hand instances of issues developing over time in people I know.//
This is the most likely way it all unfurled, and why she has been such a top competitor her entire life. Once you truly have the full on one molecule will crash you part of the disease, it would not be possible to do what she has done in the past. I went through the same exact thing myself, took a year to figure out it was gluten, and thankfully have not progressed any further beyond an intolerance.
that’s the thing with getting older, your gut and how your body works on fuel can just change. Sometimes slowly over years, sometimes like hitting a brick wall. SO many stories about top athletes over the decades who dealt with this and other food allergies. Lets just hope this really is the culprit and she caught it quickly enough. That is the real unknown, now that she will be completely gluten free, will all of her symptoms disappear? Or will there still be some things hanging around, and then the search begins all over again…It just doesnt seem to be an exact science diagnosing these types of ailments, more of a hit and miss and lets try this thing for awhile and see how it goes…
Sounds like she has been searching / experimenting with her diet for a while, she made dietary changes back in 2021 eliminating several foods and then went onto win 70.3 worlds that year in probably her greatest ever performance (aside from Kona).
We touched on this in the PTO thread. Glad she figured this out and my goodness she’s gonna be even more of a beast when she gets a handle on this, which seems fairly straightforward.
Off topic, but didn’t want to start a thread. Has LCB split from Oakley? Only seen her wearing Rokas in recent months.
Hope she finds going gluten free not too tough and sees health improvements soon.
Here’s my take on this based on my personal and family experience and what I’ve read. Primarily “Grain Brain”
My son was asthmatic, and he failed miserably at triathlon. There were points were he could barely breathe. Since he also had hay fever, we took him to all type of doctors that delivered all sorts of drugs, including one that would make him wake-up at night with hallucinations (imagine me and my wife both with schizophrenia precedents in both our families). By chance we ended in a Chinese doctor that did some kinesio tests and determined he was intolerant to gliadin, a component of gluten. He is now an elite boxer fighting his way to pursue his dream of being a world champion. He doesn’t even have hay fever any more.
My wife followed a similar route, only she discovered much later in life that she is gluten intolerant, and that has already created havoc in her inmune system. She has evolved to being intolerant to eggs, tomato’s, sulfites and all sorts of other stuff.
Then I read the book I mentioned above. The short story is modern wheat is all trans-genic. Despite there are some benefits to that, one side effect is that gluten has become more dense. Think olive oil turning into tar. That translates into the tar adhering to the gut, which after sometime leaks into the bloodstream (leaky gut). Having a protein in the bloodstream makes the inmune system go crazy, and all sort of auto-inmune diseases can develop. Hay fever being the most common. His recomendación is that everybody should quit gluten.
I decided to quit gluten myself about a year ago at 59. After all, it wasn’t that hard in a gluten free family (I miss the beer though). I immediately lost 4Kg, and I was already thin (78Kg for 187cms). My eyesight improved slightly over 1 dioptres after 40 years of being stable, and my prostate actually decreased in size! That is after a normal growth path for my age.
If I take into account that in all my school life I only remember one person with hay fever, whilst more than half of my sons classmates suffered from it, there’s clearly something in modern life that is creating havoc in our health. Whether gluten is the primary/sole culprit, or other transgenic, some unnecessary vaccines (I am not anti-vaccines in general) or unnecessary drugs, excess of hygiene, etc. I don’t know. Heck, if your child gets a cold, your body triggers two primary curing mechanisms. It raises the body temp to kill germs and creates mucus to expel them. What does the doctor do? Give you drugs so the temp comes down (without being dangerously high) and you stop secreting mucus. That can’t be good.
I would love to hear more on this, particularly from nutrition experts.
I don’t buy the old standard reply that we’re simply best better at testing and reporting when I’ve seen so many first hand instances of issues developing over time in people I know.//
Sometimes slowly over years, sometimes like hitting a brick wall. SO many stories about top athletes over the decades who dealt with this and other food allergies. Lets just hope this really is the culprit and she caught it quickly enough. That is the real unknown, now that she will be completely gluten free, will all of her symptoms disappear? Or will there still be some things hanging around, and then the search begins all over again…It just doesn’t seem to be an exact science diagnosing these types of ailments, more of a hit and miss and lets try this thing for awhile and see how it goes…I am surprised, after all we saw on the copious media ‘content’ of testing after her hip stress fracture in Dec 2021 (after an amazing 70.3WC win at St George) and rehab to August 2022; that this wasn’t picked up by the ‘world-leading’ labs sponsored by Red Bull. Maybe it was tested for and not found.
Will treatment need TUEs or is it just 'stay away from eating various stuff?
You don’t eat gluten, TUEs don’t come into it.
It can be missed by any level of medical staff, took them years to diagnose my stepdaughter.
Might just be me, but your answer seems a bit snide or possibly mistrusting. Do you have some underlying suspicion of the diagnosis here?
Might just be me, but your answer seems a bit snide or possibly mistrusting. Do you have some underlying suspicion of the diagnosis here?
.
I have noticed that, for some, Slowtwitch has become a place where people have taken upon themselves to question everything the Pro’s and race organizers do. The actual races are starting to take a back seat to wild speculation of everyone and everything triathlon related.
Agreed. They’re at it in the Blu thread again. It’s not like two mins research on celiac would explain things either. There is no “upside†and no sneaky justification for TUE here. There is a lot of risk however; for example one crumb of gluten can make my stepdaughter violently sick for 24hrs and cross contamination is very easily done.
In terms of diagnoses my mother in law recently found out she is gluten intolerant, she’s 70 and an old neighbour of mine found out in his late 40s.
Amazed she’s raced at all while being glutened and having a gut full of holes. I was an anaemic injury-prone weed until I realised, and even now if I eat an oatcake I have to spend the whole next week in zone 1 or on the sofa.
It’s no joke
Just get gluten-free oatcakes, or are you doing it on purpose at this point?
You don’t eat gluten, TUEs don’t come into it.
It can be missed by any level of medical staff, took them years to diagnose my stepdaughter.
Might just be me, but your answer seems a bit snide or possibly mistrusting. Do you have some underlying suspicion of the diagnosis here?I was displaying my ignorance and do not distrust the diagnosis. AS far as 'just don’t eat gluten, from the NHS site: “As well as eliminating foods that contain gluten from your diet, there are other treatments available for coeliac disease.” That lists other treatments which may be considered.
As far as the ‘failing to diagnose’ we saw a lot of content on how great the medical support LCB accessed in her hip stress fracture was and she’s previously done comprehensive testing on her diet. I didn’t realise it was so difficult to diagnose.
Gluten damages the villi in the gut when you are celiac. The tests look for damaged villi. If she was trying different things with her diet around the time of testing and hadn’t been consuming gluten for a while her biopsy tests would be negative as Villi would have healed. There is NO cure or treatment, don’t consume gluten and the Villi regrow and heal, only option.
Didn’t watch the video yet but it’s amazing how much these types of autoimmunity diseases seem to increase.
I don’t buy the old standard reply that we’re simply best better at testing and reporting when I’ve seen so many first hand instances of issues developing over time in people I know.
Chronic exposure to various substances that artificially (intentionally or not) stimulating the immune system have a cumulative effect.
I like your hypothesis there on general level. No idea what Lucy’s root cause is, but hope she keeps good health and a long racing career (its already been a decade since her age group days racing, so that is great).
There is a company I recently invested in called Nepra Foods. The CEO, Chadwick White previously formulated all the products(gluten free) for Udi’s. Nepra supplies ingredients to partners making great tasting gluten free alternatives. My feeling is this company is going to dominate in this sector, as more people realize the impact gluten is having on our health.
Might just be me, but your answer seems a bit snide or possibly mistrusting. Do you have some underlying suspicion of the diagnosis here?
.
I have noticed that, for some, Slowtwitch has become a place where people have taken upon themselves to question everything the Pro’s and race organizers do. The actual races are starting to take a back seat to wild speculation of everyone and everything triathlon related.
Has become? It’s been this way since 2005 at least.