Safety Food in Celiac Disease Patients: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The prevalence of Celiac Disease (CD), an autoimmune enteropathy, characterized by chronic inflammation of the in-testinal mucosa, atrophy of intestinal villi and several clinical manifestations has increased in recent years. Epidemiol-ogical studies have shown that CD is very common and affects about one in 250 people. The mechanism of the intesti-nal immune-mediated response is not completely clear, but involves an HLA-DQ2 or HLA-DQ8 restricted T-cell im-mune reaction in the lamina propria as well as an immune reaction in the intestinal epithelium. Subjects affected by CD cannot tolerate gluten protein, a mixture of storage proteins contained in several cereals (wheat, rye, barley and deriva-tives). Gluten free-diet remains the cornerstone treatment for celiac patients. Therefore the absence of gluten in natural and processed foods represents a key aspect of food safety of the gluten-free diet. In this review, we evaluate the main studies about the safety food in CD patients.