THERE’S a glimmer of hope for the millions of people with coeliac disease, who can’t eat food containing gluten.
Nearly 1 in 200 people have to eat a gluten-free diet to avoid problems such as malnutrition, anaemia and bowel damage. But various groups are now homing in on the precise bits of gluten proteins that cause an immune reaction in those with the disease.
That could make it possible to “tolerise” people to gluten and even prevent genetically susceptible children from developing the disease in the first place. We could also modify wheat to lack the peptides responsible.
Robert Anderson…
