Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Environmental Science

First Advisor

Dr. Youssef Abu-Zaied

Second Advisor

Dr. Salem Awad Sabi

Third Advisor

Dr. Tarek Youssef

Comments

Celiac disease is a common condition that affects all populations around the world in all ages. It was thought before that CD is a rare disease effects only the Caucasians mainly in Europe, Australia and North America, but development of new serological tests lead to increase the prevalence of the disease around the world. The main objective of this research project is to find out the prevalence of latent or silent celiac disease among UAE nationals. Total of 1200 UAE nationals agreed to participate and answer the questionnaire for the study. Subjects visited Al Ain hospital for undergoing prenuptial tests. They were screened for celiac disease using tissue trans glutaminase tTG class IgA and IgG then all seropositive cases were screened for anti-endomysium antibody (EMA) IgA and IgG and total IgA. 14 (1.2%) of the 1200 subjects were seropositive for CD and none of them had been diagnosed before the study as CD patient. The prevalence of seropositive CD for females and males was remarkably different, 13/573 (2.3%) female subjects were positive while only 11624 (0.2%) male was positive. Such high difference in prevalence between males and females is remarkable compared with many other prevalence studies which mostly reported higher prevalence among females but not to the extent of the present study. The unrecognized cases of CD which are detected through population screening endorse the concept of celiac iceberg and therefore, population screening identifies subjects who could benefit from the treatment.

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