Why People Are Allergic To Gluten — And Why Caucasians Are Most At Risk

I'm Peter Green I'm the director of the celiac disease Center at Columbia University celiac disease is actually a disease our Caucasians the genes that are involved in celiac disease are northern European genes now they've been spread all around the world but if you look at which ethnic groups have celiac disease it's much less common in black people and Asian except South Asian in a study that we did the ethnic group with the greatest prevalence of celiac disease in this country was individuals from northern India it's common but there is an ethnic predilection for it to be in Caucasians so to have celiac disease you've got to be ingesting gluten and 99% of us are doing that and you've got to have these particular northern European genes and 40 percent of us have those genes yet only 1% to have celiac disease so that suggests that there environmental factors and other genes about 30 other genes have been described that can be factors in the development of celiac disease but we think environmental factors very important there are a whole number of risk factors like antibiotics PPI or the proton pump acid reducing drugs being born by caesarean section increases the risk we need to do a lot more research to define what the risk factors are and then the mechanism of that so that we can prevent this increase in celiac disease that has been observed over the last 50 years worldwide

Channel: Insider Tech

Views: 21,893

Keywords: Tech Insider, TI, Tech, Science, Innovation, Digital culture, Design, Technology, Celiac Disease, Peter Green, Genetics, Gluten-Free, Gluten-Free Diet, Gluten, Health, Gluten Allergy, Diet, Food Allergies

Id: G4ViCZksnqg

Length: 1min 55sec (115 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2017