Evidence Hub

Effect of Helicobacter pylori infection on gastric juice pH.

Furuta T, Baba S, Takashima M, Futami H, Arai H, Kajimura M, Hanai H, Kaneko E

Scandinavian journal of gastroenterology, 1998

Abstract

BACKGROUND: How Helicobacter pylori infection affects gastric acid secretion is still unclear.

METHODS: Gastric juice pH, ammonia concentration in gastric juice, serum gastrin level, and grade of gastritis in accordance with the Sydney System were determined for patients with gastric ulcer (GU) and duodenal ulcer (DU) before and after treatment with lansoprazole and amoxicillin, and results were compared with those of H. pylori-negative controls.

RESULTS: Scores for H. pylori density, atrophy, metaplasia, and activity of gastritis in the corpus were higher in patients with GU, especially those with proximally located GU, than in those with DU. Gastric juice pH was significantly higher in GU patients than in DU patients and controls. After H. pylori eradication, gastric juice pH and serum gastrin levels in both GU and DU patients were significantly decreased to control levels. In patients without eradication, no significant changes in these factors were observed.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that H. pylori infection and gastritis in the corpus suppress acid secretion and increase gastric juice pH, resulting in hypergastrinemia, and that eradication of H. pylori normalizes acid secretion and serum gastrin levels.

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a case-control, done in people. Its evidence level is 4 of 5 (Low · observational). Observational designs can show an association but not prove cause.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free