H.pylori Infection inhibits Inflammatory Bowel Disease(IBD) by affecting the intestinal flora: A systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are chronic, relapsing-remitting diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, including Crohn’s disease (CD), Ulcerative Colitis (UC), and Unclassified IBD (IBDU). Their pathogenesis involves genes and the environment as cofactors in inducing autoimmunity; mainly, the interactions between enteric pathogens and immunity are studied. For example, Helicobacter pylori (HP) is a common pathogen causing gastric inflammation. However, studies found that the number of people with HP was lower than those with IBD. Therefore, it suggests that HP might protect against IBD.

Methods: The search terms "helicobacter pylori," "inflammatory bowel disease," "Crohn's disease," and "ulcerative colitis" were entered into the PubMed database. Embase, Medline, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed publisher, Cochrane, and Google Scholar were also searched. The HP prevalence rates in IBD patients, CD patients, UC patients, and IBDU patients were calculated. So its to prove that there is an inverse relationship between HP and IBD, each group was compared to a control group.

Results: Even when the comparison was made separately between each group of newly diagnosed patients and controls to rule out the possibility of pharmacologic bias, the data showed an inverse relationship between the IBD group and the controls.

Conclusion: The results of this review demonstrate a striking inverse association between HP infection and the prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), regardless of the type of IBD considered across different geographic regions. Anyway, data should be interpreted with care because more research is needed on this topic that is broader, more prospective, and more consistent. This could lead to new ideas about how the environment could cause IBD.

Keywords: Inflammatory bowel disease; Helicobacter pylori; Crohn’s disease; Ulcerative colitis; Colorectal cancer

DOI: 10.7176/JMPB/72-04

Publication date: May 31^st 2022