Recently the FDA approved Tofacitinib, or Xeljanz, for the treatment of alopecia. What was interesting was that during the clinical trial for Tofacitinib and alopecia, a celiac patient was cured. The patient had both alopecia and celiac disease. The patient was not compliant with their gluten free diet and was consuming gluten regularly. The patient showed complete “histologic and serologic remission of celiac disease.” But the last sentence in the article is the kicker – “the potential side effects limit the use of tofacitinib to refractory disease only”.
I gotta say, that last sentence is DUMB. If it is okay for rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and alopecia and deemed safe, why would it not be okay for those with celiac disease. Well, I looked at the possible side effects and none of them are good – tears in the intestine and stomach, hepatitis, increased risk for infection, etc. I’m not a doctor and maybe there is something I don’t understand. So, if someone could explain it to me, I’d be interested to hear!
Look, I’m not saying this drug is perfect and without risk. I’m saying, I feel like we are reinventing the wheel with these drugs currently under investigation and maybe something already out there can help! There are lots of newer medicines with different pathways that are being used for other autoimmune diseases. Someone smarter than me should be looking at how the current field of drugs work, how celiac disease works, and figure out of something out there can be tested for celiac patients.
Anyway, before I really get going on a rant, that is all for today. Here is a link to the article. https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/arthritis-drug-could-let-coeliac-patients-eat-gluten #glutensensitivity #glutenfreerecipes #glutenfree #celiacdisease #celiac
JAK inhibitors are quite serious medicine with a lot of side effects like cancer, DNA mutation, infertility, upper respiratory tract infections such as tuberculosis and/or pneumonia and many others. I’m not a doctor but since JAK3 inhibitor (Tofacitinib) blocks IL-2, IL-4, IL-15 and IL-21, we could see new drugs with the same efficiency but less adverse effects in the nearest feature. As you might know, there are many celiac disease drugs in Phase 1 / Phase 2 which target IL-15 and IL-21. So let’s hope they will be as effective and less harmful. You can also notice that they test these drugs on people with refractory CD which is not a good sign in terms of possible side effects.