The Effects of Gluten-Free Diet on Hypertransaminasemia in Patients with Celiac Disease

Background: celiac disease (cd) is an immune mediated condition that leads to small bowel atrophy that resolves with a gluten free diet (gfd). extra-intestinal manifestations of cd include hypertransaminasemia. in this study, the effects of a gfd on hypertransaminasemia in patients with newly diagnosed cd were studied. methods: ninety eight new diagnosed consecutive patients with cd 40 males and 58 females) with mean age of 32 ± 17.1 were studied. all patients with cd were treated with a gfd. patients with hypertransaminasemia, at diagnosis, had a cirrhosis screen performed. patients with a negative cirrhosis screen were reviewed, 6 months after the introduction of a gfd, and serum levels of liver transaminases were measured again. results: nine patients had hypertransaminasemia. one patient was hepatitis b surface antigen positive and was excluded from this study. the 8 remaining patients had no obvious cause for the hypertransaminasemia. mean (± sd) of baseline aspartate aminotransferase (ast) and alanine aminotransferase (alt) levels were 42.6 ± 16.5 iu/l (range: 16-66 iu/l) and 69.3 ± 9.3 iu/l (range: 52-81 iu/l). six months after treatment with a gfd, mean ast and alt levels decreased to 24.5 ± 5.1 iu/l (range: 18-31 iu/l) (p: 0.04) and 24.6 ± 6 iu/l (range: 17-32 iu/l) (p: 0.01), respectively. in 7 patients the hypertransaminasemia, at diagnosis had resolved. conclusions: this study provides further evidence that some patients with cd have a reversible hypertransaminasemia that resolves with a gfd.