<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> I would like to welcome the gluten-free mail list members to CELIAC. Several of us had independently arranged to start a listserv-based list on Celiac and gluten-free issues; and were just about to start it when we heard of Evan Hunt's gluten-free list. We thought it best to combine forces. St. John's University has generously offered the use of its computing infrastructure, and the new list, CELIAC, was started this week. As you saw from your "welcome" message, the list has many bells and whistles, such as the ability to do full text searches of all prior postings. Evan will be a primary listowner, along with Mike Jones, who is the editor of an excellent newsletter, The Celiac Action Line. As you know, Evan has entered subscriptions to CELIAC for each of the gluten-free listmembers. We expect many new subscribers to be entered over the next weeks and months. Today, I attended the quarterly meeting of the CDF (Celiac Disease Foundation) in Los Angeles and was given the opportunity to speak about the CELIAC list to the 150 or so people in attendance. All 50 of my handouts were taken, and I expect many will soon join. A new internet list is probably a bit like the first few minutes of a party where not many people know each other -- it may take a little while before things "click" and free-flowing information begins. In the interest of kicking off possible discussion topics, I would like to mention two items: 1) I am personally interested in learning from any of you who have carefully researched vitamin / mineral supplements and found strict gluten-free varieties -- multiple vitamin/minerals, vitamin C, and also calcium/magnesium. If you could post the exact brand and product names, and specifically what you asked the company, I'd really appreciate it. Just today, I found that Country Life had reformulated the type of calcium/magnesium pills which I give to my CD son to include chelated barley protein -- so those are out of the question now. 2) At the CDF meeting today, a doctor making a presentation about magnesium levels in CD noted that in his sample there was evidence that CD people on a GF diet had magnesium levels 10%-20% below the average of non-CD people. His study was small and preliminary, and there was no way to know whether this effect is due to residual malabsorption on a strict GF diet, or whether the patients in his study were not strictly GF (even though they claimed to be). I have not seen much in the medical literature about the need for additional vitamin and mineral supplements (beyond the normal population) for CD people on a strict GF diet -- if any of you have, I would love to hear about it. Best wishes, Bill Elkus