Weight Loss as a sign for potential weight loss

There are many medical conditions that can cause weight loss. If you are eating and exercising as normal but are suddenly losing weight it is something to be concerned about. Weight loss is probably one of the most ignored symptoms of problems in developed countries due to the current desire to be ultra thin. This desire can lead to an ignoring of horrible underlying conditions such as thyroid problem, bacteria issues, cancers and other diseases that need to be treated. Consulting a doctor about any inexplicable change of weight is advisable.

H pylori symptoms include weight loss. They are often accompanied with vomiting, nausea and loss of appetite. This is a bacterial growth in your belly that can lead to deadly ulcers and even cancer. There are a number of H pylori tests and most are rather painless such as the stool test or the blood test. You can quickly find out if you have the condition and then go about treating it so as to stop the further disintegration of your stomach.

Cancers are often a cause of weight loss or weight gain. They are typically diagnosed more quickly when causing weight gain because people get frustrated. Intestinal and stomach cancers are the first to cause weight loss but certain brain tumors can change your desire to eat and result in epic weight loss. One of the best ways to determine if you need to see a doctor is to keep a food and weight journal for a few weeks. If you see illness patterns and food eating anomalies, it is advisable to seek help.

Your thyroid controls many of your hormones including your desire to eat and how you digest food. If your thyroid begins acting up you can experience sudden weight loss or gain. The hormones produced are giving your body wrong signals. You could be doing everything the same but your internal organs begin saving and storing foods and fats they should not. This makes a huge difference and is something that can lead to gross weight loss over time. It should be checked out and you will likely need to begin a drug regimen.

What is Helicobacter pylori, and what are the causes?

H pylori bacteria is a bacteria commonly found in the stomach, but when it flourishes out of control it can cause many problems. The bacterium does not harm a person unless it grows unchecked. If the stomach acid is not strong enough to keep the Helicobacter pylori at bay, ulcers can develop as well as many other problems such as nausea, stomach pain, diarrhea and cramps.

While most of these conditions don’t sound that bad, they are just something you learn to live with, the presence of H pylori is now being linked to the development of stomach cancer. While this tends to happen with people who leave it unchecked for long periods of time, there is no clear cut way to determine how many of the cases go from a simple infection to full blow stomach cancer. This can be a fast growing and dangerous type of cancer, so it is important you seek the opinion of a medical professional if you have persistent stomach problems.

In order to get an Hpylori test, you have to consult your doctor. There are a number of ways they can look into your problem. The Upper GI X-Ray series or the endoscopy are the most invasive and are usually done as a follow up to other tests to find out the extent of your infection. A blood test, stool test or area breath test can all be done first to see if there is anything to be concerned about.

You should definitely consider all of the tests if you are experiencing frequent vomiting and most especially if it appears to have blood in it. Black stools are another worrisome side effect and should be brought to the attention of your physician immediately. No matter if you are feeling otherwise fine or not, long term stomach issues can lead to any number of other health problems. It is your main source of nutrition and if your body is not working properly you need to know about it. It may be something that is easy to ignore, but the longer you go, the worse the damage might be.

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Read more about Helicobacter Pylori

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New Tests, New Future for Doctors

By GINA KOLATA
Gastroenterologists are worried about their future. The problem, as some of them see it, is that they have become so dependent on using colonoscopy to screen for cancer that many do little else. But the advent of new methods of detecting colon cancer could shove them out of the screening business.
If that happens, what will gastroenterologists do? A committee of the American Gastroenterological Association says it is time to think about this possibility.
It would not be the first time that the profession has had to change.
A decade or so ago, gastroenterologists spent much of their time putting scopes down patients’ throats and into their stomachs to look for ulcers. But over the last 20 years, for reasons that are not entirely clear, Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes most ulcers, began to disappear in this country. Patients with chronic ulcers became less and less common.

Source http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/health/14pros.html


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VITAL SIGNS; Stomach Cancer and a Common Germ

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Eradicating a common bacterium after stomach cancer surgery may reduce the risk that the cancer will recur, a new study reports. The germ, Helicobacter pylori, is also a cause of peptic ulcer.
Japanese researchers studied 544 patients with early stomach cancer. After their operations, half received an H. pylori eradication regimen, while the others received standard care. The patients were followed with periodic examinations over three years to see how many would develop recurrences.

Source http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E6DA143FF931A2575BC0A96E9C8B63


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