2017 was a busy year for progress towards celiac disease drugs and a vaccine. What does 2018 hold?
By Amy Ratner, Beyond Celiac Medical and Science News Analyst
At the end of the year it’s fun and informative to look back on what’s transpired since we flipped opened a new calendar 12 months ago.
When it comes to celiac disease research, busy is the best way to describe 2017.
We’ve seen potential treatments, both drugs and vaccines, showing promising results and moving forward in or begining clinical trials. While one study did have disappointing results, its researchers got federal funding to pursue what they see as its potential for success.
Another treatment that relies on futuristic-sounding nanoparticles made progress in the clinical trial process with the launch of a search for study participants.
In the past year, experts also investigated ways to reduce the amount of time you have to eat gluten to be tested for celiac disease if you’ve already gone on the gluten-free diet. That’s a common a situation that prevents a lot of people from finding out it they have celiac disease.
Researchers also explored the role of the intestinal biopsy in diagnosing celiac disease in both adults and children.
And scientists with an out-of-the-box approach collected 800 spit samples from visitors to a nearby museum for a study into whether an enzyme from saliva could be used as a treatment for celiac disease. They theorize the enzyme could break up the harmful parts of the gluten protein that triggers intestinal damage.
All these topics and more made it into our list of the top 10 viewed research posts for 2017. Here are the stories people with celiac disease were most interested in reading on our website and talking about on Facebook.
Beyond Celiac also had plenty to report in 2017 on our own research initiatives, including
While it’s been a research-packed year, we look forward to even more work in 2018 to accelerate the search for additional treatment options, and eventually, a cure.
One of the most important things you can do to make these a reality is to join Go Beyond Celiac, the online patient community Beyond Celiac launched in 2017. It’s easy to join us in making the individual and collective voices of those with celiac be heard. If we do that, 2018 will be a banner year.
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