If one person is infected, the whole family needs to be treated! Zhang Wenhong: If we eat like this at home, we will see germs everywhere!

If one person is infected, the whole family must be treated!

I'm talking about Helicobacter pylori. If one family member is found to be infected with Helicobacter pylori, the whole family may need to pay attention! This is because Helicobacter pylori is mainly transmitted through oral contact, and our family's shared dining habits can easily lead to infection for the whole family.

According to the "Fifth National Consensus Report on the Treatment of Helicobacter pylori Infection", the current Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection rate in my country is still about 50%. Based on this, it is estimated that about half of the Chinese population is infected with Helicobacter pylori.

Helicobacter pylori is also considered one of the main causes of gastric cancer. As early as 1994, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) under the World Health Organization (WHO) had classified Helicobacter pylori as a Class I carcinogen.

If one person is infected, the whole family must be treated!

Recently, the "Consensus Report on Prevention, Control and Management of Helicobacter pylori Infection in Chinese Residents' Households (2021 Edition)" was published in "GUT" (Gastroenterology), a well-known medical journal in the field of digestive tract, pointing out that Helicobacter pylori infection is largely a familial disease.

Among them, the five points raised in the consensus should be paid special attention to:

1. Intra-family transmission is an important route of Helicobacter pylori infection

Intra-family transmission is an important route of Helicobacter pylori infection. The risk of infection among family members is related to family living habits, race, hygiene, socioeconomic status, and family size.

A large number of studies in China and around the world have shown that Helicobacter pylori infection has a clear family clustering phenomenon: when parents are infected with Helicobacter pylori, the infection rate of Helicobacter pylori in their children increases significantly; the disease can also be transmitted between spouses and siblings.

2. Helicobacter pylori is mainly transmitted through the oral route within the family

There are three ways in which Helicobacter pylori is transmitted within a family, mainly through the oral route.

"Oral-to-oral transmission", sharing the same food utensils, chewing food to feed; eating contaminated meat, milk, vegetables and other foods, drinking contaminated water; poor hygiene habits, etc. It is recommended to use separate meals, use public chopsticks and spoons, eat healthy and safe food, and avoid chewing to feed infants and young children.

"Shared utensil transmission", sharing food containers or dental equipment, etc. It is recommended to clean food containers and use safe dental equipment.

"Fecal-oral transmission", eating food contaminated by feces, drinking contaminated water, and untreated water such as well water. Prevention advice: Only consume hygienic and safe food and water.

3. Family members infected with H. pylori are always a potential source of infection

People infected with Helicobacter pylori rarely recover without treatment. When living with family members infected with Helicobacter pylori, the risk of infection for other family members increases, but whether or not to be infected is related to the closeness of contact and genetic background.

4. Most H. pylori infections occur during childhood and adolescence

Intra-family transmission is the main way children are infected with Helicobacter pylori, mainly through parents, especially mothers. Surveys and studies in many parts of China have shown that the infection rate of Helicobacter pylori in children increases with age.

5. Eradication treatment is recommended for all adults infected with Helicobacter pylori in the family

International consensus generally recommends that, unless there are countervailing factors, eradication of Helicobacter pylori can eliminate the source of infection, reduce the likelihood of infection in the population, and prevent the occurrence of serious complications. Eradicating Helicobacter pylori before gastric mucosal atrophy and intestinal metaplasia can reduce the risk of gastric cancer.

Zhang Wenhong:

Eating at home

All I see are germs!

In April 2020, Professor Zhang Wenhong, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, mentioned: The system of separate meals should be implemented at home. In addition to preventing the new coronavirus, it is also necessary to prevent the spread of Helicobacter pylori.

Professor Zhang Wenhong said, "I can't stand people eating together. They eat together and use one chopstick to pick up food and drink. You see the cup and chopsticks, but I see germs."

Zhang Wenhong said that from an epidemiological perspective, the significance of the separate dining system is very important. It does not mean that everyone eats together at lunch. Separate dining is also a matter of how you look at it. Whether at home or outside, separate dining is very important in preventing the spread of disease.

No serving chopsticks

How unhygienic is it?

Previously, 11 experts from the Health Hazard Factors Monitoring Institute and Inspection Center of the Hangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention went to the restaurant to conduct an experiment for this purpose!

What is the difference between using serving chopsticks or not? The experimental group chose a nearby restaurant and ordered a total of 6 dishes, which are:

1. Cucumber salad

2. Brine Shrimp

3. Dry-pot Tea Tree Mushroom

4. Sautéed Asparagus

5. Pickled octopus

6. Spicy Bullfrog

They divided each dish into two portions, one with serving chopsticks and one without; in addition, they specially ordered a dish as a blank control.

Before eating, the disease control staff put on sterile gloves, disinfected tweezers with an alcohol lamp, and collected food samples, which took 40 minutes.

Next, it’s the “brain-burning” eating part! When picking up the same dish, you must alternate between using and not using serving chopsticks, and you have to “calculate” in your mind each time you eat to ensure that the number of times the chopsticks touch the dish is the same.

After the meal, the disease control staff took another sample, taking a total of 19 food samples before and after the meal.

Then, we waited for 48 hours for the colony to grow. The results showed that when comparing the total number of colonies in the remaining parts of the dishes with and without public chopsticks, the total number of colonies in the group with non-public chopsticks was higher than that in the group with public chopsticks! In some cases, the difference was more than 10 times, such as the dry pot tea tree mushroom dish.

The Hangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention reminds: Using serving chopsticks will significantly reduce bacterial contamination in dishes. If serving chopsticks are not used, on the one hand, people may transfer bacteria from their mouths and noses to dishes through chopsticks, and on the other hand, it may cause cross-contamination of bacteria carried by different dishes themselves (especially cold dishes). These factors increase the chance of bacterial growth. The spread of germs means the spread of disease.

After experiencing the epidemic, I hope that some of our concepts and habits can be changed. At least the use of serving chopsticks is no longer just a slogan. Using serving chopsticks or separate meals does not mean losing friendship or being inconsistent with traditional culture. Everyone still eats at the same table and shares food together, but there is only one more step of serving the rice.

This process is also very simple to implement, for example: add serving chopsticks or serving spoons to each dish; directly divide the food into the tableware and drinkware of each family member at home. This additional process of serving the rice ensures the health of everyone.

Reviewer of this article: Wang Wenxiang, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at Fujian Medical University

Source: Health Times (ID: jksb2013)

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