Latest news with #coeliacdisease
The Independent
4 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
People who can't eat gluten given prepaid cash cards in UK first
People in Wales who cannot eat gluten will soon be able to use prepaid cards to purchase specialised food, the Welsh government announced today. The cards, which will be rolled out in a UK-first this autumn after a trial, will be topped up every three months and the amount for each patient will vary. The scheme aims to give people with conditions such as coeliac disease access to a bigger range of gluten-free food, and allow them to avoid relying on pharmacy prescriptions. Cherylee Barker, 54, who was diagnosed with coeliac disease in 2007 and took part in the trial, said she got £14 a month on her card as part of the scheme, which she told the BBC only "scratches the surface of the cost". Coeliac disease is a serious autoimmune illness in which the body's immune system attacks its tissue when gluten is consumed. It affects one in 100 people. The Welsh cabinet secretary for health and social care, Jeremy Miles, said: 'For people living with coeliac disease, following a strict gluten-free diet is not a lifestyle choice but a medical necessity.' Miles said they want to demedicalise Wales' gluten-free food supply and give people more options. He said it will also help cut the current administrative burdens on GPs and pharmacies, and promote NHS resources. Its users will have to pay for gluten-containing food separately to ensure it is being used legitimately. Tristan Humphreys from, Coeliac UK, said: 'For those living with coeliac disease, basic gluten-free products are on average more than double their gluten-containing counterparts. 'This scheme offers an empowering, practical alternative for patients, and we know the coeliac community in Wales will be encouraged by this flexible new support option.'
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Wales to roll out subsidy cards to help reduce cost of gluten-free food
People with coeliac disease and gluten intolerance in Wales will be eligible for a pre-paid card designed to help towards the cost of specialised foods. The debit-style subsidy cards will be rolled out in a UK-first this autumn, the Welsh government said on Friday. The scheme aims is to give people with conditions such as coeliac disease and dermatitis herpetiformis access to a wider range of gluten-free food at supermarkets and online, rather than relying on prescriptions from a pharmacy. Money will be added to cards every three months and amount for patients will vary and be regularly new system is expected to be 'cost neutral', the Welsh government said in a statement. The Welsh cabinet secretary for health and social care, Jeremy Miles, said: 'For people living with coeliac disease, following a strict gluten-free diet is not a lifestyle choice but a medical necessity. 'The scheme will contribute to reducing administrative burdens on GPs and pharmacies, while promoting a more effective use of NHS resources.' About one in 100 people in the UK have coeliac disease, but only 36% with the condition in Wales have been medically diagnosed, according to charity Coeliac UK. The disease is an autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, that causes the body to attack its own tissues and an impaired uptake in nutrients. Symptoms include bloating, vomiting, diarrhoea, fatigue, and ulcers. In serious cases, it can lead to osteoporosis, nerve problems, infertility, and small bowel cancer. The only treatment for the chronic condition is a strictly gluten-free diet, which Coeliac UK says can add up to 35% to food bills. The new card scheme was tested over five years by the Hywel Dda University Health Board, which covers Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, and Pembrokeshire. Cherylee Barker, 54, from Narbeth in Pembrokeshire, took part in the pilot and was given £42 every three months towards the cost of gluten-free foods. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion 'I was diagnosed with coeliac disease in 2007 and quickly realised that maintaining a gluten-free diet would be costly, with limited shopping options and hit-and-miss food choices,' she said. 'I jumped at the chance to join the pilot. I could try new products without feeling financially stretched and take back control of my diet. The card empowers me to buy the food I want and make better lifestyle choices.' People in Wales who receive gluten-free food on prescription will have the option to continuing with the old system, similar to that in place in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
BBC News
7 days ago
- Health
- BBC News
Gluten-free prescriptions could be withdrawn for adult coeliac patients
Adult patients with coeliac disease in South Yorkshire could have their gluten-free food prescriptions withdrawn as the NHS tries to save patients diagnosed with the disease can get prescriptions for gluten-free (GF) bread and flour, but proposals mean only those under 18 would be Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), which plans to withdraw the prescriptions, said GF food was readily available in most supermarkets and the change would save the NHS locally around £372, doctors and patients raised concerns the "poorest and most vulnerable" patients would struggle with the cost and the move could cause long-term health problems. The lifelong autoimmune disease is caused by a reaction to gluten found in grains like wheat, barley, and 7,856 patients across South Yorkshire have a diagnosis, according to the ICB examined the price of bread in several supermarkets and found at the highest end, Lidl's GF 480g white loaf was £2.99 compared to an 800g normal loaf for 49p.A prescription allows patients between eight and 10 loaves a month on the NHS. Helen Armstrong from Sheffield was diagnosed in 2014 and writes the food blog Steeliac, offering GF recipes and restaurant said: "I think the public sometimes has a misconception that prescriptions enable people to get cakes and biscuits on the NHS."I'm thankfully able to afford to buy the basics but people with lower incomes will be severely impacted and it's the budget supermarkets where we are seeing the biggest price difference between GF and normal bread."It will have a huge impact on people who are shopping on limited budgets." The coeliac specialty service in Sheffield Hallamshire Hospital sees 400-500 patients per year and says prescriptions help patients stick to a GF dietitian Dr Nick Trott said: "This disease is a severe autoimmune condition, it's not an intolerance, and there is no other medical treatment apart from a strict, lifelong gluten-free diet."If these prescriptions are withdrawn the people it will affect are the poorer, more socially and economically deprived members of society, the people who are most likely to struggle to adhere to the only treatment."It's targeting, potentially, a group of people who are most vulnerable."I think potentially this could be seen as a short-term cost saving that will have knock-on effects down the line that would result in more healthcare costs in the long term."The change would follow national guidelines and align with neighbouring health ICB said: "If patients can't access prescribed GF products, this may increase the likelihood that they consume gluten, leading to medical complications and higher cost to the NHS."It should be noted however that manufactured GF bread often contains ultra-processed ingredients."By prescribing manufactured GF products, the NHS could be seen to be encouraging the consumption of ultra-processed foods." An NHS South Yorkshire spokesperson said: "We are currently reviewing gluten-free prescribing guidance to understand if it still provides the best value for the people of South Yorkshire."We have listened to local people and taken into consideration national context to ensure best value for money as well as meeting the needs of our population."We are seeking the views of councillors to assess what we have heard and consider any further engagement activity".Sheffield City Council will discuss the proposal at a meeting later. Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North
News.com.au
13-07-2025
- News.com.au
What really happens on an inaugural flight at Scoot
Laying on the floor of Singapore's Changi Airport at 2am, I am waiting to be one of the first people to board Scoot's Inaugural Flight from Singapore to Vienna. It's set to be one of the longer flight's I've personally been on during my adulthood — usually I have at least two stopovers on an international flight. And, adding to this, flying on an airline I've not had any experience with before. Flying is always a nerve-racking experience for me, particularly when the flight is longer than eight hours. But, at the same time, I am always looking to fly on a budget. So, why not? What the flight was like? Before boarding the flight, I took my lovely colleague's advice to load up on snacks because, like most budget airlines, meals aren't a given on a Scoot Flight. You have to order the meal when you book your ticket. There is also a menu on board, where you can pick from a variety of items such as hot cup of noodles or a BBQ chicken baguette. You're not really supposed to take your own snacks on board, but it's almost an unwritten rule that everyone does, right? I am one of those weird freaks who loved plane food — until I was diagnosed with coeliac disease. It often means that on planes I am thoroughly limited as to what I can eat. On one long-haul flight to the UK, I was once served the same meal on all three flights. But, Scoot was able to cater to my dietary needs. I was served a Ragout of Chicken and Potato, and a Dahl Curry on another and could pick from having a water or soft drink, and a slice of cake. When I pointed out the cake was not gluten free, airline staff were very quick to change it for me. The food was lovely and warm — literally no complaints. I appreciated the effort that staff went to in order to cater for me and my auto-immune disease. Scoot, like most budget airlines, doesn't have a first or business class. But, it has Scoot Plus — akin to premium economy in my mind — Scoot in Silence and Economy. Scoot in Silence was where my seat was assigned on the inaugural flight from Singapore to Vienna. It's separated from most of the aircraft and is considered to be like the quiet carriage on the train. It is the exact same seat size as the rest of the aircraft, but if you're an anxious flyer, or have things you need to get done, it is literally the perfect place to be sat. As someone who never sleeps on a plane — and I mean have flown close to 30 hours, and then jumped on a train for an additional six and was lucky to have slept three hours in that whole time — I slept for basically the entire flight. I woke up for food, listened to some beautiful music, and went back to sleep. I genuinely attribute this to how quiet and peaceful this section was. On the way home, I was lucky enough to sit in Scoot Plus. It's very much similar to Scoot In Silence, there is just a bit more room and the seats are more comfortable. It does cost more than its counterpart but if you want levels of comfort on your trip. Again, I was asleep for most of the flight. It was a life-changing experience when it came to preparing for jet lag. Scoot also doesn't have a television on board — but you can get WIFI. I do recommend booking WIFI before your trip as it is cheaper. So, the message is to stack up on streaming downloads, books, podcasts and music before you walk down the jet bridge and onto the plane. What's so special about an inaugural flight? So, what is it like to be on an inaugural flight for a low-cost airline? Before the flight, everyone was given an opportunity to snap pictures on a media wall to memorialise the occasion and given a goodie bag. It was filled with goodies such as chocolate — which Austria is renowned for — and paper hand fans promoting Vienna's rich heritage as a music city. It was fun and created quite a bit of fanfare for an overnight long-haul flight, which was nice. In my naivety, I expected there not to be too many people waiting for 'the first flight' and yet, I was wrong. So many people were stoked to have a gateway into Eastern Europe, which made sense with Austria bordering countries such as Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary Germany, Italy and Slovenia. It's probably one of the best ways for Australians to fly into Europe, see as many places as possible for the European Summer, before making the long-haul flight home. One of the biggest draws to Austria in general is the fact that it is known for its music, with Eurovision stars such as Concita Wurst for more current times and the great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As a nod to the country we were flying into, Scoot organised for Singaporean musicians, the T'ang Quartet, to serenade passengers with an in-flight performance. I'll have to say that was a first for me. But again, it was all about adding an element of fun and excitement to the fanfare of this flight launch. It was genuinely a beautiful experience and probably one I will never get to again. Another fun thing was when the plane landed, it was greeted with a water salute, and we were able to stand on the tarmac and take snaps with the plane. So, why fly Scoot? I think the airline's chief operating officer Ng Chee Keong, put it best when he told 'I think we want to distinguish ourselves from other low-cost carriers.' He said one of the biggest differences is that most low-cost carriers offer only one aircraft type, as it's easier when it comes to things such as servicing the aircraft. But, Scoot flies Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A320, as well as Embraer E190-E2. Each aircraft caters to different needs, such as Boeing typically flying long-haul. 'It's not your normal low-cost airline, ' he said, saying the entire business is built on the belief that people want to travel but that each person has their own individual need to be met and that every flight should be customisable for that person. Mr Keong said it's all about providing the opportunities, saying that the Vienna flight from Singapore provides a gateway into Eastern Europe. 'We have seen how interest can grow, how places that were once forgotten come together and flourish,' he said. 'Now there is a flight, there is commerce possibility and tourism.' He said that the business sees every customer as an individual, and that is true in my experience. Every part of the trip is customisable — where you sit, whether or not you eat, what you eat, how you spend your time and how much money you spend. It's definitely an option I — as someone who usually flies alone — would consider in the future. The flight between Vienna and Singapore will operate three times a week using its Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners.
Telegraph
03-07-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
‘My great-grandfather invented rationing. Britain would be healthier if we brought it back'
Video by Claudia Marquis Like most of us in Britain, Claudia Marquis, a video journalist at The Telegraph, first learnt about wartime food rationing in a Year Six history class. But she had only ever known a restricted diet herself, after she was diagnosed with coeliac disease at the age of two. Coeliac disease is triggered by gluten consumption and is an autoimmune disorder where cells inside the small intestine attack themselves, so most with it follow a strict gluten-free diet. That means avoiding products like bread, pasta, cakes and cereals. 'I had a special cupboard for my food at school, and I could never eat things at birthday parties or on trips away without checking all of the ingredients first,' Claudia recalls. Fortunately, with a great-grandfather like Fred Marquis – latterly the Lord Woolton, made in recognition of his work as Minister of Food – eating in a different way to most was never a cause for embarrassment. Marquis himself had colitis, another autoimmune condition managed mostly through diet. Claudia's father, Marquis' grandson, remembers the Lord Woolton's diet to have been a plain and unvaried one. What people ate during the ration, which lasted from January 1940 to the summer of 1954, was not unlike what Marquis had always eaten at home. The food minister had a task on his hands in getting the nation to accept it themselves, however. With supply lines under attack from the Axis powers, feeding the country at all would be extremely difficult, and ensuring fairness in access to food even more so. While the wealthy ate well and obesity was scarce, food poverty and malnutrition was rampant in the poor working families that made up much of the population. A 1936 survey estimated that 4.5 million people had inadequate diets. The picture is not so different today. According to a report by the charity FoodCycle, 7.2 million UK households struggle to afford healthy meals in 2025. Hunger may not be so widespread, but fresh food can often be out of reach to those on tight budgets, leading many to rely on ultra-processed products that are low in fibre and protein and high in salt, sugar and preservatives. These foods are often far cheaper given their long shelf lives, but they are also delicious, and whatever the size of our wallets, too many of us have a dependence on them. We consume around 60 per cent of our calories from them each day, a major reason why one third of adult Britons are officially obese. What's more, one in five adults now live with diabetes or prediabetes, and we have the lowest life expectancy in Western Europe. The health benefits of rationing What would happen if ultra-processed foods were suddenly removed from our diets? Rationing was 'a unique opportunity to look at what happens when you level the playing field, which is what it was designed to do,' says Sam Rice, author of The Midlife Kitchen and The Telegraph's nutrition expert. 'General mortality rates went down. Rates of cardiovascular disease went down. Children tended to be taller if they were growing up in that period.' For all, but especially the least affluent, 'it was definitely a net benefit'. Marquis averted disaster at home by ensuring that no one starved. People in other parts of Europe were not so lucky. One of the worst-hit countries was the Netherlands, where a German blockade in 1944 led to a huge famine. It was during this time however that a massive breakthrough was also made in the understanding of coeliac disease. 'A Dutch paediatrician called William Dicker found that a lot of his coeliac patients saw their symptoms disappear during that period, and come back once more foods became available,' says Rice. The reintroduction of bread – and with it, gluten – was his 'eureka moment', and 'subsequently the first dietary treatments for coeliac disease were created, like the gluten-free diet'. The 1940s were really 'the beginning of our understanding of gut health and gut conditions,' says Rice. What we know 80 years on is that the foods people ate during rationing would have been excellent for their gut health, and the health of our guts are crucial to everything from our risk of colorectal cancer and ability to maintain a healthy weight, to our moods, brains and memories. The importance of seasonal eating People 'would have been eating very seasonally', says Rice, meaning that they got the full benefit of the vitamins in their fruit and vegetables. A 'waste not, want not' attitude to eating encouraged people to use the skins and ends of vegetables, 'where most of the fibre is stored'. Other foods such as the National Loaf, a wholewheat brown (or grey) bread that replaced refined white bread and used both germ and bran, was packed with yet more fibre and micronutrients. Milk was available in generous amounts, so people made it into yoghurt at home, which was high in prebiotics. 'That certainly would have been a big boost to their guts,' Rice says. These days, people with coeliac disease are often advised to take good care of their gut health. Doing so limits inflammation and 'makes my gut more resilient to any foods containing gluten that I eat accidentally,' Claudia says. Recent research suggests that all of us could do with consuming gluten with greater moderation, as some studies have found that cutting down on gluten can improve digestion, reduce bloating and help to counteract fatigue. Foods such as the Woolton Pie, so named for the Lord Woolton, were often made without gluten, as the flour ration was tight. The pie was filled with root vegetables including carrots, swedes and cauliflower, which weren't rationed as they could be grown at home. It was sometimes topped with wheatmeal pastry, but more commonly with a mixture of mashed potato and lard (to save on the butter ration). The impact on gut health The variety of vegetables, providing fibre and micronutrients, and the potato-based pastry on top 'would have been excellent for people's gut health,' says Rice. Even the lard would have had benefits: it is 'lower in saturated fat than butter, and higher in monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats, including omega three, as well as being lower in cholesterol and containing some vitamin D'. Her only complaint by modern standards is that the pie 'didn't contain much protein'. These days, she says, you'd want to add a tin of lentils or beans to make up the difference. The pie is still enjoyed today by Claudia's aunt, Lady Alexandra Elletson, who is Fred Marquis' granddaughter. 'I would have met him when I was three or four, but sadly I was too young to remember it. I would have loved to have a conversation with him about the war, because I think of him very highly,' Lady Elletson says. An avid cook, she always boils, fries or bakes from scratch, and she has an attitude to food that Marquis surely would have approved of. 'I love seasonal food,' Lady Elletson says. 'I don't want strawberries in October. I make a roast every Sunday, even if it's just my husband and I at home, and the meat does me in sandwiches or pies for the rest of the week.' The Woolton pie is a favourite because 'it's comfort food, it really fills everyone up,' she adds. 'All the men and women working during the war needed carbs to fuel them. A pie had to have that lovely pastry on top.' Should we bring back rationing? So, should we bring back rationing? Britain ended World War II in significantly better health than it had been when the conflict began. Obesity was extremely scarce, infant mortality decreased dramatically, and malnutrition was no longer the scourge on our health that it had been. A lot has changed for the worse since then. William Sitwell, The Telegraph's restaurant critic, says he would love to see rationing return, 'but it would take a war', and ultimately, we are all much better off a little overweight and with sub-optimal gut health than we are 'dead on a battlefield'. In any case, we would be far better 'teaching the country how to cook,' says Lady Elletson. 'Lots of people don't know how to cook today, or what should be on their plates. Your stomach is about the same size as your fist, and that's how much you should be eating.' As for Claudia, she's glad to live in a time where she's free to choose how she eats, within the restraints of a gluten-free diet. 'I enjoy what I eat, and there are lots of options for people with coeliac disease and stomach conditions today,' she says, 'but rationing certainly taught people to think carefully about how they fuel their bodies, and we could all stand to learn from that.'
