Two Nobel Prizes that Both Fight Starvation, Helicobacter Pylori and WFP

In 2020 the Nobel Peace prize was awarded to World Food Program (WFP) due to their important job in distributing food and fighting starvation all over the world. Fifteen years earlier the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for the discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. This bacterium – in its own way actually also helps fight starvation. In 2018 it was estimated that across the world 821 million people were going hungry -124 million acutely so [1]. In order to reduce starvation and treat malnutrition WFP for many years have delivered so called food baskets. The actual size and composition of the food basket is closely tailored to local preferences, demographic profile, climate conditions, local coping capacity and existing levels of malnutrition and disease [2]. In 1982 Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall unexpectedly discovered that inflammation in the stomach (gastritis) as well as ulceration of the stomach or duodenum (peptic ulcer disease) could be the result of an infection caused by a bacterium. In 2005 they jointly were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The infection could be treated by antibiotics. The bacterium was named Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori).