Researchers have found a new way to diagnose coeliac disease. The world-first test detects specific cells in the blood and doesn't require people to eat gluten, meaning a quicker and less painful diagnosis is on the way for hundreds of thousands of Australians.
00:00For Eliza Long, the biscuits she eats are gluten free, because if she eats wheat, she'll be in so much pain she can't move.
00:10I'd get taken home from school early, I was laid up on the couch, just like in the fetal position. Mum would say it would sometimes look like I'm in labour with the pain.
00:19She was diagnosed with celiac disease when she was 11, in what was a long and painful process.
00:25Knowing that what I was eating was going to make me feel really unwell was quite concerning, especially knowing that it was going to be damaging my stomach.
00:34And then yeah, the diagnosis process was pretty lengthy and a bit confronting for a kid.
00:39But it may soon become much easier and less painful for the 350,000 Australians living with celiac disease.
00:47Researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne have found a new world first blood test that can give a diagnosis.
00:54This could really revolutionise testing for people with celiac disease, because currently people need to be eating gluten regularly and then have a blood test and an invasive gastroscopy.
01:04The test can detect T cells in the blood, which are the cells that cause celiac disease.
01:09How it works is blood is taken from the patient, then put into a test tube with gluten.
01:14If T cells are present, the person has celiac disease.
01:17The test can even measure how sensitive the person is to gluten.
01:21One of the major strengths of this approach is that it uses a very, very sensitive test that can detect as little as a grain of sand in over 50 Olympic size swimming pools.
01:31Four out of five Australians with celiac disease don't know they have it.
01:36With this new test to simplify the process, it's expected to lead to more people getting diagnosed.
01:42A major problem with the current approach is that it can take many months to get diagnosed with celiac disease.
01:48It's expected to be available to the general public in about two years.
