When Can You Develop Celiac Disease??

 Celiac disease can develop at any age after people start eating foods or medications that contain gluten. The later the age of celiac disease diagnosis, the greater the chance of developing another autoimmune disorder. There are two steps to being diagnosed with celiac disease: the blood test and the endoscopy.

DENTAL AND CELIAC

 Dental enamel problems stemming from celiac disease involve permanent dentition and include tooth discoloration—white, yellow, or brown spots on the teeth—poor enamel formation, pitting or banding of teeth, and mottled or translucent-looking teeth.

Either nutritional deficiencies, combined with the celiac disease destroying the child's small intestine, causing the defect directly, or the child's immune system damages the teeth as they develop.

Gluten Ingredients To Watch For

Starches Found in Medications

The following inactive ingredients are considered “red flags,” as they may be sourced from wheat, barley or rye. If you see a red flag ingredient, it means that more information is needed to find out if the drug’s ingredients contain gluten. Some ingredients are more obvious than others.

• Wheat
• Modified starch (if source is not specified)
• Pregelatinized starch (if source is not specified)
• Pregelatinized modified starch (if source is not specified)
• Dextrates (if source is not specified)
• Dextrin (if source is not specified; the source is usually corn or potato which is acceptable)
• Dextrimaltose (when barley malt is used)
• Caramel coloring (when barley malt is used)

CELIAC DISEASE AND THE HEPATITIS B VACCINE

 For celiac patients, the hepatitis B vaccine is just as safe, but it is far less effective. In a study published back in 2003, Dr. Joseph Murray of the Celiac Disease Foundation Medical Advisory Board, and other researchers, searched through a medical database and found that out of 19 people with celiac disease who also were vaccinated for hepatitis B, 13 did not show an adequate response. Many studies have confirmed that celiac patients have a very high rate of non-response to the hepatitis B vaccine.

The exact reason for this phenomenon is most likely genetic, at least in part. Interestingly, a 2007 study out of Hungary found that celiac patients who were already being treated with a gluten-free diet fared much better than those still eating gluten. 

The researchers in that study found that not only did the children on a gluten-free diet respond as well as the control group to the hepatitis B vaccine, but children who initially showed no response to the vaccine were able to later develop immunity by going on a gluten-free diet and getting re-vaccinated. The authors also suggest that patients who do not respond to the hepatitis B vaccine be tested for celiac disease.

But in celiac patients who were vaccinated after they were diagnosed and already on a gluten-free diet, the difference in response rate was insignificant. From these studies, it seems that only patients with active and untreated celiac disease are at risk for not responding to the hepatitis B vaccine.