This is TED Health, a podcast from TED, and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter.

Imagine this. You're doubled over with stomach pain, convinced it must be stress.

Last night's spicy meal, or maybe just too much acid. For decades, that's what most people

believed, and many still do today. But that's not the only possible culprit. The story of ulcers is

stranger, more dangerous, and far more important to your health than you might think. It involves a

young doctor willing to risk everything with his own body, a bacteria that's lived alongside humans

for tens of thousands of years, and a medical establishment determined to dismiss him.

The takeaway? Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from challenging what we've always assumed

to be true. And when it comes to your gut, the myths we've carried for generations may be the

very things keeping you from finding relief. This talk might just change how you think about your stomach and about science itself.

And now your TED-Ed lesson of the day.

In 1984, an enterprising Australian doctor named Barry Marshall decided to take a risk.

Too many of his patients were complaining of severe abdominal pain due to stomach ulcers, which are sores in the lining of

the upper intestinal tract. At the time, few effective treatments for ulcers existed, and many

sufferers required hospitalization or

even surgery.

Desperate for answers, Dr. Marshall swallowed a cloudy broth of bacteria collected from

the stomach of one of his patients.

Soon, Dr. Marshall was experiencing the same abdominal pain, bloating, and vomiting.

Ten days later, a camera called an endoscope peered inside his insides.

Marshall's stomach was teeming with the same bacteria as his patient.

He'd also developed gastritis, or severe inflammation of the stomach,

...