How scary is H. pylori? H. pylori causes chronic inflammation, which in turn produces endogenous mutagens; H. pylori reduces nitrites, which are recognized carcinogens; and H. pylori metabolites promote epithelial cell mutation. The World Health Organization reports that H. pylori infection increases the risk of stomach cancer by 2 to 3 times. How do you get infected? You can get infected by kissing or by parents feeding their children. More than 50% of the world’s population carries H. pylori, and the incidence is higher in developing countries such as China than in developed Western countries, which may be related to dietary habits and living hygiene conditions. However, most people who become infected have no obvious symptoms and may not develop the disease. It is worth noting that in most cases, the first H. pylori infection occurs in infancy and childhood, and Chinese parents feeding their children like to try the temperature themselves first to see if it is hot, or even mouth-to-mouth feeding, which are bad habits. The main source of infection may come from family members, such as parents, siblings and so on. The transmission route is generally oral transmission, intimate contact transmission, eating contaminated food and drinking water may be infectious. Once infected, if left untreated, H. pylori can stay with you for the rest of your life. How is it detected? Direct examination of bacteria: Gastric mucosal bacterial culture is the most reliable method to diagnose HP and can be used as the “gold standard” to verify other diagnostic tests, and also to perform drug sensitivity tests to guide the clinical selection of drugs. Urease test: Because HP is the only bacterium that can produce large amounts of urease in the human stomach, it can be used to diagnose HP infection by detecting urease. Urease breaks down the urea in the stomach to produce ammonia and carbon dioxide, causing the urea concentration to decrease and the ammonia concentration to increase. What should I do if I am “hooked” on it? You can go to a regular hospital for consultation. First, the choice of acid-suppressing drugs to destroy the acidic environment suitable for the growth of H. pylori; second, the dispatch of gastric mucosal protective agent to protect the gastric mucosa; third, to take antibiotics to directly sterilize. Doctors often use triple and quadruple therapy. Is it easy to relapse after treatment? It is true that some people relapse after H. pylori eradication, and there are regional and ethnic differences in the relapse rate, which is very low in developed countries and developed regions in the West. There are two types of relapse: the first is when the eradication is not complete and a small amount of bacteria remains in the body, which happens within 1 year after successful treatment; the second is when there is a new H. pylori infection, which happens in both cases. How to prevent infection? The fundamental solution is to improve the living and sanitary conditions of the whole community in several ways: first, as mentioned earlier, mutual infection among family members is common, so if possible, family members should be tested and treated for H. pylori at the same time. Second, the initial treatment should be done with drugs and protocols that are effective and as thorough as possible. Third, studies have shown that H. pylori also exists in the human oral cavity, so H. pylori infection in the stomach should be tested and treated simultaneously with H. pylori infection in the oral cavity.