Aussies win NobelPrize for debunking
ulcer myth
One Of The Researchers Drank A Witches’ Brew Of Bacteria To Convince Sceptical Scientists
Two Australians won the Nobel prize for medicine for showing that a bacterium rather than stress causes
stomach inflammation and
ulcers,after one of them drank a witches’ brew of bacteria to prove the point.
Experts said the
discovery of the Helicobacter
pylori bacterium by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren in 1982 was met with skepticism by the medical community ,which did not thinkbacteria could survive in acid conditions of the stomach.
Marshall resorted to drinking a culture of the bacteria to give himself an ulcer and then to treat himself.The findings eventually forced drug firms to rethink treatment of a condition that affects millions of
people in a market worth billions of dollars.Thanks to the pioneering discovery by Marshall and Warren ,peptic ulcer diseases is no longer a chronic,frequently disabling condition, but a diseases that can be cured by a short regimen of antibiotics and acid secretion inhibitors, said the Nobel Assembly of Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute .Warren, 68, Marshall , 54, share the $1.29 million prize for their, remarkable and unexpected discovery, the Nobel Assembly said.
Lord May of Oxford , president of Britain;s Royal Society of leading scientists, said Marshall’s extraordinary act.of becoming his own guinea pig showed outstanding dedication.
With some scvientists calling their findings preposterous, Marshall drank a broth of bacteria to show that the presence of H pylori in people with ulcers was no coincidence.
I planned to give myself an ulcer, then treat myself,to prove that H pylori can be a pathogen in normal people, he told a scientific review.I though about it for a few weeks, then decided to just do it.Luckily, I only developed a temporary infection.
Suffering stomach pain, nausea and vomiting , he underwent an endoscopy which showed the distinctive spiral-shaped E pylori crowding around the inflammation in his stomach.His wife urged him to think of his children and get treatment—which he did.Professor Brian Spratt, a molecular microbiologists at Imperial College London ,said they had a hell of a job convincing people about their research.
Drug companies had to radically change their approach fromcontaining ulcers with antacids to treating with antibiotics .Ulcers predispose people to gastric cancer—so antibiotics also prevent cancer, he added.Australians have been on Nobel Medicine prize-wining teams previously—Sir Howard Florey in 1945,Sir Frank Macfar4lane Burnet in 1960,Sir John Eccles in 1963 and Peter Doherty in 1996.But this is the first time all-Australian team has won.Warren and Marshall were working at the Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia when the made the H pylori discovery
THE PATHBREAKING DISCOVERY
Marshall and Warren used endoscopies , staining of tissue sections and culture techniques to disco0ver Helicobacter pylori in 1982.Use of human volunteers, antibiotic and epidemiological studies established the link to gastritis and peptic ulcers.
Helicobacter pylori is a spiral-shaped bacterium that colonizes the stomach in about half of all humans Infectionis more common in poorer countries and is typically contracted in early childhood often from mother to child.
Most people show no symptoms but 10-15% will have peptic ulcer diseases at some stage in their life Severe complications include bleeding and perforation.
Chronic inflammation in the lower part of the stomach caused byHelicobacter pylori increases acid protection and predisposes the duodenum ulcers.
In some people, H pylori also infects the corpus region of the stomach ,leading to more widespread inflammation that causes predisposition to ulcers but also to stomach cancer—the second biggest cancer killer in the world.
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