The Real Solution for Ulcers
The 2005 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine has been awarded
to Australians Barry J. Marshall and Robin Warren, for showing
that stomach and intestinal ulcersare caused by bacterial
infection rather than stress.
Their discovery, made in 1982, changed peptic ulcer from a
chronic and disabling condition to an easily treatable one.
They established that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is the
most common cause of ulcers, an assertionthat went against the
prevailing thought in the medical community at the time. Their
discovery began a large-scale reassessment of the causes of
other chronic inflammatory diseases, such as Crohn's disease,
ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and atherosclerosis.
USA Today October 3, 2005
Dr. Mercola's Comment:When I read the headline for this article
in USA Today ("2 Austalians Win Nobel Prize in Medicine"), I
knew Dr. Marshall was one of the winners without even having to
read the story. I have written about his novel therapy
previously on the Web site. Congratulations are in order to him
for going against the grain and turning the medical world upside
down 23 years ago.
I remember VERY clearly in 1983 when I first read his intriguing
work in Lancet and started putting many patients on his protocol
with remarkable success. I also remember equally clearly the
amazing resistance by every single GI expert I knew of. They all
discounted the "theory" and said it was full of rubbish.
It was very clear to me back then that even though I was a brand
new doctor, I knew my expert teachers were wrong. Time has
proven that to be true. Similarly, it is even MORE obvious that
nearly all of conventional medicine is dead wrong on how most
disease operates. They are virtually 100-percentclueless about
the true cause of disease.
Only this time I won't have to sit back and wait for the Nobel
Committee to validate my belief. I am taking a far more
proactive role and my primary passion and mission in life is to
catalyze the transformation of health care in the United
Statesto one that appreciates and operates on the foundational
truths of health. And you and I both know that does not involve
using drugs and surgery as the first option.
Getting back to Dr. Marshall though, even though his approach on
peptic ulcers was far closer to the best way than using H2
blockers and proton pump inhibitors like Nexium (whichis one of
the WORST approaches for ulcers), he still did not get it
completely right.
Although it is clear that H. pylori bacteria play a major role
in ulcers, the more foundational and primary reason why most
people acquire ulcers is that they have an impairment in their
immune system that allows the H. pylori infection to take hold.
So while I used the Marshall antibiotic protocol 20 years ago to
take care of ulcers, I abandoned it over10 years ago in favor of
optimizing food choicesand effective toolsto address the
underlying emotional stresses that temporarily collapse the
average person's immune system and make them susceptible to all
sorts of infections.
Although antibiotics work, they rarely address the underlying
cause of the problem. It makes far more sense to use the
approach that I describe above, as it is inexpensive, virtually
side-effect free and, most importantly, addresses the underlying
cause of the problem.