H Pylori: common in US veterans
A recent large analysis of veterans confirmed that H. pylori infection is quite common in the US, in a preprint, pre-peer-reviewed article (see See h pylori US veterans ClinGastroHepat2023 in dropbox or doi.org/10.1016/j.cgh.2023.05.016 ) Details : -- 913,328 individuals were evaluated who had had H. pylori testing while receiving routine care through the VA system, in a nationwide retrospective analysis of veterans between 1999 and 2018 -- mean age 58; 90.2% male; 7% Hispanic, 17% non-Hispanic Black, 6% non-Hispanic other, 64% non-Hispanic white -- all of these individuals in the study had been tested for H. pylori, which included either serologic testing for antibody or non-serologic testing with fecal H. pylori antigen, urea breath test or gastric biopsies done during an endoscopy -- the highest prevalence of H. pylori infection detected was in the South (especially Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Georgia), and California and New York (20 to 40% range, the h