The humoral responses to wheat antigens in Menière's disease

Objectives. Aim of this study was to investigate the humoral immune responses to wheat antigens and related antibodies in MD patients. Methods. We assessed the reactivity of sera against a repertoire of 51 antigens usually associated with immune reaction to gluten from 28 patients with definite unilateral MD and 100 healthy controls. Results. MD patients showed an increase of anti-wheat IgA, anti-cerebellar peptide IgA and anti-glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 (GAD 65) IgM compared to healthy controls. In particular, the increase of anti-wheat IgA and GAD 65 IgM has been confirmed in a subgroup of MD patients symptomatically responding to a gluten free diet (GFD). Conclusion. In MD patients, a general increase of the antibody production against gluten biomarkers was observed; in particular, anti-wheat IgA seems to be associated with clinical response to GFD. However, none of the studied biomarker resulted disease-specific, i.e. it cannot be used as a stand-alone tool for detecting the association between gluten-related disorders and MD.