Will I get stomach cancer if I’m infected with Helicobacter pylori?

Key Points

★ Being infected with Helicobacter pylori will only increase the risk of gastric cancer, but does not mean that you will definitely get gastric cancer.

★ Helicobacter pylori can be treated and prevented, just treat it rationally.

★ To treat Helicobacter pylori infection, a doctor's diagnosis and medication are required. Toothpaste and garlic are useless.

Today, a piece of news about gastric cancer has become a hot topic on Weibo. It turns out that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released the 15th edition of the Carcinogen Report, in which chronic infection with Helicobacter pylori is listed as a clear carcinogen. In fact, this matter itself is not new, because the close connection between Helicobacter pylori and gastric cancer has long been no secret.

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For example, as early as 1994, the World Health Organization listed Helicobacter pylori as the first type of carcinogen for gastric cancer. Later, the Kyoto Consensus on Helicobacter pylori gastritis also listed the eradication of Helicobacter pylori as a primary prevention measure for gastric cancer.

However, considering that at least 50% of the population in my country are infected with Helicobacter pylori, and my country itself is a country with a high incidence of gastric cancer, it is very necessary for us to understand the dangers and prevention of Helicobacter pylori. Let's talk about this topic next.

01

Helicobacter pylori is not simple

Helicobacter pylori is a curved stick, a bit like a glutinous rice stick, with several flagella on one end, which can be used for movement and fixation. Helicobacter pylori looks ordinary in the bacterial world, but it has a unique skill, which is to survive in the stomach.

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You should know that for bacteria, the stomach is hell. The pH value of gastric acid can be as low as 1-2, and there are various enzymes. For most bacteria, just passing through the stomach is a life-threatening situation. Only Helicobacter pylori can use flagella to pass through the mucus layer of the gastric antrum to fix itself and settle in the mucus layer. They also have their own urease, which can decompose urea to produce ammonia to neutralize gastric acid, creating a more comfortable living environment for themselves.

If Helicobacter pylori is comfortable, we will be in trouble.

On the one hand, when these guys illegally settle, they will make holes in our gastric mucosal barrier, so that the stomach acid that should be isolated from the outside will leak in and corrode the stomach wall. On the other hand, Helicobacter pylori will cause an immune response, and the ammonia and toxins it produces will also directly damage the stomach wall, which will cause inflammation and cause other problems.

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Most infected people have no symptoms in the early stage, and some only show mild stomach discomfort, loss of appetite and other symptoms. In a small number of patients, the stomach is invaded by Helicobacter pylori, and the gastric mucosa is constantly damaged and repaired due to inflammation, and chronic superficial gastritis slowly develops into chronic atrophic gastritis → intestinal metaplasia → atypical hyperplasia, which are precancerous lesions, indicating an increased risk of gastric cancer. Some patients also have typical symptoms of upper abdominal pain, which develops into peptic ulcers.

02

How to deal with Helicobacter pylori?

Seeing this, some friends may be worried - what? One out of every two Chinese people is infected with this bacteria? Will the infection cause cancer? What else can be done? How can we eliminate them?

First of all, Helicobacter pylori is by no means incurable. In fact, many antibiotics can kill this bacterium, but they need to cooperate with each other and take other drugs to control stomach acid for the antibiotics to be effective. As long as the treatment is appropriate, it can still be eradicated. According to the "Expert Consensus on Helicobacter pylori Eradication and Gastric Cancer Prevention and Control in China (2019, Shanghai)", the incidence of gastric cancer can be reduced by 53% after eradicating Helicobacter pylori.

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It should be noted that there are many types of drugs for treating Helicobacter pylori. Whether eradication is necessary and how to use the drugs should be determined based on the patient's specific situation, contraindications to taking the drugs, the infected strains, and other factors. These require doctors to make professional judgments, so I will not go into details. But here I would like to remind everyone that if the doctor determines that eradication treatment is necessary, you must follow the doctor's instructions and take the drugs on time and in the prescribed amount, otherwise the treatment effect will be greatly reduced and will also affect subsequent treatment. In addition, since Helicobacter pylori can easily spread among family members, the whole family often needs to undergo eradication treatment together.

In addition, there are many factors that can increase the risk of gastric cancer, and Helicobacter pylori is just one of the important and controllable ones. However, this does not mean that infection with Helicobacter pylori will definitely lead to gastric cancer. Therefore, there is no need to be afraid of the bacteria, and you can just do a good job of prevention in daily life.

So how can we prevent it?

Helicobacter pylori can be transmitted from person to person through the digestive tract, most commonly through oral and fecal-oral transmission. We can use serving chopsticks or separate meals when eating, boil dishes in water to disinfect them, and avoid eating at restaurants with poor hygiene conditions, all of which can help prevent infection with Helicobacter pylori. In addition, families with babies should also pay special attention not to kiss their babies' mouths, and not to chew food with their mouths and spit it out for their babies to eat.

In addition, for adults, we can choose the carbon 14 breath test to detect whether we are infected with Helicobacter pylori during physical examinations so that we can respond in time.

03

These methods of sterilization are unreliable

Since Helicobacter pylori is very harmful and can easily cause panic among the public, some rumors about sterilization have become a breeding ground.

For example, some toothpaste products claim to contain lactoferrin, which can kill Helicobacter pylori. But the problem is that the bactericidal effect of lactoferrin is far inferior to that of antibiotics. Moreover, even if toothpaste can kill some Helicobacter pylori in the mouth, can it enter the stomach and kill the bacteria there by brushing teeth in the normal way?

Since the bactericidal effect is not very good, and we usually don't swallow toothpaste raw, the role of toothpaste is very limited. So those toothpastes that claim to kill Helicobacter pylori may be slightly helpful in prevention, but they certainly cannot have a therapeutic effect.

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In addition, there are rumors that eating more garlic can kill Helicobacter pylori. But the problem is that the real bactericidal effect is allicin, which is easily decomposed by heat, and the allicin content in raw garlic is very low. If you want to achieve the amount that can effectively kill Helicobacter pylori, you may have to eat an astonishing amount of raw garlic. The irritation it brings to the human body and the impact on breath are really uncomfortable to think about...

Therefore, what we should do is to prevent Helicobacter pylori correctly. If unfortunately infected, we should see a doctor for regular treatment and not pin our hopes on these unreliable methods.

In conclusion, infection with Helicobacter pylori does increase the risk of gastric cancer, but it does not mean that infection will definitely lead to gastric cancer. Helicobacter pylori can be eradicated and prevented, just pay attention to hygiene and treat it rationally.

Author | Ding Zong

Reviewer | Tang Qin, Director and Researcher, Department of Science Popularization, Chinese Medical Association Editor | Ding Zong

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Source: Science Refutes Rumors