ASSOCIATION BETWEEN HELICOBACTER PYLORI INFECTION AND INSULIN RESISTANCE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Abstract

Most studies in the past decades show that screening of Helicobacter Pylori (HP) together with monitoring the inflammatory markers, plasma glucose and HbA1c levels can help prevent or delay type 2 diabetes mellitus. There is a double interrelation between HP infection and diabetes; thus diabetic patients are more susceptible to infection with HP via multiple mechanisms (decreased cellular and humoral immunity induced by diabetes, reducing gastrointestinal motility and secretion of hydrochloric acid, impaired glucose metabolism with the advent of chemical modifications of the gastric mucosa, the last two mechanisms favoring the intestinal colonization with HP). At the same time, those infected with HP can develop diabetes.

The purpose of this paper is reviewing the data from the medical literature on the role of the chronic infection with HP on the induction of type 2 diabetes. The studies presented below lead us to the conclusion that the chronic infection with HP, in addition to local specific effects (simple gastritis, peptic ulcer and malignant diseases), also has extra- digestive effects. The one approached in our work is that HP is being able to induce type 2 diabetes by complex mechanisms related to insulin resistance, chronic low-grade inflammation, decreased insulin secretion, and influences on glucose and lipid absorption.