ExplainerCoeliac disease: all you need to know about the autoimmune disorder affecting Chelsea Clinton, Zooey Deschanel and others
- Eating gluten – a protein found in many grains – can cause stomach pain, bloating and more in coeliac sufferers and those who are intolerant of gluten
- Avoiding gluten if you have not been diagnosed as coeliac or gluten intolerant may be bad for you; it has been shown to help prevent heart disease and more
Popular American actress Zooey Deschanel and Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former US president Bill Clinton, suffer from the same disease, and both are outspoken about it.
They have coeliac disease, an autoimmune disorder in which ingesting gluten – a protein naturally found in some grains – leads to damage in the small intestine.
We can thank the second-century Greek doctor and writer Aretaeus of Cappadocia, considered to be second only to the father of medicine himself, Hippocrates, for its name.
Aretaeus described the earliest account of a clinical presentation of the disease, which he called “koiliakos” after the Greek word koelia (for abdomen). He wrote: “If the stomach be irretentive of the food and if it pass through undigested and crude, and nothing ascends into the body, we call such persons coeliacs.”
