Helicobacter pylori Infection and Atrophic Corpus Gastritis on Patients with Intellectual Disability: Challenges in the Clinical Translation of Personalized Medicine

The purpose of this chapter is to clarify the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection (HPI) and atrophic corpus gastritis (ACG) in patients with intellectual disability (ID) and review the literature surrounding them. We measured the levels of pepsinogen I, pepsinogen II, gastrin-17b (basal), and Helicobacter pylori antibodies from 243 patients with intellectual disability living in Rinnekoti Research Centre at Lakisto area during 2009–2011. We determined the levels of hemoglobin, mean cell volume (MCV), hematocrit, and the mean amount (MCH) and concentration (MCHC) of red cell hemoglobin, the counts of erythrocytes, leucocytes, and thrombocytes. About 43% had high level of Helicobacter pylori antibodies and 6% ACG. Our results show that Helicobacter pylori infection occurs approximately twice the rate it appears in the normal population. Also, the incidence of ACG was higher among patients with ID than normal population. ID may be a risk of getting the Helicobacter pylori infection (HPI) and ACG. In addition, it was found that the level of thrombocytes was increased in HPI group compared to normal group and decreased in ACG group compared to normal group. This study shows that there is clearly a need to investigate (test) more stomach condition in patients with ID.