TY - JOUR AU - Nagyová, Ľudmila AU - Košičiarová, Ingrida AU - Rybanská, Jana AU - Holienčinová, Mária PY - 2016/06/15 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Celiac disease: the situation on the Slovak market JF - Potravinarstvo Slovak Journal of Food Sciences JA - Potr. S. J. F. Sci. VL - 10 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - 10.5219/582 UR - https://potravinarstvo.com/journal1/index.php/potravinarstvo/article/view/582 SP - 323-331 AB - <p>Celiac disease, also known as celiac sprue, non‐tropical sprue, idiopathic sprue, idiopathic steatorrhoea and gluten‐sensitive enteropathy, is a serious genetic autoimmune disease, which damages the villi of the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. The latest researches show that while in the 1970s the prevalence of celiac disease in the world was 0.03%, in the present years the estimated prevalence is 1%. In average, the prevalence of celiac disease in the Western countries is close to 1:100. The celiac disease occurs more often in the case of women than of men, at a ratio of 2.8:1. The aim of the present paper was to bring few information about the celiac disease, highlight the increasing number of celiacs, as well as to determine the Slovak celiacs opinion about the situation on Slovak market and their consumer behaviour on the market of gluten free products. As research methods, there have been used the methods of survey and structured questionnaire consisting of 22 questions. The total number of respondents was 130 randomly selected celiacs from all over the Slovak republic. For a deeper analysis of the obtained results, there have been set out four assumptions and ten hypotheses, which have been tested with the use of Pearson´s chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U-Test and Cramer´s contingency coefficient. The results of the present paper show, that despite the fact that few of our findings are pleasing - almost 52% of our respondents stay that the labelling of gluten free products is sufficient, over 74% of respondents think that they have enough information about the availability of gluten free products and more than 89% of respondents think that the present scope of range of gluten free products is better as before; there are still some shortcomings, which has to be reduced or eliminated - only less than 7% of respondents think that the price of gluten free products is adequate, over 45% of respondents use this possibility of granting a monetary contribution for compensation of increased expenses on a special diet, almost 65% of respondents think that the scope of range of gluten free products is in the Slovak market insufficient, 53% of respondents think that the availability of gluten free products in the Slovak market is inadequate and only 48% of respondents prefer the domestic producers of gluten free products.</p> ER -