More than forty years ago, a medical discovery from Australia completely changed how doctors understand stomach disease.
In 1982, Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robin Warren identified a spiral-shaped bacterium called Helicobacter pylori that can survive in the highly acidic environment of the human stomach.
At the time, many experts believed that stomach ulcers were caused mainly by stress or spicy food. Their discovery proved otherwise.
To convince the scientific community, Dr. Marshall famously drank a solution containing the bacteria himself. He soon developed stomach inflammation, clearly showing that the infection could damage the stomach lining.
This bold experiment helped establish that H. pylori causes gastritis and stomach ulcers and later was linked to stomach cancer. Their work earned them the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2005 and led to antibiotics becoming the standard treatment for ulcers.
Decades later, scientists are still trying to understand how best to use this knowledge to prevent stomach cancer. Researchers at the National Taiwan University College of Medicine recently investigated whether testing for H. pylori in stool samples could help identify people at higher risk of developing stomach cancer.
Their large study was published in the journal JAMA and involved tens of thousands of participants.
Stomach cancer, also known as gastric cancer, is not very common in many Western countries, but it remains a serious public health issue in parts of Asia, including Japan and Taiwan.
Worldwide, stomach cancer linked to H. pylori infection is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths, with around 800,000 new cases each year. About 90 percent of stomach cancers are associated with H. pylori, which the World Health Organization classifies as a definite cancer-causing agent.
In the Taiwan study, led by Dr. Yi-Chia Lee, researchers invited more than 150,000 adults aged 50 to 69 to take part in a cancer screening program. Some participants were tested using both a fecal immunochemical test, known as FIT, and a stool test that detects H. pylori antigens, called HPSA. Others received the FIT test alone.
FIT is commonly used to screen for colon cancer by detecting hidden blood in stool. Interestingly, it can sometimes identify stomach cancer as well, even though it was not designed for that purpose.
The researchers wanted to know whether adding the H. pylori stool test to FIT could better identify people at risk and reduce stomach cancer cases or deaths.
Screening for H. pylori is complicated because the bacteria infects about half of the world’s population, yet most people never develop symptoms. Many factors influence whether the infection becomes dangerous, including genetics, diet, smoking, alcohol use, and environmental conditions.
- pylori survives stomach acid by producing an enzyme that neutralizes acid around it. Over many years, this can cause long-lasting inflammation that may lead to changes in the stomach lining and eventually cancer in some people.
Doctors often treat H. pylori with a combination of antibiotics and acid-reducing drugs known as proton pump inhibitors. This approach can lower cancer risk, but it must be used carefully because excessive antibiotic use can lead to drug resistance.
When the researchers analyzed the screening results, they found that the combined testing approach offered only a small difference.
The group that received both HPSA and FIT had a slightly lower rate of stomach cancer than the group that received FIT alone. However, the difference was very small. More importantly, death rates from stomach cancer were almost the same in both groups.
After adjusting for factors such as how long participants were followed and how many people completed screening, the researchers observed a modest reduction in cancer cases in the combined testing group. Still, there was no clear reduction in deaths from stomach cancer.
These findings suggest that adding H. pylori stool testing to routine FIT screening does not significantly reduce stomach cancer risk or mortality at the population level. The study highlights how difficult it is to use H. pylori as a screening tool, even though it plays a major role in stomach cancer.
The results do not mean that H. pylori is unimportant. Instead, they show that preventing stomach cancer is complex and may require more targeted approaches. Future research may focus on identifying high-risk individuals based on genetics, ethnicity, diet, or long-term infection patterns rather than broad population screening.
For now, the study reinforces the importance of diagnosing and treating H. pylori infections when appropriate and continuing research into better prevention strategies. Understanding how bacteria, lifestyle, and biology interact remains key to reducing the global burden of stomach cancer.
If you care about cancer, please read studies about how to fight cancer with these anti-cancer superfoods, and a berry that can prevent cancer, diabetes and obesity.
For more health information, please see recent studies about how to harness the power of anti-cancer foods and supplements, and cancer-fighting foods and recipes.
Copyright © 2026 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
