Is it Time to Revise the Criteria Used to Diagnose Celiac Disease?

This was a good article, I just wish the doctors would get their minds out of just the gut. I thought I was going to see that they were finding that celiac is a systemic disorder, which it is, and that they were recognizing the neurological impact. Unfortunately that is not the case but it is wonderful to see that they are recognizing the idiocy of us having to be almost dead before diagnosis. I feel really sorry for the group that had to eat gluten for a year but also know they most likely volunteered for the research. It's also unfortunate for us in the US that this research most likely will be ignored by US doctors for at least 10 years.

'The doctors discovered that the patients who had been on the gluten-free diet did in fact have celiac disease (even though they didn't have any obvious symptoms), and any symptoms that they did have disappeared—they lost their endomysial antibodies and any inflammation that was detected in their intestinal mucosa.' What criteria did the researchers use then to conclude that this group had Celiac Disease? Why can't that criteria be used to diagnose the disease now?

Eat gluten=get symptoms

Don't eat gluten=don't get symptoms

Is there something else the doctors need? Just because the doctor or I know that I have a particular antibody or intestinal swelling does not change the fact that I am healthier without gluten. Who needs them anyway! You don't need a diagnosis or a medical degree to discover if gluten makes you sick! Don't get me wrong, I work in the medical field, and doctors can do a lot of great things. But they have absolutely missed the ball on this one. How about studying why our bodies are rejecting gluten and fix that. I'll buy the first round of beer to that discovery! But that requires more than just 'watching and waiting' , doesn't it?

I am glad that it was determined that those people had celiac disease after all. But what about those people who did NOT have antibodies? I feel that many (if not most) of them have celiac disease as well. Yet nobody gave them the chance of having a biopsy and trying the diet as well. That is a shame.

Seriously! I was indeed half dead before I was diagnosed, and, four years into the gluten-free diet, I still suffer from the neurological problems, which my doctor says may actually never resolve completely.

Krista, please may I make your words mine? Very good!

The other question is, how long will it take for the FDA to get this information? In just a few months we will know if they are going to side with making it easy for manufacturers having so many parts per million of gluten or will they protect us from these crazy manufacturing practices of allowing so many part per million of gluten and rule for zero parts per million gluten.

In my family myself and my daughter were taken off of gluten after having seizures not long after being born. We both grew progressively worse over time. By the time I found out that I could not eat gluten I was almost dead. As our daughter, we have a son that was born with the picture perfect symptoms of a gluten problem. After suffering through not being able to talk, seizures, not having feeling all over his body, the list goes on, he is now gluten free. He is 26 yrs old. A little to late. Our daughter was not given meds to help with her seizures until she was 15. Recently my husband was put in a trauma center for a brain injury. He has thrown up for years. Since we dated. He was held over in the hospital because he wouldn't stop throwing up. Finally, (you guessed it) the doctor put him on a gluten free diet. He is beginning to recover. We have a new grand child. He will NOT be introduced to gluten until he is about 2 yrs. A that time it will only be to test him. We hope and pray that he doesn't accidentally get poisoned with it before then. That probably is impossible because people love to kiss babies in the mouth.

I submitted a stool sample and a DNA cheek swab (to Enterlab.com) for my 22 month old son who had 'unexplained' chronic diarrhea that would likely 'turn into IBS' as an adult. Within 2 weeks I learned he has food intolerances to gluten, milk, soy, egg, and yeast. I was determined to find the cause of the 'unexplained diarrhea'. I removed the poisons and his stool is totally normal. The doctors continue to buck this type of testing only because it leaves them out of the $$ loop. I thank GOD every day that I stumbled across this very impressive and professional lab in Dallas TX... that works directly with the public!!

I'm glad at least some are taking seriously that the current standards for diagnosing celiac disease are not working. Repeat: They are definitely not working. It's rather infuriating that so many, many celiacs in the U.S. still will not be diagnosed until they are literally dying from it, already have resulting cancer or other serious, irreversible complications. The blood test is not infallible, and the endoscopy test (as this article proves) only catches the latest stages of the disease. This standard is no way for doctors to fulfill their promise to 'do no harm' to their patients. When a gluten-free diet reverses the often life-disrupting symptoms, that should be a neon-lit red flag that just maybe this person has celiac disease. What other causes of gluten intolerance are there?