Peptic ulcers after the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami: possible existence of psychosocial stress ulcers in humans

Background Societal stress derived from an event that affects the whole society, e. g., a natural disaster, provides a unique, indirect way of determining the relationship between psychological stress and peptic ulcer disease in humans. In this study, we investigated the changing patterns of the incidence of peptic ulcers before and after the Great East Japan earthquake, which occurred on 11 March, 2011.