September 13 is National Celiac Awareness Day

September 13 is National Celiac Awareness Day. Celiac disease, an ailment that was once little-known and misunderstood, is now one of the most commonly talked-about diseases in existence today. In fact, it is estimated that 1 in 133 Americans have celiac disease and an estimated 2 million people remain unaware that they are affected by it. However, many people still do not understand the illness fully this can make life very difficult for those who have it. Celiac disease relates to gluten, a protein compound found in most grains, breads, and cereals. Contrary to popular belief, celiac disease is not an allergy to wheat but a genetic autoimmune disorder that causes the body to attack itself when gluten is ingested. Chicago Healers Practitioner Dr. Ian Wahl, DAc, LAc, says celiac disease is difficult to diagnose without an accurate blood test and many people are misdiagnosed because it presents as such a wide range of seemingly common symptoms, which include:

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Celiac disease and Crohn’s disease share part of their genetic background

An investigation has found that celiac disease and Crohn’s disease, both inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, share at least four genetic risk loci. Together, researchers from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands; the Broad Institute, USA; the Université de Montréal and Montreal Heart Institute in Canada performed a combined meta-analysis of genome-wide data for celiac disease and Crohn’s disease. This meta-analysis, published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics on January 27, has identified two new shared risk loci and two shared risk loci that had previously been independently identified for each disease.

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Study finds celiac patients can eat hydrolyzed wheat flour

Baked goods made from hydrolyzed wheat flour are not toxic to celiac disease patients, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute. Celiac disease occurs in the digestive system when people cannot tolerate a protein called gluten, which is found primarily in wheat.

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UM School of Medicine Center for Celiac Research finds rate of celiac disease is growing

Study finds increasing number of celiac cases, particularly in the elderly

Working to solve the puzzle of when people develop celiac disease has led researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Celiac Research to some surprising findings. They have found that the autoimmune disorder is on the rise with evidence of increasing cases in the elderly. An epidemiological study published September 27 in the Annals of Medicine supports both trends—with interesting implications for possible treatment and prevention.

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Cost of prostate cancer care varies with initial treatment choice

A new analysis has found that short-term and long-term costs of prostate cancer care vary considerably based on which treatment strategy a man initially receives. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study finds that treatments that may be less expensive in the short-term may have higher long-term costs.

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Vitamins needed to help celiacs stave off bone disease

Children with celiac disease need to include certain must-have vitamins in their diets to stave off weak bones and osteoporosis, say researchers at the University of Alberta.

A study of 43 children and teens from three to 18 years of age diagnosed with celiac disease showed that they also tended to have low bone density, likely due to poor intake and absorption of vitamins and minerals. That means they should be getting more of bone-boosting vitamins such as K and D in their diets, says Diana Mager, a professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science at the U of A, and one of the researchers on the project.

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Is biopsy avoidable on diagnosis of celiac disease?

Diagnosis of celiac disease is based on a characteristic enteropathy in an intestinal biopsy and evidence that these changes are gluten-triggered. The appropriate use of simpler and more accurate tools would add reliability to the diagnosis of celiac disease. Thus, the celiac disease-related serology might have a key role in defining new diagnostic standards for celiac disease.

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Novel processing technologies developed for extending use of oats in gluten-free diet

Contact: Elke Arendt
e.arendt@ucc.ie
35-321-490-2064
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Oats is a highly nutritious cereal, which can be tolerated by large number of celiac patients. A range of commercial oat flours as well as specific oat flours produced from single varieties have been evaluated for their suitability for bread-baking. Enzyme technology, bioprocessing as well as high-pressure processing technology have been successfully applied to improve the quality, safety and nutritional attributes of oat based foods.

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Conquering a severe complication of celiac disease

Contact: Karen Honey
press_releases@the-jci.org
734-546-5242
Journal of Clinical Investigation
One severe complication of celiac disease is enteropathy-associated T cell lymphoma, a high-grade invasive lymphoma with a very poor prognosis. Previous research has suggested that chronic exposure of immune cells in the walls of the small intestine, which are known as intraepithelial lymphocytes, to potent anti-death signals initiated by the soluble factor IL-15 contributes to the development of enteropathy-associated T cell lymphoma. A team of researchers, at INSERM U989, Université René Descartes, France, has now identified the survival signals delivered by IL-15 to freshly isolated human intraepithelial lymphocytes and to intraepithelial lymphocyte cell lines derived from patients with type II refractory celiac disease — a clinical state considered an intermediary step between celiac disease and enteropathy-associated T cell lymphoma. Importantly, treatment with an antibody directed at IL-15 caused intraepithelial lymphocytes to die and wiped out their accumulation in mice overexpressing human IL-15 in the lining of their gut. The team, led by Nadine Cerf-Bensussan and Bertrand Meresse, therefore suggests that IL-15 and its downstream survival signals might provide new targets for the treatment of type II refractory celiac disease. Read more

Gut bacteria offer new insights — and hope — for people with celiac disease

Contact: Cody Mooneyhan
cmooneyhan@faseb.org
301-634-7104
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Read more

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