You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

Letter
Risk of fracture in coeliac disease
Free
  1. R Logan,
  2. J West
  1. Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
  1. Correspondence to:
    Professor R Logan, School of Community Health Sciences, Division of Public Health Sciences, Queen’s Medical Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK;
    richard.logan{at}nottingham.ac.uk

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/gut.52.10.1532-a

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    We agree that the risk of fracture in coeliac disease needs to be estimated more precisely and that judicious use of DEXA scanning is appropriate in this group, as it is in the general population. However, as Walters and colleagues (

    Gut2003;52:1229–30
    OpenUrlFREE Full Text

    ) and others have clearly shown, bone mineral density does improve following treatment with a gluten free diet, so recommendations to screen all newly diagnosed patients with coeliac disease at diagnosis do not seem judicious.1

    Larger studies are needed and one such is in progress. Nevertheless, the small increases in risk which we found are similar to those found in the only other population based study of fracture risk in patients with coeliac disease.2 In the absence of robust data showing a marked increase in the risk of fracture in patients with coeliac disease, perhaps the onus should be on those making such recommendations1 to provide evidence supporting their efficacy and cost effectiveness.

    References

    1. ↵
      Scott EM, Gaywood I, Scott BB. Guidelines for osteoporosis in coeliac disease and inflammatory bowel disease. British Society of Gastroenterology. Gut2000;46:i1–8.
    2. ↵
      Vestergaard P, Mosekilde L. Fracture risk in patients with celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis: a nationwide follow-up study of 16,416 patients in Denmark. Am J Epidemiol2002;156:1–10.