Helicobacter pylori – a real pathogen?

Doctors commonly rule out infection by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) when a patient has stomach pain. It is probably the most widely studied and treated bacterium, and has been named the “prize bug of all time[1]” despite that it is quite controversial. If the vast majority of us have it and remain unaffected by it, why does mainstream medicine call this bacterium a pathogenic infection that must be eradicated? Let me tell you what mainstream doctors don’t have time to mention to patients about H. pylori.

H. pylori prevalence exceeds 50% of the general population

Pain in the epigastric region of the abdomen (below your sternum and above your umbilicus) is by far most likely to emanate from your stomach; in comparison, pancreatitis (which causes similar pain) is quite rare. Stomach pain is also called dyspepsia, heartburn, gastritis, or a stomach acid disorder.

We know that by quickly reversing the acidity of the stomach and correcting offending diet and stress, that such pain usually resolves. Do you ever wonder why doctors so commonly test for H. pylori whenever a patient feels stomach pains? Ever since Barry Marshall and Robin Warren discovered this curved gram-negative bacillus 1982, Helicobacter pylori has become the most studied and yet elusive bacterium of all time. Despite the mainstream adoption of testing for and treating H. pylori, the question remains, is stomach pain caused by H. pylori?

Let’s look at the prevalence of this bacterium. An extensive systematic investigation of stomach disease in China reported[2] H. pylori prevalence of 73.3% by blood testing, and 71.7% by endoscopic biopsy. Subjects tested from Korea,[3] Vietnam,[4] and Turkey[5] revealed an H. pylori prevalence of 50–70% of the population. In people from Eastern Siberia[6] the rate of H. pylori infection exceeded 90%. Several studies of Asian,[7] Indian,[8] African[9] and Iranian[10] children and adolescents showed prevalence rates that ranged from 20% to 84%.

Based on its high prevalence among mostly all asymptomatic individuals, would you even consider H. pylori to be an “infection”?

Associations with gastritis, peptic ulcers, and gastric cancer

Up until 2005 the research on this bug lead to approximately 25,000 scientific publications.[11] It is t