Celiac disease: symptoms include vomiting, repeated miscarriages and osteoporosis

The symptoms are very varied and the diagnosis of celiac disease can occur at any age

ROME – “Celiac disease is considered a chameleon, because like the chameleon changes color, the symptoms of celiac disease are also very varied“. The president of the Italian Celiac Disease Association (Aic), Rossella Valmarana, explains it to the Dire agency, on the day in which World Celiac Disease Day is celebrated, a disease which in Italy it affects more than 600 thousand people. But while 250 thousand are diagnosed patients, 350 thousand do not yet know they are so.
“First of all – specifies Valmarana – we must distinguish between classic symptoms, the gastrointestinal ones, and extraintestinal symptoms. The former include vomiting, diarrhea and weight loss, which in the child are equivalent to weight loss and slowing of height. Among the extraintestinal symptoms, however, we find anemia, but also repeated miscarriages. infertility, marked osteoporosis, alteration of tooth enamel and the presence of repeated canker soresare therefore symptoms that can affect all organs”.

Celiac disease is often associated with the gastroenterologist, in adults and children, but there are numerous other specialists called upon to identify the presence of the pathology which the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, recently defined ‘social disease‘. “If we talk about anemia – highlights Valmarana – the haematologist will have to intervene, while those who perform the Moc will have to identify osteoporosis, even at a young age. Orthopedists, then, have the task of verifying why a young person fractures with a certain frequency , beyond playing injuries”.
And among the specialists there is also the gynecologist. “It is he – informs the president of the Italian Celiac Association – who must give an answer to the many repeated miscarriages that a patient can present but also to female and male infertility. Without forgetting the headache and neurological symptoms such as irritability and mood alteration, while dentists will be able to look for the presence of celiac disease in the alteration of tooth enamel”. to a certain diagnosisand if, in the adult, a gastroscopy has not been performed first and if, in the child, the parents have not consulted the specialists to evaluate the best path to take: today, in fact, the child is not subjected to gastroscopy but for him the guidelines of the ‘European Society for Pediatrics Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition’, Espghan, are adopted, according to which if a child tests positive for certain tests for celiac disease and presents classic or non-classical symptoms classic, you can avoid undergoing an enteric biopsy, called to verify whether or not atrophy of the intestinal mucosa exists. Therefore, you shouldn’t go on a gluten-free diet without first consulting a specialist, because it means not reaching the diagnosis.”

And the diagnosis of celiac disease can occur at any age. “We – informs Rossella Valmarana – can have people who have been well for years or have been asymptomatic and then be diagnosed with celiac disease at 30, 40 or 50 years old but some have had the diagnosis of celiac disease even after passing the age of 70”.
“The screening – he concludes – is fundamental but 30% of the Italian population has a typical genetics of celiac disease, or rather a predisposition, and, of these, only 3% will then develop celiac disease, in any age of one’s life”.