| [ Summary ] |
Until recently, it was generally accepted that gastric acid secretion decreased with advarcing age. In our previous study, BAO and MAO were shown to decrease with age after the sixth decade. In vitro studies using isolated parietal cells have also shown the acid secretion response of parietal cells to decrease with age. After the flood of studies on H.pylori, however, H.pylori infection was assumed to be the main canse of atrophic gastritis. The view that gastric mucosal atrophy might be the result of long-term H.pylori infection replaced the concept that atrophy was dependent on physiologic change occurring with age. There have now been studies which showed that gastric acid secretion does not decrease with age. A recent study found that acid recretion was higher in the elderly than in the young. From these studies, it was suggested that H.pylori infection is related to decreased acid secretion, meaning that this decrease in acid secretion with age results from an increased rate of infection or from long-term infection with H.pylori. The view that the decrease in acid secretion is a physiological phenomenon has to be studied reconsidered the era of H.pylori investigation. |