Coeliacs at greater risk of asthma but not male infertility

A great deal of research into various aspects of coeliac disease has recently been published by Dr. Jonas Ludvigsson, of Orebro University Hospital and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and several of his colleagues. Among other research topics, the latest work as looked at nationwide data to see whether having coeliac disease increases the risk of asthma, and whether having the condition is a risk factor for male infertility.

Research into asthma and coeliac disease was conducted using nationwide biopsy data collected between 2006 and 2008, representing 44,446 individuals. According to the biopsy results, over 28,000 of these individuals had coeliac disease. Almost 220,000 healthy controls, comprising individuals who had never had biopsies, were included in this study.

Results of the investigation indicated that people with coeliac disease had a 1.6-fold increased risk of developing asthma than those without coeliac disease, while people with asthma had a greater likelihood of developing coeliac disease. The authors hypothesised the same factor, such as vitamin D deficiency, may increase the risk of developing both diseases, rather than one disease causing the other.

The work by Dr Ludvigsson and colleagues into the reproductive health of men with coeliac disease tracked the number of children born to over 7,000 Swedish men who had been diagnosed with coeliac disease, plus 32,000 male controls who did not have the disease. After adjusting the results for several factors including age, calendar period, and parity and stratifying by education, the study found fertility in men with diagnosed coeliac disease was normal.

Another study of which Dr Ludvigsson was an author found a moderately increased risk of suicide amongst patients with coeliac disease compared to the general population. It has previously been shown that individuals with coeliac disease have higher rates of depression and death by external causes.

References:

Study 1: Ludvigsson et al. 2011. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology DOI:10.1016/j.jaci.2010.12.1076

Study 2: Zugna et al. 2011. Fertility and Sterility. Vol.95(5) pp. 1709-1713.e3.

Study 3: Ludvigsson et al. 2011. Digestive and Liver Disease. 2011