Coeliac disease

Coeliac disease (Celiac disease in American English) is an autoimmune disorder in people when the indigestion of gluten leads to problems in the body. If someone with coeliac disease eats something with gluten (for example, wheat, rye, barley), cells inside the body attack the lining of the intestine. This means that they cannot digest food properly, making them unable to have enough energy, vitamins, or minerals. Children may be unable to grow taller or gain weight properly. People with coeliac disease often lose weight. They are also often tired.

Overview

People with coeliac disease often have bloating and pain in their stomach area, diarrhoea or steatorrhea. These symptoms can lead to flatulence. Their stomachs also start to hurt and they might suffer from joint pains, seizures, rashes, fatigue, slowness in growth and puberty, loss in weight, loss of bone density and fertility issues.

To relieve the effects of coeliac disease, one must stop eating gluten. There are no medicines or cure that can stop coeliac disease. To get fully better, it usually takes about two years of not eating gluten, during which time the previously damaged intestine might recover. They must remain on a gluten-free diet for the rest of their life in order to treat this condition.

Coeliac disease is genetic and relatives (such as children, siblings, parents) with this disease have a 1 in 10 chance of developing coeliac disease. This means that the person affected by it is born with genes that cause the immune system to react poorly to gluten. However, Coeliac disease is not always present during childhood. It can be triggered as an adult by an event such as hormone shifts or illness.

To find out if a person has coeliac disease, doctors look in the blood to see if they have the cells that attack the intestine when gluten is eaten. The protein that attacks the intestine is called an antibody. Antibodies are produced by white blood cells, and they normally stop illnesses from growing in the body, but in the case of coeliac disease, one of the antibodies thinks that gluten is something that will cause illness. Doctors can also look into the patient's intestines with a camera on a tube called an endoscope. This can show if the intestines are being or have been damaged because of coeliac disease.

Other websites

• Celiac Disease Foundation Archived 2006-10-23 at the Wayback Machine
• What is Celiac Disease? Archived 2015-12-08 at the Wayback Machine