Some people develop osteoporosis, the mineral loss disease that leads to brittle bones, because their bodies cannot tolerate wheat flour, a study said on Monday. Gluten intolerance, called celiac disease, can be treated, so the damage done by osteoporosis can be reversed in such patients, added the report published in the current issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. "Our results suggest that as many as three to four percent of patients who have osteoporosis have the bone disease as a consequence of having celiac disease, which makes them unable to absorb normal amounts of calcium and vitamin D," said William Stenson, a Washington University physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He and colleagues recommended blood tests be used to screen osteoporosis patients for celiac disease. The report was based on a look at 840 patients, some of whom had osteoporosis. It found a much higher prevalence of celiac disease among those with osteoporosis than in those without it. --More 2124 Local Time 1824 GMT
