Research study finds new insight about celiac disease


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A study published by in the Monday edition of Annals of Medicine found that celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder, can actually arise later in life. The study found the disease to have almost doubled among a group of 3,511 healthy adults between 1974 and 1989.

“We were shocked,” Dr. Alessio Fasano told the Los Angeles Times.

Fasano is the pediatrician who led the study at the Center for Celiac Research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Although doctors had believed the disease developed during childhood in response to initial exposure to gluten, researchers and doctors now do not know exactly what causes the disease.

However, Fasano said that environmental factors could trigger changes in the immune system, which could activate anti-gluten genes.

“A lot of those rules of thumb have to be re-evaluated as we learn more about it and we find patients developing the disease later in life,” Dr. Eric Esrailian, a gastroenterologist at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, told the Times.