The New England Journal of Medicine just came out with research suggesting a genetic link and similar environmental factors may play a role in triggering the auto-immune diseases: celiac disease and type 1 diabetes. Below you’ll find an excerpt from the US News and World Report online article:
Researchers had previously seen genetic links between type 1 diabetes and celiac disease, which, together, affect about 1 percent of the population, [study senior author John Todd, of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research at the University of Cambridge in the U.K.] said.
But the new research shows there is “considerable overlap, and much more than we anticipated” he said. “Almost every celiac disease susceptibility gene had an effect in type 1 diabetes.”
These similarities “suggest there’s an important crisscross in both these diseases,” said Dr. Robert Goldstein, chief scientific officer of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). “What’s missing is how do you relate that finding to biologic function or biologic dysfunction. That’s the next step.”
The University of Maryland Baltimore’s Center for Celiac Research also found a link between auto-immune diseases like celiac and diabetes (and multiple sclerosis) in its research on the “Leaky Gut”. So this concept of a link between the two is nothing new. But any additional information from medical research is always welcome.
I hope to expand on this topic in the coming days.
Tags: auto-immune disease, celiac, diabetes, genetic
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