Oh man! In this article on James Bond’s shaken not stirred martini request…
…there is a statement at the end of the article that doesn’t make sense to me.
“A second scientific conclusion reached that evening is that “martinis upset ulcers,” so it may be a while before your humble correspondent repeats the experiment.”
And, Helicobacter was discovered as the source of ulcers in the mid-90’s, so no one should have had any ulcers in 2000? Right?
Good luck!
Well, the article didn’t claim that martinis caused the ulcer, just upset them. My father had an ulcer and there were things he avoided from experience. Perhaps alcohol is one of them.
Dennis
Just because you get rid of the Helicobacter doesn’t mean the ulcer immediately heals up and everything is fine. With all that acid in it, the stomach is a hostile environment for healing. While you maybe able to stop taking all the antacid and other drugs, the ulcer stays sensitive to things like alcohol for a long long time.
That’s what ulcer medicine is for.
I had similar thoughts.
Discovered in the 80’s, demonstrated in the early 90’s, well known in the mid 90’s, American publicity campaign in the late 90’s.
It’s obvious that no one (except me) in this thread has ever had an ulcer. An ulcer is just an open sore, in this case, located somewhere in the digestive tract. Helicobacter may cause the sore, but after that it works just like any other. And because of the location, that is, an area with very high acid, they take a long time to heal.
Back in the 90s, I went through the drug regimen to get rid of H pylori and had similar thoughts to the OP. About 6 to 8 months after, I was still having symptoms, so I thought maybe the antibiotics didn’t work. So I went back to my doctor and he had me take a test for it. Now they couldn’t just test for antibodies, because those stay around even after the bacteria are gone. Instead I had to go to the Nuclear Medicine clinic and drink some gasp radioactive stuff. (No it didn’t turn me into one of the Fantastic Four, which is just as well, since with my luck, I’d end up looking like the Thing.) The results were negative: no bacteriums left in my gut.
So I was still taking ulcer medicine (ranitidine or famotidine or plain antacid) for years after that point in steadily decreasing amounts. But those drugs don’t do anything for ulcers irritated by alcohol. They reduce the amount of acid and help the ulcer heal but that’s all.
Based on dtilque’s post I now see that it is plausible that the ulcer, cured of H plylori, could still exist.
Thanks, now I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep well tonight.
Also, as I posted in the other thread, there is still a remanent fraction of non-HP-caused ulcers.
A tangential remark: there is also non-ulcer-causing H plylori, which was one of the cunfusing factors that needed to be addressed when causation was demonstrated.
I hadn’t realized healing took so long.