The bacterium Helicobacter pylori increases the risk of Alzheimer's

confirmation of a suspicion that had been circulating for some time arrived just before Christmas: Canadian researchers from the University of Montreal and German researchers from the University of Berlin, led by Antonios Douros, indicated in the magazine Alzheimer's & Dementia that the presence of a symptomatic infection by Helicobacter pylori, an opportunistic bacterium that it lives silently in the stomachs of 30-50% of Western adultsbut which can sometimes be activated by provocation gastritis and ulcer. The latter, if not treated through pharmacological eradication with pump inhibitors, antibiotics and antacids, can develop into gastric cancer.

Not just stomach

Also thanks to the contribution of Italian researchers from the Catholic University of Rome, such as Francesco Franceschi and Antonio Gasbarrini, it has emerged in recent years that, due to the chronic low-grade inflammation it causes, this bacterium is also implicated in haematological and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, liver disease and neurological pathologies such as multiple sclerosis and dementia, but there was no certainty that it was also the case in the most serious one, that is, Alzheimer's disease.

Eradication

If confirmed, the German-Canadian one is good news if you consider that Eradication of Helicobacter pylori requires a few weeks of treatment . Thus, a pathogenetic pillar could be removed from the most serious of dementias, which in 2050 will affect over 150 million people over the age of 65 worldwide. The important thing is to treat symptomatic adults who present the classic symptoms of the infection: heartburn, abdominal cramps, nausea, loss of appetite, abdominal swelling, vomitingto be evaluated also with breath tests, breathing tests, or gastroscopy.

The risk

Following for 11 years over four million adults of both sexes (4,262,092), initially free from dementia, German and Canadian researchers observed that over 40 thousand (40,445) then developed Alzheimer's disease and the presence of a symptomatic Helicobacter infection resulted an 11% increased risk of Alzheimer'sreaching a peak of 24% ten years after the onset of the first symptoms of Helicobacter infection.

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