Celiac disease is a drain condition that forbid sufferers from being able to tolerate gluten , and currently the best intervention is to avoid dietetic gluten for life . Unfortunately , gluten is a primal ingredient in carbohydrates such as bread and alimentary paste , and gluten - free alternatives are often more expensive and miss the stretchy grain that have sure foods enjoyable . what is more , any inadvertent deviance from the gluten - free dieting outcome in meaning and sometimes farsighted - term wrong to the mucous membrane in a patient ’s digestive tract . stave off gluten completely is difficult for even the most practice of celiacs , so alternative treatments are an exciting area of probe .
A patient with alopecia and coeliac disease at the University Hospitals Leuven , Belgium , had attempted to cut his celiac rigourousness by following a gluten - free diet . His progress revealed some remission but after returning to gluten again he began to experience symptoms . The affected role decide to continue with a watchful waiting approach for his celiac , but in the meantime set out demand off - recording label Tofacitinib for hisalopecia . Tofacitinib is a medication that bottle up enzyme consociate with worsening severity of rheumatoid arthritis , but it ’s also used to treat alopecia and certain gut diseases .
To the surprise of his clinician , the patient returned for observe - up investigations that showed complete histologic and serologic remission of celiac disease despite the fact that he had returned to a gluten - contain diet . profligate test also revealed promising resolution with all reports coming back in the normal range .
The result is promising and if it can be replicated on a larger scurf could bring a new normal to celiac patients for whom managing the disease can be meter - consuming and distressing . The authors on the case study caution , however , that the potential side effects of Tofacitinib should not be look out on , as their next bailiwick looking at more patients could reveal that the drug is n’t suitable for long - term use .
