Significance of Antibodies to Dietary Proteins in the Serums of Patients with Nontropical Sprue

Abstract

THE term non tropical sprue (celiac disease in children) defines a group of patients with intestinal malabsorption and a characteristic, if not specific, small-bowel lesion. Another important identifying feature is the distinctive sensitivity to ingested wheat and rye proteins: abstention from these gluten-containing cereals results, in most patients, in dramatic improvement in clinical status and somewhat less dramatic reversal of the mucosal abnormality. Once remission is induced challenge with gluten or more specifically the ethyl alcohol-soluble fraction of gluten, gliadin, causes recrudescence of the absorptive and morphologic abnormalities. That allergy to gliadin might account for its effects in sprue (used . . .