FRIDAY, June 2, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Children with type 1 diabetes often have comorbid celiac disease (CD), according to a study published online May 25 in Diabetes Care.
Maria E. Craig, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., from the Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, and colleagues examined international differences in CD prevalence, and compared clinical characteristics of children with coexisting type 1 diabetes and CD versus type 1 diabetes only. Data were included for 52,721 individuals aged up to 18 years with a clinic visit between April 2013 and March 2014.
The researchers found that 3.5 percent of the participants had biopsy-confirmed CD, which was diagnosed at a median age of 8.1 years. The prevalence of CD varied, from 1.9 to 7.7 percent in the T1D Exchange Clinic Network (United States) and Australasian Diabetes Data Network (Australia), respectively. The age at diabetes diagnosis was younger for those with coexisting CD compared to those with type 1 diabetes only (5.4 versus 7.0 years of age; P < 0.001), while fewer children with coexisting CD were non-white (15 versus 18 percent; P < 0.001). Those with CD had a lower height-standard deviation score (0.36 versus 0.48; adjusted P < 0.001), while fewer were overweight/obese (34 versus 37 percent; adjusted P < 0.001). The mean hemoglobin A1c values were comparable between the groups.
"Differences in CD prevalence may reflect international variation in screening and diagnostic practices, and/ or CD risk," the authors write. "Although glycemic control was not different, the lower height-standard deviation score supports close monitoring of growth and nutrition in this population."
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