The Anonymous Widower

Should All Hospital In-Patients Be Tested For Coeliac Disease?

I went to a medical lecture tonight and I came home on the tube with a cardiologist. As we chatted, the title of this post occurred to me.

Consider.

  • A diagnosed coeliac on a gluten-free diet tends to have a stronger immune system.
  • I am a diagnosed coeliac on a gluten-free diet.
  • An undiagnosed coeliac tends to have a poor immune system.
  • It would certainly mean, you got the right diet in hospital.

I also have some further more detailed thoughts.

My Son, George

NHS advice on those, who need to be tested for coeliac disease includes this sentence.

Testing is also recommended if you have a first-degree relative (parent, sibling or child) with coeliac disease.

When I was diagnosed as a coeliac in 1997, I told my three sons to get tested. None did!

A month or so before he did, George ended up in Trafford Park Hospital.

If they had tested him, would they have picked up his pancreatic cancer earlier?

Probably not, but it’s a question that must be asked.

Research From The University Of Padua

This paper on the US National Library of Medicine, which is from the University of Padua in Italy.

The University followed a group of 138 patients with coeliac disease, who had been on a gluten-free diet for at least six years, through the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Padua.

This sentence, sums up the study.

In this analysis we report a real life “snapshot” of a cohort of CeD patients during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Italy, all followed in one tertiary centre in a red area of Northern Italy. Our data show, in accordance with Emmi et al., the absolute absence of COVID-19 diagnosis in our population, although 18 subjects experienced flu-like symptoms with only one having undergone naso-pharyngeal swab.

It says that no test subject caught Covid-19, in an admittedly smallish number of patients.ost

But it reinforces my call for more research into whether if you are a diagnosed coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet, you have an immune system, that gives you a degree of protection from the Covids.

Conditions Linked To Coeliac Disease

This page on the Coeliac UK web site is entitled Conditions Linked To Coeliac Disease, has the following subsections.

Some of the keywords are linked to other pages on the Coeliac UK web site.

Testing For Coeliac Disease

Testing for coeliac disease is not an expensive process and just involves a simple blood test, where the blood goes to the lab.

My now-retired GP reckoned in nearly all cases, the test is decisive.

May 24, 2024 Posted by | Food, Health | , , , , , | 2 Comments