Friday, 2 September 2011

Gluten sensitivity

Block: Nutrition
SGD: Carbohydrate Metabolism
Topic: Gluten sensitivity


Trigger 1

Gluten-sensitive enteropathy (GSE), common in Western Europe and Scandinavian countries, is a chronic disease causing malabsorption and resulting in mucosal damage in the small bowel associated with genetic susceptibility. The main cause of the disease is hypersensitivity to a component of gluten, gliadin, which is alcohol soluble.

Gluten consists of the prolamines of wheat, rye, barley and oats. Although the etiopathogenesis of the mucosal damage is not well known, it is thought to be the result of abnormal cellular immune response to gluten, which is determined genetically. 

Trigger 2

As a consequence of continuing concern of pediatricians for a condition estimated to be more frequent in children than in adults, and which cannot be characterized unequivocally by its intestinal lesions, the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition (ESPGAN) finally issued its most rigorous criteria of the disease in 1990. These criteria consist of: i. a state of malabsorption with total or subtotal villous atrophy of the intestinal mucosa observed while the diet contains gluten ii. cure of the clinical disorder and histological lesions following gluten withdrawal. 

Trigger 3

Although GSE presents with chronic diarrhea, failure to thrive (FTT) and clinical fatigue, it is known that the disease may develop years later without malabsorption and with a normal mucosa. Today, it is believed that GSE has a histopathological spectrum, and that it is thus necessary to make a detailed typing demonstrating this spectrum.

Suggested reading
http://www.turkgastro.org/text.php?id=105

Discussion points
  1. What is gluten-sensitive enteropathy (GSE) or coeliac disease (CD)?
  2. What are the features of GSE/CD?
  3. What are the changes seen (if any) in the ileum in GSE/CD?

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