Latest Wilson’s Quarterly (I can’t link to the specific article) tells me all about H. pylori, the microbe that causes ulcers.
(For those of you who still think that ulcers are caused by stress or spicy food, try to catch up, for crying out loud. People have already won the Nobel prize for disproving that.)
Apparently, something like 90% of American kids used to have H. pylori in their gut, but now only about 5% do. (Probably due to better hygiene and other social factors.)
Sounds like a success story, right?
But it appears that H. pylori might also be good at reducing the chances of getting asthma and acid reflux. And guess what. Both of those have been hugely on the rise. Esophageal cancer is another item that H. pylori might help stave off. (I can’t remember if that’s on the rise, though. Maybe it is.)
So, believe it or not, one suggested health policy is to colonize children with H. pylori, then kill it off when they reach adulthood (when most ulcers come along).
I can tell you first hand that ulcers are also caused by getting an Aleve stuck in your throat.
Should I have been more clear? Peptic ulcers. And even peptic ulcers are sometimes caused by things other than H. pylori. Just not stress.
Aleve attacks, however, are very rare.
Happy Wedding, Caryn!
ISTR that stress increases the chance that pylori will generate an ulcer. I could be misremembering, but I think this is another of those situations where things are more complicated than they appear. Another is sex determination. Most people on the street will tell you that it’s the father who determines the sex of the child.
I believe that stress has absolutely nothing to do with generating peptic ulcers, but it can aggravate an ulcer that you already have.
Of course, I’m no expert.
I’m no expert either; it may have been aggravation of an existing ulcer.
I can’t read the article, but does it really say that it “might” be a factor in some diseases therefore we “should” inject our children with it?
I’m thinking we “might” oughta study that a little more and we “should” ignore any recommendations in the meantime. 😉
But still very interesting. I’ve read results of studies in the past linking asthma in children to the feces of cockroaches, suggesting that a lack of sanitary conditions could be related to asthma, and tying the incidence of asthma to the densely populated areas where it occurs most often.