Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
Children Suffer From Celiac Disease
No one really knows what causes celiac disease, but it affects one in every 133 people in the US, and some of them are children.. And the chances are 5-10% greater if someone in your family has it, it runs in families, according to their website.
The New York Times said a study published in the July issue of the Journal Gastroenterology found that subjects who had undiagnosed celiac were nearly four times as likelyto have died over a 45-year period than subjects who didn’t have it.
What is celiac disease?
Celiac disease makes it difficult for the body to absorb nutrients, damages the lining of the small intestine, and is a reaction to eating foods containing gluten. It can be detected by conducting a blood test and endoscopy for damage to the small intestine, said the article.
Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley — grains that are in many everyday foods like pizza, bread, and crackers.
Some common symptoms of celiac disease are diarrhea, decreased appetite, stomachache and bloating, poor growth, and weight loss. Many kids are diagnosed with it when they’re between 6 months and 2 years old, when they begin earing gluten in foods.
How does the disease affect children?
Celiac disease causes an immune system reaction, so the gluten in bread causes the body to start damaging and destroying the lining in the stomach that harms the body’s ability to absorb vitamins and nutrients from food. The way this can affect children is that the kid’s body can’t be healthy and grow properly.This might cause the child to lose weight or develop anemia from not getting enough iron.
Celiac disease is a hard one to diagnose and if everyone was diagnosed, celiac disease would be more common than type 1 diabetes.
Gluten free foods are expensive
A recent study by the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University showed that eating a gluten-free diet can be three times as expensive as regular products. And most health care plans in the US do not provide for the extra cost of a special diet, or trips to a dietitian for nutritional advice. That is not the case in other countries. In Britain, celiac patients are prescribed gluten-free products, and in Italy patients are given a stipend to spend on gluten-free food.
There are celiac support groups, like Celiac Disease Foundation and the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America.
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