Celiac Disease Found Not to Increase Cancer-Related Death

the Cancer Therapy Advisor take:

According to a new study published in the journal Gut, patients with celiac disease not more likely than the general population to die from cancer or heart disease within 10 years of their celiac disease diagnosis.

In contrast, patients with celiac disease were had a slightly lower risk than the general population for dying from heart disease. For the study, researchers at The University of Nottingham in Nottingham, United Kingdom, sought to investigate whether celiac disease increases a person's risk for dying from certain diseases, as previous studies have demonstrated mixed results.

Researchers identified about 11,000 patients with celiac disease and over 100,000 patients with similar characteristics without celiac disease from a database of primary care records. They found a similar mortality rate among both groups.

The researchers found no overall difference in mortality rates caused by cancer, digestive disease, or respiratory disease. Patients with celiac disease were a bit less likely to die from heart disease, but were very slightly more likely to die as a result of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The findings of this large study suggest that celiac disease does not increase a patient's risk of death.