History, Symptoms, and Treatment of Celiac Disease

“Celiac disease is a lifelong inherited autoimmune condition affecting children and adults” (Celiac Disease Foundation). An autoimmune condition causes a person’s immune system to produce antibodies against their own tissues. This is a genetic autoimmune condition that is passed down by a person's mother or father. Celiac disease has to be inherited, it cannot be caught from another person. In order to better understand Celiac disease, resources should be used to fund research, researchers should focus more on the effects of the disease, and more should be done to educate the public about the disease.

In 250 A.D. Celiac disease was first described by Aretaeus of Cappadocia in his writing. When he described Celiac disease to his patients he referred to them as "koiliakos," which also meant “suffering in the bowels.” The observations were translated from Greek to English to “celiacs” by Francis Adams in 1856. In 1888, Samuel Gee, MD worked with many children and adults with the disease. The main part of his study was to regulate the food patients ate to see how different food digested. In 1952, Willem Karel Dicke, recognized that ingestion of wheat proteins was one of the causes. After patients tried a diet without eating wheat proteins, he confirmed that the treatment worked. He found that if someone with Celiac disease ate wheat proteins then they probably had a history of damaged intestines (Celiac Sprue Association).

People with Celiac disease usually have different kinds of symptoms. Some symptoms include abdominal pain or cramps, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, nausea or vomiting, stunted growth, and mouth ulcers (Boston Children’s Hospital). “When food enters the stomach, it is broken down into tiny digestible particles...

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