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Why are most celiac?s middle aged white women?
While there are lots of non believers people that have celiac disease understand that it is very real. Many non-believers believe that being gluten free is all a choice, a fad and that is why you mostly see middle aged ladies in restaurants asking for gluten free food. This may be the experience of several people but there are known reasons for this. This short article explores the reasons and the statistics behind this apparent truth.

I once read in a forum by a brave restaurateur that he was puzzled why a lot of people who asked for gluten free food were middle aged females. He suggested that maybe it had been just a trend factor ? eating to impress.

My thoughts on this view is that:

? many doctors don?t test for celiac disease or fully have confidence in its severity.

? Women are more persistent at resolving their medical issues,Guest Posting so more women could be identified as having celiac disease than men.

? Women may be more inclined to admit that they want gluten free food when eating dinner out.

? Men may eat at restaurants where they know they can get gluten free food, or if not they may eat foods which are unlikely to have gluten in them, like steak and salad with no dressing.

? Celiac Disease still remains very poorly diagnosed (80% undiagnosed in Australia and 95% in the us), therefore the disease seems much rare than it really is.

Most of the info on age and sex profiles of the 'average celiac' appears to be anecdotal or on small sample sizes. We (Gluten Free Pages) ran a stand at the Melbourne Gluten Free show in October 2009, and the overwhelming demographic of individuals visiting our stand were woman, around middle age. Many of them were either with other women or their families.

Current celiac demographics:

Most coeliac reference sites agree that celiac disease is not age-dependent and will become active at any age. ?It is thought that the prospect of CD may be in your body from birth and while onset isn't confined to a specific age range or gender ? more women are diagnosed than men.? Ref 1

The reason that more middle aged women seem to be celiac could be that the average time from onset of symptoms to diagnosis is frequently over a decade. In a traditional family situation, more women could be the primary food shopper or person who orders for a family at restaurants.

The trigger for celiac disease may also take until middle age to present itself. A number of the common triggers are usually ? environmental, emotional or physical event in a single?s life. Such as: adding solids to a child?s diet, going right through puberty, enduring a surgery or pregnancy, experiencing a stressful situation, catching a virus, increasing gluten products in the diet, or developing a infection to which the immune system responds inappropriately.? Ref 1

More information on celiac demographics is available for Americans. "Prevalence of CD in the average American is 1 in 133, In people with related symptoms: 1 in 56; In people who have first-degree relatives; (parent, child, sibling) who are celiac: 1 in 22; In people who have second-degree relatives (aunt, uncle, cousin) who are celiac: 1 in 39; Estimated prevalence for African-American, Hispanic-American and Asian-Americans: 1 in 236." (ref 2) It's been found that celiac disease is rare among people of purely African-Caribbean, Japanese and Chinese ancestry.

As specifics about the age and sex profile of celiac are very rare, here is a novel method of seeing what the bias might be. Consider that the ones that are diagnosed and gluten intolerant will tend to be searching for home elevators celiac disease and gluten free foods. With a higher internet penetration generally in most advanced countries and a good internet usage across most age ranges, except potentially the elderly, statistics on internet search age and sex demographics are likely to mirror the age and sex profiles of those people diagnosed and that are gluten intolerant.


Alexa offers a demographic snapshot of people to major sites and the following graphs and data are taken for three popular celiac and three gluten free websites.

Site............................Global ranking

www.celiac.com..................48,590

www.celiac.org..................486,285

www.celiaccentral.org...........559,962

www.glutenfree.com..............168,693

www.gluten.net..................855,378

www.glutenfreeda.com............996,079

Visitor Demographics

Age: All sites have a strong bias towards usage by older age ranges. All sites were very under represented for the 18-24 age ranges. Most (except coeliac.com), show a strong bias towards visitors from the 55 to 64 age group being ?over represented?.

Education: Compared to the average internet user, the visitors for half the sites have a solid bias towards visitors having a college background, but tend to be under represented from Graduate school backgrounds.

Gender: All sites show a VERY strong bias towards being used more by females.

Children: Visitors generally have a neutral reaction to having children. Unlike the other demographics, this measure shows the most variance among sites. The three celiac sites tended to possess a slight bias towards visitors devoid of children, while two of the gluten free sites had a swing towards visitors having some children and something site (Glutenfreeda.com) had a very strong demographic of No children.

Browsing location: Most sites tended to get a strong bias towards visitors accessing the site from home rather than from work.

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From a very small sample of three of the biggest celiac sites and three large gluten free sites, it would appear that when compared to general internet population that visitors have a bias towards being older (55 to 64) and female. Note that this age demographic may not constitute large proportion of total users, so in absolute terms the common visitor may be somewhat younger.

Users tended to have a college background (as opposed to the higher graduate level) and browse from your home. This suggests that the center aged female visitors education level may be associated with their discovery of their celiac disease and could work from home or be housewives.

At the moment because of food purchasing and family eating patterns it appears that eateries may perceive that the average celiac appears to be middle aged women.

Celiac disease affects all ages and most races in order diagnosis becomes more endemic and more doctors are aware of it, this spread and apparent gender bias will broaden.

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