Even Celiacs on a Gluten-Free Diet Face an Elevated Risk of Autoimmune Disorders

Celiac.com 01/17/2022 - People with autoimmune disorders face an elevated risk for celiac disease, but there's no clear data to show exactly how high that risk might be.

To clarify the issue, a team of researchers recently set out to assess the incidence of autoimmune disorders in treated patients with celiac disease.

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The research team included Muhammad R. Khan; Shilpa S. Nellikkal; Ahmed Barazi; Joseph J. Larson; Joseph A. Murray; and Imad Absah. They are variously affiliated with the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Hepatology; the Division of Biomedical Statistics and Informatics; and the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.

The team used the Rochester Epidemiology Project to conduct a retrospective medical record search for patients diagnosed with celiac disease at the Mayo Clinic's Olmsted Medical Center from January 1997 to December 2015.

For each patient with celiac disease, the team assigned two non-celiac control subjects matched for age and sex during the study period. They used Kaplan-Meier analysis to determine the incidence rate of autoimmune disorder diagnosis five years after index date, for the celiac disease cases and controls. They then compared the results using the log-rank test.

They found nearly 250 treated patients with celiac disease during the study period, matched to just under 500 matched control subjects. About one third of patients were boys. Within five years of the index date, 5.0% of celiac patients had a new autoimmune disorder diagnosis, compared with 1.3% of non-celiac control subjects.

In the presence of a prior autoimmune disorder, the celiac disease group faced a much higher cumulative risk of a new or additional autoimmune disorder compared with control subjects.

The data show that treated patients with celiac disease face a higher risk of developing autoimmune disorders than non-celiacs. The risk of a new autoimmune disorder is significantly higher in children, especially those with an existing autoimmune disorder.

Read more: Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, October 2019 - Volume 69 - Issue 4 - p 438-442