Researchers are reporting some disappointing news on the celiac diagnosis front. Lower income folks with more uncommon symptoms are less likely to get diagnosed with celiac.
The findings were presented yesterday at a conference in Chicago by researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Researchers studied the presenting symptoms and household and per capita earnings of 800 adult celiacs. They determined the better your socioeconomic status, the more likely you are to get diagnosed.
The news alert reported,
“The income gap may reflect a gap in health literacy and access to health information between socioeconomic brackets. ‘It is a marker for patients having the resources to educate themselves as to what might be the underlying cause of their disorder,’ Dr. [Daniel] Leffler said. ‘Celiac testing is often prompted by patient request rather than physician suspicion, which almost certainly contributes to the diagnostic disparity seen in this study.'”
Wow! So true. I so often hear of people going into see their doctors and requesting a celiac blood test because of their ailments. It’s great that people are being proactive, but I wish that there would be more suspicion on the doctors’ parts so everyone would be getting diagnosed.
Dr. Leffler said both physicians and the public need greater awareness on celiac disease.
Tags: celiac symptoms, diagnosis, gluten-free, research
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