H. pylori infection may reduce risk of allergic esophageal condition

New research suggests that Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection of the stomach, which occurs in about half of the world's population and can cause peptic ulcers and stomach cancer in minority of cases, may help protect against an allergic disorder of the esophagus condition called eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE).

In a study of 58 adults with EoE and 116 aged- and sex-matched controls, H. pylori infection was inversely associated with EoE. The prevalence of H. pylori in the control group was 37.9%, whereas 3 EoE patients (5.2%) were currently infected with H. pylori and 5 EoE patients (8.6%) reported prior eradication of H. pylori. H. pylori infection was linked with a 76% reduced likelihood of having EoE.

"This adds to the evidence that allergic disorders in general may be less common in people with H. pylori infection," said lead author Dr. Ulrike von Aarnim, of the University of Magdeburg, in Germany. The results are published in Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

Citation: von Arnim, U., Wex, T., Link, A., Messerschmidt, M., Venerito, M., Miehlke, S. and Malfertheiner, P. (2016), Helicobacter pylori infection is associated with a reduced risk of developing eosinophilic oesophagitis. Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics. doi: 10.1111/apt.13560

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Over the past decade H. pylori has repeatedly been in the focus of scientific research. It has been linked with gastric carcinoma (Parsonnet. 1991; Huang. 1998). The summary of odds-ratio of a 198 meta-analysis by Huang et al. for example shows increases of cancer risk of 92%, 124% and 81% in infected patients for all studies, cohort, and case-control studies, respectively. The meta-analysis also found that "H. pylori - infected younger patients have a higher relative risk for gastric cancer than older patients with odds ratios decreasing from 9.29 at age ≤29 years to 1.05 at age ≥70 years." (Huang. 1998).

But cancer is only the "worst case" scenario, when it comes to the potential (ill) health effects of being infected with H. pylori.

The Helicobacter pylori bacterium has also been associated with in cases of chronic gastritis, functional dyspepsia, peptic or duodenal ulcers, and cancer or gastric lymphomas.

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