Helicobacter Pylori
In 2005, J. Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease (PUD)”.
H. pylori, a bacterium and Group 1 Carcinogen, divided the Science community prior and since it’s discovery. Back then, at the start of the 20th century, the dogma centred around the excess acid theory of the ulcer and it’s famous “no acid, no ulcer” tagline. It was widespread belief that no bacteria could survive the acidity of the stomach.
A researcher, Stone Freedberg, was the first to find H. pylori in the human stomach in 1939, but had to abandon his study on this bacteria under the advice from his boss. This led to Marshall speculating in 2005, that Freedberg would have won the Nobel Prize in 1951 had he continued his work.
John Lykoudis, a Greek doctor, was awarded a Greek patent for his antibiotic treatment of PUD in 1960. His treatment was shunned by the medical establishment and rejected by the Journal of the American Medical Association. He was even fined 4,000 drachmas in 1968 for treating PUD patients with antibiotics.
About a decade later in 1979, Warren first observed H. pylori in a gastric biopsy. In July 1981, Warren and Marshall met, and they successfully treated their first PUD patient with antibiotics. However, their research was not well-received by the Science community. In 1984, to prove the link between H. pylori and PUD, Marshall intentionally consumed H. pylori and became ill. Taking antibiotics relieved of his symptoms.
Around the same time, Thomas Borody, a gastroenterologist, developed and patented the bismuth-based “Triple Therapy” for treating H. pylori infection, which was commercialized in 1990 in the United States under the product name Helidac.
It was only from the 1990s onwards, that H. pylori is acknowledged as the cause of PUD, and this bacterium was declared as a Group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organisation in 1994.
Photo: Yutaka Tsutsumi, M.D. Professor, Department of Pathology, Fujita Health University School of Medicine.
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