Celiac disease and health-related quality of life

Abstract

Celiac disease is a particularly common life-long disorder with a prevalence of approximately 1–2% in Western populations. In recent years the health-related quality of life has become an important issue in this context, and most studies carried out so far have shown diminished quality of life in untreated patients compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, there has generally been a beneficial response to treatment with a gluten-free diet. However, the majority of trials have been carried out among adults with gastrointestinal disease, while in fact several extraintestinal and atypical forms of celiac disease might be even more common than the classical disorder. In addition, only a small proportion of these studies have been conducted among children. This article highlights the studies of health-related quality of life and celiac disease conducted to date. Particular attention is paid to the extraintestinal and atypical forms of the disorder.

Keywords::

• celiac disease
• children
• extraintestinal
• gluten-free diet
• health-related quality of life
• screen-detected

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The Celiac Disease Study Group has been financially supported by the Academy of Finland Research Council for Health, the Competitive Research Funding of the Pirkanmaa Hospital District, the Sigrid Juselius Foundation, the Foundation for Paediatric Research, the EU Commission Marie Curie Excellence Grant (FP6 contract MEXT-CT-2005-025270), Marie Curie mobility grant (MRTNCT-2006-036032; TRACKS), the National Graduate School of Clinical Investigation, the Ehrnrooth Foundation and the Finnish Celiac Society. The sponsors had no role in the contents of the article or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.