The Tale of the Terrible Helicobacter

Let's talk about the Helicobacter. It has begun to step on the heels of standard medicine. Those who have been following the current research for a long time know that it has already begun to be eradicated. Yet because the truth does not turn a profit-only this limited number of people who read professional special medical journals even know about the rehabilitation of Helicobacter-the Terrible.

Basically, in popular health magazines, there is only one piece of advice: you definitely need three medications and you must be treated. In this way, they scare us with Helicobacter, and one horror after another. They say it causes indigestion, ulcers, and provokes cancer, etc.

The stomach ulcer was first described in the 2nd century by a very famous doctor named Galen. He was the first to do autopsies and find all sorts of interesting things inside a human body. In the 10th century, the well-known doctor Avicenna or Ibn Sina wrote in his treatise The Canon of Medicine that an ulcer could cause bleeding and lead to the death of the patient.

For a long time since the era of Ibn Sina, doctors believed that ulcers arose due to nervousness, stress, and irritability; and always treated them with rest, good soft food, and herbs.

Modern medicine owes the recognition of ulcers as a disease to the Freemason Friedrich Uden. He received his doctorate in Berlin, then began to study mining in Germany, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, he decided to go to Russia. We do not know what attracted him there. At first, he taught mathematics and physics at the St. Petersburg Medical School. For his merits he was elected to the honorary members of the medical board and appointed professor. He studied diseases in humans and animals, and published his fundamental work on ulcers in 1816.

Since then, ulcers have been studied more earnestly to attempt to understand why they form.

Thus, ulcers have drawn more and more attention.

But we must remember that in the 19th century, as during all sorts of revolutions, as during the First World War, people did not live and eat in the best way. So, in 1825 in France, ulcers were referred to as a disease, rather than some kind of disorder. Studied as an independent disease, many different theories of their development have been proposed: mechanical, acid-peptic, stress, neurological, neurogenic, vascular, etc.

For more than two hundred years, the main theory was the idea that the life and vital activity of microbes are impossible within the aggressive acidic environment of the stomach contents. This was discovered quite early on, and the ulcer was recognized as the result of a violation of the protective properties of the human stomach wall.

Despite the variety of theories, in practice the ulcer was very difficult to treat. The fact is that back in 1888, doctors, perhaps from Switzerland, discovered some microbes at the bottom of the ulcer. It would be strange if they had not discovered them, because microbes are everywhere. Finding them depends only on the degree of your eyesight. So, a small spiral-shaped bacterium was found, which was located mainly in one area in the stomach-in its outlet section-the pylorus. It was called 'Helicobacter pylori.' In other places, for example, on the stomach's greater curvature and in the area of its gas bubble, Helicobacter is not found. The question is, why?

The stomach should be like a sea for bacteria. They can float anywhere, from the lesser curvature of the stomach to its greater curvature. But for some reason, Helicobacter lives only in one small area. In the stomach there are two regions specific in their structure of mucous layers. The first section is along the lesser curvature of the stomach. The second one is in the lower stomach part, where the mucous membrane is a flat layer of cells, originating from the ectoderm. It produces hydrochloric acid, and that is where Helicobacter lives, which, by the way, is found there even in mummies. Therefore, when they say that Helicobacter appeared in the 20th century, this is simply not true.

The long-known bacterium was rediscovered in 1979 by Australian pathologist Robin Warren. In 1981, with physiologist Barry Marshall, he isolated this microbe from samples of the human gastric mucosa and suggested that most stomach ulcers and gastritis are caused by infection with the microorganism Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and not by stress or diet, as previously assumed.

But it had to be proved that this microbe can cause ulcers. So, Marshall drank a culture of H. pylori, and his stomach hurt badly. This shocked everyone, even the most ardent skeptics. But even more impressive was the rapid healing of the problem after taking an antimicrobial drug. Skepticism evaporated when it became clear that it was possible to treat patients by drug prescriptions, and more than one. This was a gold mine as 70% of people have gastritis. This was to be commercialized by drug companies, but not until later.

In the 1980s, when there was not even the 'whiff' of any Helicobacter, there was simply a microbe known under the name Campylobacter pyloric which was almost indistinguishable from H. pylori. If a patient was bothered by something in the stomach area, he was given a drug that reduced the secretion of stomach juice. And the person's pain went away.

Barry Marshall performed numerous endoscopies on pigs, which he fed in such a way that they would grow these microbes. But nothing worked. Yet he passionately wanted to prove that H. pylori caused ulcers.

It is well known that the medical community usually takes new ideas with hostility. At first, Marshall and Warren, who developed this idea, were laughed at, but they continued to defend their theory. Of course, when you are biased toward an idea, then you will look for arguments to prove it and not to test the opposite.

But former critics of this idea soon realized that there was an opportunity to foist more drugs on people, even on healthy people who do not have any symptoms at all.

In 1989, Combilobacter was renamed and claimed to be a new pathogen Helicobacter pylori. They decided that it would be better this way. This great idea looked good on the surface. They may have thought, 'we are brilliant, now we will heal people using new method and tell people they need to be treated with three drugs.' Now, on a routine endoscopy, people who found to have some kind of a 'comma' bug near the wall on the smear were told, "Oh, you have Helicobacter! You may have cancer!" Or, "Oh, you have something else there! And off we go!" People began to be treated with various drugs.

But for about the last 15 years, Marshall has been very quiet about this discovery for which he, along with Robin Warren, received the Nobel Prize in 2005. He does not push the idea of eradicating the terrible microbe. Why? Because there are a lot of contradictions. There is no correspondence with famous Dr. Koch 'postulates,' the well-known seasonality of ulcer exacerbation is not explained, nor is there a relationship between the number of microbes and the severity of the disease. Furthermore, the eradication of H. pylori does not reduce mortality, and according to some data it is even associated with its increase.

In uncomplicated ulcers, patients infected with H. pylori make up 95% of the total. In complicated and stenotic ulcers, H. pylori is present in only 50% of patients. In those complicated by bleeding ulcers, it is present in 40% of patients. In patients with perforation, H. pylori is present in 40% to 70% of patients.

A paradox? No. The pattern of physiological process disruption.

But look for the money! You go to the doctor, and the doctor asks how you feel. And you answer that something hurts in your belly. They will immediately give you heartburn medicine, and you can go away for a walk.

What is causing your heartburn? No one will tell you to change your diet, mealtimes, or the food itself. No one will ask what your blood type is, or when you go to bed, or whether you argue with your wife or boss. Maybe you should change the daily routine? No one cares.

I was once shocked by a 77-year-old patient. He had unpleasant sensations in his gut and his joints hurt with muscle weakness. And it had been hurting for a long time. I asked him what pills he was taking. He replied that he was taking pills for heartburn. I asked, why? He said that eight years ago he had some pain in his stomach area, and he was prescribed this pill. It did not help much.

He has been taking this pill for eight years and no one knows why. He had some kind of indigestion-maybe he ate something wrong or could not digest it. Maybe he could have changed his diet, drank some soda, took enzymes, or fasted for a day. The drug was the only recommendation from the physician. And he continued to take heartburn pills for years. And so, this 'young' man, 77 years old and who probably no longer had any enzymes and acid in his stomach that could digest anything inside, was prescribed a drug that turns off the stomach completely. Why, really, should he digest food in his old age? He has already "digested" enough in this life. Of course, I am being ironic, but such strange situations happen often.

But the stomach does not ask your doctor's opinion. It must do its job. But how will it do the job if it does not have the chemicals needed for digestion? It will digest food by grinding it with its walls, because there are no other options, right? How did women wash laundry when there was no soap or washing powder? With their hands. There was a board with corrugated iron. So they rubbed. The same goes for the stomach, it rubs: to erosions, to ulcers.

And if you try to rub your palm or hand for at least half an hour in one place, see what happens. Perhaps a wound will appear.

But why think about it if you were told that you have Helicobacter? Of course, I am being ironic again.

For the sake of primitivism and simplification of understanding, you can always associate microbes with anything. This "beautiful" idea was developed by Louis Pasteur, who is famous for a rabies vaccine. But what he called rabies is now considered to be caused by a bacillus different from the one that gets into us when a dog bites us.

So, H. pylori was first considered the ravings of a madman, because almost everyone has it, and then it was recognized as a terrible pathological agent that should always be treated, even if nothing bothers you. It has become a very profitable area of healthcare. But is it real care?

Unfortunately, almost every other person in the world has some form of indigestion. According to medical statistics, 80% of people have Helicobacter, but without symptoms. It does not bother them at all. It simply lives with them. Until they start to not properly digest some food, and until they go to the doctor, and until they have an endoscopy, they will not even suspect that they have Helicobacter.

In many countries it was decided that these bacteria are probably a component of normal gastric ecology. If it does not hurt, then it is not a problem. Right? Let it live there, if it does not bother anyone.

So, this unprofitable idea was recognized as wrong. But this was a falsification of the postulates of the famous German doctor Robert Koch. His four scientific postulates below say what should happen with a real infection that causes disease.

1) A virulent microbe is found only (only!) in a sick person. This is the law on which all epidemiology, virology, and microbiology was based and still are based.

2) It is necessary to obtain a pure culture from this microbe. Take it, plant it on a nutrient medium, and watch how it grows.

3) This culture must then be transplanted into a healthy person or animal-and this culture, the microbe, must cause the original disease.

4) This microbe that causes problems must always be isolated only from a sick person.

These are the four postulates of Koch, which no one has canceled, but which no one has tested for H. pylori. The theory about Helicobacter does not correspond to these postulates.

H. pylori has an enzyme that reduces the strength of hydrochloric acid, and therefore is not afraid of it. When Americans began to treat H. pylori universally, to the surprise of 'great medical minds,' the incidence of reflux of stomach contents into the esophagus and its cancer began to grow.

Another surprise? No. The passage of food was simply disrupted, the secretion of bicarbonate in the duodenum, which neutralized the acid, increased the reflux of stomach contents into the esophagus, which has no protection from acid like gastric wall has.

From the point of view of so-called German New Medicine (GNM), which considers that all diseases are caused by unresolved psychological conflicts or emotional shocks, it is of fundamental importance where the microbe is located. Yes, Helicobacter on the lesser curvature causes ulcers, stomach irritation, and this is quite understandable. But in another place, it does not cause anything. The greater curvature of the stomach has a completely different epithelium, which for some reason the big C does not like, but cancerous tumors grow here more often.

This should be noted. But many people and doctors do not know about this. And from my point of view, you need to know, because the GNM very scrupulously examines which organ and which germ layer is more sensitive to some events in our lives. There is a difference in the connection between emotions and the histology of tissue damage.

And as doctors have long guessed, at the heart of the ulcer, is emotional stress. And this psychological conflict manifests itself differently on the mucous membrane of different parts of the stomach. In one case, it is flat epithelium, in another it is cylindrical. This may mean nothing to you, but a doctor who is more or less familiar with histology will see the difference with his eyes. And this is fundamental: ulcers on the greater curvature, as a rule, usually do not occur. And Helicobacter lives on the lesser curvature, where they do. These are different mucous membranes. The body reacts differently to events in your life.

From the point of view of psychosomatics of peptic ulcer disease, the lesser curvature reacts to events in your life when you compete with someone for something, for a place on the sun, for some territory, position. It does not necessarily have to be a summer cottage. This can happen at work. You can be responsible for your section at work, and they push someone who wants to take half of yours and interfere. Or you compete with your mother-in-law, who is the boss in the house. Or you think that you need to do it this way, and everyone tells you that you should not do it your way.

Then you begin to understand that you are sharing something with someone, for example, an office with another colleague, but you do not want this, or sharing your kitchen with a roommate. This can make you angry. You become nervous. You think that you are not respected. You may wonder why you are not respected, when you are so smart, so educated? And all this happens against an emotional background.

For example, apples fall from my apple tree to my neighbor's yard, and he, the oaf, does not give them back and collects everything himself. In short, there can be many different situations. They need to be found and investigated from the point of view of common sense, to see what is happening.

And then you do not need any ulcer, because all the symptoms that the body gives are, to put it bluntly, a slap on the back of the head: turn on your brain. It is like a push in the right direction. As if someone is telling you: think! Learn something new, search, and stop doing stupid things. But against the background of large amounts of money invested in ill-health, this is quite difficult, very difficult. And not profitable.

Well known in Europe, peptic ulcer disease used to occur in 10% of cases and even less, but nevertheless, a campaign for the mandatory and total destruction of Helicobacter was introduced in Germany and England. However, an assessment of its effectiveness did not reveal any connection between H. pylori and stomach cancer. There was no reduction in the number of cancers after the universal prescription of drugs.

And in Japan, considering that the Japanese are very law-abiding, they were programmed to destroy all Helicobacter. But still, their leading health problem is stomach cancer. So what does H. pylori have to do with it if it has already been eliminated?

There is also a very interesting paradox in a study of Asian peoples. Studies were conducted in different Asian countries, in which 60,000 people took part. They all have almost everything the same, and their lifestyle, and food is very close in composition. They are also physically similar. They were examined for H. pylori and the possible development of stomach cancer. It turned out that Indonesians have Helicobacter, but no cancer. And the Japanese do not have H. pylori, but they have cancer. And where can this Helicobacter be attached now? How can all this be explained now?

Therefore, many doctors have now begun to treat H. pylori relatively calmly as a kind of reality that has coexisted with humans for thousands of years. And I would advise not to rush to medications right away, since it is also advisable to check sensitivity to medications. Currently, more than 80% of microbes are resistant to them.

Thus, each health problem has many nuances and intricacies. Or nerve-plexuses, if you can say so. It is advisable to identify and evaluate them in order to unravel them. This takes a lot of work, time, and knowledge. But you will get a better result that any pill or even surgery can give you. This applies to all diseases.

So, 'Sapere aude"-dare to be wise, dare to know, as Horace recommended. And be healthy!

Elena Koles, MD, PhD

3330 Dundee Rd, # N5,

Northbrook, Illinois 60062

(847) 291-0900

www.u-ok.net