Do you know that the bacterium behind ulcers was discovered by accident? In 1982, two Australian doctors Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were trying to culture the bacteria but it was extremely difficult. When they wanted to culture the bacteria, they only waited the usual two days for each experiment. One day they accidently left some Petri dishes in the lab and went on the Easter holiday. After five days when they came back, growth of colonies on the Petri dishes were noticed. They were the first scientists who could culture the bacteria. Later, those bacteria were named Helicobacter pylori. This discovery helped in understanding ulcers. Marshall and Warren were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize for their discovery of H. pylori. These bacteria are widespread worldwide. More than 50% of the world population is infected with H. pylori; although, not everyone who is infected with H. pylori suffer its symptoms. Because of its high prevalence, scholars are studying its spread trying to find how we get infected. About 30 years since the discovery of H. pylori and still different scholars are giving different hypotheses of the mechanism of H. pylori spread. By looking at the different suggested hypotheses of the mechanisms of spread, it becomes clear that they are related to culturally-specific habits because of the biological mechanisms of spread. This suggests that effective prevention will involve different mechanisms of public awareness and educational campaigns that challenge cultural beliefs, values, and practices.
Since the route of transmission of H. pylori infection is not yet clear, scholars make different theories of the spread mechanism of H. pylori. For the past thirty years scholars have hypothesized countless means of bacter...
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...ion, scholars in the field are studying other medications to find a more effective one to eradicate the disease,
However, because the disease is spread through cultural habits and practices, any effort to eradicate the disease will need to involve public awareness and educational campaigns that challenge cultural beliefs, values, and practices. The best solution to reduce the prevalence is by preventing H. pylori infection. Developing vaccines to prevent and control H. pylori would be very effective, but since researchers are still working on making vaccines and have not developed an effective one yet, we need to find other ways and strategies to reduce and control the spread. The most efficient way at this time is educating the public by doing educational campaigns on how to help in controlling the spread of H. pylori by changing some cultural habits and practices.
In the article, “An Endangered Species in the Stomach” by Martin J. Blaser, he talks about a 60,000 year old bacterium living in the human stomach, named “Helicobacter pylori”. H. pylori was first isolated for investigation in 1982 by Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren. Later researchers discovered that H. pylori was responsible for developing peptic ulcers, breaks in the lining of the stomach, or could also cause stomach cancer. For the past 100 years, there has been decrease in H. pylori bacteria in humans due to the widespread use of antibiotics and improved hygiene. At the same time, the disappearance of H. pylori caused an unexpected rise in the acid reflux disease and a deadly type of esophageal cancer. Making H pylori a vital microorganism to research in order to expand the study of microbiology and its interaction with humans.
The helicobacter pylori bacterium also commonly known as H. pylori is a spiral shaped bacterium that is often found growing in the digestive tract. H. pylori bacteria are found in more than half of the world’s population. The bacteria normally attack the lining of the stomach and the small intestines. Although they are present in many people the H. pylori bacteria is usually harmless. The bacteria are adapted to live and survive in the acidic environment of the digestive tract. Furthermore, H. pylori reduces the acidity of the environment around it to survive and will penetrate the lining of the stomach and small intestines where the mucus lining protects it from the body’s immune cells. H. pylori sometimes can interfere with the body’s immune response to ensure their survival and this causes stomach problems (Flemin & Alcamo, 2007).
Many say that history repeats itself, and throughout history, the spread of food-borne diseases has been constantly threatening humans. Salmonella, a disease which attacks numerous people a year, has returned, infected, and put people under panic of what they are eating. According to Foodborne Diseases, it is stated that “Salmonella comprises a large and diverse group of Gram-negative rods. Salmonellae are ubiquitous and have been recovered from some insects and nearly all vertebrate species, especially humans, livestock, and companion animals” (Gray and Fedorka-Cray 55). Because of the flexibility and the ability to reproduce rapidly, this infamous disease still remains as one of the most common threats in our society as well as an unconquerable problem that humans face these days.
Many of these diseases originate from animal populations. Humans’ interaction with the environment, and animals contribute to the rate and prevalence of disease. All three areas are interconnected. One Health is a concept that views human, animal, and environmental health as one area of health. The three entities, when separated can hinder each other and delay progress. The opposite is also true. When public health officials recognize the correlation between human, animal, and environmental health, advancements and innovation can occur. Other public health issues are present in relation to spread of infectious disease between humans and animals. People must know how to cook animal products in order to kill pathogens. Many diseases are also transferred when humans disrupt ecosystems. These are areas where public health has the opportunity to make progress. The issues that infectious diseases cause occur across the globe. In addition, One Health concepts can be applied to populations all over the
Slack, John M. and I. S. Snyder. Bacteria and Human Disease. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, Inc., 1978.
.... Just like with the case of AIDs reduction happens after those exposed are provided with information of reducing their exposure. Reducing transmission is as easy as teaching children to wash their hands and where to use the bathroom which cost way less than an antibiotic treatment (Esrey et al. 1985) . The end goal of research on infectious disease is to find a way to protect humans against the harmful effects so providing people with ways to reduce their exposure is crucial. One of the challenges for humans in the 21st century is fighting infectious diseases as our knowledge of medical treatments increase there is an increase in drug resistant diseases evolving. Research in the department of biological sciences involving germ domestication may be one solution on control the evolution of germs to our advantage improving the lives and survival of the human race.
Heymann, D. (2004). Control of Communicable Diseases Manual.18th edition. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association.
Throughout history disease has run rampant taking many lives with every passing day. Finding a cure or even just a tool in the battle has been the main focus of scientist throughout time. This focus is what brought us the discovery of antibiotics. Over the years antibiotics have been misused by patients, over prescribed by physicians and have led to resistant strains of bacteria.
In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.
Finding the evidence of the stomach bug was difficult, because the Iceman’s stomach lining has deteriorated over the years. Scientists have often use the gut microbe to track human populations, using the distinct phylogeographic features to study population movement. The bacterium is separated into Ancestral strains to track the movement of humans, the heavily agreed upon strains include ancestral EastAsia, ancestral Europe1 (AE1), ancestral Europe2 (AE2), ancestral Africa1, and ancestral Africa2. Through extensive combing of data, researchers concluded that the European H. pylori was a combination of the ancient Asian and African strains. Even with this conclusion, researchers disagreed on when the hybridization of the strains occurred, though many thought it to be over 10,000 years ago. Otzi reveals a different story.
Foodborne diseases are among the most widespread public health problems. Yet only a small proportion of these illnesses come to the notice of health services, and even fewer are investigated. In developing countries even fewer cases are counted, primarily because of poverty and lack of resources for food safety management and food control services. In spite of underreporting, increases in foodborne diseases in many parts of the world and the emergence of new or newly recognized foodborne problems have been identified (Tauxe, 2002).
There are multifarious reasons for their resurgence. The health of the people are related with different direct facets such as use of foods, practices, medical care and indirect ones such as monetary cost, communication, international law, security, international relations etc. It is also important to know that these synthesize with each other. Food and business can be taken as an example. Today, because some of the largest multinational companies are heavily involved in the creation and marketing of unhealthy foods, the challenge to control diseases causing epidemics or pandemics has been quite formidable (Chopra, Galbraith, & Darnton, 2002). With changes in diet, particuaarly with the rise of people having processed food diabetes rates have of people having ...
Death associated with communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and other vaccine preventable diseases are steadily declining (Norman). However, globally, death rates associated with non-communicable diseases is on the rise (World Health Organization). This includes diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer injuries, and stroke among others. These diseases are as a result of our lifestyle. They are no longer associated with poor countries only. Therefore, diseases are becoming one of the biggest concerns of the day across the world. After reading Philip Hilts “Why We Must Rise to the Global Health Challenge” I am even more persuaded that the global health challenge is the most pressing issue that the world needs to come together to combat.
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it,” Albert Einstein spoke these incredibly true words years ago. Epidemiologists combat illnesses that the majority of the population readily ignore. The treatment of people afflicted with life-threatening diseases has gradually evolved because of the dutiful research of epidemiologists.
Human technology is constantly evolving, and with it society and medicine must follow suit. Every year, new breakthroughs in the field of medicine award mankind with a few more years of immortality. Scientists are constantly working to solve problems that once posed the threat of imminent death. Over two hundred years ago, the vaccine for Smallpox—one of the world’s deadliest killers—was discovered in 1796 (“CDC”). Since then, humans have been steadily eradicating every threat to individual health. Only last month, December of 2011, researchers from the University of Western Ontario revealed a new HIV vaccine that has been approved for human te...