• Long-term disease that causes the small intestine to become inflamed

• Causes difficulty with absorbing the necessary nutrients from food

• Inflammation is caused from eating food that contains gluten

  • Gluten is a protein found in wheat and other grains

• Inflammation causes the villi to die (McCabe, 2024)

  • • • • villi: tiny hair like projections in the small intestine

Complications With Celiac

• Celiac Crisis: rapid onset of severe diarrhea resulting in a the body becoming metabolically unbalanced. Is caused by undiagnosed Celiac disease.

• Refractory celiac disease: Damage to the intestines that does not respond positivly to a gluten free diet.

  • Can be treated with corticosteroids. Cladribine also shows promising results in treating patieints with refractory celiac disease but it not a confirmed treatment yet (Goerres et al., 2003).

How is it diagnosed?

•  When celiac seems like a possible diagnosis, a blood test will typically be run, and if the results are abnormal a tissue biopsy of the intestine will be performed to confirm diagnosis (endoscopy) (McCabe, 2024).

Symptoms

• Chronic diarrhea

• Abdominal distention (bloating)

• Weight loss from malabsorption

• Fatigue

  • Some people might have no symptoms at all!