The worm turns on Helicobacter pylori

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Abstract
However, before gastroenterologists recommend sending all their patients on a tropical holiday and suggest they eat all the unwashed and uncooked vegetables they can find, a few words of caution are needed. While this is an intriguing study, it is fair to say that the authors highlighted the positive aspects of their results and did not dwell on the negative aspects. The mice were studied at two time points, eight and 16 weeks after H felisinfection. At eight weeks, although chronic submucosal inflammation and parietal cell loss were decreased in the worm infected animals, there was no decrease in mucosal chronic inflammation and in fact the worm infected animals had more severe gastritis. At 16 weeks the reduction in chronic submucosal inflammation was not seen, suggesting it was a chance finding. Similarly, the increased active gastritis in the non-worm infected mice was not seen at 16 weeks, again probably a chance finding. In contrast, hyperplasia, parietal cell loss, and mucous cell hypertrophy and metaplasia were significantly decreased in the worm infected animals compared with non-worm infected mice. Strikingly, whereas the control mice had eliminatedH felis by 16 weeks, there was still substantial bacterial colonisation in the worm infected animals.