Celiac Disease: What Is It? Causes, And Why You Should Care? -

What Is Celiac Disease?

Contents

Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disorder, caused by a reaction to gluten (a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye).

Also, it’s estimated that 1 in 100 people around the world, is affected by celiac disease, and about 30% are only diagnosed.

However, the quality of gluten itself might also play a contributory role.

Gluten triggers your immune response, to attack the small intestine, and leads to damage to the mucosa in the small intestine.

Where the small intestine loses its ability to absorb nutrients and causes nutritional deficiency.

Causes

Celiac disease is caused by wheat consumption in any form, including rye, and barley, also a small number of people react with oats (2)

Studies have shown that triggering a certain type of physical stress that overexcited the immune system that causes celiac disease.

It also observed that celiac often raise after physical incidents such as illness, pregnancy, infection, and surgery.

Celiac can also appear at any age even at a young age in your children, whenever, children begin to eat foods including gluten.

Who Is at More Risk of Celiac Disease?

There are certain people who are more at risk of celiac disease which include:

Type I diabetes
Down syndrome peoples
IgA deficiency (3)
genetics or family history of celiac disease
thyroid disorder
microscopic colitis
Addison’s disease
autoimmune disorder
gender, females at birth are more at risk of it

However, this disease is most commonly found in people with Northern European, and American.

Signs and Symptoms

There are several signs and symptoms, however, some people don’t notice any symptoms at all, which include:

Gastrointestinal signs and symptoms include:

Indigestion
diarrhea
distention
abdominal pain
loss of appetite
lack of absorption
gas
constipation
fatty poop
mouth ulcers (4)

Generally, the symptoms are responsible for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), only later to be recognized as coeliac disease.

Non-classic symptoms are more common in children, especially in under two years old (5)

Malabsorption-related symptoms are:

Weightloss or gain (6)
reduce the growth rate in children
fatigue
lack of energy
anemia
calcium and vitamin D mala absorption may lead to bone issues
copper and since deficiency leads to coeliac disease

However, celiac disease also is associated with other conditions, which include:

IgA deficiency
puberty delay or growth failure later in childhood due to a severe lack of absorption in the body
dermatitis herpetiformis (a chronic autoimmune blister skin condition) also known as celiac rash, and gluten rash
pregnancy complications can also occur if celiac disease is already exited, which causes premature birth, low birth weight, miscarriage, etc
hyposplenism (mark as an absence of normal spleen function) is also associated with celiac disease, where
abnormal liver function

There are several medical conditions where celiac disease may also interfere such as:

Diabetes
underactive thyroid
primary biliary cirrhosis (an autoimmune disorder of the liver)
diarrhea
ataxia
psoriasis
vitiligo
hepatitis
liver and gallbladder inflammation (7)

Check Out – The Immune System: Disorder, Response, And More

How Doctor Test It?

The diagnosis of CD may be difficult because its symptoms can differ from patient to patient.

There are several tests that can be used, and the symptoms help in indicating celiac disease which includes:

Blood tests
Intestine test through Endoscopy (a long, thin tube with a small camera inside it passed into your body through the mouth)
the specific test for checking iron deficiency, folic acid, and vitamins tests
low calcium level check
thyroid function tests because this is more common in celiac disease
blood antibody tests
biopsies (a process, where a piece of tissue from the body is taken to be tested)
genetic tests

Remember, see any of the symptoms if that is not acceptable, then consult the doctor immediately, before any serious issue.

Treatment

There is no specific treatment for celiac disease, however, the most important step to treat it is to avoid eating a gluten diet.

No medicine or drugs are available to prevent the body from being damaged by gluten (8)

Follow life long, strict gluten-free diet, which will lead to improvement in quality of life.

You can also see that when you stop eating a gluten diet, your small intestine will start to heal, which soon able to absorb nutrients.

Larazotide acetate is an anti-zonulin that functions as a gut vulnerability regulator for the treatment of CD (9) (10)

Studies have shown that larazotide controls CD symptoms rather than restoring complete, and preventing gluten from crossing the mucosal lining.

Diet Treatment

Dietitians strictly will tell the patients that do not to consume food that contains gluten and recommend a gluten-free diet (11)

Even, oats and other food may also cause small intestine issues, which will be found after diagnosis.

A gluten-free diet improves the overall quality of life and brings more health benefits, however gluten-free doesn’t completely your fulfillment of nutrition.

Most people find relief after completely stopping the gluten diet, it takes several months to completely heal.

However, healing time depends on how severe your small intestine damage is, and other symptoms.

Vaccination

It is another possible therapeutic strategy to prevent CD, however abdominal pain and vomiting are major side effects of this.

If shown report or study is shown efficacy for cure CD, then vaccination would be a definitive cure

Can CD Be Prevented?

Yes, you can easily prevent CD, just make sure strictly stop to eating a strict gluten diet, which will reverse the damage small intestine.

Complications

People with celiac disease are more at risk of developing heart disease, and 4x greater risk of evolving small bowel cancer (12)

Left untreated or Undiagnosed can leads to serious health complications such as:

The development of other autoimmune disorders
diabetes
Multiple sclerosis
early bone health issues
bladder malfunction
heart disease
malnutrition
mental health issues
pancreatic insufficiency

Severe malnutrition can lead to bone weakening, serious issues during pregnancy, mental health issues, and even cancer.

Down Line

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder triggered by a gluten-based diet that affects the lining of your small intestine and damages it.

Weight gain is the most common symptom of it, and there is no specific cure for it, just stopping consuming gluten is only the treatment.