Australians Win Nobel For Linking Bug To Ulcers

New Scientist ^ | 10-3-2005 | Andy Coghan

[blam]

Australians win Nobel for linking bug to ulcers

13:56 03 October 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Andy Coghlan

Two Australians have won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for establishing that bacteria cause stomach ulcers, it was announced on Monday.

Working at the Royal Perth Hospital, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren established beyond all doubt in the 1980s that Helicobacter pylori causes stomach ulcers by infecting and aggravating the gut lining.

Moreover, they showed that ulcers could be cured altogether by killing the bacteria with antibiotics. Hitherto, ulcers had been considered uncurable. Instead, patients' symptoms were treated with a lifetime of drugs to reduce the acidity of the gut.

The pair’s claims provoked a fierce backlash from the medical establishment, which held to the dogma that ulcers were brought on by stress and lifestyle, and could not be cured. By revealing a simple cure, the researchers also threatened to destroy huge and lucrative global markets for the existing anti-ulcer drugs, which simply eased symptoms.

Abuse and ridicule

At conferences, the two scientists were subjected to abuse and ridicule. “There was such a prejudice against the idea that bacteria could grow in the acidity of the stomach,” says David Kelly, a senior microbiologist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

The controversy is euphemistically alluded to in the Nobel citation, which credits the pair with “tenacity and a prepared mind [to challenge] prevailing dogmas”.

Warren, a pathologist from Perth, first noticed in 1982 that strange, curved bacteria frequently colonised the lower part of the stomach in biopsies from patients with ulcers, and that the bugs always lived close to sites of inflammation.

Marshall, a young clinical fellow, became interested in Warren’s findings and together they initiated a crucial study of biopsies from 100 patients. From these, Marshall eventually learned how to grow the bacteria in the lab, and named the species Helicobacter pylori.

They established that the organism was almost always present in patients with gastric inflammation, duodenal ulcers or gastric ulcers.

Next, the pair proved that patients could be cured, but only by eradicating the bacteria with antibiotics. Notably, Marshall proved in 1985 that the bacteria caused gastric inflammation by infecting himself, then curing his condition with antibiotics.

Heroic experiment

“This extraordinary act demonstrated outstanding dedication and commitment to his research,” says Bob May, president of the UK Royal Society.

Kelly believes that Marshall performed his “heroic experiment” out of sheer frustration at the failure of other doctors to accept his results.

Since their discovery, it has been accepted beyond all dispute that H. pylori causes more than 90% of duodenal ulcers and 80% of gastric ulcers.

Half of all humans carry the bugs in their stomachs for life, but on average only 10 to 15% of those infected develop gastric inflammation or ulcers. In some individuals, infections can lead to stomach cancer.

Although the idea that bacteria cause chronic inflammatory disease was seen as heresy back in the 1980s, there is now increasing evidence that bacteria might be to blame for other conditions, such as Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and even the clogging of arteries that leads to coronary heart disease.

Marshall, who has set up his own Helicobacter pylori Research Laboratory in Perth, affiliated with the University of Western Australia, posted a notice on his website saying: “Thank you to everyone. At the moment I am overwhelmed with phone calls and congratulations pouring in from all over the world.”

[Disambiguator]

keep away from beer.

What?! That would be intolerable.

[slowhandluke]

Any idea how we can get docs to start poking around inside us looking for bugs?

see post 19 on this thread. The d&*n predisone was thinning my bones, and destroying my sight in the left eye before I was able to get off of it after 13 years.

[ex-snook]

Worked for me. Should have gotten the award earlier.

[knittnmom]

Thanks. I'll be looking into these. The GI doctors affiliated with my clinic are also active in research for Crohn's, IBD, and related illnesses. I'll have to ask them about some of this.

[slowhandluke]

The GI doctors affiliated with my clinic are also active in research for Crohn's, IBD, and related illnesses. I'll have to ask them about some of this.

Don't expect too much. The odd spore-like forms of the bacteria are well known to docs, but they were taught that they are harmless. I asked the infectious disease specialist I was going to for sarcoid, and he thought that maybe it might at most have some placebo effect. So I found another doc, an arthritis specialist who is used to trying different things to see what works (the approved list of RA remedies is quite lengthy, and indication that they've little clue about the real cause).

This might take another 10 years to get accepted, if it follows the example of the ulcer cure. So, the approach was to publish it, and try a grassroots experiment, and get a cohort of people cured of these previously incurable diseases.

A lot of people have had to switch doc's to find one who would give the MP a try.

If you want more info, there's .ram and .wmv files of Dr Marshall Trevors lectures at a Lyme conference, http://www.ctlymedisease.org/videoclips.htm, Borrellia being one of the common infections in a lot of auto-immune problems.

Good luck!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam, a good idea for a GGG topic. ;')

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
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[AdmSmith]

Thanks for posting this, there is a technical description at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1495572/posts

[HiTech RedNeck]

Now why wouldn't this have gotten noticed sooner by another way: that people taking antibiotics for some other reason suffered far fewer stomach ulcers?

[KeepUSfree]

Many, many reasons. No offense to the MD's out here....but I have found Doctors to be some of the most closed-minded folks there are - especially about "non-industry accepted cures". Coupled with the fact that "most" of them think they are smarter than most everyone - it causes them to be arrogant and not listen. My first wife died of ALS. I sat and told one of the main researchers at Hopkins that they would eventually find a virus or prion responsible. He berated me up one side and down another about how they'd already looked for that and they didn't see anything and I was clueless. I tried to explain that, in a fairly small house, I can rarely find my car keys and wallet.....so imagine how well a virus could hide in a human body! 10 years later, they think ALS is caused by a virus.

Example 2: I also get cold sores on my chin (a form of Herpes....I've just always had it). I did some research and found that Lysine (a simple Amino Acid - available at Wal-mart for 2.50 a bottle) helps prevent outbreaks. And, if at the VERY beginning of an outbreak, you take 2-3 pills every 1/2-1 hour for 6 hours, they will just stop forming and go away in 2-3 days (as opposed to 1-2 weeks). I've been doing this for years and it works GREAT. She won't recommend it to anyone because "nobody has published conclusive results". I try to explain that "there's no money in it". No drug company wants to research the fact that a pill that costs 2 cents and is available OTC, works MUCH better than their $20 pill.
So, this girl has watched me go thru the multi-pill treatment and kill a cold sore in 24 hours (she admits that's, basically, impossible). Yet, she STILL won't credit the Lysine. "Too many uncontrolled factors". She's so caught up in the mechanics and dogma of "what makes a cure", she can't see that one exists.
I guess, what I'm trying to say, is that if Aspirin were just now invented (by someone outside the medical/pharmacological community), it would take about 25 years for the medical community to accept that willow-tree bark extract can ease pain.

[palmer]

Part of the quick fix, big bucks, medical establishment. I presume there won't be much long term difference between a placebo and antibiotics. For sure antibiotics will work better in the short run but in the long run only difficult life style and diet changes are going to prevent the weaknesses that allow the bacteria to gain a foothold.

[AdmSmith]

if Aspirin were just now invented (by someone outside the medical/pharmacological community), it would take about 25 years for the medical community to accept that willow-tree bark extract can ease pain.

If acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) would be suggested as a drug today it would not be accepted by FDA. Acetylsalicylic acid is teratogenic in mice, rats, and hamsters and would not pass the tests for human use. I wonder how many other drugs that have mild side effects in humans have been discarded.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

I have had the best success treating my stomach disorders with papaya enzymes. Do you suppose it's possible the papaya enzymes destroy bacteria?

[E Rocc]

The pair’s claims provoked a fierce backlash from the medical establishment, which held to the dogma that ulcers were brought on by stress and lifestyle, and could not be cured.

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

-Michael Crichton, lecturing at Cal Tech.

-Eric

[Alter Kaker]

The stomach-infesting bacterium Helicobacter pylori has been living in humans for at least 11,000 years - much longer than previously thought, say US researchers.

Not possible, clearly the researchers' methodology is skewed. Everyone knows the bacterium can't be older than 6000 years, becaue that's what Bishop Ussher says. Jeeze.

/s

[Coleus]

Dr. Hoffman and Atkins talked about this back in the late 80's, early 90's while most drs. were still prescribing tagamet and milk drinking to "coat" the stomach.

[GoLightly]

they think ALS is caused by a virus.

WOW! I thought ALS was genetic... Maybe I should quit smoking after all.

[SunkenCiv]

This is one of those issues where the supposed quacks were ahead of the AMA. The same relationship between microbe and host exists, was identified, and treated with antibiotics, with the domestic pig. That's one thing that helped crack the case for human ulcers.

[GoLightly]

Now why wouldn't this have gotten noticed sooner by another way: that people taking antibiotics for some other reason suffered far fewer stomach ulcers?

Good odds that the most commonly used antibiotics don't touch these bugs.

[Publius]

When Marshall drank his mix, my own family doctor -- an admirer of Marshall and now deceased -- made this priceless statement about what Marshall had done.

"You can hear them clank when he walks down the hall."