Celiac Disease

Nature of the disease

Celiac disease is a fairly common disease but is not very well known. Celiac disease, or celiac sprue, is a digestive condition triggered by consumption of the protein gluten (Hill, Clinical manifestations and diagnosis of celiac disease in children, 2011). Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and oats. People with celiac disease who eat foods containing gluten experience an immune reaction in their small intestines, causing damage to the inner surface of the small intestine and an inability to absorb certain nutrients (Hill, Clinical manifestations and diagnosis of celiac disease in children, 2011).

The small intestine is responsible for absorbing food and nutrients. Thus, damage to the lining of the small intestines can lead to difficulty absorbing important nutrients; this problem is referred to as malabsorption. Although celiac disease cannot be cured, avoiding gluten usually stops the damage to the intestinal lining and the malabsorption that results. In addition, this disease can affect both male and female as well children and adults.

Signs and symptoms

There is no one certain sign or symptom of Celiac disease. The symptoms associated with this disease vary from person to person. This disease is more common in, but not limited to, Caucasian females (Dugdale III, Longstreth, & Zieve, 2010). Celiac can affect a person at any point in their life, even as young as toddlers.

The symptoms of celiac disease in children usually occur when the child is taken off milk and started on solid food (familydoctor.org editorial staff, 2010). Celiac, in children, most readily affects their growth. Such as delayed puberty, poor weight gain, slowed growth and shorter than normal height for t...

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