Psychiatric comorbidity and coeliac disease

A short post this one following the recent publication of a paper by Danielle Arigo and colleagues* on the psychiatric comorbidity potentially accompanying a diagnosis of coeliac (celiac) disease (CD) in women. There is nothing particularly earth-shattering about the fact that people with coeliac disease or gluten sensitivity might be at greater risk of other comorbidities, particularly those based outside of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. If you don't believe me, check out the work of Drs Mario Hadjivassiliou and David Sanders for example and even the suggestion that parts of conditions such as autism and schizophrenia might manifest as a result of dietary gluten.

The Arigo study suggested that despite high compliance with a gluten-free diet, women diagnosed with coeliac disease (N=177) were still reporting symptoms for conditions like depression (37%) and 'disordered eating' (22%) (disordered eating I assume meaning a recognised eating disorder). Whilst the authors suggest that additional psychosocial care might be required for women with CD, I think that this study provides a small snapshot into a more a complex pattern of conditions which perhaps requires further exploration.

Depression for example has cropped up in other studies of CD. This paper suggested pretty much the same thing in gluten-free compliant children with CD and prominent 'internalising' symptoms particularly in females. So perhaps age is not the deciding factor here.

As for eating disorders and CD, you might expect that the adoption of a gluten-free diet might make a person more likely to concentrate on the food they eat, but would it necessarily promote an eating disorder? I find this a little hard to swallow but as yet can offer no other evidence-based explanation aside from the fact that this is again not the first time that an association has been made (see here). If I was to be ultra-speculative (careful!) I might go back to the autism connection, and the suggestion that there may be some overlap in the 'cognitive phenotype' between autism and eating disorders; could this possibly overlap with those 'best responder' cases to dietary intervention in autism spectrum conditions?

* Arigo D. et al. Psychiatric comorbidities in women with celiac disease. Chronic Illness. September 2011.