Food and Nutrition Sciences, 2013, 4, 55-74 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/fns.2013.47A008 Published Online July 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/fns) Safety Food in Celiac Disease Patients: A Systematic Review Mariarita Dessì1*, Annalisa Noce2, Sara Vergovich1,3, Gianluca Noce1, Nicola Di Daniele2 1Laboratory Medicine Department, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy; 2Nephrology and Hypertension Unit, Department of Medicine System, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy; 3Department of Neuroscience, Division of Human Nutrition, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy. Email: *
[email protected] Received March 28th, 2013; revised April 28th, 2013; accepted May 6th, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Mariarita Dessì et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT The prevalence of Celiac Disease (CD), an autoimmune enteropathy, characterized by chronic inflammation of the in- testinal mucosa, atrophy of intestinal villi and several clinical manifestations has increased in recent years. Epidemiol- ogical studies have shown that CD is very common and affects about one in 250 people. The mechanism of the intesti- nal immune-mediated response is not completely clear, but involves an HLA-DQ2 or HLA-DQ8 restricted T-cell im- mune reaction in the lamina propria as well as an immune reaction in the intestinal epithelium. Subjects affected by CD cannot tolerate gluten protein, a mixture of storage proteins contained in several cereals (wheat, rye, barley and deriva- tives). Gluten free-diet remains the cornerstone treatment for celiac patients.