A recent study has shed some light into celiac disease and type 1 diabetes, and it’s not so good.

Unfortunately, researchers have found that people with celiac disease (CD) and type 1 diabetes (T1D) are at risk of developing autoimmune thyroid disease (ATD). An autoimmune disease is one caused by the body itself when the body’s immune system attacks healthy cells of the body.

In this study, a total of 5,531 patients were studied, 4,584 with TD1 (control) and 947 with type 1 diabetes and CD. During a follow up, 90 patients for the TD1+CD group developed ATD. What they also found is that celiac disease for 10 years or more had a higher risk of developing autoimmune thyroid disease.

The bad news here is that if you suffer from type 1 diabetes and celiac disease, you have about 10% chance of developing autoimmune thyroid disease. Why this happens is not very clear.

But not all hope is lost.

The silver lining here is that you can find a way to keep in check your type 1 diabetes, and if kept under cotrol you may be able to steer clear of ATD despite having celiac disease as well.