Gut check

Ten years ago, I was talking with a young doctor about peptic ulcer disease. As it turned out, he had never heard that it is caused by a bacterium (which can be easily killed by antibiotics), even though, at that time, it had been decisively proven to be caused by the germ H. pylori. I was dumbfounded.

But that's not the worst of it.

Ten years later, most doctors still are not using antibiotics to treat this vexatious and dangerous condition (you can bleed to death from an ulcer). Instead, we're being barraged by the pharmaceutical companies with acid-suppressing drugs, and researchers are idiotically pouring money into pointless studies on the relationship of things like stress and exercise to ulcers.

News flash: The cause and cure for peptic ulcers are known, and have been for over 15 years…thanks to the fearless research of a Dr. Barry Marshall.

Several years ago, I read an excellent article in Fortune magazine that beautifully illustrated Marshall's groundbreaking discovery and the tragedy of the events that followed. The article began as follows: 

"Dr. Barry Marshall, young and self-confident, raised a beaker of bacteria-laden liquid to his lips and drank it down. The medical resident was determined to prove something he had not been able to prove with dogs: that a bacterium, called Helicobacter pylori, causes peptic ulcer. 'It tasted like swamp water,' he remarked. A week later, he became sick to his stomach. Within a week, he was pale, haggard, and foul of breath. A colleague performed an endoscopy, and there, to Marshall's excitement, were the redness and inflammation indicating that the beginning of ulceration was present, the telltale sign of incipient peptic ulcer. A biopsy confirmed the presence of H. pylori, thus confirming what Marshall had been trying to tell his colleagues, that peptic ulcer is an infectious process." 

After his courageous experiment on himself, Marshall hit the convention circuit but made no converts. The idea was simply preposterous. Everyone "knew" that peptic ulcer was a problem of hyperacidity, an excess of acid in the stomach. The fact that the new wonder drugs cleared it up promptly by acid inhibition clearly confirmed that acid was the cause.

This was the advent of the Tagamet/Zantac era. These drugs "worked"; there was no doubt about that. That is, they "worked" temporarily. But their effectiveness equals a lifetime of treatment; otherwise, the ulcer will return. This makes the patient dependent on the doctor, and the pharmaceutical company, for life. The patient's pain is alleviated, though, so he is happy, the doctor is happy, and the pharmaceutical company is very happy.

When you go to your doctor and complain of pain and burning in your solar plexus, and he recommends Zantac or Tagamet for an ulcer, ask him, "Doctor, what do you think about the 'theory' that this condition is caused by an infection?" If he gives you the old doctor-shrug, decline his prescriptions, pay him for his time, and get a third opinion. You have had two opinions, his expensive one and my cheap one. 

Depression and immune suppression

When the remarkable effectiveness of St. John's wort (Hypericum) for treatment of depression made the news a few years ago, I didn't think anybody was listening or, if they were listening, I didn't think they would believe it. But when I saw 5-foot display cases of St. John's wort a year later in Wal-Mart, I knew someone was listening.

One of the most amusing, and unintended, compliments to the herb came from cancer chemotherapy experts. They warned that "this unregulated compound" (notice they never refer to aspirin or Coca Cola as unregulated compounds) can "interfere" with HIV drug therapy and immune suppression needed for transplant patients.

"Two studies published…in the Lancet medical journal found that St. John's wort dulls the effectiveness of both the HIV medicine indinavir and the transplant drug cyclosporin, used to suppress transplant patients' immune systems so their bodies don't reject the new organs," reported the Associated Press.

So St. John's wort prevents the suppression of the immune system. Except for certain patients, isn't that a good thing?

It's just a new spin on an old story: Vitamin C is "bad" because it protects the body from the immune-suppressing effects of radiation and chemotherapy. Now, St. John's wort is "bad" for the same reason. Since immune-suppressing HIV treatments are ineffective anyway, I don't think the suppression of their "effect" by St. John's wort is a bad thing. In the case of immune suppression for transplant patients, it's a different story. These patients will have to live constantly on the razor's edge of immune suppression, so St. John's wort should be avoided.

But if you are not a transplant patient, and you are down in the dumps, St. John's wort is an excellent alternative to addictive drugs like Paxil.

As with any effective medication, natural or man-made, there may be some side effects. But which would you prefer to take: an effective pharmaceutical with severe side effects (dry mouth, sweating, dizziness, nausea, weakness, and headache) or an effective herb with minor, if any, side effects?