The prevalence of coeliac disease and cystic fibrosis in Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales.

Admissions to hospital in the Republic of Ireland, in Scotland, and in 
England and Wales for coeliac disease and cystic fibrosis are compared. 
Admissions to hospital in 1972 for coeliac disease in the Republic 
of Ireland - which does not yet have full returns of 
hospital admissions - was approximately three times greater than the number 
expected based upon the rates in England and Wales in 1969-71. 
In Scotland the admission rates for coeliac disease were about twice 
the expected number based upon the English rates. This contrasted with 
admissions for cystic fibrosis which were only slightly higher in Ireland 
and in Scotland than in England and Wales - evidence that 
the high admission rates for coeliac disease represent a genuinely high 
rate in the community. Admission rates for coeliac disease were as 
high in the East and South of Ireland as in the 
West. In Ireland, the potato, and not the wheaten bread, was 
the staple diet before the great famine of the 1840s. In 
nineteenth-century Scotland, too, less wheaten bread was eaten than in England 
and Wales. In the past, therefore, coeliac disease would not be 
as disadvantageous in Ireland, and to a less extent in Scotland, 
as in England and Wales. 