Today, May 27th, on the occasion of World Celiac Disease Day, Dr. Luis Ricardo Rodrigo Sáez tells us about this disease, what are its symptoms and what diseases it can lead to, what are the foods that contain gluten and what is Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity.
The statistics speak for themselves: Between 1-2% of the world’s population has celiac disease. Celiac disease is defined as a permanent intolerance to gluten, which appears in genetically susceptible people and is classified as autoimmune in nature. Naturally, it is a disease that affects all countries of the world, all races, with a slight predominance of women, with a proportion double that of men, as occurs in the rest of the known autoimmune diseases.
Although the predominant symptoms are of the digestive type, it is relatively often accompanied by other extra-digestive diseases that together constitute a complex and florid clinical picture.
It is, therefore, a complex and very “chameleon-like” disease that can be silent, although not always, but can nevertheless derive from and be associated with other diseases, even with some type of cancer. Unfortunately, many people who suffer from the disease are completely unaware of it and it takes many years before they can be diagnosed, due, among other reasons, to the absence of characteristic symptoms or to the fact that they have unusual complaints.
Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease and as such, it can derive from and be associated with other autoimmune diseases, some of which are associated with skin involvement, various types of dermatitis, the most characteristic of which is dermatitis herpetiformis, various forms of psoriasis, osteoporosis, polyarthritis, etc.
In women, hormonal disorders are very frequent, resulting in scanty and/or abundant periods, delays in their onset, amenorrhea, repeated miscarriages, presence of infertility (both male and female).
The affectation of the Central Nervous System known as “Neurogluten”, is characterized by the presence of various neurological diseases related to gluten such as the presence of recurrent migraines, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc.
Some digestive and extra-digestive cancers appear to be related to undiagnosed or insufficiently controlled celiac disease, including some forms of intestinal lymphoma.
Is celiac born or made?
Celiac disease is a clearly genetic condition, although it does not usually manifest itself at birth, as it develops gradually throughout life, but it is true that in childhood (especially in the first 2 years of life) the most severe cases are diagnosed, from the point of view of clinical symptomatology.
Symptoms appear at any age of life, predominantly in adulthood from the age of 20 years, but can also appear in up to 20% from the age of 60 years and even exceptionally at the age of 80 years, due to multiple causes, with not only nutritional but also environmental influences. It is now known to be much more common in adults than in children.
What is gluten and in what foods is it found?
Gluten is simply a small protein found in the flour of various cereals, mainly wheat, but also rye, barley and oats (TACC). It should also be remembered that spelt and spelt are two cereal flours derived from wheat, so they should also be eliminated from the diet of coeliacs.
The two cereals that do not contain gluten are corn and rice, which are used to make the foods consumed by coeliacs and which constitute what specialists in the Digestive System designate as the “gluten-free diet” (GFD), which is the diet that they must follow strictly, rigorously and maintained for life. The gluten-free diet is familiarly known as the “3-PES diet”, since it consists of eliminating foods that come from bakeries, pastry shops and all Italian pasta.
What is Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity?
Since about twenty years ago, another entity has been described called “Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity” (NCGS), which is very similar to celiac disease and behaves almost like celiac disease clinically, but has negative diagnostic tests for celiac disease. In this entity fit many of those patients who do not meet the criteria of celiac disease and are not in the statistics, they are sensitive or intolerant to gluten, but of these there are many more, about 10-15%, it is not so alarming, but it is important to tackle it in time. Counting celiac and NCGS patients, we could point out that 1 in 5 people have or may develop gluten-related problems in their lifetime.