Help Interpreting Test Results

[SugarSpike]

I had posted a few weeks back about my history, sorry cant link, anyway I had been mostly gluten free for around a year then when back on it for 6weeks to be rested.

I called the dr surgery and they told me all normal dr said no action, I picked up a copy anyway and the receptionist said my levels were out of the range but not to worry as the dr had looked at them and taking other factors into consideration everything ok

Here are the results, im in uk so hoping someone can help

Immunoglobulin A - 4.06. g/l. Range 0.8-2.8

Tissue transglutaminase IgA ab 0.873. u/mL. 0-10

So the immunoglobulin is elevated, does anybody know what this means?

Also the other one seems quite high within the range also?

[GottaSki]

With regard to Celiac Disease your high Total Serum IgA has no significance...it is run to assure your levels are sufficient to make the IgA based celiac antibody tests valid.  I don't know of any reasons for high IgA...perhaps others do.  

 

Because you have sufficient IgA the tTG-IgA performed should be accurate and is very low .873 is less than  1 -- thus negative for Celiac Disease.  

 

The hard part is knowing whether 6 weeks was enough time (after one year gluten-free) to make this test valid and should you request a complete celiac antibody panel.

 

Why did you remove gluten initially?  Did your health improve gluten-free?  Did symptoms return during the six week challenge?

 

Depending on the answers to these questions along with your desire to pursue further testing will decide your next step.

[nvsmom]

Six weeks is a pretty short gluten challenge, 8-12 weeks is more the norm, so I agree that it could have affected your results. That is is pretty high negative result - only 0.14 higher would have classified you as a celiac.  I'm not sure if your high serum IgA could have caused that to be a bit high or not; conversely, low IgA is more common in celiacs (5%) and can cause false negative in that tTG IgA test.

 

It's too bad they only ran one celiac test.  If you are still on gluten you could ask for the tTG IgG, DGP IgA and IgG, EMA IgA, and even the older (and less sensitive) AGA IgA and IgG.

 

This report has more on testing, and on page 12 it shows that the tTG IgA has a sensitivity of 75-95%, so that means it misses 5-25% of celiacs: Open Original Shared Link

 

I don't know much about elevated IgA but I found the following here: Open Original Shared Link

 

IgA is mainly produced by plasma cells in mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) that is widely distributed throughout the Peyer's patches and lamina propria of the gut.

Unusually for immunoglobulin, IgA activates complement by the alternative pathway.

Causes of increased IgA levels include:

• gamma-A myeloma (M component)
• chronic infections
• chronic liver disease
• rheumatoid arthritis with high titres of rheumatoid factor
• SLE (occurs in some patients)
• sarcoidosis (occurs in some patients)
• Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome

 

If you feel better gluten-free, then you know at the very least that you have non-celiac gluten intolerance (NCGI) and possibly celiac disease. If you feel better, I hope you'll stay gluten-free in spite of what advice the doctor may give (many have no knowledge of NCGI yet).

 

Best wishes.

[GottaSki]

That is is pretty high negative result - only 0.14 higher would have classified you as a celiac. 

 

 

Did I read the range on the tTG wrong?

 

Looks like negative is zero to ten and the result posted was less than one.

[nvsmom]

Oops! You are right, Lisa. I completely misread that... That will discount most of what I said too (about effect of high IgA on the test).

 

Sorry about that.

[GottaSki]

Oops! You are right, Lisa. I completely misread that... That will discount most of what I said too (about effect of high IgA on the test).

 

Sorry about that.

 

no worries...i thought maybe i was reading it wrong...it happens 

 

Note to SugarSpike:  Just because this one antibody test is negative it does not rule out Celiac Disease or Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity...more info is needed.

[SugarSpike]

Thanks for all the swift replies, good job I posted because I read that completely wrong aswell so I'm actually really low in the range!

I've tried searching why my immunoglobulin is high, have found the same as linked above so will look further into those, have also comes across candida causing that to be high, not sure though, but it's another thing i suspect I have that's has similar symptoms to celiac and if that's the case I have to give up gluten anyway.

I defiantly feel better without it and will be giving it up along with sugar from now on... Is gonna be a long road ahead I think :-(