Study Suggests Celiac Disease Is Linked to Nearly Every Inflammatory Disorder

One of the most complex, and misunderstood, diseases today is celiac disease. Not only does it have symptoms that are similar to other autoimmune diseases, but the only form of treatment is going on a strict gluten-free diet.

Because much is still not known about it, including its cause, researchers are working endlessly to learn as much as they can. In a recent study, a group of researchers have found a large majority of inflammatory disorders that are linked to the disease.

It is never uncommon for one disease to lead to another disease or other types of serious health conditions.  This is commonly referred to as a comorbidity and is the result of characteristics or contributing factors that overlap from one disease to another. The finding from the study may provide key insights, however, into how patients diagnosed with celiac disease can best prevent the onset of other serious complications.

One of the main focuses of the study included identifying certain conditions of patients that had the highest likelihood of developing celiac disease. For example, the relationship between autism and celiac disease. They found that patients diagnosed with some form of autism are said to be 20 times more likely to be diagnosed with celiac disease, relative to those without autism. This discovery is from an analysis of over 30 million individuals Discoveries like this  were the result of an analysis of over 30 million individuals. 

These efforts were led by Daniel Karb, MD, a resident for his second year at Cleveland’s University Hospitals Case Medical Center and were presented at the 2017 World Congress of Gastroenterology.  After finding a variety of key discoveries, Karb pointed out that, “If you have a patient who is autistic and they have all these unusual symptoms, you might want to screen them for celiac disease."

For their research, Karb and his team observed the Explorys database in order to pick up on certain trends.  The database they utilized compiled electronic health records from a total of 26 major healthcare systems spread across the United States.  Researchers looked through a large assortment of records, of which included over 30 million people spanning from the years 2012 to 2017. 

Of these individuals, it was found that 83,090 had been diagnosed with celiac disease. From this, the researchers of the study sought to identify any potential connections between these cases of celiac disease and any other conditions. Turns out, celiac disease has a strong connection to approximately 13 other autoimmune disease. Along these lines, Dr. Karb pointed out that “[e]very autoimmune disease [the research team] looked at is associated with celiac disease [with the exception of one type]”.

Read on to learn more about the most common diseases that celiac disease is linked to.