Studies in coeliac disease; fat absorption.

Reasons were given in 1948 (Sheldon) for thinking that in coeliac children starch intolerance might be of greater etiological significance than a failure to absorb the products of fat digestion. In a later communication (Sheldon, 1949), from a study of fat balances in a group of fifteen children with coeliac disease, it was concluded that withdrawal of starch from the diet was accompanied by a rise in fat absorption averaging 15 per cent.