Health Matters: TV's GP reveals coeliac condition

Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disease caused by intolerance to gluten. Damage is caused to the gut lining when gluten is eaten. There is no cure or medication and the only treatment is life-long adherence to a strict gluten-free diet. Without this diet, the disease can lead to other conditions, such as malnutrition, osteoporosis, infertility, multiple miscarriages for women and can cause bowel cancer.

Ironically, Dr Steele has been an ambassador of Coeliac UK, the national charity for people with coeliac disease for the past three years. However, over the past few months he has been suffering with abdominal symptoms and his own GP referred him to a

gastroenterologist.

Following blood tests and then a biopsy it was confirmed he does have the disease, at the age of 64.

"I was very honoured to be asked a few years back to be Ambassador of Coeliac UK as I wanted to give as much support as I could to help raise the awareness of the condition in the media and to the general public," Dr Steele explained. At least one in 100 people in the UK has coeliac disease. However, only 12.5 per cent of those have currently been diagnosed and Coeliac UK estimates that there are over half a million people undiagnosed in the UK.