Swedish doctors believe they have found the reason behind coeliac disease, and it has nothing to do with breastfeeding.
A joint research venture between universities from Sweden, Finland, Germany and the US has found that not breastfeeding or stopping breastfeeding early will not raise the chances in a child to develop coeliac disease.
The Teddy project, as it’s called, studied the development of some 9,000 children living in the participating countries, and concluded that starting a gluten abundant diet too early is not a trigger to the disease either.
Instead, lead researcher Carin Adren Aronsson at Lund University has found reason that it is the amount of gluten that triggers the development of coeliac disease in children, a lot of it that is.
It is still unknown why coeliac disease actually happens, but previous researchers had reason to believe it was related to whether a child was breastfed or not, and when it stopped. However, this new research has found that it is not a matter of when a child is introduced to gluten, but a matter of how much of a child is eating at a time.
The study showed that children who eat more than five grams of gluten before the age of two had double the risk of developing the condition. The team will continue to further validate their claims by continuing the research for another three years, including more children from several other countries as well.
Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disorder affecting the small intestine making it sensitive to gluten, which can result in chronic diarrhea, abdominal distention, malabsorption, loss of appetite, and even abnormal growth within children.
