Are rates of ageing determined in utero?

infection in our elderly patients.Moreover, the occurrence of antral atrophy or antral intestinal metaplasia did not differ between the age groups.This refutes the possibility that HP was missed in the oldest age groups but not in younger ones.We suggest that the low prevalence of HP infection in our sample may be explained by patient selection rather than by methodological issues.NSAIDinduced peptic ulcer (which is more often HP-negative than other ulcers) often has atypical symptomology, especially when a patient is old [1], so these ulcers may be easily missed.This causes a bias towards HP positivity in older patients with NSAID-induced peptic ulcer.In our hospital, even the oldest patients with atypical upper abdominal symptoms or anaemia are examined by endoscopy, especially if they use NSAIDs.Therefore, the proportion of patients with HP-negative peptic ulcers induced by NSAIDs may be higher than in some other studies.