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In reply to the question concerning being a "carrier" for celiac
disease

So far as I can tell from the literature (and from discussions
in this list serve),  there is no single gene which results in
celiac disease without exception.  It appears that there are
genes (probably several) which can predispose  you to having the
disease but you may not actually develop it depending upon other
genetic and environmental factors.  These genes may differ from
family to family.  Thus, its not a simple dominant/recessive
situation.

If I were to guess (and that's all it is), I would  guess that
genes for celiac propensity are additive (i.e., the more genes
that you have, the higher the possibility that you will get the
disease.  Thus if you were a carrier (one copy of a gene) you
might have a lower probability of becoming celiac than if you
had 2 copies of the gene.  There are always interesting families
in which diseases such as celiac disease appear to be due to a
single gene with simple inheritance and these have really helped
elucidate the underlying desease mechanisms.  A few people on
this list have reported celiac disease in multiple family
members and this may be the case in those families.
Unfortunately, to really determine hereditary patterns, you need
either a very large extended family pedigree or several
generations and celiac disease has been too recently discovered
to get a pedigree for several generations.

Again... this is opinion.  If I run across anything factual in
the literature, I'll post it.   Hope this helps a little.  Karen
Hughes [log in to unmask]