Stomach ulcer is a recurrent chronic disease, associated with a violation of the integrity of the mucous membranes and deterioration of the digestive function of the organ. The disease has numerous theories of origin. One of them is related to the acidity of the stomach.
Acidity is measured in pH units and is characterized by the concentration of hydrochloric acid in the gastric lumen or the juice secreted by the underlying glands of the digestive organ.
Imbalance of such physiological processes as acid production and its neutralization leads to a number of gastroenterological diseases: gastritis, GERD( gastroesophageal reflux disease), gastric ulcer.
Increased acidity in gastric ulcer - a fairly common pathology that a person encounters throughout life.
Overeating, smoking, fatty foods, stress are the main factors that affect the increase in the level of hydrochloric acid. Excluding irritating factors from everyday life, you can easily normalize the increased acidity without resorting to drug therapy.
If the concentration of gastric acid for a long time exceeds the allowable level, the mucous walls are destroyed. The patient is constantly worried about heartburn( more often after eating), belching, nausea, flatulence, epigastric pain, loss of appetite and weight. So shows a gastritis or a stomach ulcer.
The increased acidity and the lowered level of hydrochloric acid are determined by a gastroenterologist by the laboratory method of sensing.
If the increased level of acidity makes itself felt bright symptoms, then low acidity does not say anything about yourself. This is the insidiousness of the disease called gastric ulcer with reduced acidity, which often degenerates into a malignant tumor.
Low, sometimes zero, level of acidity is caused by the following factors:
- Genetic predisposition( close relatives suffered from this pathology);
- Unbalanced diet and eating disorder;
- Chronic gastritis. A healthy human body synthesizes hydrochloric acid with parietal cells equally intensively. With gastritis, the digestive organ produces an excessive amount of acidic substance, causing the gastric mucosa to become inflamed. Chronic inflammatory process leads to pathological changes - cells die, acidity level decreases.
- Gastric cancer also atrophies acid-producing cells;
Doctors explain that, despite a common misconception, a stomach ulcer with reduced acidity is also diagnosed.
Most often this happens in elderly patients with prolonged chronic gastroenterological pathology. But in this case, the root cause of ulceration of the mucosa is not related to the level of secretion.
Protective function in the absence of acid in the digestive organs weakens. In the stomach penetrate pathogenic microorganisms, disrupting the gastric microflora, causing inflammation of the mucosa. Helicobacter pylori bacteria are also activated, provoking a pathological ulcerative process.
Insufficient level of hydrochloric acid does not activate digestive enzymes, pepsin including. Food, especially proteins, is not fully digested, leaving the digestive products in the digestive tract, reducing immunity, creating favorable conditions for malignancy. Stomach ulcers with reduced acidity( achlorohydria) are often malignant.