What causes such varied symptoms?
All of the clinical manifestations of celiac disease are caused by the inability of the damaged small intestine to absorb nutrients normally. The wide variation in symptoms are attributable to a number of factors only some of which are known and include the age at which a child or individual begins eating gluten products and the amount of gluten containing foods a person ingests. The amount of intestinal damage is also a significant factor. Diagnosis The symptoms of celiac disease can be easily confused with those of other diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, or intestinal infections. As a result, celiac disease is often under diagnosed or misdiagnosed. In recent years, autoantibodies, or proteins that react against the body’s own tissues, have been discovered in the blood of persons with celiac disease. These autoantibodies serve as markers for celiac disease. To diagnose celiac disease, blood tests can be done for these mark
