Understanding the Genetic Puzzle and Life Changes that Trigger Celiac Disease Ep. 123

Ever wondered why you might suddenly develop Celiac disease later in life?
We're taking a deep dive into the heart of the genetic triggers at play behind Celiac disease, that can activate at any point in your life. We're unravelling the mystery behind the genes, HLA, DQ2 and HLA-DQ8, and how they play a pivotal role in developing Celiac disease.

We’re also shedding light on the various triggers that can ignite this disease - from personal life events like childbirth, to global pandemics such as COVID-19.

Whether you're recently diagnosed, seeking answers or just intrigued by the world of Celiac Disease, this episode promises to quench your curiosity.

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Music Credit bensound.com 

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:24

All right, welcome back to this week's show. Now. This is an interesting topic because it is discussed quite openly in many of the gluten-free forums or the celiac disease forums, and it's something that a lot of people don't really know the answer to. They don't get why, perhaps later on in life, they got celiac disease and why they didn't have it their entire life. So I wanted to touch on why it could be that you know you didn't get celiac disease until maybe you were a bit older, and what kind of triggered that. So let's jump on into it Now.

Speaker 0: 0:59

What causes celiac disease for you is you must have the genes. So you are passed down the genes from your parents. It could be one or both of them, and once you have those genes, you have to have gluten exposure to have celiac disease. But the thing is you can have those genes but not have celiac disease triggered. So there's two genes that we can have. You may have one or you may have both of those genes. So those genes are HLA, dq2 and DQ8. Now you might have one, you might have both. It doesn't really matter. But if you carry those genes, then at any stage in life they can get turned on. Okay, they can be triggered by something and then you have celiac disease. Okay, so when we think about people with celiac disease, they say that almost 100% of people with celiac disease have one or both of these genes, and of the population, it's around 30% of people have one or both of these genes. But of those 30% of people, only 3% actually have celiac disease. So you know, someone might go to their doctor, they might get tested and they carry the gene for celiac disease, but it doesn't mean that it's been turned on, it doesn't mean that it's been triggered, but it doesn't mean that their body is having an autoimmune response to gluten. Okay, so let's talk about some of those things that can trigger that gene.

Speaker 0: 2:42

So what I know happened to me is what triggered my celiac disease was childbirth. So prior to having my first baby, I didn't have any symptoms whatsoever of celiac disease. So childbirth was a trigger for me and many people report this as well. It's a known trigger for celiac disease. Another one is stress. So some people have reported that after the loss of a loved one, they've gone through a lot of stress People in a car accident, major stress from that their celiac disease has been triggered. So you might look back at when you started to get symptoms. In the lead up to that, you may have had some highly stressful situation happen to you and that could have been the trigger for your celiac disease to be turned on. It can be as simple as that. Surgery is another one. So I had had multiple surgeries before I had my daughter. So years prior I had to have a couple of different keyhole surgeries and neither of those triggered celiac disease for me. But for many people it does trigger it. So it can completely depend on your situation. So you might look back and you might be able to recall time when you had surgery and then, not long after, you can see that you had symptoms started to slowly progress or it was a full blown. You noticed straight away that something had changed within your body. It could be as simple as that one as well.

Speaker 0: 4:15

Other autoimmune diseases can trigger celiac disease as well. So, as I've talked about in other episodes, you can have celiac disease and it can trigger something else, for example, type 1 diabetes, and vice versa. So they can trigger each other. So that can be an interesting one as well. So something to think about if you know you've got other autoimmune diseases and you can't think of any other situation that might have triggered it for you. It could simply be because you have another autoimmune disease. Now there's not a lot of evidence about this they're still doing research on this but they also believe that other viruses. So if you get a virus, you get an infection. It can trigger celiac disease as well.

Speaker 0: 4:58

A lot of people started to report that they got celiac disease after they had COVID. So the trigger for them. A lot of people started to see that when they got COVID, not long after they started to notice the symptoms of celiac disease. So people have reported that that has been a trigger for them as well, and there's been a lot of people throughout the world with COVID. So whether we're going to see more and more people getting diagnosed because of that trigger, that will be very interesting to see as well. So, yeah, something to think about.

Speaker 0: 5:34

If you can't kind of pinpoint, if it's been recent for you and you've had COVID, that may have been a trigger for you. But again, there's not a lot of research and stats and data, it's just what people are reporting. But a lot of people know their own body and they know what has triggered it for them. So something to think about today if you never sort of realized what has triggered it for you and as far as the research goes as well, for children that have had it their whole lives. They still aren't sure whether breastfeeding has been enough to you know, that introduction of gluten at such a young age, or eating gluten at a young age whether that's been enough of a trigger or just because they've already had their gene kind of turned on, whether that's just because, well, they're already eating gluten and they can start to see it happening for them, that Celiac response, the autoimmune response.

Speaker 0: 6:27

So, depending on when you got Celiac disease, you would have noticed when your symptoms started. It could have been later in life and this explains how it happens. So those genes kind of sit there and lay dormant until something triggers them and turns them on. So whether one of these factors turned on for you, you may be able to pinpoint it. You may have no clue what caused it for you, but these are the main key areas that trigger Celiac disease when we've got that gene sitting dormant. So I hope that helps you understand what could have caused it for you. So, yeah, if you'd like to share with me what you think, turned on the gene for you or switched it for you. Dm over at the Healthy Celiac on Instagram and we can have a chat there. That'd be great. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll talk with you again very, very soon. Have a great week, take care Bye.