Quick Facts on Celiac Disease
- Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease, meaning it causes a person’s immune system to attack the body.
- Symptoms of Celiac disease can appear at any age after gluten is introduced into the diet.
- Patients with Celiac disease must follow a lifelong gluten free diet.
- Children are at higher risk for Celiac disease if they have:
- Type 1 diabetes
- Autoimmune thyroid disease
- Dermatitis herpetiformis
- Down syndrome
- Turner syndrome
- Williams syndrome
- A relative with celiac disease
Pediatric Celiac Disease
If your child has celiac disease, consuming gluten will cause damage to finger-like projections, called villi, in the lining of your child’s small intestines.
Celiac disease is a life-long condition, but it is manageable through permanent modifications to the diet. Simply put, anyone with celiac disease must adhere to a gluten free diet. While this may seem daunting at first – especially for kids – you’ll find that many nutritious, tasty foods fit into this diet (including fruits and vegetables, eggs, meat, poultry—and even soft drinks and ice cream!) For more information and ideas, see CDHNF’s Gluten-Free Diet Guide.
Celiac disease
Celiac disease is a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. People who have celiac disease cannot tolerate gluten, a protein in wheat, rye, and barley. Gluten is found mainly in foods but may also be found in everyday products such as medicines, vitamins, and lip balms.
When people with celiac disease eat foods or use products containing gluten, their immune system responds by damaging or destroying villi – the tiny, fingerlike protrusions lining the small intestine. Villi normally allow nutrients from food to be absorbed through the walls of the small intestine into the bloodstream. Without healthy villi, a person becomes malnourished, no matter how much food one eats.
Celiac disease is both a disease of malabsorption—meaning nutrients are not absorbed properly—and an abnormal immune reaction to gluten. Celiac disease is also known as celiac sprue, nontropical sprue, and gluten-sensitive enteropathy. Celiac disease is genetic, meaning it runs in families. Sometimes the disease is triggered—or becomes active for the first time—after surgery, pregnancy, childbirth, viral infection, or severe emotional stress.
Celiac disease can be difficult to diagnose because of the broad range of symptoms. These symptoms can range from bone pain and mild weakness to chronic diarrhea, abdominal bloating, and progressive weight loss. If a person with Celiac diseases continues to eat gluten, they may increase their chances of gastrointestinal cancer by a significant amount.