Celiac disease and increased risk of epilepsy

By Jason Clevenger

Summary: A Swedish study of epilepsy in celiac disease patients published by a group of European researchers suggests that both men and women with celiac disease have a moderately elevated risk of developing epilepsy as compared to the general population. The researchers examined the records of over 28,000 patients with biopsy-proven celiac disease and matched them with over 143,000 patients from the general population.

The celiac disease patients were found to have a 43 percent increased risk of developing epilepsy, with roughly equal risk for men and women both before and after celiac disease diagnosis.

Conclusion: The authors conclude that the increased risk of epilepsy found in celiac patients both before and after the onset of celiac disease suggests a predisposition to the development of epilepsy rather than celiac disease being the cause of epilepsy. Epilepsy has previously been linked to the occurrence of other autoimmune diseases, which further suggests a common underlying relationship among them.

 

[1] “Increased risk of epilepsy in biopsy-verified celiac disease: A population-based cohort study”, J.F. Ludvigsson, F. Zingone T. Tomson, A. Ekbom, C. Ciacci., Neurology, Apr 2012, epub ahead of print.

Learn more about the health and medical experts who who provide you with the cutting-edge resources, tools, news, and more on Gluten-Free Living.
About Our Experts >>

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *