asymptomatic helicobacter pylori infection and iron deficiency are not associated with decreased growth among alaska native children aged 711 years introduction alaska native children have high helicobacter pylori infection and iron deficiency prevalences and their average heightforage is lower than us reference populations during a clinical trial to determine the impact of h pylori treatment on iron deficiency we evaluated the effects of h pylori infection and treatment on growthmaterials and methods we measured height and weight for children aged 711 years in western alaska using villagebased measuring devices h pylori infection was determined by urea breath test and iron deficiency using serum ferritin children with h pylori infection and iron deficiency entered the treatment phase and received iron alone or iron plus triple therapy for h pylori followup evaluations occurred at 2 8 and 14 months we evaluated the association between baseline h pylori infection and growth among children in the treatment phase we also assessed the effect of h pylori resolution on growthresults at baseline 566 871 of 650 children were infected with h pylori neither height and weight nor body mass index differed by h pylori infection status of 189 children in the treatment phase 20 106 were uninfected at all three followup periods and 54 286 were uninfected for one or two periods compared with continuously infected children children in these two groups had little evidence of improvements in any of the measured growth outcomesconclusions h pylori infection is not related to growth among alaska native children aged 711 years growth deficiency should not be considered an indication for h pylori therapy