Unit 2: Health Effects of Complementary Feeding

Celiac Disease (CD) is an immune-mediated systemic condition characterised by enteropathy with villous atrophy. CD is triggered by the intake of gluten in genetically predisposed individuals. About 30-40% of the general population carry the risk alleles HLA-DQ2 or DQ8, however, only a small proportion of these carriers develop the disease. Therefore, in addition to the genetic predisposition, environmental factors have to play a major role in the pathogenesis of the CD (Husby et al. 2012). Among others, early infant feeding was considered to influence the risk of CD in previously conducted observational studies. However, a recently published meta-analysis including two new interventional randomized cohort studies addressed this issue and provides new evidence on the impact of early infant feeding and the prevention of CD (Szajewska et al. 2015).

In recent years, it has become evident that celiac disease is not only a disease in developed countries but also occurs in developing countries with high rates (Ludvigsson & Fasano 2012). The incidence of celiac disease is as high as 0.5-1.6% in the general population in Europe and North America (Fasano et al. 2003; Maki et al. 2003; Walker et al. 2010).