Celiac disease (CD)

Introduction

Celiac disease (CD)

Celiac disease is one of the most common lifelong disorders, about 1% of the world population. It is a genetically inflammation response autoimmune symptom that is caused by the consumption of proline-rich and glutamine-rich proteins grains, such as wheat, barley, rye, etc. Ingestion of gluten in CD can cause the continuous impairment to the mucus in the intestine that is able to lead to malabsorption, diarrhea, abdominal distension and adsorption disorder, in the end, lose weights and malnutrition. The only one safe and effective treatmeny for the CD patient is strictly control the diet by consuming only gluten-free product (1,14).

From many recent study, the need of enhancement the nutritional quality of gluten-free products still play a very important role in the replacement of cereal products which are not edible for people that have Celiac disease. Pseudocereals, which are cereal-like products, have been improved for many years and attracted many scientists because of their highly nutritional compositions. Despite amaranth has been applied to many process food products such as bread and pasta. However, the commercialization of pseudocereal products is still limited and need more development to be the alternative choice for consumer. (1)

Amaranth

Amaranth, little-known crop originated from Central America (6), is a pseudocereal and being grown for its seeds and its leaves as a highly nutritious plant since the ancient time as early as 7000 years ago in the Central and South America by the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Mayas to be an important source of proteins and vitamins (2). However, due to ritual used by Aztecs, there were prohibited after the conquest by Spain in the 16th centur...

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...h is monocotyledonous. Its seeds that are ranging from pale white to brown are small (1.0-1.5 mm average diameter and weight about 0.6 to 1.2 mg) and lenticular in shape. Nevertheless, it has astonishing nutritional characteristics. To illustrate, high quality protein content with all essential amino acids (5) especially lysine, tryptophan and other sulfur amino acids (5, 7) comparing with other cereals and it does not contain or contain very low amount of prolamine and gluteline or gluten. Furthermore, amaranth seeds also contain high level of vitamins such as vitamins A, B complex and E, Minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc and etc. (5, 8, 9), high dietary fibers and high content of antioxidants and free radical scavengers such as tocopherols, trocotrienols and squalene which is as expensive terpenoid compound, mainly come from shark and whale liver oils (8, 13).