Coeliac UK, the largest independent charity for people who need to live gluten free, has announced that recent research shows diagnosis of the autoimmune disease coeliac disease, which affects one person in 100, has risen in the UK from 24% in 2011 to 30% in 2015.
Commissioned by the charity, the research from the University of Nottingham searched UK patient records up to and including 2015 for clinical diagnoses of coeliac disease and dermatitis herpetiformis (the skin manifestation of coeliac disease). It showed that although diagnosis rose by a quarter in four years (2011–2015), the rate was slowing significantly, resulting in around half a million people in the UK still living with undiagnosed coeliac disease.
It also highlighted that one adult in four aged over 18 diagnosed with coeliac disease had previously been misdiagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), the same percentage that had been reported in research from 2013.
Coeliac disease is a serious autoimmune condition caused by a reaction to gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. People diagnosed with coeliac disease must maintain a strict gluten-free diet for the rest of their life if they are to avoid very serious complications such as osteoporosis, infertility and, although rare, small bowel cancer. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for coeliac disease and IBS recommend that anyone presenting with IBS symptoms should be screened first for coeliac disease.
Sarah Sleet, chief executive of Coeliac UK, said “The blood test for coeliac disease is relatively quick and cheap and we urge anyone that has ongoing symptoms to visit their GP and request to be screened for coeliac disease. Next year we will be launching a campaign targeting the medical profession to encourage them to consider if their patients could be suffering with undiagnosed coeliac disease or have been misdiagnosed with IBS and ensure that they do not to remove gluten from their diet prior to testing as this could lead to a false negative result,”