Helicobacter Forums

For those of you, like me, who have wondered why H-pylori can be a problem for one person, but not another, you may find this link interesting. I'm not suggesting that this video answers that question, only that it gives you food for thought.
Perhaps one of the experts here would care to share their opinions on it....
Rick6


http://www.ted.com/talks/bonnie_bassler ... icate.html

it is a very interesting video. We are still not sure how H. pylori "talk" to each other yet at the moment. We know that the cell number affect the growth rate in the lab. Not sure if that is the same in the human stomach.

Thanks for your reply Helico-expert.
Just out of curiosity would you happen to know if Professor Marshall and his team are aware of the research presented in this video? Specifically the idea that bacteria can communicate with each other and may hold off their attact until there numbers are sufficient to succeed in their mission. Seems to me if this were true, than perhaps total eradication may not be necessary. Perhaps just working towards knocking down the number of H-pylori in somebody could prove to be more beneficial. As you know there have been some observations made that suggest that there might be some positive reasons for keeping some of the H-Pylori around.
Admittedly, I have no education in this area, and I hope this line of thinking isn't too ridicules to be considered and pondered about.
Rick6

This area is not well understood yet. In Prof. Marshall clinics, we measure the C14 level from all sort of patients.The C14 level is.. sort of correlating to the amount of H. pylori. Nevertheless, every patients come in with different symptoms. meaning, the bacteria load doesnt correlate to disease outcome. I personally think that it's more to do with host genetic and immune response. of course, the food we eat too. High salt food has been shown to higher risk of gastric cancer. nevertheless, a lot of work still in need to decode the bugs language and understand their plan?