New blood test for coeliac disease can diagnose autoimmune condition without need to eat gluten

Coeliacs may soon no longer need to eat large amounts of gluten – the very thing suspected of making them sick – to get an accurate diagnosis.

Australian research published in the journal Gastroenterology showed a blood test for gluten-specific T cells had a high accuracy in diagnosing coeliac disease, even when no gluten was eaten.

Around 1% of people in western countries have coeliac disease, an autoimmune condition in which gluten causes an inflammatory reaction in the small bowel.

Currently, every approved method to diagnose it requires people to eat gluten, the paper said.

Current testing methods – blood tests or a gastroscopy – require weeks of a person eating gluten, while often enduring symptoms such as diarrhoea, abdominal pain and bloating.

Despite the importance of early diagnosis, the researchers said many people are deterred because they do not want to get sick from the tests.

More than one in two cases of coeliac disease are either undiagnosed or diagnosed late, prior research has shown.

“There are likely millions of people around the world living with undiagnosed coeliac disease simply because the path to diagnosis is difficult, and at times, debilitating,” said Assoc Prof Jason Tye-Din, a senior author of the paper and head of the Coeliac Research Laboratory at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Melbourne, Australia.

The new research could be a “game-changer”, helping address “one of the biggest deterrents in current diagnostic practices”, Tye-Din said.

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Source: The Guardian, 10 June 2025