The rise in circulating gastrin with age is due to increases in gastric autoimmunity and Helicobacter pylori infection.

To assess the effect of increasing age on circulating gastrin, we surveyed serum gastrin, Helicobactor pylori seroantibody status and gastric autoimmunity in 366 hospitalized patients aged 15-90 years. Data were subjected to multivariate analysis, using logarithmic transformation to normalize the distribution of gastrin concentrations (presented as geometric means and 95% CIs). The frequency of H.