[Celiac disease and autoimmunity: state of the art].

Coeliac disease is probably an immunologic disease of the small intestine which is caused by a gluten intake as promoting agent in genetically predisposed persons. Many authors described this autoimmune assumption: most of coeliac patients carry the HLA type, HLA-DQ (alpha 1 x 0501, beta 1 x 0201) etherodimer; it was found a correlation between disease specific antibodies antigliadin (AGA), antireticulin (ARA) and antiendomysium (AEA). Therefore an increase of autoantibodies and lymphocytes in the blood of coeliacs suggest the autoimmune nature of coeliac disease.