For celiac disease, diagnosis is not enough

Daily Experiences and Challenges Among Children and Adolescents With Celiac Disease: Focus Group Results

OBJECTIVES

Maintaining a restrictive gluten-free diet is the only treatment for celiac disease (CD). Adherence among children and adolescents presents unique challenges and is often inadequate. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Children and Youth version (ICF-CY) model encompasses all aspects of human health and daily function while dealing with a disease and interacting with the environment. The purpose was to explore everyday life experiences and challenges as perceived by children and adolescents with CD and their parents in light of the ICF-CY concepts to identify the most crucial components in management challenges. The present study was the first stage in developing a standardized questionnaire to assess these needs.

METHODS

Children and adolescents diagnosed with CD for more than 6 months and their parents participated in 4 separate focus group interviews: 12 children (8-12 years) and 13 of their parents, and 10 adolescents (13-16 years) and 10 of their parents.

RESULTS

The ICF-CY body functions component that includes higher-level cognitive functions, such as organization, planning, and problem solving was largely reflected. Food-related activities in and out of the home were discussed, yet thorough activity analysis was lacking in the available literature.

CONCLUSIONS

The focus groups revealed a wide scope of coping issues that contribute to a deeper understanding of specific CD characteristics including daily management, participation in food-related activities, roles, strategies, and supporting or hindering factors in everyday life with CD.

Cognitive impairment in coeliac disease improves on a gluten-free diet and correlates with histological and serological indices of disease severity

BACKGROUND

Mild impairments of cognition or 'Brain fog' are often reported by patients with coeliac disease but the nature of these impairments has not been systematically investigated.

AIM

This longitudinal pilot study investigated relationships between cognitive function and mucosal healing in people with newly diagnosed coeliac disease commencing a gluten-free diet.

METHODS

Eleven patients (8 females, 3 males), mean age 30 (range 22-39) years, were tested with a battery of cognitive tests at weeks 0, 12 and 52. Information processing efficacy, memory, visuospatial ability, motoric function and attention were tested. Small bowel biopsies were collected via routine gastroscopy at weeks 12 and 52 and were compared to baseline Marsh scores. Cognitive performance was compared to serum concentrations of tissue transglutaminase antibodies, biopsy outcomes and other biological markers.

RESULTS

All patients had excellent adherence to the diet. Marsh scores improved significantly (P = 0.001, Friedman's test) and tissue transglutaminase antibody concentrations decreased from a mean of 58.4 at baseline to 16.8 U/mL at week 52 (P = 0.025). Four of the cognitive tests assessing verbal fluency, attention and motoric function showed significant improvement over the 12 months and strongly correlated with the Marsh scores and tissue transglutaminase antibody levels (r = 0.377-0.735; all P < 0.05). However, no meaningful patterns of correlations were found for nutritional or biochemical markers, or markers of intestinal permeability.

CONCLUSIONS

In newly diagnosed coeliac disease, cognitive performance improves with adherence to the gluten-free diet in parallel to mucosal healing. Suboptimal levels of cognition in untreated coeliac disease may affect the performance of everyday tasks.

CYP3A4-catalyzed simvastatin metabolism as a non-invasive marker of small intestinal health in celiac disease

OBJECTIVES

Histological examination of duodenal biopsies is the gold standard for assessing intestinal damage in celiac disease (CD). A noninvasive marker of disease status is necessary, because obtaining duodenal biopsies is invasive and not suitable for routine monitoring of CD patients. As the small intestine is a major site of cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4) activity and also the location of the celiac lesion, we investigated whether patients with active CD display abnormal pharmacokinetics of an orally administered CYP3A4 substrate, simvastatin (SV), which could potentially be used for noninvasive assessment of their small intestinal health.

METHODS

Preclinical experiments were performed in CYP3A4-humanized mice to examine the feasibility of the test. Subsequently, a clinical trial was undertaken with 11 healthy volunteers, 18 newly diagnosed patients with CD, and 25 celiac patients who had followed a gluten-free diet (GFD) for more than 1 year. The maximum concentration (Cmax) of orally administered SV plus its major non-CYP3A4-derived metabolite SV acid (SV equivalent (SVeq)) was measured, and compared with clinical, histological, and serological parameters.

RESULTS

In CYP3A4-humanized mice, a marked decrease in SV metabolism was observed in response to enteropathy. In the clinical setting, untreated celiac patients displayed a significantly higher SVeq Cmax (46±24 nM) compared with treated patients (21±16 nM, P<0.001) or healthy subjects (19±11 nM, P<0.005). SVeq Cmax correctly predicted the diagnosis in 16/18 untreated celiac patients, and also the recovery status of all follow-up patients that exhibited normal or near-normal biopsies (Marsh 0-2). All patients with abnormal SVeq Cmax showed a reduction in the value after 1 year of following a GFD.

CONCLUSIONS

SVeq Cmax is a promising noninvasive marker for assessment of small intestinal health. Further studies are warranted to establish its clinical utility for assessing gut status of patients with CD.