• Question: What is the cource of Coeliac

    Asked by aaronsta004 to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 24 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disease – it comes from your immune system being a bit confused! When you eat things with gluten in them, like wheat, barley and rye, your immune system thinks they’re toxic, dangerous invaders and attacks them, even though they’re just normal food. But your immune system is fighting against this imaginary enemy inside your gut, which means that your gut lining gets all damaged, like a bombed battlefield!

      A damaged gut lining can no longer absorb nutrients like it’s supposed to. So a lot of the stuff that was supposed to be digested isn’t, giving you diarrhoea and flatulence. You’re also not getting all the nutrients that you usually ought to get from the food you eat, so people with Coeliac disease often lose weight, and feel lethargic (tired all the time).

    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Coeliac disease is an allergic reaction to gluten which can develop into an autoimmune problem. The immune response leads to swelling of the intestinal wall and a complex series of often painful diarrhoea like symptoms.

      It can be difficult to diagnose well and is often mixed up with other food intolerances. This is because generally someone who begins a gluten free regime is inevitably changing other aspects of their diet, so their improvement may be ascribed to gluten, when something else might have been reduced too (for example, if you give up cereals with milk you might reduce problems of lactose intolerance).

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      Another autoimmune disease, Crohn’s disease is associated with coeliac disease – people often have both together. Crohn’s disease seems to happen when your immune system overeacts to bacteria in the digestive system. It can cause the whole digestive system to become inflamed.

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      Its called an ‘autoimmune disease’, and the word ‘coeliac’ comes from the Greek word for ‘abdominal’ (to do with your belly).

      Sometimes when your immune system detects something it doesn’t recognize- in this case gluten, which is in some cereal grains- it goes a little crazy and starts to attack the area where the gluten is (your guts).

      This means that people with coeliac suffer with diahorrea and aren’t able to digest food as well as other people. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the best way to diagnose it is for doctors to stick a camera up your bottom to take a look!

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