Study Shows High Instance of Polyneuropathy in Patients with Celiac Disease

Celiac.com 06/08/2007 -The results of a study recently published in the Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics indicates that patients with celiac disease face a significant risk of polyneuropathy.

Faced with inconclusive evidence of past studies linking celiac disease to various neurological conditions, doctors J. F. Ludvigsson, T. Olsson, A. Akbom, and S.M. Montgomery, set out to provide more conclusive evidence regarding the association between celiac disease and several neurological diseases. They used Cox regression to examine the risk of neurological disorders in 14,000 people who were diagnosed with celiac disease between 1964 and 2003. These patients were compared with 70,000 reference individuals matched for age, sex, calendar year and county.

Celiac.com Sponsor (A12):
Celiac disease was associated with later polyneuropathy at a hazard ratio (HR) of 3.4; [95% CI = 2.3–5.1]. Results also showed prior polyneuropathy to be associated with subsequent celiac disease with an odds ratio of 5.4; [95% CI = 3.6–8.2). However, they found no statistically significant association between celiac disease and subsequent Huntingtons disease, hereditary ataxia, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, Parkinsons disease, or symptom ataxia.

The actual study results are as follows:
(HR = 0.9; 95% CI = 0.3–2.3), Parkinsons disease (HR = 1.2; 95% CI = 0.8–1.9), Alzheimers disease (HR = 1.5; 95% CI = 0.9–2.6), hereditary ataxia (HR = 1.3; 95% CI = 0.5–3.6), the symptom ataxia (HR = 1.9; 95% CI = 0.6–6.2), Huntingtons disease (HR = 1.7; 95% CI = 0.3–8.6), myasthenia gravis (HR = 0.8; 95% CI = 0.2–3.8) or spinal muscular atrophy.

Doctors Recommend Regular Celiac Disease Screening for People with Polyneuropathy

Because the connections between celiac disease and polyneuropathy indicate shared risks the doctors suggest that people with polyneuropathy undergo regular screening for celiac disease.