Bacteria in Drinking Water Linked Directly to Stomach Ulcers.From Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania State University, main campus at University Park, State College; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1855, opened 1859 as Farmers' High School. at Harrisburg, researchers report that they have for the first time found a direct link between a bacterium in Pennsylvania drinking water drinking water supply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. and stomach ulcers. The research team, headed by Katherine H. Baker, Ph.D., assistant professor of environmental microbiology Environmental microbiology is the study of the composition and physiology of microbial communities in the environment. The environment in this case means the soil, water, air and sediments covering the planet and can also include the animals and plants that inhabit these areas. , has tied Helicobacter pylori Helicobacter pylori A gramnegative rod-shaped bacterium that lives in the tissues of the stomach and causes inflammation of the stomach lining. Mentioned in: Indigestion, Ulcers Helicobacter pylori in well water to clinical infections in people drinking from that supply. (H. pylori Noun 1. H. pylori - the type species of genus Heliobacter; produces urease and is associated with several gastroduodenal diseases (including gastritis and gastric ulcers and duodenal ulcers and other peptic ulcers) Heliobacter pylori already has been linked indirectly to at least 75 percent of all stomach ulcers and two types of stomach cancers.) The researchers made the association through tests of private wells supplying drinking water to individual households. Interviews with residents who consumed the water found a statistically significant correlation between the presence of the bacterium and cases of stomach ulcers. Dr. Baker said drinking water generally is considered safe when coliform bacteria coliform bacteria Rod-shaped bacteria usually found in the intestinal tracts of animals, including humans. Coliform bacteria do not require but can use oxygen, and they do not form spores. They produce acid and gas from the fermentation of lactose sugar. are not present. But the ulcer-causing bacterium was found in coliform-free water samples. "What this really means is that our current methods for testing drinking water may be saying that the water is fine while H. pylori may actually be present," she said. The study involved private, untreated water supplies and not municipal water sources, which are less likely to contain the organism. Working with Jon Hegarty, a graduate student in the university's Environmental Pollution Control Program, Baker already had found H. pylori in regional well and surface waters more than a year earlier. In that study, the bacterium appeared in more than 75 percent of the tested surface-water samples. That research represented the first report of live H. pylori in surface water in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , demonstrating a major reservoir for the organism outside the human body. An estimated 2.5 million new H. pylori infections occur in this country each year. Peptic-ulcer disease affects nearly five million people, with treatment costs exceeding $5 billion, not including indirect costs due to work and productivity losses. Approximately 16,000 deaths are attributed annually to complications of peptic-ulcer disease. (Source: On Tap, Fall 1999.) |
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