CF and celiac disease

Question

Dear expert team,
is there a correlation between CF and celiac disease? Would it be possible, that the bowel is damaged in an undiagnosed CF in that way, that it gets extremely hypersensitive and shows similar symptoms as celiac disease?
My hope is still that in well adapted creon dosages the diagnose of celiac disease becomes invalid someday.
Thanks for your efforts!

Answer

Hello,
according to your question I assume that you have been diagnosed with celiac disease first and later it has been recognized that you suffer from CF.
It is known, that in CF patients there can be in part a slight damage of the surface of the small bowel in that kind, that it leads to a slight decrease of the disaccharidases. This is therefore only a very slight damage of the surface of the villi, which leads to a decrease of the activity of the suger-splitting enzymes (disaccharidases). Hereby it comes not to the classical picture of celiac disease with atrophy of the mucosa of the small bowel. In case there was a total atrophy of the villi in your case, that led to the diagnose of celiac disease, you suffer without doubt from celiac disease. In case the findings were more questionable and only a slight shortenage of the villi has been detected, the diagnose should be checked again. In this case, the IgA-transglutaminase should be determined before a provocation trial as a baseline value and should be determined again after a 6-months intake of gluten.

In general it has to be stated, that there is an increased coincidence of both illnesses. Hereby a possible damage of the mucosa of the small bowel does rather not play a role as a causing agent for celiac disease.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. H.-G. Posselt

29.11.2010