(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new study shows people suffering from the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis may also be at higher risk of having celiac disease, a condition in which people have a difficult time digesting wheat gluten.

Treatment for celiac disease can markedly improve bone mineral density, or BMD, among patients with both conditions.

Doctors have long known people with celiac disease also tend to have thinning bones, but little study exists to suggest everyone with osteoporosis should be screened for the condition. These investigators evaluated about 270 people with osteoporosis and around 575 people without osteoporosis for celiac disease, comparing incidence among the two groups. Results show people with osteoporosis were significantly more likely to also have celiac disease.

After one year on a gluten-free diet, BMD improved in the osteoporosis patients, outpacing that which would normally be expected with standard osteoporosis drugs.

The study raises the important question of who should be screened for celiac disease and when. In an accompanying editorial, Alan L. Buchman, M.D., M.P.H, from Northwestern University in Chicago, acknowledges the answer could be to test all white girls during childhood or adolescence, since white women are at highest risk for osteoporosis and most BMD is achieved by age 18. Given the costs involved, however, he stops short of making that recommendation and instead calls for further study to more clearly define the population at risk.