Leading article

Does Helicobacter pylori protect against asthma and allergy?

Martin J Blaser^1,2,3, Yu Chen^1,4, Joan Reibman^1,4

¹ Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, USA
² Department of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, USA
³ Medical Service, New York Harbor Veterans Affairs, Medical Center, New York, USA
⁴ Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, USA

Dr Martin J Blaser, Department of Medicine, 550 First Avenue OBV A606, New York, NY 10016, USA; martin.blaser@med.nyu.edu

Revised version received 4 December 2007

Accepted 11 December 2007

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The microbes that persistently colonise their vertebrate hosts are not accidental.¹ Although highly numerous and diverse, there is specificity by site and substantial conservation between individuals. The genus Helicobacter includes spiral, highly motile, urease-positive, Gram-negative bacteria that colonise the stomach in many mammals. Each mammal has one or more dominant Helicobacter species and they are highly, if not exclusively, host species-specific.² Such observations are consistent with the hypothesis that when ancestral mammals diverged from reptiles about 150 million years ago, they contained ancestral helicobacters, which then diverged as their hosts changed. According to this hypothesis, helicobacters represent ancestral biota (flora) in the mammalian stomach. The human-adapted strain is H pylori,³ which has not been reproducibly observed in any animals other than humans and other primates.³

Although we can not reliably estimate how long H pylori has been in the human stomach, its ancestors may have been present when our . . . [Full text of this article]

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