Celiac Disease: Effect of Weaning on Disease Risk

摘要

From the weaning period and onwards the intestinal mucosa is exposed to an increasing number of antigens, e.g. food components and microorganisms. Of all the antigens that reach the systemic circulation from the gut lumen, only a minority are potentially harmful to humans and need to be defended against. The majority of intestinal antigens do not require a protective immune response, but may even be beneficial for the individual. Thus, the mucosal immune system must have the capacity to discriminate between when an appropriate protective immune response to harmful foreign antigens is required and when a muted or non-response is preferable. One important component of the latter is oral tolerance, which may be defined as a systemic hypo-responsiveness or non-responsiveness of mature T and B lymphocytes to antigen challenge after prior oral exposure to the antigen [1,2].