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When To Seek Medical Advice
If you notice or experience any of the signs or symptoms common to celiac disease, see your doctor. If someone in your family is known to have celiac disease, you may need to be tested. This will help you avoid complications associated with not treating the disease, such as osteoporosis, anemia and certain types of cancer. Seek medical attention for a child who is pale, irritable, fails to grow and who has a potbelly, flat buttocks and malodorous, bulky stools. Many other conditions can cause these same signs and symptoms, so it's important to talk to your doctor before trying a gluten-free diet |
Diagnosis and ScreeningPart of the reason for the previous underdiagnosis of celiac disease may be because the disorder resembles several other conditions that can cause malabsorption. Another reason may be that if doctors believe the condition to be rare, they will frequently look to more common disorders to explain the signs and symptoms a person presents. In addition, specific blood tests now allow for diagnosis of people with celiac disease who have very mild signs and symptoms or none at all. People with celiac disease carry higher-than-normal levels of certain antibodies (antigliadin, anti-endomysium and anti-tissue transglutaminase). Antibodies are specialized proteins that are part of your immune system and work to eliminate foreign substances in your body. In people with celiac disease, their immune system may be recognizing gluten as a foreign substance and producing elevated levels of antibodies to get rid of it. Doctors use a blood test to initially detect people who are most likely to have the disease and who may need further testing. To confirm the diagnosis, your doctor may need to microscopically examine a small portion of intestinal tissue to check for damage to the villi. The tissue is generally obtained by threading a thin, flexible tube (endoscope) through your mouth, esophagus and stomach into your small intestine and taking a sample of intestinal tissue. A trial of a gluten-free diet also can confirm a diagnosis, but don't go on such a diet before seeking a medical evaluation. Doing so may change the results of blood tests and biopsies so that they appear to be normal. |
Risk FactorsAlthough celiac disease can affect anyone, it tends to be more common in people of European descent and people with disorders caused by a reaction of the immune system (autoimmune disorders), such as:
A large, multicenter study of more than 13,000 people, published in February 2003, indicates that celiac disease may be much more common in the United States than previously suspected. Researchers found that among the study participants, one out of 133 had the disease. For those closely related to a person with celiac disease, such as a parent or sibling, the prevalence was even higher: one in 22. |
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