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Medical experts have believed that gluten triggers celiac disease, which is a health condition caused by the body's inability to digest the protein composite. Even though gluten, which is commonly found in wheat, barley and rye, can hurt the lining of the small intestine, a new study is reporting that gluten is not the only culprit. According to the researchers, people with celiac disease can also react negatively to other non-gluten wheat proteins.

For this study, the research team headed by Armin Alaedini recruited patients diagnosed with celiac disease. The team knew that gluten, which makes up 75 percent of all proteins found in wheat, could cause an immune reaction. However, they did not know if the remaining 25 percent of non-gluten proteins could also lead to a similar response. The researchers set out to examine the patients' reactions to different kinds of proteins and discovered that the patients had an immune response to five groups of non-gluten proteins.

"In addition to the well-recognized immune reaction to gluten, celiac disease is associated with a robust humoral response directed at a specific subset of the non-gluten proteins of wheat," the authors concluded reported by the New York Daily News.

The researchers hope that their findings can help other researchers and experts better understand the disease. Over the past few years, adopting a gluten-free diet has become very popular due to the perceived health benefits. However, experts believe that only about one percent of the population has celiac disease.

The study, "Specific Non-Gluten Proteins of Wheat are Novel Target Antigens in Celiac Disease Humoral Response," was published in the Journal of Proteome Research.