The Value of the Banana in the Treatment of Celiac Disease

Abstract

Some years ago I treated a child, aged 3 years, who suffered from a severe case of anorexia nervosa. She had reached a serious state of depletion and weakness from her self imposed starvation, refusing all food and regurgitating that fed to her by gavage. She finally accepted a banana, with the result that other food was taken in a more or less normal amount within forty-eight hours. There was a complete relapse when the banana was withheld, and food was taken normally only with bananas.This experiment was repeated to test the validity of the observation, always with the same result, until a time came when her appetite was normal whether bananas were included in the diet or not. The action was such as is attributed to a hormone. It was natural, therefore, to test bananas in a case of celiac disease where anorexia was a prominent symptom.Celiac disease is probably the most troublesome disturbance of nutrition of late infancy and early childhood. The consensus of opinion is that it is a functional disease characterized by inability to utilize properly carbohydrates and fats. To what extent the carbo¬ hydrate or the fat is at fault is not quite so clear. Herter,1 who studied these cases from a laboratory standpoint probably more carefully than any one else, found intolerance of carbohydrates to be the most impor¬ tant feature, resulting in the deprivation of the organism of the food¬ stuff on which it mainly depends for its caloric needs, and stated that : "In the severest forms of 'Infantilism' the total quantity of carbo¬ hydrates which can be tolerated may be very small, and it may be possible to supply in this form less than one-fifth of the calories required by the organism instead of nearly one-half as in health. The fats are, on the whole, better tolerated than the carbohydrates." The diffi¬ culty in treating these cases is proverbial, relapses even after marked temporary progress being the regular experience. Ten cases are reported here ; eight of the patients were clinically cured by the form of therapy described below. The two patients not treated died. TREATMENT

Metabolism in Idiopathic Steatorrhea. I. The Influence of Dietary and Other Factors on Lipid and Mineral Balance

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