Oi Magazine reviews - Aura & Co. Infrared Sauna Studio,Thao Dien... "Heavenly Heat"

MEDICAL COLUMN
Dr. Masato Okuda works as a gastroenterologist
for Family Medical Practice. Before coming
to Vietnam, Dr. Masato worked in Sumimoto
Besshi Hospital in Japan for seven years and
conducted gastroenterological endoscopy such as
esophagogastroduodenoscopy, colonoscopy and
ERCP. He also worked as an oncologist in his field.
Learn about Helicobacter pylori, a bacteria that infects the
stomachs of roughly 60 percent of the world’s adult population
AROUND 50 YEARS AGO, EVERY
doctor in the world believed that no
bacteria could survive in such a hostile
and acidic environment as the stomach.
Even when pathologists and other
doctors saw bacteria in stomach tissue
samples, they presumed that those
tissues were contaminated after removal.
Eventually, two Australian doctors
proved that there is a genus of bacteria—
Helicobacter—that can survive in the
stomach by neutralizing the acid around
themselves with a special enzyme.
This important discovery rightly won
them the Nobel Prize, because it is now
presumed that a very high proportion
of stomach cancer is directly caused by
Helicobacter pylori.
If you’re from a Western country
and have lived most of your life there,
you will probably never have come into
contact with Helicobacter pylori. In
those countries, cancer of the stomach
is quite rare. If you’re living in Vietnam
or Southeast Asia, your chances of being
infected with this pathogen are greatly
increased. This represents a significant
problem, because most Westerners (as
well as local Vietnamese people) have
never heard of this threat and never get
tested for it.
In my country, it is a well-known
health concern. In Japan, about 80
percent of people over 80 have a
Helicobacter pylori infection, and most
likely they acquired it in their infancy
from their mother, meaning they have
carried this invader within them their
entire lives. Accordingly, we have a
very high prevalence of stomach cancer
in Japan. Thanks to modern testing
regimens and improved hygiene, fewer
than 20 percent of people in their 20s
have Helicobacter pylori.
So what does Helicobacter pylori
do? Infected people are more likely
to develop a peptic ulcer, which is an
ulcer in the stomach or the duodenum,
or stomach cancer. This doesn’t mean
that you will surely develop an ulcer or
cancer by having Helicobacter pylori.
It just means that having this infection
increases your risk. If you have a
duodenal ulcer, there is a 90 percent
chance that you have Helicobacter pylori.
In addition, within a week or two after
infection, you may experience minor
discomfort or even severe stomach pain.
How do we find Helicobacter pylori?
There are a variety of tests: blood,
stool, breath, urine, and by running an
endoscope. My professional opinion is
that neither the stool nor the urine tests
available in Vietnam are trustworthy.
The blood tests are reasonably accurate,
but the catch with those is that you
can’t use them to evaluate the success or
failure of eradication, because it takes the
blood more than a year to change after
the infection is gone. The breath test
is the least invasive and most accurate
test for Helicobacter pylori, however it
will not work if you are taking specific
medications.
If you have Helicobacter pylori,
you should certainly eradicate it, in the
same way as you would any parasite in
your body. There is nothing good about
having Helicobacter pylori. Eradication
is relatively simple; you merely take a
combination of antibiotics. However,
being such resilient creatures, it takes at
least two antibiotics to get rid of them,
with supplemental acid medicine to
control the method. Even so, the success
rate is only about 70 percent. So after
the eradication attempt, we must check
again to see if you still have Helicobacter
pylori or not. If the attempt was
unsuccessful, we have to try a different
regime, another combination of drugs.
Our clinic is the proud owner of a stateof-the-art
BreathID breath test machine
of the sort rarely seen outside of a large
external laboratory. You don’t have to draw
blood; there’s no pain—you just blow into a
couple of bags before and after drinking a
special agent that reacts with Helicobacter
pylori, and then you can get the result
immediately. Everyone concerned about
their exposure to Helicobacter pylori
should take this simple test, especially if
you have had symptoms of abdominal pain
or discomfort.
After eradication, you should also
undergo an endoscopy. The reason for
this is that we need to assess how much
accumulated damage you have sustained
to the stomach lining, and whether or not
you are already in a high-risk category for
stomach cancer or have already developed
it. In my country, it is considered a
malpractice to eradicate Helicobacter
pylori without running an endoscopy.
By looking at the stomach lining
through the endoscope, you can see if
blood vessels are visible through the
lining of the stomach, indicating some
degree of atrophy or thinning. In more
advanced cases, you can see strange
growths—if you take cell samples from
these areas, they look like cells from the
intestine. These growths can be benign,
but when they cross the border into
malignancy, that is cancer. In the early
stages we can remove it by endoscope,
but at certain depths, it has to be a
surgical operation.
In my country, we can now decrease
the incidence of stomach cancer
significantly—probably, we are already
doing so. Local people and Westerners
who are living long-term in Asia should
at least know that Helicobacter pylori is
a risk and consider testing. Those from
Western countries wouldn’t even have to
worry about this at home, but by living
here, they have a different risk.
OI VIETNAM
95