IN 2002, Krishna Stanton ran into the stadium in the Commonwealth Games marathon in second place, behind friend and fellow Australian Kerryn McCann.
As Stanton raised her hands to cross the finish line, the cheering crowd in Manchester, northern England, had no concept about what it had taken her to get there. And Stanton herself was unaware that a serious lifelong disease was causing the chronic ill health that had more or less derailed her athletic career. The marathon, it seems, was the easy part.
It wasn’t until 2004 that Stanton was diagnosed with coeliac disease, a digestive auto immune disorder in which gluten — a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats — causes the body to produce antibodies that attack the lining of the small bowel.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25213084-23289,00.html