Scientists Have Discovered The Causes of Celiac Disease

Scientists from the Medical Research Institute Walter & Eliza Hall, Melbourne (Australia) have discovered three key compounds in gluten – a protein found in wheat, rye and barley – which are responsible for celiac disease, according to results Research published in its latest issue of the Science journal of Translational Medicine.

This digestive disorder, gluten causes an immune reaction that damages the lining of the small intestine hindering their ability to absorb nutrients and, if the disease is detected, it can lead to severe malnutrition.

There are currently no treatments for this disease, so the only solution is for patients to stop eating products with gluten though, say the authors of this research, the finding could lead to the development of new treatments and diagnostic methods.

“The Holy Grail of celiac disease research has been to identify the toxic components of gluten, the BBC explained Dr. Bob Anderson, author of the study, which lasted nine years and which has involved more than 200 patients in Melbourne and Oxford (United Kingdom).

As Anderson explains, the volunteers were asked to eat wheat bread and rye, and boiled barley. Six days later, blood samples of patients measure their immune response to thousands of different components of gluten.

Thus, the tests identified 90 peptides that were causing some kind of immune reaction, but found that three of these were particularly toxic. According to Professor Anderson, “These three components are involved in most gluten immune responses observed in people with celiac disease.”

The new findings are already being used by a biotechnology company developing immunotherapy to desensitize the toxic effects of gluten, and would expose small amounts of the three toxic peptides.