It’s a supplement that millions of Americans take each day, hoping to reduce their risk of heart disease. But a new review of research suggests that fish oil might protect against another killer: breast cancer.

Chinese researchers looked at 21 studies and found that a higher intake of fish oil, but not necessarily fish itself, appears to be linked to a lower risk of breast cancer later in life. Specifically, they found that a high intake of fatty acids found in fish oil was associated with a 14 percent reduced risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women.

 Angelina Jolie’s Double Mastectomy Fueling National Debate

If it’s real, the link could have big implications for women and their health. Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in U.S. women other than non-melanoma skin cancers, and the second deadliest cancer in women, following only lung cancer, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“These findings could have public health implications with regard to prevention of breast cancer through dietary and lifestyle implications,” the authors wrote in their study, published Thursday in the journal BMJ.

But while it is known that a healthy diet and lifestyle decrease the risk of breast cancer, past studies have reached different conclusions when it comes to the consumption of fish oil and breast cancer risk.

Science Still Slippery on Fish Oil Health Connection 

One thing we do know is that including oily fish in your diet is good for you, a reason that it is recommended by many nutritionists. The benefits of fish oil supplements are less clear, although this has not stopped fish oil from becoming big business.

Americans spent $739 million on fish oil supplements in 2008, according to the trade publication Nutrition Business Journal. Proponents have primarily touted them as heart-healthy, and past research has also pointed to the effects of fish and fish oil on breast cancer risk.

Mediterranean Diet Fights Heart Disease, Study Finds

But this research has been less than conclusive. On one hand, two large prospective studies and several case-control studies have suggested a protective effect on breast cancer risk. On the other, a number of studies have found no such association.

Dr. Kathy Helzlsouer, breast cancer expert and director of the Center for Prevention and Research at Mercy Health Services in Baltimore, Md., said the reasons behind the finding that fish oil supplements were linked to a lower risk of breast cancer, but that fish consumption was not, are unclear.

She also called the link between fish oil consumption and breast cancer prevention “modest,” and noted that it is still hard to say that these supplements deserve all the credit.

“Whether this is cause and effect is not certain,” Helzlsouer said, adding that the authors themselves admit in the paper that more research is needed to better understand the reasons for their findings.

What Women Should Do

The good news is that there is little out there to suggest increasing your intake of fish oil is harmful, and you might even be doing yourself some good.

But Helzlsouer says she believes the best, and perhaps tastiest, option to achieve the benefits of fatty acids found in fish is to eat more oily fish.

“I usually recommend consumption of fish rather than supplements,” she said. “I believe fish consumption is a healthy part of the diet and I have recommended it.”

Here are a few tips women should consider to reap the possible benefits of fish oil:

• Nutritionists suggest one to two servings per week of oily fish like salmon, sardines or tuna;
• If you’re not a fan of fish, taking a daily fish oil supplement might not be a bad idea;
• The two important omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids found in fish are: docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Try to look for these if you decide to go with a fish oil supplement.

Police officers had to resuscitate the infant. (Getty Images)

Two New Jersey police officers helped revive a newborn moments after he was born on a front lawn in Barnegat to a woman who said she didn’t realize she was pregnant.

According to the Barnegat Police Department, two officers arrived just after 21-year-old Elizabeth Whitehead gave birth to her son in the yard.  The officers found the baby boy unresponsive and without a pulse and immediately began CPR before the ambulance had arrived. In the ambulance the medical staff were able to stabilize the baby’s heart rhythm and normalize his breathing.

The infant was stabilized and then admitted to the Jersey Shore Medical Center for further treatment Tuesday. Whitehead was treated and released from the Southern Ocean Medical Center.

According to the Lacey Patch, Whitehead  also has a 9-month-old son and had no clue she was pregnant. Instead she thought early labor pains were menstrual cramps. When the pain became worse she headed to the hospital, but only made it to her front lawn.

According to Dr. Lori Gawron, obstetrician and gynecologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, some women mistakenly believe they cannot become pregnant within weeks of giving birth.

“Moms don’t think how quickly after they deliver they can resume ovulation,” said Gawron, who did not treat Whitehead. “They can start ovulation 25 days after having a baby.”

Another complication for new moms is breastfeeding. Although breastfeeding can severely decrease the chance of a woman becoming pregnant, some women can spontaneously ovulate, especially if they are not exclusively breastfeeding.

Dr. Karen Ashby, associate professor of reproductive medicine at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, said she has had patients arrive at her office pregnant only six weeks after giving birth.

“If they’re not getting their period they think they can’t get pregnant, which isn’t true,” said Ashby, who did not treat Whitehead.

United Kingdom could have 3-person IVF. (Credit: Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images)

A few babies born in the United Kingdom could soon be the first in the world to have three parents – that is, their DNA could come from three different people thanks to an in-vitro fertilization technique designed to circumvent certain genetic diseases.

The U.K. government will draft regulations for three-person IVF this year, and it intends to introduce a finalized version for debate in parliament in 2014.

The goal is to prevent mothers from passing incurable and sometimes fatal mitochondrial disease, such as muscular dystrophy, to their children.

“Scientists have developed groundbreaking new procedures, which could stop these diseases from being passed on, bringing hope to many families seeking to prevent their future children from inheriting them,” said U.K. Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies in a statement.  ”It’s only right that we look to introduce this lifesaving treatment as soon as we can.”

Click for more on the ethical debate of three-person IVF and uterus transplant.

The decision to push the techniques forward follows open consultation with the public in which U.K. citizens were asked how they felt about the treatment and the “social and ethical” questions it raises.

The  public showed “overall support for the treatment,” according to the government.

The mitochondria are the energy-producing parts of every cell —  think of them as  little batteries. As such, cells don’t function properly if someone has a mitochondrial disease because cells can’t turn food into fuel. For patients with Leigh’s disease, for example, the mitochondria fail over time, and children often don’t live past age 7.

Click here to read about Will, a Texas boy with Leigh’s disease.

Mitochondrial DNA determines how the mitochondria will function, but it’s only passed on from the mother.  Nuclear DNA comes from both parents and determines children’s characteristics, such as eye color and height.

Three-person IVF is also known as a mitochondrial transfer, and it would keep the nuclear DNA from both parents while swapping out the mother’s “bad” mitochondrial DNA for a donor’s mitochondrial DNA.

Scientists can do this using one of two techniques: They can swap the mitochondrial DNA before the mother’s egg is fertilized, or they can fertilize two eggs (one from a donor and one from the mother) and take the part of the hours-old embryo  (called a pronucleus)  containing nuclear DNA from the intended mother and father and put it into the embryo with the donor’s mitochondrial DNA. Only that embryo would be implanted into the mother’s uterus.

Confused?  Watch this illustrated video for a clear explanation.

Scientists have tested these techniques in animals  but have yet to try them using human embryos. The treatment could save an estimated 10 lives a year, said the U.K. government. One in 6,500 babies are born with mitochondrial disease worldwide, and about 12,000 people in the U.K. live with it.

In the United States, 1,000 to 4,000 babies are born with mitochondrial disease each year, according to the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. But because mitochondrial disease can be misdiagnosed, the foundation says  it’s difficult to estimate how many people actually have mitochondrial disease.

Click here to read more about on three-person IVF.

About 16,440 bottles of aspirin have been recalled because at least one bottle actually contained acetaminophen. (Credit: Food and Drug Administration)

A nationwide baby aspirin recall is underway after a CVS pharmacist discovered a 120-pill bottle of baby aspirin was filled with acetaminophen pills.

Advance Pharmaceutical Inc. voluntarily recalled 16,440 bottles of pills labeled to contain 81-mg aspirin pills because at least one bottle in the lot contained 500-mg acetaminophen pills, according to Advance Pharmaceutical spokesman Abu Amanatullah. No known injuries have been reported.

Read about the frozen berry recall over hepatitis fears.

“That could put some people into liver failure,” said Dr. Joe Odin, an associate professor at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York who does research in drug-induced liver injury.

He said overdosing on acetaminophen, commonly sold under the brand name Tylenol, is the No. 1  method of suicide in the United Kingdom. In the United States, patients usually overdose on acetaminophen by accident because they don’t realize one of their prescriptions — such as sleeping pills — already contains it.

“It’s not an uncommon overdose,” said Dr. Corey Slovis, who heads the department of emergent medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee. “We hate Tylenol overdose because they’re the silent overdoses.”

Slovis said  patients who overdose on acetaminophen often don’t feel sick right away, unless they’ve taken a massive dose that induces vomiting within six hours. Instead, many patients who overdose on acetaminophen don’t see a doctor for more than two days because they feel fine at first. When they finally get to Slovis, they’re often jaundiced and experiencing the early signs of liver failure.

As such, this kind of overdose could result in liver failure, the need for a transplant or death, Slovis said.

If doctors catch the overdose early, they can save patients by pumping their stomachs full of charcoal to deactivate the acetaminophen, Odin said. Intravenous medications can also reverse the damage.

But most patients who take baby aspirin do it because it keeps blood platelets from sticking together, said Dr. Sripal Bangalore, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center. As such, baby aspirin is crucial for patients who have undergone stent surgery.

“Aspirin and Tylenol are not the same,” he said, emphasizing that Tylenol doesn’t have anti-clotting properties. “Most times, the patient will have signs and symptoms of a heart attack.

If stent patients are unwittingly taking Tylenol instead of aspirin, they run the risk of stent thrombosis, meaning the stent becomes blocked, and they could die, he said.

“It’s pretty dangerous,” Bangalore said. “Once a stent closes, there are studies to show that the risk of dying from it is pretty large.”

Other patients take baby aspirin because it’s thought to reduce the risk of heart attack. But Bangalore said he’s less worried about that because the benefits are debatable.

Read about the 7 foods most likely to make you sick.

More berries have been recalled over hepatitis A fears. (Credit: Food and Drug Administration)

A second frozen berry producer has recalled packages containing pomegranate seeds from Turkey over concerns the seeds could be contaminated with hepatitis A, a highly contagious liver infection.

Scenic Fruit Company in Oregon recalled 61,092 8-ounce bags of Woodstock Frozen Organic Pomegranate Kernels shipped between February and May of this year. No one has become sick from eating the kernels nor have researchers found any evidence of hepatitis A contamination, according to a statement on the Food and Drug Administration’s website.

“The company’s decision to voluntarily recall products is made from an abundance of caution in response to an ongoing outbreak investigation by the FDA and CDC,” according to the recall.

Click here to read about Lynda Brackenridge, who filed a lawsuit against Townsend Farms and Costco after getting hepatitis A.

An ongoing hepatitis A outbreak linked to berries from Townsend Farms in Oregon has sickened 122 people in eight states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fifty-four of them have been hospitalized.

Experts told ABCNews.com earlier this month that they suspected the pomegranate seeds from Turkey, which were added to the Townsend Farms berry mix, caused the outbreak.

The Scenic Fruit Company’s recalled pomegranate kernels also came from Turkey, according to the FDA recall.

Hepatitis A is fatal to one in 200 patients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is usually spread through person-to-person contact when an infected person does not properly wash his or her hands after using the bathroom. It can also be spread through contaminated food, usually in countries with poor sanitation.

Read Dr. Besser’s blog about the ‘berry’ important lesson to be learned from this outbreak.

This particular strain of hepatitis A is rarely seen in the United States, and is most common in North Africa and the Middle East, according to the CDC’s web page dedicated to the outbreak. According to the Townsend Farms berry mix label, ingredients came from Argentina, Chile, Turkey and the United States.

The CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and state health departments are still investigating the outbreak. Townsend Farms voluntarily recalled the berry blend on June 4, and Costco pulled the berries from shelves and began notifying customers who bought them May 31, according to CDC and FDA news releases.

Since there is no FDA-approved test for hepatitis A on food other than green onions, berries aren’t tested for the virus, Craig Wilson, vice president of food safety and quality assurance at Costco, which sold the Townsend Farms berries, told ABCNews.com. Officials have used the green onion test on the berries in light of the outbreak, but results have been negative. Wilson said he did the same and got the same negative test results.

“Townsend Farms has an excellent record,” Wilson said in early June. “Their food safety program plant is very good. That was confirmed by the FDA inspection. They just went through a five-day FDA inspection.”

Since Costco suppliers are required to have the ability to trace all their product ingredients, they turned their attention to the pomegranate seeds from Turkey that were added to the berry blend, Wilson said. This is because the virus strain that affected consumers is rare in the Americas but common in the Middle East.

Scenic Fruit Company did not immediately return calls from ABCNews.com seeking comment.

Exhausted Americans are going to private clinics on their lunch breaks to get an IV drip of what some claim is an energy-boosting cocktail.

“It’s really like a multivitamin in a bag,” said Dr. Jeffrey Morrison, director of the Morrison Center, an integrative medicine center in New York City. “This is a way to give much more high concentrations of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants so the body has all the building blocks so it can heal itself and respond to the stresses of day-to-day life.”

RELATED: Vitamin Drip Infusions Gain Favor in Hollywood

Another doctor, Karima Hirani, of Culver City, Calif., said her liquid vitamin patients suffer from a range of conditions such as chronic fatigue, depression and anxiety.

Stars such as Madonna, Simon Cowell and Cindy Crawford reportedly are on the liquid vitamin bandwagon, and a photo Rihanna tweeted of herself with an IV needle in her arm last year fueled speculation that she, too, enjoys the so-called “party girl drip” treatment.

The treatment is not just for stars. Christina Andrews recently had an infusion of vitamins B5 and B12.

MORE: Rihanna Taken to Hospital, Tweets Picture of IV in Arm

“I’m on my feet 12 hours, so I need a lot of energy,” Andrews said. “I recommend it to all my friends.”

Music executive Carmen Key gets her drip at a Los Angeles clinic once a week.

“Instead of feeling, like, energized, you feel alive,” she said.

Asked whether she couldn’t get the same feeling from eating a proper meal, taking vitamins and a having long nap, Key replied: “Yeah. That probably would do 4 percent of what this does.”

But not everyone’s a fan.

Critics say the practice is extreme and unnecessary, and question whether is offers anything that can’t be had from vitamins and nutritious food.

And the treatments don’t come cheap. Each session can cost between $130 to $275.

An outbreak of hepatitis A has been linked to berries sold at Costco. (Image credit: Getty Images)

I started my career at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an outbreak investigator. So whenever there’s an outbreak, I look carefully and ask, “What can we learn from this?”

In the case of the ongoing outbreak of hepatitis A linked to frozen berries sold by Costco, the answer is “plenty.”

Hepatitis A is a viral infection of the liver with symptoms that include fever, fatigue, abdominal pain and jaundice — yellowing of the skin and eyes. It can be mild. But in some patients, the illness can last for months and lead to liver failure.

The infection usually stems from exposure to food handled by someone infected with the virus.

Woman Sues Costco Over Hepatitis A.

When an outbreak starts, there’s a race to identify people who may have been exposed and give them treatment. Antibodies or a vaccine against the virus can prevent the illness if administered within two weeks after exposure. But in the case of the berries, at least 119 people have already become ill.

There are a couple of very interesting lessons to learn from this outbreak. First, our food supply is more global than you might think. According to the CDC, the berries in the implicated mix come from the U.S., Argentina, Chile and Turkey. The agency says the strain of hepatitis A causing this outbreak would be unusual in the Americas, so the problem berries or pomegranate seeds in this mix were likely imported.

Read about Dr. Besser’s book, “Tell Me the Truth, Doctor.”

Why is this important? Although the Food Safety and Modernization Act signed into law in January 2011 gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration new authority to ensure the safety of imported foods, those provisions have not yet been implemented. There’s very little inspection of foreign food growers and processors, and almost no inspection of imported foods themselves.

New rules governing imported foods can’t be implemented until stricter rules are in place on domestic produce. Until then, we don’t really inspect — we focus on early identification of outbreaks and then rapid control.

However, my biggest takeaway comes from looking at the characteristics of those who have become infected. The 119 people infected across seven states ranged in age from 2 to 84 years old, according to the CDC. Remarkably, only five people were younger than 18. That’s very unusual.

It may be that fewer children eat berries, but I think the primary reason is prevention. In 2006, we began vaccinating all 1-year-olds against hepatitis A.

Learn about how vaccines aren’t just for kids.

States that have historically had high rates of hepatitis A have been vaccinating longer and have also been providing catch-up vaccines for kids up to age 18.  To date in this outbreak, none of the children who became ill had been vaccinated.

Dr. B’s Bottom Line

On the policy front, we need to implement all the food protection measures Congress passed into law more than two years ago. These cost money, but if we want a safer food supply, we will have to pay for it.

On the prevention front, here’s what you should do:

• Check your freezer to make sure you don’t have any of the implicated frozen berries in there — hepatitis A survives freezing quite nicely;
• If you find one of the dangerous batches, throw it out;
• And think about getting the Hepatitis A vaccine, it works for all ages.

Hepatitis A is rampant in many parts of the world, so if you travel, the vaccine will provide protection. But as this outbreak shows, you don’t need to leave your home to get exposed to viruses from other parts of the world.  Who knows what the next culprit will be?

“Tell Me the Truth, Doctor” is a weekly column written by ABC News’ chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser. Look for Dr. Besser’s book in stores now!

Roughly one in three American singletons is born by C-section, according to the study — up 60 percent from the most recent low in 1996. But the rate of C-section deliveries has steadied since 2009,  a trend experts say is  ”good news” for American moms and babies.

“It’s good news because there’s some inherent risks in C-section deliveries compared to vaginal births,” said study author Michelle Osterman, a health statistician at  the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s a very invasive abdominal surgery, and with that comes risks to both mom baby as well as higher cost.”

Read about how the royal birth will be just like yours — only posh. 

But there are ups and downs buried in the apparent plateau. While the rate of C-sections performed at 37 or 38 weeks has fallen 4 percent since 2009, the rate of full-term C-sections performed after 39 weeks has increased 3 percent, the study found.

Osterman said the swings could stem from new guidelines issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which state that vaginal delivery is “appropriate and should be recommended” in the absence of maternal or fetal complications, and that C-section delivery on maternal request “should not be performed before a gestational age of 39 weeks.”

Learn how a vaginal delivery affects a baby’s gut bacteria.

In another example of canceled out ups and downs, C-section rates decreased by 7 percent among women younger than 25 but rose by at least 3 percent for women 25 and older. The rates also varied by location, with some states, such as New York, Oklahoma and Oregon, seeing decreases in 38-week C-section rates since 2009, and others, such as Maryland, Michigan and California, seeing increases in 39-week C-section rates.

Several states saw both increases and decreases in C-section rates, depending on the timing of the delivery, according to the study.

Read about how C-section rates vary widely between hospitals.

The study  looked only at singleton births because multiples are more likely to be delivered by C-section out of medical necessity, according to Osterman.

Yogurt eaten with a lightweight plastic spoon is tastier. Photo credit: Getty Images

Lightweight plastic spoons make food taste yummier. That’s the conclusion of a study published in the journal Flavour that set out to determine if the spoon you use to eat your yogurt makes a difference in how it tastes.

It turns out the answer is yes.

7 Summer Calorie Bombs

After sampling yogurt with several different spoons, the 35 participants in the Oxford University study voted the yogurt eaten from a lightweight plastic spoon as creamier and more expensive tasting compared to the same yogurt eaten from a heavier plastic spoon.

In previous studies the Oxford team found that people prefer food eaten with a heavier silver spoon and in general prefer heavier plates, cups and even wine bottles.  However, in this case, subjects were expecting the plastic spoons to feel light.

“A spoon that looks light but is heavy as in our most recent study is bad, not because of the weight but likely because of the confounded expectation,” Charles Spence, one of the lead researchers explained.

 Healthy Recipes from Daphne Oz

The study also found that yogurt tasted sweeter when eaten off a light-colored spoon but not so sweet when eaten off a black spoon. When pink yogurt was served on a blue spoon, subjects said it tasted saltier and less sweet than when it was served on a white spoon, possibly because they found the color contrast less pleasing.

These findings reveal a lot more about the complexity of taste perception and food enjoyment than just spoon preference, the researchers say. Diners think their taste buds fancy a particular food but in reality, everything from the color of a plate to overhead lighting to background music exerts an influence over the eating experience.

Spence said he believes this type of information can be used to help people lose weight.

For example, earlier studies done by the oxford team found that dessert served on a white plate tastes 10 percent sweeter than the exact same treat served on black plate.

Research done by the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University discovered that people eat 16 percent more cereal when they use a larger bowl compared to a smaller bowl. Even worse, they believe they’re eating 7 percent less. And another study by the Cornell lab found that people given short wide glasses poured 76 percent more soda than those who had randomly been given tall slender glasses. They believed, however, that they had poured less.

Reported by Dr. Ana Nobis for ABC News Health

Gluten, the protein found in wheat, barley and rye, causes a lot of trouble for a lot of people. Nearly 2 million Americans suffer from celiac disease, a condition where the inability to properly digest gluten leads to chronic gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating, gas and diarrhea.

On Tuesday, Dr. Richard Besser, chief health and medical correspondent for ABC News, hosted a Twitter chat on this common, yet commonly misdiagnosed disease to clear up any myths and misconceptions about celiac, gluten intolerance and gluten-free eating. Dr. Besser was joined by top experts from around the country.

Click here for the full chat transcript. Read on for the highlights.

What causes celiac disease?

Celiac disease occurs when an individual’s own immune system overreacts to gluten. The inflammatory response damages the delicate lining of the small intestine, where most nutrients are absorbed.

#Celiac is autoimmune- gluten intake leads to erosion of the intestinal wall which causes nutrient malabsorption #nypnutrition #abcdrbchat

— NewYork-Presbyterian (@nyphospital) June 25, 2013

#abcDrBChat Celiac is an autoimmune intolerance to gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye – ultimately causing malnutrition

— Barnabas Health ACC (@StBarnACC) June 25, 2013

Who gets celiac disease?

About 1 percent of the population has celiac disease, according to National Institutes of Health statistics.

Certain genes place individuals at increased risk for celiac disease, but not everyone who has those genes will get the disease. And genes are only half the story: The disease only develops when someone who is genetically predisposed to celiac eats gluten.

Women are more likely to suffer from celiac. So are people with type 1 diabetes, Down syndrome, Turner syndrome, autoimmune thyroid disease and Sjogren’s syndrome. It’s more common in Caucasians than other ethnicities and anyone with a close relative who has the disease. Both children and adults can be celiac.

An unknown percentage of people may not have full-blown celiac but struggle with gluten sensitivities or gluten intolerance.

T2: About 1 in 141 people in the U.S. have celiac disease, but note that it often goes undiagnosed. #abcDrBchat

— Angela Haupt (@angelahaupt) June 25, 2013

T2 Celiac disease affects about 1% of population; gluten sensitivity about 6% of population #abcdrbchat

— abast (@abast) June 25, 2013

What are the symptoms of celiac disease?

There are three forms of celiac disease: classic, atypical and asymptomatic.

People who struggle with a classic form of the disease often experience diarrhea and weight loss. People with the atypical form experience the digestive complaints along with symptoms like anemia, fatigue, headaches, joint pain, osteoporosis, numbness or tingling in the hands or feet, or an itchy skin condition known as dermatitis herpetiformis.

Asymptomatic disease—as the name implies—is often detected accidentally during medical tests run for some other medical problem; however these patients frequently notice improvements in symptoms such as fatigue after adopting a gluten-free diet.

Classic: 3 features: villous atrophy; symptoms of malabsorption, resolution of symptoms on gluten-free #abcdrbchat

— Ana Nobis (@ananobis) June 25, 2013

T3 #CeliacDisease can be asymptomatic, which is dangerous bc malabsorption can lead to severe vitamin deficiencies #abcDrBchat

— Lori Rosenthal, RD (@LoRoRD) June 25, 2013

Who should get tested and how is it diagnosed?

Individuals with autoimmune conditions associated with celiac disease should get screened. So should people with first degree relatives who have celiac. Initial screening involves a simple blood test to check for specific antibodies produced in celiacs after they’ve consumed gluten. The diagnosis is confirmed by an endoscopy and biopsy of the small intestine.

There’s no reliable test for gluten sensitivity or intolerance. A doctor often makes this diagnosis when other medical conditions are ruled out.

T4: The gold standard for #celiac diagnosis is the intestinal biopsy confirmed with positive serologies. #abcdrbchat

— Columbia U Med Ctr (@ColumbiaMed) June 25, 2013

T5: I had a blood test then endoscopy to confirm celiac. Scared to do endoscopy but turned out to be very easy. #abcdrbchat

— Heather Wilson (@HeatherBeeV23) June 25, 2013

How do you treat celiac disease?

Currently the only way to treat celiac disease is to eliminate gluten from the diet. This means avoiding any products containing wheat, barley, rye, and triticale (a cross between wheat and rye). Oats don’t contain gluten but some oat products can be contaminated with wheat. Rice, corn, and soy are naturally gluten-free. Many celiacs find it helpful to meet with a registered dietitian and nutritionist to help plan a diet that’s gluten-free and healthy.

T5: Some patients feel better in just a few weeks, while others take over a year to feel changes from a #glutenfree diet #abcDrBchat

— Vanessa M. Weisbrod (@CeliacPrincess) June 25, 2013

T6 Most medical professionals recommend eliminating gluten from your diet only if there's a medical reason to do so. #abcDrBchat

— Celiac Central (@CeliacAwareness) June 25, 2013