Stomach ulcer, contrary to popular belief, is very rarely due to stress. Doctors have long known a secret that the general public continues to ignore. In 70 to 80% of cases, the ulcer is an infectious disease caused by a bacteria with a strange name: Helicobacter pylori. This bacterium is also responsible for stomach cancer.
It is no longer really a scoop but it is true that the information sometimes goes badly. Little flashback. We are in the 80s. The stomach ulcer is the nightmare of the sick who suffer from hell, of the doctors who know how to relieve a little with drugs against the acidity, but not cure because the disease recurs regularly. Each time a little more serious, and surgeons who, at the end of the chain, keep removing pierced stomachs, in the midst of cataclysmic digestive bleeding.
Stomach infection
A picture that is not exaggerated, which, almost 40 years later, is a medieval illness. In the meantime, the brilliant intuition of two Australian doctors, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who imagined that the stomach was not attacked by its own acid secretions but by a microbe has been verified.
We knew that it existed in many stomachs but we did not know its role. We had never known how to reproduce it. The most important discoveries always leave the part to chance and it is by forgetting to take samples in the incubator 6 days instead of 2 that Barry Marshall found himself with thousands of bacteria.
Serve as a guinea pig
A reluctant medical opinion remained to be convinced, especially since the Australians were two characters, shall we say atypical (and not folkloric) as the mandarins of the time liked to repeat, and a laboratory opposed to the validation of this fact by the scientific community, in order to continue to sell its anti-ulcer drug.
Faced with this unbearable skepticism, Marshall decides to serve as a guinea pig by swallowing a glass full of these famous microbes. Verification, before and after, in front of bailiffs and the identification of a damaged stomach. We are in 1983.
At the end … the Nobel Prize!
It will take years for the scientific community to agree to recognize its bad faith and for patients to benefit from the consequence of this brilliant discovery and its courageous demonstration: the possibility of being permanently rid of a peptic ulcer thanks to to a simple antibiotic treatment!
Science is generally less grateful than the general public. Our two Australians will have to wait 20 years to be recognized, this time unanimously, which makes these two endearing characters laugh.
Helicobacter pylori
The responsible microbe is called Helicobacter Pylori, because this bacterium has a helix shape. She loves to thrive in an acid bath and therefore sits very well in the stomach.
She develops an infection there which creates inflammation of the lining and eventually an ulcer. An infection that can be treated with a combination of 2 antibiotics which are incredibly effective. Well-known and widely prescribed stomach-protecting drugs are added to promote their effectiveness and you’re done. This is why there are hardly any serious ulcers as there used to be and there is hardly any surgery to remove the stomach either. It is one of the most spectacular advances in medicine.
The most common cause
In 70 to 80% of ulcers, this infection is responsible. In other cases, it is certain drugs that cause them; widely used stars. For example, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which are taken for rheumatic pain, for teeth for fever. It can also be aspirin… These products can cause heartburn, but also give painless ulcers which will reveal themselves as a complication, a digestive hemorrhage. In France, there are 20 to 30,000 digestive haemorrhages per year due to these drugs. This is why they should always be taken with a gastric protector when you are at risk, even for a very short treatment.
Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)
When you feel heartburn, when you have belching, difficult digestion, it is not – as many people fear – an ulcer, but rather what is called reflux gastroesophageal.
In general, it is not very serious and your doctor will give you some simple rules to make it go away perfectly. And if not, he has plenty of weapons at his disposal to help you relieve your pain.
Stomach cancer
Stomach cancer is caused, in about 80% of cases, by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which colonizes the lining of the stomach and causes in the infected person chronic gastritis, which persists for life if not not processed.
Most often, it evolves without particular symptoms even though it is the primary cause of peptic ulcer disease. It can be treated with an antibiotic, especially to avoid developing stomach cancer.
Infection by Helicobacter pylori affects 20 to 50% of the French population but it only causes the development of stomach cancer in less than 1% of cases. This risk is greater when there is a family history (father / mother, brother / sister, child) of stomach cancer.
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