The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck learned that celiac disease was the culprit thwarting her attempts to get pregnant. She’s by no means alone.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck is used to getting what she goes for. “I came of the mentality that if you work hard for something, you have a good shot of getting it,” says the 32-year-old. She was chosen as a contestant on the second season of the reality TV show “Survivor”, which aired in 2001, and made it to the final four in the Australian Outback. She auditioned for Barbara Walters’ TV show “The View” in 2003 – and got the coveted job on the women’s panel. But when it came to starting a family, diligence wasn’t doing the trick. “And … we were working hard!” Hasselbeck tells Allergic Living with a laugh on the phone from New York.

While she’d figured out that her body didn’t tolerate gluten well, she had no idea that celiac disease was playing a role in preventing her from getting pregnant. The symptoms of celiac disease come in many forms, including: stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhea, chronic fatigue and anemia. But people with untreated celiac disease can also have vitamin deficiencies, migraines, bone and joint pain, depression, weight loss and, as was the case for Hasselbeck, trouble conceiving a child.

What’s alarming is that for some people, “infertility may be the only symptom of celiac disease,” says Dr. Ralph Warren, a gastroenterologist in Toronto. Many women, however, don’t get diagnosed with celiac disease until post-menopause, while others don’t find out at all. For those whose dream is to have a family it’s an unfortunate reality since, as Dr. Peter Green of The Celiac Disease Center in New York says: “It’s a treatable, reversible cause of infertility.”

The two years the Hasselbecks spent trying to conceive after they got married in 2002 were frustrating for Elisabeth. “This was supposed to be on my timeline, I was supposed to be pregnant by now,” she recalls thinking.

Hasselbeck knew she’d had longstanding health troubles, which began in 1997. There were the intense stomach cramps, periods of lethargy and her thyroid problem. She went to doctor after doctor and was diagnosed with stress and irritable bowel syndrome. But no treatment helped. Then after 39 days in the Outback eating almost nothing on “Survivor”, her symptoms miraculously went away.

After the show, it dawned on her: something she was eating must be causing the symptoms. Eventually, she zeroed in on gluten, and concluded she had celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder in which the body reacts to gluten, the protein found in wheat, barley and rye. This leads to damage in the small intestine where the villi, small finger-like projections that absorb nutrients, are flattened. As she describes in her new book, The G Free Diet, despite eating, Hasselbeck had become malnourished.

She began eradicating gluten from her diet, the only way to treat celiac disease, and started to feel better. But the problem was, without a formal diagnosis, Hasselbeck would sometimes inadvertently eat gluten, since she hadn’t learned about all the hidden sources.

Next: Celiac Still Not on the Fertility Radar

Janet Smith was sure she wasn’t overreacting. Her 18-month-old daughter Heather had terrible symptoms: she was throwing up eight times a day, her stomach was bloated, and her diapers needed to be changed constantly. The pediatrician had told Smith it was the stomach flu. “But how long does stomach flu last?” she recalls wondering. “Four months?”

Finally, at her wit’s end, Janet took Heather to a gastroenterologist. He took one look at the tiny girl with skinny arms and legs who, at a year-and-a-half had only gained six pounds since birth, and knew the problem: celiac disease.

How celiac disease works

This autoimmune disorder affects the small intestine. When someone with celiac disease eats gluten – a protein found in wheat, barley and rye – the immune system attacks the small intestine and progressively destroys the villi, tiny finger-like projections that absorb the nutrients in food.

Heather was sent to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto for a biopsy, which confirmed the diagnosis. She was immediately put on a gluten-free diet, and the symptoms reversed. She’s now a healthy 9-year-old who loves to swim and has a passion for dogs.

But her disease isn’t gone; when Heather accidentally eats gluten, she vomits within the hour, and has diarrhea for weeks. Still, her mother considers her one of the lucky ones, because she was diagnosed early. Many children suffer for years with unrecognized celiac disease symptoms.

The gastrointestinal symptoms that Heather endured – vomiting, diarrhea and a bloated stomach – are typical of celiac disease in kids, says Dr. Stefano Guandalini, founder and director of the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Program and a renowned researcher.

The intestine is inflamed, and the body isn’t absorbing the food that the child is eating, which results in malnourishment, weight loss, lack of growth, and personality changes such as sadness and crankiness. Other symptoms include anemia, fatigue, low bone density and short stature. The trouble is, these symptoms are either hard to spot, or could be indicative of other conditions.

Timothy Cooper didn’t have the typical “celiac baby” look and his mother, April Cooper says he was a very happy infant. But from the age of six months until he was 11 years old, he only gained 30 pounds. He suffered from diarrhea, stomach pain and vomiting to the point of needing an intravenous drip to stop dehydration.

“He had all these symptoms that nobody saw,” says Cooper, who lives in Whitby, Ont. Finally, after Timothy didn’t gain any weight in six months, a pediatrician ordered blood tests for celiac disease, which came back positive, as did an intestinal biopsy.

Today, after being on a gluten-free diet for three years, Timothy’s weight has almost doubled, and he’s catching up in height to the shorter students in his class. “It really does make a difference when you absorb the food that you’re eating,” notes his mother.