Ulcer bug Australians win Nobel medicine prize

[Celebration]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1179300

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Two Australians won the Nobel prize for medicine on Monday for showing that a bacterium rather than stress causes stomach inflammation and ulcers, after one of them drank a witches' brew of bacteria to prove the point.

Experts said the discovery of the Helicobacter pylori bacterium by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren in 1982 was met with skepticism by the medical community, which did not think bacteria could survive in the acid conditions of the stomach.

Marshall resorted to drinking a culture of the bacteria to give himself an ulcer and then to treat himself. The findings eventually forced drug firms to rethink treatment of a condition that affects millions of people in a market worth billions of dollars.

"Thanks to the pioneering discovery by Marshall and Warren, peptic ulcer disease is no longer a chronic, frequently disabling condition, but a disease that can be cured by a short regimen of antibiotics and acid secretion inhibitors," said the Nobel Assembly of Stockholm's Karolinska Institute.

[WahooJunkie]

1. Yay!

:applause:

Now THAT is dedication

[oneighty]

2. Darn researchers

screwing up a perfectly fine golden egg harvested by the drug manufactures.

Oddly our Doctor (From Pakistan) treated my wife's ulcers with an anti-biotic thereby ending years of discomfort in a few weeks. (That took place several years ago, interesting)

180

[Gunit_Sangh]

3. I had ulcers years ago

And when my doc told me about this and prescribed the anti-biotics to treat it. I was shocked to learn the whole treatment program was less than $20.

That really pissed off the drug companies. A cheap treatment that really ate into their anti-acid prescription drugs. That's the real reason you saw them go OTC.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Excellent - they really had to fight the establishment

it's so good to see the ultimate recognition for them. :applause:

[Brooklyn Michael]

5. Science? Feh!

Go to the Bible-thumpin'-Belt and they'll tell you that ulcers are the work of the

DEBBIL!!!

....and liberals, of course.

[Sgent]

6. These guys impacted

medicine much more than just in treating ulcers.

They have changed the entire thought process in looking for underlying infection for many ailments thought of as chronic.

Kudo's -- they deserved it.

[gauguin57]

7. I wish they'd known the cause in the '60s, when I had my ulcer

It would have saved me years of ineffective treatment (restrictive diet (a "white" diet followed by a bland diet) plus Maalox four times a day plus a digestion-slowing medication. *sigh*