Helicobacter pylori
The bacterium that survives stomach acid, and why it gets treated even without symptoms.
The stomach is acidic enough that almost no bacteria survive there. Helicobacter pylori does, because it neutralises the acid around it and hides in the mucus layer that protects the stomach wall.
We explain how the chronic infection wears down that wall into gastritis and ulcer, why it is linked to gastric cancer, and what the antibiotic treatment that clears it involves.