Researchers suggest that the timing of gluten introduction in children does not affect the risk of developing celiac diseases.
Celiac disease is an immune disease where a person cannot eat gluten, which is found in barley, wheat and rye. If a person suffering from celiac disease eats food with gluten then it can damage their small intestine. Celiac disease is typically genetic and a simple blood test can help doctors establish if a person has the disease.
Previous studies have suggested that to prevent celiac disease in infants, who have a family history of the disease, parents should consider introducing a small amount of gluten diet for their kids between four and six months. However, two new studies suggest that gluten introduction at any age intervene with the development of celiac disease in the later life. The researchers also found that breast-feeding also did not protect children from developing celiac disease.
"The studies were very well conducted and demonstrate that giving a little bit of gluten while breastfeeding - something that we advise currently - does not protect kids from getting celiac disease," says Dr. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University Medical Center, who wrote an editorial about the latest studies.
Dr. Green believes that the findings of both the studies will change the practice of gluten introduction at early age. The findings will also provide relief to the parents who could not breast-feed their children suffering from celiac disease.
Both the studies involved observing hundreds of children with at least one parent or a sibling suffering from celiac disease.
One of the studies conducted by the researchers at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands examined a total of 944 children. Some children were eating gluten nearly every day from 16 to 24 weeks after getting born. A part of the participants were not fed with gluten food at all. The researchers found that participants from both the groups developed celiac disease at identical pace. Five percent of the children developed the disease after 3 years, regardless of being exposed to gluten or not.
The second study was conducted by researchers associated at the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston. The researchers tried to establish if delaying the introduction of gluten had any impact on the risk factor of the disease. The study involved over 700 kids. Some infants were exposed to gluten at 6 months and some at 12 months. The study found that the delay in gluten exposure did not affect a child's risk to develop celiac disease.
Many retail stores and restaurants offer gluten-free dishes and doctors suggest that eating a gluten-free diet is the best treatment for celiac disease.
The findings of both the studies have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
