Failure to thrive

    The University of Chicago has a celiac disease research center. I follow them on Facebook. They say a lot of reassuring stuff, indicating that maybe I could relax my hoodoo on gluten a little bit. But then, they also say that they're going to find a cure to celiac disease and that the way to diagnose it is STILL to keep eating gluten and then get a biopsy. This is STILL like a doctor in the 1950s saying, "That's an ugly cough you've got there, but we can't say for sure what's causing it, so why don't you keep smoking until we're sure?"
    A common indicator for spotting celiac disease in children is "failure to thrive." I like to think that there are additional guidelines to make this less vague, but if there aren't, here's a suggestion. My brother Frank and I used to work out with free weights a lot. (Hey! It was the '70s!) We never developed any muscles that anyone could notice. We got wiry strong, but not muscular. My dad and my oldest brother are quite muscular; the rest of us not at all. Lately, I've been working out very lightly with dumbbells in hopes of making my back stronger. In spite of how very lightly I'm going, I'm noticing muscles developing on my arms. Hmmmmmm. Maybe one aspect of "failure to thrive" that folks should be looking into is "ability to develop muscles after extended exercise." Maybe.