Articles About Celiac Disease You Can Show to Your Doctor

Unfortunately, some doctors still don't know when to suspect celiac disease. These out-of-date doctors tell their patients things like, “You can’t have celiac disease. You’re too old.” Or, “You don’t have diarrhea so you can’t have celiac disease.” Too many physicians still don’t realize there is no “typical” celiac disease patient. Celiac disease can begin at any age, persists for life, and can affect multiple organs. People with celiac disease can be thin, obese, or of normal weight. In both children and adults, the symptoms of celiac disease can be extremely variable or there may be no symptoms at all. Sadly, because there is no standard profile of a person with celiac disease, some patients go from doctor to doctor for years, seeking a diagnosis for their illness.

Your doctor does not need to be a celiac disease expert; he just needs to be able to recognize its symptoms, risk factors, and associated conditions. If your doctor is not up to date with current knowledge of celiac disease and you think you have symptoms or risk factors, you have two choices. You can find a doctor who understands celiac disease, or you can try to convince your current doctor that he needs to learn more about celiac disease -- in which case it’s important to be diplomatic.

Showing your doctor articles from newspapers and magazines is not the best approach. Instead, here are three good articles from highly regarded medical journals that you can print out and share with your doctor. Each of these articles was written to provide a broad review of current knowledge for physicians and other health care professionals.

Note: To view PDF files, you need to download Adobe Reader software, which is available at no charge.

Carlo Catassi and Alessio Fasano. Celiac Disease. Current Opinion in Gastroenterology 2008;24(6):687-691
You can download this article as a PDF file from the website of the Celiac Disease Foundation. Click on “Celiac Disease, Carlo Catassi & Alessio Fasano, Medscape, December 5, 2008”

John S. Leeds, Andrew D. Hopper, and David S. Sanders. Coeliac Disease. British Medical Bulletin 2008 88(1):157-170; doi:10.1093/bmb/ldn044
This article is available as a PDF file or in html on the website of the British Medical Bulletin. You’ll need to register with a user name and password, but there’s no charge.

Peter H.R. Green and Christophe Cellier. Celiac Disease: a Review. New England Journal of Medicine 2007;357:1731-43.
The Canadian Celiac Association has arranged for a PDF file of this article to be available on their website.