Children with celiac disease score significantly higher on measures of ADHD, depression, and anxiety than their peers — and a new study adds a lesser-known condition to that picture. Researchers publishing in the International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience found that celiac children also showed significantly elevated scores for cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS), a newly recognized pattern of mental fogginess and inattention that looks different from ADHD and has never before been specifically examined in celiac populations.
For celiac families, this research confirms something many parents have long suspected but struggled to name. The condition reaches well beyond the gut — and for children especially, the neuropsychiatric effects can be just as disruptive as the GI symptoms.
What This Means for You
The Turkish research team at Dokuz Eylül University compared 64 children and adolescents (ages 7–18) with confirmed celiac disease against 64 peers without celiac, drawn from the same hospital. The gaps between the two groups were consistent across every psychiatric measure: ADHD scores, CDS scores, depression levels, and anxiety levels all came out significantly higher in the celiac group.
CDS may be unfamiliar even to pediatricians well-versed in celiac. It describes a pattern of inattention that is distinct from classic ADHD. Where ADHD often involves impulsivity and physical restlessness, CDS looks more like a child who seems perpetually “in a fog” — slow to respond, prone to extended daydreaming, mentally sluggish even when they have slept well. Parents sometimes describe it as the child being there but not quite present. If that description sounds familiar, CDS is worth raising with your child’s doctor.
The depression and anxiety results may be even more significant for day-to-day parenting. Those differences reached p < 0.01 — stronger statistical confidence than the ADHD and CDS findings. This is not surprising to celiac families who have watched their children navigate constant dietary vigilance, social exclusion at birthday parties and school lunches, and the low-grade anxiety of never being entirely certain about cross-contact. What this study adds is a quantified, controlled comparison showing the gap is real and measurable — not just a parenting intuition.
The practical implication is straightforward: if a celiac child is struggling in school, seems withdrawn, or appears to zone out more than peers, celiac disease deserves a place in that conversation. These are not separate problems that happen to coexist. They may be connected.
Key Takeaways
- Children with celiac scored significantly higher on ADHD measures than matched peers without celiac.
- Cognitive disengagement syndrome — marked by mental fogginess, slow responses, and persistent daydreaming — was significantly more common in celiac kids.
- Depression and anxiety levels were also significantly elevated, with stronger statistical differences than the ADHD and CDS findings.
- CDS is a newly recognized construct that many clinicians are still learning to identify and screen for.
- If your celiac child shows signs of inattention, cognitive fog, or mood changes, raise it with their pediatrician or a child psychiatrist — and mention their celiac diagnosis explicitly.
The Science
Want to understand how this actually works? We’ll walk you through the technical details below and define every term. No medical degree required.
What Is Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome?
Cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS) — previously called sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) before researchers moved away from that stigmatizing name — is a cluster of behavioral traits that researchers now treat as distinct from ADHD. Its hallmarks include:
- Excessive daydreaming or appearing “spacey”
- Slow cognitive processing (taking unusually long to respond or complete tasks)
- Mental fogginess
- Appearing drowsy or underactive even when alert
CDS has only recently begun to gain formal recognition as its own diagnostic category, separate from the ADHD spectrum. Prior research on celiac disease’s neuropsychiatric effects had never examined it specifically — which is exactly why this study fills an important gap. The authors chose to include CDS precisely because it was a newer construct with no celiac-specific data.
The study used standardized rating scales to score both CDS and ADHD. The abstract notes specific CDS subscale items — labeled SCT-1 in the rating instruments — showed differences between groups, though the full breakdown awaits the complete paper. That granularity matters: it could eventually help clinicians develop targeted screening for CDS in celiac patients rather than relying on a parent or teacher flagging that something “seems off.”
How the Study Was Designed
This was a controlled study — meaning the research team compared a celiac group directly against a non-celiac comparison group matched from the same hospital. Both groups (64 participants each, ages 7–18) were recruited from Dokuz Eylül University Hospital. All celiac diagnoses were confirmed, and both groups completed standardized instruments measuring ADHD, CDS, depression, and anxiety.
Using matched controls from the same clinical setting reduces a common source of bias: both groups were accessing the same healthcare system, so differences in health-seeking behavior are less likely to distort the results.
Reading the Numbers
The ADHD and CDS score differences reached p < 0.05 — standard scientific notation for “less than a 5% probability this result is due to chance.” The depression and anxiety differences were stronger at p < 0.01, or less than a 1% probability of a chance finding. These are not marginal signals at the edge of significance. The celiac group was measurably different from the control group across every psychiatric dimension the study measured.
Why Would Celiac Disease Affect the Brain?
This study documents a pattern; it does not explain the mechanism. But the broader scientific literature offers several hypotheses researchers are actively investigating:
- Gut-brain axis disruption: The gut and brain communicate constantly through the enteric nervous system (sometimes called the body’s “second brain”) and through inflammatory signaling pathways. Celiac disease triggers chronic intestinal inflammation that may disrupt this communication.
- Nutritional deficiencies: Even on a strict gluten-free diet, celiac disease can impair absorption of iron, zinc, vitamin B12, and folate — nutrients critical for brain development and mood regulation. Subclinical deficiencies may affect cognition and emotional regulation without obvious GI symptoms.
- Neuroinflammation: Some researchers suspect the immune response in celiac disease may extend beyond the gut lining, with inflammatory molecules reaching the central nervous system and affecting cognition and mood.
None of these mechanisms is confirmed as the driver of the ADHD, CDS, depression, and anxiety patterns observed here. That question requires follow-up research. What this study establishes is that the pattern exists and is statistically robust.
The Bigger Picture
This research belongs to a growing body of evidence that celiac disease is a whole-body condition with real neuropsychiatric dimensions in children. We have covered how the condition affects the emotional lives of families — including the psychological toll celiac places on parents and caregivers — and the elevated rates of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) in both pediatric and adult celiac patients. This new study extends that picture further into the neuropsychiatric domain.
As a celiac parent, I want my son’s care team to see the full picture — not just the intestinal architecture on the biopsy, but everything the condition touches. Gastroenterologists manage the gut. But if ADHD, CDS, depression, and anxiety are significantly more common in celiac kids, then psychiatrists, psychologists, and pediatricians all need to understand the connection. Right now, many do not ask about celiac when a child presents with attention or mood concerns, and many GI specialists do not ask about inattention or emotional wellbeing at follow-up appointments.
That gap is exactly what research like this can start to close. Bring it to your next appointment. You are not imagining the fog, the flatness, or the inattention — and it may not be coincidental.
As always, consult your child’s healthcare team before drawing conclusions or adjusting care based on any single study.
Related Coverage
- Psychosocial Impact of Celiac Disease on Primary Caregivers of Children in Jordan: A Cross-Sectional Study
- Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder Is Common in Adult and Pediatric Patients with Celiac Disease and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity
References
- Ateş Evliyaoğlu Z, Çıray O, Öztürk Y, Akay A. Neuropsychiatric Features, ADHD and Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome in Children and Adolescents With Celiac Disease: A Controlled Study. Int J Dev Neurosci. 2026 Aug;86(5):e70149. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42357820/