By: Jean Johnson for Reflux1“I remember this older Mexican man back in Phoenix, Arizona in the 1970s when I a nurse at St. Joseph’s,” said Beth Beggs. “He had an ulcer, and the doctors told him he had to give up eating his beloved chili. I loved the man’s spunk. He said, “I’d rather die.’”
Beggs doesn’t know what became of the gentleman, but we now know that the chili probably wasn’t the main culprit in the patient’s ulcer. Nonetheless, it took doctors like the ones Beggs heard admonishing the Mexican patient some time to wrap their minds around a new way of thinking about peptic ulcers.
| Take Action |
Learn more about H pylori:
H. pylori can be transmitted from person to person through close contact and exposure to vomit.
Practicing good hand washing technique after using the bathroom and before eating is prudent in protecting oneself against H. pylori.
The absence of H. pylori has been implicated in acid reflux or GERD. Researchers are investigating links between improvements in sanitation in developed countries and increasing rates of acid reflux. |
“It could not be!” protested the medical community when it first heard that H. pylori, the spiral-shaped bacterium capable of burrowing into the stomach lining, was at the root of a good 80 percent of all peptic ulcers. Indeed, the learned body firmly turned its collective back on the findings. Back Then
Still, after the two young Australian physicians, Barry J. Marshall, M.D. and J. Robin Warren, M.D., who discovered H. pylori in 1982 published their findings in a 1983 issue of The Lancet, and further studies confirmed the presence of H. pylori in patients with peptic ulcers or gastritis, physicians around the globe began to come around slowly but surely.
Few professions other than law are as conservative as medicine, however, and things took time. Indeed, according to geneticist Ricki Lewis, Ph.D., three years later in 1986 some medical dictionaries still listed the causes of ulcers as “high acid, irritation, decreased blood supply to the digestive tract, decreased mucus, and last, with a question mark, infection.”
Nonetheless, by 1994, more than a decade after the initial Australian experiment, sufficient evidence had accumulated for what Lewis calls a “consensus development conference that concluded: ‘Ulcer patients with Helicobacter pylori infection require treatment anti-microbial agents in addition to anti-secretory drugs.’”
Now
So if you are among the crowd that still thinks peptic ulcers (ulcers in the stomach or upper part of the small intestine or duodenum) are things only high gear, workaholic types who chow down on junk food or Hispanics who eat a lot of chili get, not to worry. If it took the physicians over a decade to come around, it’s not so unreasonable that the rest of us would need another 10 years as well.
In any event, perhaps some background on the subject is in order. One in 10 Americans develops an ulcer at some point in their lives, and the NIH notes once again that “peptic ulcers are not caused by stress or eating spicy food.” The agency does offer the caveat that stress and spicy foods “can make ulcers worse.”
The governmental literature goes on to point out that although some ulcers are caused by long-term use of things like aspirin and ibuprofen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs), most result from the bacteria H. pylori.
Treatment
H. pylori peptic ulcers are treated by four categories of drugs: Antibiotics, H2 blockers, proton pump inhibitors, and stomach-lining protectors. The antibiotics, of course, are used to kill the bacteria, while the H2 blockers and proton pump inhibitors work to suppress production of stomach acid. Lastly, bismuth subsalicylate, a compound in Pepto Bismol, both helps protect the stomach lining from acid and also helps kill H. pylori.
A two-week regime called triple therapy (antibiotics, stomach lining protectors, and some type of stomach acid block) is preferred, but it can involve taking as many as 20 pills daily. More, various side effects tend to occur although most of these can be managed by stopping medications.
Being Proactive in the Doctor’s Office Pays Off
All the above said, there are still physicians who do not automatically check for H. pylori, states the National Institutes of Health. “Changing medical belief and practice takes time. For nearly 100 years, scientists and doctors thought that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy food, and alcohol. Treatment involved bed rest and a bland diet. Later, researchers added stomach acid to the list of causes and began treating ulcers with antacids.”
The NIH continues with an admonishment for patients to stay on top of the bacteria track and not to be shy in questioning their physicians. “Since H. pylori was discovered in 1982, studies conducted around the world have shown that using antibiotics to destroy H. pylori cures peptic ulcers. The prevalence of H. pylori ulcers is changing. The infection is becoming less common in people born in developed countries. The medical community, however, continues to debate H. pylori’s role in peptic ulcers. If you have a peptic ulcer and have not been tested for H. pylori, talk to your doctor.”
