Today is May 15th, which means we’ve officially reached the halfway point through National Celiac Awareness Month. There is much to potentially celebrate—awareness is up, rates of diagnosis are up (or so I anecdotally hear), food companies and restaurants are increasingly offering gluten-free options.
But clearly there’s much more work still to be done. Rates of successful celiac disease diagnosis are still far below the actual prevalence of the disease in the population. “Gluten-free”—for better or worse—is an in vogue fad at the moment. And misconceptions about forms of gluten intolerance and the gluten-free diet persist.
A sobering reminder of the challenge still before us is hopefully encapsulated in this basic infographic I’ve created, which compares the Google search popularity of “gluten” vs. “celiac.” Click on the image to enlarge it, and if you find it of value, please share it widely. The take-home message is painfully clear: while gluten and the gluten-free diet are surging in popularity, awareness about celiac disease in particular—at least as measured by Google searches—has remained dead flat for the last decade.
–Pete