Overweight children are just as likely as thin children to have celiac disease, Reuters Health reports a new study confirms. It's a common misconception – even among many doctors – that celiac disease is limited to people who are underweight.
Between 0.5% and 1% of people living in the developed world are thought to have celiac disease, in which gluten in food triggers a damaging immune response in the small intestines. Patients with celiac disease often, but not always, have diarrhoea. They also have trouble absorbing nutrients from food.
To find out the prevalence of celiac disease among overweight and obese children, Dr Raffaella Nenna and colleagues used data collected at a nutrition centre at the University of Rome between 1998 and 2003, from 1,527 overweight and obese children and young adults between the ages of two and about 24 years. Seventeen children, or about 1%, tested positive for celiac disease through blood work and damage to their small intestines, the authors reported. Those who tested positive for celiac disease were invited to start a nutritionally-balanced gluten-free diet, according to the researchers. The children who had symptoms of celiac disease reported improvement once they started the gluten-free diet. They also tended to lose weight.
[link url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/30/us-celiac-obesity-pediatrics-idUSKBN0L32FH20150130"]Full Reuters Health report[/link]
[link url="http://journals.lww.com/jpgn/Abstract/publishahead/Coeliac_Disease_Screening_Among_a_Large_Cohort_of.98070.aspx"]Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition abstract[/link]