People who notice symptoms of gluten and wheat allergies or sensitivity, but don’t get diagnosed with celiac disease are found to be having issue in their intestines, unveiled a recently released study.

The study conducted by the Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers has been published in the journal Gut.

In a press release from CUMC, report co-author Dr. Peter H. Green, a professor of medicine at CUMC and director of the Celiac Disease Center, said, “Our study shows that the symptoms reported by individuals with this condition are not imagined, as some people have suggested. It demonstrates that there is a biological basis for these symptoms in a significant number of these patients”.

During the course of the study, the researchers examined 80 people with non-celiac gluten or wheat sensitivity (NCWS), and 40 celiac disease patients.

The autoimmune disorder, celiac disease, harms the small intestine of a person vulnerable to the disease upon gluten consumption. The individuals with NCWS suffer from symptoms similar to celiac disease, but are deficient in the blood, tissue and genetic markers generally accompanied by the autoimmune disorder.

The CUMC press release suggested that the individuals with NCWS when get exposed to wheat, rye or barley grains, a severe systemic immune response is generated in their intestine.

The researchers found that though the NCWS group didn’t have cytotoxic T cells that were present in those with celiac disease, they possessed markers of intestinal cellular damage linked to a severe systemic immune activation.

As per the study, the NCWS patients who avoided wheat and related products for about six months noticed improvement in their symptoms and effects.

The CUMC said that in the absence of any biological markers to point out that a person has NCWS, it was projected that nearly 3 million people in America are affected by it, which was nearly the same amount of people hit by celiac disease.