Helicobacter and hydrogen

This one just has to jump the queue of posts, it had me cracked up. Thanks to Marco for the abstract and press release, the full text doesn't say anything much you can't get from those two sources.

Here's the gist of it:

If you are eating to one of those complex carb high fiber diets beloved of Ornish and his ilk, your flatuses (flati?) may be room clearing, but you're probably healthier if you just drop them and run. Clamping tight to save embarrassment could seriously damage your health, as could eating the high fiber diet in the first place of course. The only significant source of hydrogen in your body is colonic fermentation of carbohydrate by bacteria.


Helicobacter is a harmless or potentially beneficial commensal in your stomach, unless you feed and feed and feed it with, guess what? Hydrogen. This carbohydrate derivative may be more important than sugar for H pylori gastritis, though perhaps not in the gastric carcinogenesis aspect. Looks like it might also be a preferred energy source for assorted serious nasties, here's the speculation from the press release:


"Though unstudied, it's possible that this hydrogen could serve as an energy source for pathogens in other areas of the body, including the lungs and internal organs.

Since the amount of hydrogen produced in the colon varies based on diet, and since the researchers have shown that H. pylori uses this hydrogen as an energy source, something as simple as a diet change could affect virulence and persistence of this and other pathogens"



I don't think it's practical to eliminate all fiber from your diet. The absolutely indigestible fiber from grains can go very easily as cereal avoidance is a major step towards health, but getting rid of all remaining vegetable fiber is more difficult. I suspect having some hydrogen in your blood stream is probably normal. I've heard in various places on the net that LC eaters do still produce some flatus (but it's usually odourless) so must be making some hydrogen and methane, but the amount is low. So too will be the molecular hydrogen in their gastric mucosa.

So be tolerant if a whole grain fiber derived room clearer gets you. It's there for health purposes. Better out than in.

Peter