Coeliac disease: on the rise or just being reported more?

Professor Peter Gibson asks the question of whether the reported
rise of coeliac disease is due to the rise in incidence or detection.

by Anne Crawford

It’s a question pondered in both medical science and the community: does the rising rate of a chronic disease – in this case, coeliac disease – mean that it is being detected more or is the rate of the disease really rising? Or both?

The distinction is critical to clinical and scientific responses to such changes, Head of the Department of Gastroenterology Professor Peter Gibson argues in a recent opinion piece in Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics. The journal was commemorating landmark studies published over the last decade or two, including that of seminal research on coeliac disease rates by Lohi et al in 2007.