4 ms·

stomach ulcers were an epidemic problem in the western world in the 1970s and have since virtually vanished. in 1982, a bacteria named helicobacter pylori was d

stomach ulcers were an epidemic problem in the western world in the 1970s and have since virtually vanished. in 1982, a bacteria named helicobacter pylori was discovered and was said to cause IBS, cancer, stomach ulcers, and so on. nevermind that two-thirds of the world's population have this bacteria present in their gut (most showing no symptoms). a medication targeting the bacteria was discovered and then the incidence rate for stomach ulcers plummeted dramatically. not the cure rate, the incidence rate: people stopped contracting stomach ulcers in the first place. somehow, the illness no longer served its purpose (!). this is a confounding proposition so most are quick to come up with alternative explanations (maybe pry internet_user, resident M.D.). indeed the medical industries will offer you some explanations if you can't come up with any on your own that explain away any possible psychosocial etiology.

erentz 7y ago
So you're saying: 1. People thought they had stomach ulcers. 2. Then we learned a lot more about what stomach ulcers actually are and how to treat them. 3. With that improved knowledge it turned out a lot of those people didn't actually have stomach ulcers. 4. So naturally the incidence rate of stomach ulcers goes down, because people are no longer misdiagnosed as having stomach ulcers. 5. ... 6. Somehow jump to conclusion that all those who thought they had stomach ulcers were making it up and it was a psychosocial illness, for which no evidence is provided. It seems like people had symptoms that were mistaken for stomach ulcers in the popular knowledge of the time. The incidence rate going down for stomach ulcers after learning more about stomach ulcers tells us nothing about what happened to those people. We don't know what they were really suffering from, what they might now-a-days be diagnosed with, etc. And we aren't told anything here about what other environmental factors may have led to a decline.
- interpenetrate 7y ago
  stomach ulcers of course exist. these things are really messy and are a source of internal bleeding. no one was "making it up" (?). the question is one about etiology. the history suggests that the popular etiology (bacteria and probably also NSAIDs linearly cause stomach ulcers) is entirely insufficient. the questions you're asking ("we don't know what they were really suffering from") are important, but to most people these questions don't matter anymore. there is practically no medical research being done on these questions today. why bother? the "psychosomatic school" is the only school who takes the issue seriously anymore. their work is worth considering, that's my point.
  - h0l0cube 7y ago
    My cousin has being diagnosed formally with MCS and co-morbid CFS, both illnesses with some controversy. I've spent time with them, and learnt that the "psychosomatic school" has always been the prevailing school of thought on the subject, and this presents many hurdles to their every day life, and potential treatment. The possibility that there's at least a component of the illnesses that aren't psychosomatic is worth considering, but such a school of thought has always been on the fringes, and serious funding to examine actual causation has always been a challenge for illness communities that have offhandedly been thrown straight into the looney bin.
    - interpenetrate 7y ago
      yes the most successful analytic practice would be the one that could successfully traverse the boundaries we've constructed between mind and body. the idea is that h. pylori, for example, has a role to play (one way or another) in the reproduction of stomach ulcers, but the bacteria is not linearly causal. rather, it is situated in a complex dialectic web that modern medicine (and the "psychosomatic school" for that matter) are mostly unequipped to analyze. this is reflected in the gross failure of the diagnostic taxonomy produced by the medical/psychiatric industry whose validity should be (but is rarely) continuously questioned. for what it's worth the "psychosomatic school" i'm most familiar with criticizes harshly the "psychosomatic school" that i believe you're familiar with. indeed there are many ineffective and harmful centers for the treatment of "chronic illnesses." it's really shameful
      - H_Pylori 7y ago
        > the idea is that h. pylori, for example, has a role to play (one way or another) in the reproduction of stomach ulcers, but the bacteria is not linearly causal. Prove it
sjg007 7y ago
The researchers drank a tube of it and got ulcers. Pretty conclusive.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  As user interpenetrate wrote, two-thirds of the world's population have the bacteria, and most don't get ulcers or other symptoms. A more complete telling of the story may be that researchers ingested a volume of the bacteria that was more than their immune system could easily contain, and got ulcers. Given that stress is well known to be a cause of immune system impairment, this could still be an upstream cause of the bacterial outbreak that then leads to ulcer formation.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    Yes so we agree that H. pylori is the cause.
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      A part of the cause. In ordinary conditions (i.e., not drinking a vial of bacteria), immune impairment is a necessary condition (or cause) of the H. pylori outbreak. And stress is one possible upstream cause of that.
      - H_Pylori 7y ago
        That could be said for every infectious illness. So does every infectious illness have a psychosomatic component too.
        tomhoward 7y ago
        Some infections will be virulent even for people even with optimally functioning immune systems, if it's the kind of infection that acts faster than anyone's immune system's ability to respond, or if it's a new strain that no human's immune system can defend against. But that aside, the virulence of an infection will always be greater against those who have weaker immune systems. This is why we always see the elderly and those with pre-existing serious illnesses more likely to be struck down or killed by infections. Stress is just another factor that can lead to impaired immunity and result in an infection becoming virulent.

erentz 7y ago

So you're saying: 1. People thought they had stomach ulcers. 2. Then we learned a lot more about what stomach ulcers actually are and how to treat them. 3. With that improved knowledge it turned out a lot of those people didn't actually have stomach ulcers. 4. So naturally the incidence rate of stomach ulcers goes down, because people are no longer misdiagnosed as having stomach ulcers. 5. ... 6. Somehow jump to conclusion that all those who thought they had stomach ulcers were making it up and it was a psychosocial illness, for which no evidence is provided. It seems like people had symptoms that were mistaken for stomach ulcers in the popular knowledge of the time. The incidence rate going down for stomach ulcers after learning more about stomach ulcers tells us nothing about what happened to those people. We don't know what they were really suffering from, what they might now-a-days be diagnosed with, etc. And we aren't told anything here about what other environmental factors may have led to a decline.

interpenetrate 7y ago
stomach ulcers of course exist. these things are really messy and are a source of internal bleeding. no one was "making it up" (?). the question is one about etiology. the history suggests that the popular etiology (bacteria and probably also NSAIDs linearly cause stomach ulcers) is entirely insufficient. the questions you're asking ("we don't know what they were really suffering from") are important, but to most people these questions don't matter anymore. there is practically no medical research being done on these questions today. why bother? the "psychosomatic school" is the only school who takes the issue seriously anymore. their work is worth considering, that's my point.
- h0l0cube 7y ago
  My cousin has being diagnosed formally with MCS and co-morbid CFS, both illnesses with some controversy. I've spent time with them, and learnt that the "psychosomatic school" has always been the prevailing school of thought on the subject, and this presents many hurdles to their every day life, and potential treatment. The possibility that there's at least a component of the illnesses that aren't psychosomatic is worth considering, but such a school of thought has always been on the fringes, and serious funding to examine actual causation has always been a challenge for illness communities that have offhandedly been thrown straight into the looney bin.
  - interpenetrate 7y ago
    yes the most successful analytic practice would be the one that could successfully traverse the boundaries we've constructed between mind and body. the idea is that h. pylori, for example, has a role to play (one way or another) in the reproduction of stomach ulcers, but the bacteria is not linearly causal. rather, it is situated in a complex dialectic web that modern medicine (and the "psychosomatic school" for that matter) are mostly unequipped to analyze. this is reflected in the gross failure of the diagnostic taxonomy produced by the medical/psychiatric industry whose validity should be (but is rarely) continuously questioned. for what it's worth the "psychosomatic school" i'm most familiar with criticizes harshly the "psychosomatic school" that i believe you're familiar with. indeed there are many ineffective and harmful centers for the treatment of "chronic illnesses." it's really shameful
    - H_Pylori 7y ago
      > the idea is that h. pylori, for example, has a role to play (one way or another) in the reproduction of stomach ulcers, but the bacteria is not linearly causal. Prove it

sjg007 7y ago

The researchers drank a tube of it and got ulcers. Pretty conclusive.

tomhoward 7y ago
As user interpenetrate wrote, two-thirds of the world's population have the bacteria, and most don't get ulcers or other symptoms. A more complete telling of the story may be that researchers ingested a volume of the bacteria that was more than their immune system could easily contain, and got ulcers. Given that stress is well known to be a cause of immune system impairment, this could still be an upstream cause of the bacterial outbreak that then leads to ulcer formation.
- sjg007 7y ago
  Yes so we agree that H. pylori is the cause.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    A part of the cause. In ordinary conditions (i.e., not drinking a vial of bacteria), immune impairment is a necessary condition (or cause) of the H. pylori outbreak. And stress is one possible upstream cause of that.
    - H_Pylori 7y ago
      That could be said for every infectious illness. So does every infectious illness have a psychosomatic component too.
      - tomhoward 7y ago
        Some infections will be virulent even for people even with optimally functioning immune systems, if it's the kind of infection that acts faster than anyone's immune system's ability to respond, or if it's a new strain that no human's immune system can defend against. But that aside, the virulence of an infection will always be greater against those who have weaker immune systems. This is why we always see the elderly and those with pre-existing serious illnesses more likely to be struck down or killed by infections. Stress is just another factor that can lead to impaired immunity and result in an infection becoming virulent.