Celiac Disease Has Nearly Tripled Among Young Children In The U.K.

Statistics show that close to 1 percent of all children in the United Kingdom hold blood markers for celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that prevent's the body's ability to digest gluten from wheat, barley and rye. Similar estimates also effect children living in the United States.

Yet new research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) show that the number of children with the health problem has nearly tripled in the last 20 years.

Researchers assessed data contained in The Health Improvement Network (THIN), a representative UK database of anonymized primary care health records.

Children from birth to the age of 18 were identified and registered with general practices across the UK to contribute to THIN as part of THIN between 1993 and 2012. Among the total of 2,063,421 children, 1,247 were diagnosed with celiac disease during the study period.

Findings revealed that the case rates were similar among all four UK countries, with 53 percent higher among girls than boys. Between 1993 and 2012, diagnoses rose by 39 percent in boys and close to double in girls.

Though the number of new diagnoses in infants and toddlers remained relatively stable across all four countries, it rose significantly for children two and up.

"Based on the current evidence, the most plausible explanation for the socioeconomic gradient in the incidence of childhood [celiac disease] whereby children from least-deprived areas have [celiac disease] diagnosed more often than those from the most-deprived areas is that ascertainment of disease varies rather than the true occurrence of [celiac disease]," the researchers noted."Awareness campaigns and the implementation of diagnostic guidelines may help to implement strategies for case-finding in all children and reduce this inequality."

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