700 Year Old Mummies Had Ulcers-

Remnants of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori were discovered in gastric tissue from the mummies, human remains believed to predate Columbus’ discovery of the New World.

“It is only through the use of the stomach tissue of these incredible mummies that we were able to make this discovery,” said researcher Yolanda Lòpez-Vidal. “Infection is established when the micro-organism infiltrates the stomach lining and induces a local inflammatory response. This is unlike colonization, which does not cause such a response and does not occur in the stomach.”

This is the first time that H. pylori infection has been shown to occur in native populations, Lòpez-Vidal said. The research is detailed in BioMed Central’s open access journal BMC Microbiology. read more here…