Pediatric celiac disease has experienced a 50% reduction in Catalonia in the last decade, indicates a study by the Mútua Terrassa university hospital, which attributes the decrease to the protection provided by the rotavirus vaccine, which has spread in recent years. despite the fact that it is not included in the vaccination schedule.
The center’s Digestive System service carried out a study on the prevalence of celiac disease among the pediatric population between 2004 and 2007. The results were very high: one case for every 40 individuals between 1 and 5 years old when at the age adult the relationship is one case for every 350 people.
In order to evaluate the data obtained and look for causes of the high incidence of celiac disease among children, the research group carried out a new prevalence study a decade later, between 2013 and 2019. 3,700 children participated and, with a methodology Identical to that of the first examination, the researchers found a 50% decrease in incidence: from 1 case per 40 people to 1 case per 84.
“We began to look for factors that could have intervened in this decline through a survey of parents with questions about events that they could not have forgotten,” explains the main researcher, Maria Esteve. Questions about various facts that at some point have been related to the development of celiac disease, such as whether the birth was by cesarean section, whether breastfeeding was received, the time of introduction of gluten into the diet or the vaccination status.
If in the first study the number of children vaccinated against rotavirus was negligible, in the second almost half of the sample was immunized (by parental initiative), notes Dr. Esteve. So it can be inferred that the vaccine is a protective factor.
20% of the population has genes that predispose to celiac disease, but the percentage of people who develop the pathology is much lower. Environmental factors influence and, above all, infections, more specifically rotavirus.
The study, in which researchers from Sant Joan de Déu hospital, the Catalan Institute of Oncology, Bellvitge and the Catlab clinical analysis laboratory have also participated, has been published in Nutrients magazine.
Their results are in line with a work published in Finland in 2019 on a sample of 20,000 children. Half were previously vaccinated against rotavirus and the other received a placebo. Ten years later, the incidence of celiac disease in the second group doubled that of the first.
“There is a lot of evidence in favor of incorporating the rotavirus vaccine into the schedule, first of all because the number of affected people who visit pediatricians is not negligible,” says Esteve. This specialist in the digestive system advocates for a unified European vaccination schedule, when in Spain there are communities that contemplate this immunization and others – such as Catalonia – do not.
Very contagious, rotavirus causes gastroenteritis that can be very serious in infants, causing dehydration and admission to the ICU in the most critical cases. This infection has been proposed as a possible activator of celiac disease. “Since it causes a lot of inflammation in the intestine, there are patients who begin symptoms of celiac disease right after rotavirus gastroenteritis.”
Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that damages the intestinal mucosa and makes it difficult to absorb nutrients. Patients do not tolerate gluten.
