Celiac disease – where people are highly allergic to gluten – is far more common than doctors have supposed, a new study has discovered. The extent of the problem is doubling every 15 years – and the elderly are more likely to develop the allergy.
Around one in 133 people in the US are celiacs – when, in 1989, it affected one in 219 people. This suggests that there are around 2 million celiacs in the US alone.
However, the problem is far more prevalent in the elderly, say researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The elderly are two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer from the problem compared with the overall population, which suggests that we can develop celiac disease as we age and that it’s not something that we are born with.
(Source: Annals of Medicine, 2010;1: doi: 10.3109/07853890.2010.514285).
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