Coeliac disease

Coeliac disease is a disorder of the small intestine which stunts the body's ability to digest nutrients from food. The principal cause of the disorder is the toxic influence of the body's allergic reaction to dietary gluten. A strict wheat and gluten-free diet will relieve the symptoms and make a normal life possible.

Table of contents

1 Signs and symptoms 2 Tests 3 Causes

Signs and symptoms

• Loss of normal villous ("frilly") lining of the small bowel
• Reduced surface area available for absorption
• Coeliac disease improves dramatically when gluten (a protein found in wheat products) is removed from the diet
• Causes malabsorption (diarrhea with bulky pale offensive stools which float)
• Often have secondary iron deficiency or other secondary dietary deficiencies if untreated
• There seems to be an increased lifetime risk of bowel lymphoma
• Runs in families

Tests

Characteristic appearance on bowel biopsy. Patients have gliadin antibodies.

Causes

Unknown but probably:

• Partly a genetic susceptibility to the illness (identical twins dont have 100% concordence however).
• together with an environmental agent, probably a virus or other infection
• It is associated with other autoimmune disease (these diseases are also probably a combination of susceptibility + infection).

See also: Gastroenterology, Gluten-free, casein-free diet