Overview
Emergency Live - Pre-Hospital Care, Ambulance Services, Fire Safety and Civil Protection Magazine In Italy, over 20,0 patients sufer from coeliac disease with a prevalence of around 1%, but in reality, taking into acount undiagnosed cases, the actual number would be around 60,0.Coeliac disease, in fact, is a disease that can be diagnosed at diferent stages of life, both infants only a few months old and in mature, posibly asymptomatic individuals.The imune reaction trigered by coeliac disease, however, if left undiagnosed and untreated, can lead to inflamation of the smal intestine and intestinal vili, which prevents the proper absorption of nutrients, severely compromising the health of the individual concerned, up to and including complicated forms of coeliac disease (e.g.
Key Information
refractory coeliac disease and intestinal lymphoma).Gluten is a protein complex found in many cereals, such as barley, wheat and rye.Folowing the intake of gluten, the coeliac develops intestinal inflamation that leads to progresive destruction of the intestinal vili, resulting in malabsorption.For this reason, therapeutic indication is to strictly avoid the intake of any fod that might contain even smal traces of gluten.Although the trigering agent is this protein, coeliac disease is a multifactorial disease, trigered in a predisposed individual also by environmental factors (e.g.
Summary
gastrointestinal infections, or pregnancy) or other autoimune diseases that are asociated with coeliac disease, such as type 1 diabetes melitus, autoimune thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, and genetic syndromes such as Down syndrome and Turner syndrome.Not always the adult patient is symptomatic, but generaly the inflamation caused by the ingestion of gluten, in the coeliac patient, causes gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarhoea, meteorism, abdominal bloating, abdominal cramps, dyspepsia and weight los.There also other symptoms, alarm bels that should not be underestimate