It's great practical science but the basis of the research was a photo showing the bacteria in the stomach lining, which was against the accepted belief at the time. So the experiment confirmed what they already knew, at least that's how I remember them explaining it in a documentary
camtarn 5 days ago [-]
The mystery being 'what causes ulcers', and the answer being Helicobacter pylori instead of stress.
thomasfedb 19 hours ago [-]
The previous dogma being that no bacteria could survive in the acidic conditions (pH ~2) of the stomach.
Retric 16 hours ago [-]
He discovered an effective treatment for many ulcers, but the older one also tended to work.
Stress harms the immune system so many people who dramatically reduced stress showed meaningful improvement. One of those it’s better than a placebo treatments where the method of action was poorly understood.
It’s one of those cases where some bodies might just not be able to finish it off even in ideal conditions.
Retric 11 hours ago [-]
It was less effective, but treatments that work on say 1/2 the population aren’t useless.
It’s a tricky thing in medicine. In then 90’s people discovered Leptin a hormone released by fat which when given to people dieting significantly reduced cravings and increased energy expenditure enabling long term weight loss. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2430504/
“rodents and humans that become obese on a high-fat (Western) diet do not respond to leptin” Unlike GLP-1 antagonists it did almost nothing to start the process of weight loss, but having a drug to give to people who lost 20+lb which would then help them keep it off could have helped a lot of people.
manmal 11 hours ago [-]
I remember cheat days in low carb diets were touted as leptin reset days.
Retric 9 hours ago [-]
Sadly it was BS the underlying mechanisms aren’t so easy to fool. However the information was being transmitted from individual fat cells to the rest of the body through chemical pathways we can fool via drugs.
H_Pylori 14 hours ago [-]
[dead]
throw83489448 17 hours ago [-]
Nice, but most people have some helicobacter without much problems. Some ulcers are not even caused by helicobacter.
5 hours ago [-]
refurb 18 hours ago [-]
A great example of scientific dogma being overturned.
Dr Marshall was ridiculed as it was “settled science” that bacteria couldn’t survive in stomach acid.
Great example to bring up when people tell you to “trust the science”. Remind them at one time “science” said stress caused ulcers.
otherme123 15 hours ago [-]
The main difference between Dr. Marshall and people tha just dismiss science because every once in a while science was wrong is that Dr. Marshall made his experiment, the experiment was replicated, the evidence seemed solid enough to end the dogma and it spread among scientists. The scientific community didn't burn the guy at a stake but gave him the highest recognition.
Before the proof, Marshall and Warren had little more than a suspicion (not enough to topple an accepted theory). Their first H. pilori cultures were in 1982, with little success. Their results of the famous bactery drinking after giving up the culture experiments were published in 1985, only three years later. It's not realistic for a scientist to expect a theory to go away because you have a hunch, even if that hunch turns out to be correct! If anything the Marshall experiment show that in science you can go against the main theories and turn them around if you have proofs.
That's very different that something like "I don't believe in evolution because this sacred book written thousands of years ago says otherwise".
jmcgough 18 hours ago [-]
I agree that it's good to be critical of science, but it is also good to be critical our own existing beliefs when they conflict with 95% of the scientific community. For every story like this one, there's a hundred thousand people who are convinced that the world is flat based on YouTube videos that feed their confirmation bias, or poorly designed studies that they lack the academic background to know are poorly designed.
bell-cot 17 hours ago [-]
To paraphrase Feynman:
"Settled science" is nothing resembling a homogeneous body of certainty. It's a huge, chaotic mish-mash - of everything from actual rock-solid results, to "it sound reasonable at some point...then human nature took over" baloney. Everybody <cough/>knew<cough/> the latter, so nobody ever carefully checked.
And the worst part? Even long-tenured experts, specializing in the specific scientific niche, seldom know how certain their various facts actually are.
Dalewyn 18 hours ago [-]
Science is predicated on healthy skepticism, especially if something has fervent support. Anyone who argues that science is "settled" or that it should be "trusted" is a priest trying to evangelize, not a scientist.
That healthy skepticism likely won't cause any paradigm shifts in most cases, of course, but the point here is that is no reason to surrender the skepticism.
rscho 9 hours ago [-]
Stress does cause ulcers...
dang 9 hours ago [-]
[stub for offtopicness]
whycome 17 hours ago [-]
The slight pause as your brain parses this headline really shows why it makes no sense to have capitalization like this in headlines. It just adds ambiguity.
pona-a 11 hours ago [-]
My mind went to some horrible production accident. The first episode aired only 24 yeas after asbestos snow, after all.
poulpy123 13 hours ago [-]
It's not the capitalisation it's the clickbait
hnlmorg 11 hours ago [-]
It would definitely be the capitalisation for people who are familiar with British sci-fi.
And there are much worse examples too. But maybe that's the idea, write a horrible title that makes readers pause.
sandworm101 15 hours ago [-]
Yup. I read the title couple times before realizing it probably wasnt about Darleks.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 13 hours ago [-]
> Darleks
Something interesting about the actors’ accents is it always sounds like it would be spelled this way. It’s actually Dalek, pronounced in a way that is nearly indistinguishable from a British person saying Darlek. (I also notice the auto-correct on my phone knows the difference, which I did not think about until I saw it.)
That actor undoubtedly calls Canada ''Can-a-der'', as some Brits unfortunately do. Likewise with the Nigerian-British singer Sade (pronounced Shah-day) being called "Shar-day".
> Nigerian-British singer Sade
ahartmetz 9 hours ago [-]
And I here was sure that the name was French, like the dude who had sadism named after him.
tolerance 12 hours ago [-]
While we’re riffing on the headline:
- I must be one of the few people who did not find it ambiguous.
- I am likely among fewer who don’t mind it being “clickbaity”. I probably wouldn’t have cared to know what an Australian did to learn about ulcers otherwise.
But good to know if the time arises to chronicle the absurdities of modern science.
sethev 11 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I re-read the headline a couple times after seeing the comments and can't spot the ambiguity. Also, there's a difference between 'attention grabbing' and 'clickbait'. This headline seems like the first. It's literally highlighting one of the most interesting parts of the story and precisely describing it.
(Yes, I know the doctor in the article already believed he knew the answer)
jiehong 20 hours ago [-]
Had a fun time parsing the title as unrelated to The Doctor at first
I am grateful for doctors like them, and for the results they bring, even if the methods can be discussed.
ben30 20 hours ago [-]
Yeah I thought it was about a Matt Smith, 11th doctor recap, the word broth sounds vaguely mystical.
xeonmc 10 hours ago [-]
Anyone else thought from the title alone that this was gonna be about Louis Pasteur and the swan neck flask experiment?
Other acceptable answers are "Christopher Eccleston" and "Tom Baker".
pipes 14 hours ago [-]
Click bait headline.
camtarn 13 hours ago [-]
OP here: I agree, actually - unfortunately due to HN title length limitations, I had to cut something out, and I chose to cut out the "gave himself an ulcer" bit. I tried to mitigate it by posting a TL;DR as the first comment :)
imchillyb 15 hours ago [-]
There have been many doctors.
But The Doctor Who, there’s only one of those. Oh. Wait.
Headlines like this should not be capitalized. The ambiguity is unnecessary.
Rendered at 05:20:06 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I was gonna say I remember always seeing posters around the Uni talking about this guy and his 'gutsy' bet.
Robin Warren, pathologist who rewrote the science on ulcers, has died - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41137694 - Aug 2024 (100 comments)
Stress harms the immune system so many people who dramatically reduced stress showed meaningful improvement. One of those it’s better than a placebo treatments where the method of action was poorly understood.
It’s one of those cases where some bodies might just not be able to finish it off even in ideal conditions.
It’s a tricky thing in medicine. In then 90’s people discovered Leptin a hormone released by fat which when given to people dieting significantly reduced cravings and increased energy expenditure enabling long term weight loss. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2430504/
“rodents and humans that become obese on a high-fat (Western) diet do not respond to leptin” Unlike GLP-1 antagonists it did almost nothing to start the process of weight loss, but having a drug to give to people who lost 20+lb which would then help them keep it off could have helped a lot of people.
Dr Marshall was ridiculed as it was “settled science” that bacteria couldn’t survive in stomach acid.
Great example to bring up when people tell you to “trust the science”. Remind them at one time “science” said stress caused ulcers.
Before the proof, Marshall and Warren had little more than a suspicion (not enough to topple an accepted theory). Their first H. pilori cultures were in 1982, with little success. Their results of the famous bactery drinking after giving up the culture experiments were published in 1985, only three years later. It's not realistic for a scientist to expect a theory to go away because you have a hunch, even if that hunch turns out to be correct! If anything the Marshall experiment show that in science you can go against the main theories and turn them around if you have proofs.
That's very different that something like "I don't believe in evolution because this sacred book written thousands of years ago says otherwise".
"Settled science" is nothing resembling a homogeneous body of certainty. It's a huge, chaotic mish-mash - of everything from actual rock-solid results, to "it sound reasonable at some point...then human nature took over" baloney. Everybody <cough/>knew<cough/> the latter, so nobody ever carefully checked.
And the worst part? Even long-tenured experts, specializing in the specific scientific niche, seldom know how certain their various facts actually are.
That healthy skepticism likely won't cause any paradigm shifts in most cases, of course, but the point here is that is no reason to surrender the skepticism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who
Something interesting about the actors’ accents is it always sounds like it would be spelled this way. It’s actually Dalek, pronounced in a way that is nearly indistinguishable from a British person saying Darlek. (I also notice the auto-correct on my phone knows the difference, which I did not think about until I saw it.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek
> Nigerian-British singer Sade
- I must be one of the few people who did not find it ambiguous.
- I am likely among fewer who don’t mind it being “clickbaity”. I probably wouldn’t have cared to know what an Australian did to learn about ulcers otherwise.
But good to know if the time arises to chronicle the absurdities of modern science.
(Yes, I know the doctor in the article already believed he knew the answer)
I am grateful for doctors like them, and for the results they bring, even if the methods can be discussed.
Why are all those words capitalised?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_case
But The Doctor Who, there’s only one of those. Oh. Wait.
Headlines like this should not be capitalized. The ambiguity is unnecessary.