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The pathogenesis, diagnosis, and management of the celiac disease, a unique autoimmune disorder in which the environmental precipitant, gluten is known is reviewed.

Researchers evaluate a blood test for celiac disease in children. In a study of 3,654 children, 56 tested positive. Ten were subsequently diagnosed with celiac disease and 27 were found to have the disease by intestinal biopsy. Celiac disease is a gastrointestinal disease that causes malabsorption.

Older adults with severe diarrhea should be evaluated for digestive and absorption problems, such as intolerance to grains. A 74-year-old woman with a history of chronic diarrhea, dehydration, abdominal pain and severe weight loss was eventually diagnosed with celiac sprue. This is an intolerance to specific cereal proteins in the diet such as gliadin in wheat. Telltale findings which led to the final diagnosis were small-bowel thickening with mesenteric lymphadenopathy. Celiac disease starts in childhood, but is not usually diagnosed until adulthood. An enteropathy-associated lymphoma as a complication of celiac disease was suspected in this patient because of her advanced age, but the anatomical diagnosis did not reveal lymphoma. The patient survived the symptoms of the disease, and was treated with a gluten-free diet. She experienced only a couple of episodes of diarrhea in 11 months of following the new diet.

People who have medical conditions that are possibly related to celiac disease should be tested for celiac disease whether they have symptoms or not. These conditions include diabetes, anemia, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel, gastrointestinal cancer, and autoimmune disorders. Celiac disease is a malabsorption syndrome caused by an autoimmune reaction to gluten, a protein in wheat, rye, barley, and other grains. Some people may have this condition and not know it because they don't have the usual symptoms.