Celiac disease care at Mayo Clinic

Your Mayo Clinic care team

At Mayo Clinic, your health care team works closely with you to help you learn to live gluten-free. Mayo dietitians help you find gluten-free substitutes and give advice on reading food labels and eating out safely. If you have dermatitis herpetiformis, your treatment team will include a dermatologist.

Because celiac disease can cause complications such as osteoporosis, specialists at Mayo Clinic work together to give you the expertise needed to work with your signs and symptoms.

Advanced diagnosis and treatment

Mayo Clinic is a leading center for diagnosis and treatment of celiac disease. Celiac disease can be confused with other digestive symptoms. At Mayo Clinic, you will find the latest imaging and laboratory tools to accurately identify the source of your problem and the expertise to design treatment plans.

Celiac disease: Diagnosis & treatment

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Joseph A. Murray, M.D., Gastroenterologist, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Mayo Clinic: I come from Galway in the West of Ireland were celiac disease was very common when I was in medical school. We regarded it like wallpaper. It's just there.

Amy S. Oxentenko, M.D., Gastroenterologist, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Mayo Clinic: Celiac disease is an immune-mediated condition. So it typically happens in patients who have an immune reaction to whenever they ingest gluten, which would include any foods that contain a wheat, barley or rye. There are some people that truly have a wheat allergy. A wheat allergy does not equal celiac disease.

Dr. Murray: The wheat allergy is a very rapid response. It is very much like the other allergies. Celiac disease is more of a slow burn. It can take weeks or months sometimes for symptoms to start happening in somebody when they're eating gluten.

Dr. Oxentenko: Once they come into our clinic and they want to know do I have celiac disease or not? What we start with is laboratory testing, which includes antibodies that we typically see elevated in patients with celiac disease.

Dr. Murray: These antibodies are pretty specific for celiac disease and so long as a person is on a gluten containing diet, the tests are quite good.

Dr. Oxentenko: Once we have made a diagnosis, the most important thing that we can do is to get them on the correct diet.

Dr. Murray: Patients with celiac disease need to be on a gluten-free diet. That's a medical necessity. It's not a choice. I mean, if patients who continue to have symptoms despite being gluten-free are a particular group of patients that we like to see here. We think with our multidisciplinary experienced approach that we can really drill down on what the reason for why they have continued symptoms.

Dr. Oxentenko: Having the depth and breadth of the services that we have and just the volume of cases that we have really allows that, you know, elevation to that expertise level.

Dr. Murray: I am indeed fortune as a gastroenterologist, as a doctor working in celiac disease, that I can work with this team. We can achieve things that I would find it very difficult to achieve elsewhere.

Expertise and rankings

Experience

Mayo Clinic doctors treat more than 2,000 people with celiac disease every year.

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, ranks No. 1 for digestive disorders in the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals rankings. Mayo Clinic in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, and Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, are ranked among the Best Hospitals for digestive disorders by U.S. News & World Report. Mayo Clinic Children's Center in Rochester is ranked the No. 1 hospital in Minnesota, and the five-state region of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2023–2024 "Best Children's Hospitals" rankings.

Mayo Clinic Children's Center

Highly skilled pediatric experts diagnose and treat all types of conditions in children. As a team, we work together to find answers, set goals and develop a treatment plan tailored to your child's needs.

Learn more about the Children's Center.

Locations, travel and lodging

Mayo Clinic has major campuses in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona; Jacksonville, Florida; and Rochester, Minnesota. The Mayo Clinic Health System has dozens of locations in several states.

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Costs and insurance

Mayo Clinic works with hundreds of insurance companies and is an in-network provider for millions of people.

In most cases, Mayo Clinic doesn't require a physician referral. Some insurers require referrals or may have additional requirements for certain medical care. All appointments are prioritized on the basis of medical need.

Learn more about appointments at Mayo Clinic.

Please contact your insurance company to verify medical coverage and to obtain any needed authorization prior to your visit. Often, your insurer's customer service number is printed on the back of your insurance card.

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Sept. 12, 2023