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  1. Emad El-Omar, Deputy Editor

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INITIAL POOR QUALITY OF LIFE PREDICTS THE NEW ONSET OF DYSPEPSIA: RESULTS FROM A LONGITUDINAL, 10-YEAR, FOLLOW-UP STUDY

Does quality of life influence development of dyspepsia? Ford et al attempted to answer this important question by conducting a 10-year, longitudinal, follow-up study of subjects who were screened for Helicobacter pylori infection. Using a validated postal dyspepsia questionnaire, they contacted 8407 individuals. Of these, 3912 (46.5%) provided symptom data at baseline and at 10-year follow up. Two thirds of these individuals (2550) were asymptomatic at entry and one third (717) had developed new-onset dyspepsia at the10-year follow up, giving an incidence of 2.8%. After multivariate logistic regression, lower quality of life at study entry, higher body mass index, presence of irritable bowel syndrome at study entry and use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and/or aspirin were significant risk factors for new-onset dyspepsia (see table). Low quality of life at baseline exerted a strong effect on the likelihood of developing dyspepsia at 10 years. This has implications for treatment trials of patients with dyspepsia, as these data predict that curing dyspepsia symptoms will not necessarily improve all patients’ quality of life as dramatically as might be suggested by cross-sectional surveys.
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View this table:

Multivariate analyses for new-onset dyspepsia at 10 years using the British Society of Gastroenterolgy definition.

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE INTESTINAL MUCOUS BARRIER IN NORMAL AND INFLAMED COLON

It is widely believed that humans happily co-exist with their “normal” colonic microbiota because of “immune tolerance”. Swidsinski et al present data that challenge this paradigm. They studied the characteristics of the barrier for intestinal bacteria within the mucus layer, …

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