Celiac.com 03/26/2008 - According to the results of a recent study,adults with diet-treated celiac disease show no elevation inanti-avenin IgA by oats. Celiac disease is effectively treated with agluten-free diet that is free of wheat, rye, barley and related grains. Whileit is well known that wheat, rye and barley trigger the disease, fordecades there has been controversy about the safety of oats.
Recentevidence from a number of studies has supported the idea that oats aresafe for people with celiac disease. In several countries, oats are nowon the list of safe foods for people with celiac disease. The studieson oats and celiac disease have had various designs, but most have beensmall, and often with high patient drop-out rates. To date, there hasonly been a single randomized and double-blinded study measuring the effects of oats on celiac patients. The studies have been nearly unanimous in concluding that consumption of oats is safe to celiac disease patients.
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Mostof these clinical studies have assessed blood histology in reaction tooats, or measured normalization after patients had been diagnosed withceliac disease and were already following gluten-free diets. Threelarge studies from Finland have investigated the effect of dietary oatsand their influence on antibody levels to wheat gluten and to tissuetransglutaminase. Previous studies have shown that people withuntreated celiac disease show elevated IgA antibodies in reaction oatavenins. However, only one study on treated celiac disease patients hasinvestigated IgA antibodies to oats.
Researchers know of justthree confirmed cases of active celiac disease flaring up again inadults after these people ingested oats, which indicates thatintolerance to oats among celiacs may be rare, but also may in facthave some role to play in celiac disease. It also points to the need for clinical monitoring of celiac disease patients who eat oats.
Aresearch team made up of Vigdis Guttormsen, Astrid Løvik, Asta Bye;Jorunn Bratlie, Lars Mørkrid, and Knut E. A. Lundin recently conducteda small study to determine whether treated adult celiac diseasepatients who ate oats showed elevated levels if IgA. The research team compared blood samples of 136 adult patients with treated celiac disease against 139 controls. The team used ELISA to test the blood samples to measure IgA against oats avenin, wheat gliadin and tissue trans-glutaminase.
Eighty-two of the celiac disease patients had been eating oats as part of their gluten-free diet for 6 months or more. Both the oats-eating and non-oats-eating celiac disease patients showed no significant differences in IgA against oats. However, both groups did show elevated levels of IgA against wheat, oats and tissue tTG compared to healthy controls. Thegroups also showed a significant positive correlation betweenanti-avenin and antigliadin IgA (pB0.0001), and between anti-avenin andanti-tissue transglutaminase IgA (p 0.0012).
The researchersconcluded that eating oats does not cause increased levels of IgA inadult celiac disease patients on a gluten-free diet. The findings support the notion that most adult celiac disease patients can tolerate oats.
Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, 43:2, 161 - 165.
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