Vibrio parahaemolyticus is known to exist in a viable but nonculturable state when incubated at low temperature under starvation. It has long been debated whether the culturable cells which appear after temperature upshift are the result of true resuscitation or regrowth of a few residual culturable cells. Starved V. parahaemolyticus cells at 4 degrees C reached the nonculturable stage in about 12 days. The true resuscitation of nonculturable cells of V. parahaemolyticus occurred after spreading them onto an agar medium supplemented with H(2)O(2)-degrading compounds such as catalase or sodium pyruvate. The proposed method may be applicable to detecting the enteropathogen from environmental samples.