knew that celiac disease is a multifactorial autoimmune disease (either genetic
that determined by external factors), but the results of researchers at the Mayo Clinic study led by Dr. Joseph Murray, throw new questions about what is really happening in this area. One of the questions is related to the age of "new gluten-free."
The majority of new cases, not about children but adults and even older.
One wonders, why these subjects had a more or less good tolerance to gluten for 30 or 40 (sometimes 50) years before developing celiac disease.
So far the researchers have a genetic component to the primary and fundamental role, but new research suggests that environmental factors may override the genetic causes of disease. Dr. Alessio Fasano
, director of the Center for Celiac Research in Maryland (USA), is considering the possibility that there were substantial changes in the composition of bacteria normally resident in the intestine [1].
A change that could trigger a series of processes that would see the loss as the final act of tolerance to gluten.
A first way that the investigation could take would then identify the geographical areas or regions where the rate of adult onset celiac disease is higher and verify the food and health habits (eg. the habitual consumption of drugs) that exists in those areas, then looking for differences compared to areas with rate lower.
remember that even when the genetic markers for the development of celiac disease are present in the standard way (the entire haplotype DQ2 or DQ8 and simple fractions), the exact way in which people lose their tolerance to gluten remains unknown .
Another avenue of research, reported by Prof. Fasano, refers to the need to explain why people who have these genetic markers do not develop the disease.
These studies could therefore lead not only to identify the environmental factors underlying celiac disease and control possible bias, but also other autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
[1] http://www.celiac.com/articles/22331/1/New-Study-Shows-Celiac-Disease-on-the-Rise-Striking-Later-in-Life/Page1.html
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