Warning: Common acid-suppressing PPI drugs are over-used and have serious health

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Warning: Common acid-suppressing PPI drugs are over-used and have serious

health risks

_http://www.naturalnews.com/028878_proton_pump_inhibitors_health_risks.html_

(http://www.naturalnews.com/028878_proton_pump_inhibitors_health_risks.html)

(NaturalNews) Have heartburn occasionally? Suffer from gastroesophageal

reflux disease (GERD) symptoms? Mention your indigestion to a pharmacist and

the odds are you'll be directed to proton pump inhibitor (PPI) drugs that

are now sold over the counter. Or, if you tell your doctor about your

heartburn problems, you'll most likely be given a prescription for an even

stronger dose of a PPI. These Big Pharma profit making drugs (which include

Prilosec, Nexium, Prevacid, Aciphex and Protonix) are pushed for indigestion

because they are supposedly stronger and faster acting than other older acid

suppressing and acid neutralizing meds.

But there are problems with these widely hyped drugs. According to a

series of reports just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, not only

are PPIs being over-prescribed and over-used but they are fraught with

health dangers.

" A staggering 113.4 million prescriptions for proton pump inhibitors are

filled each year, making this class of drugs, at $13.9 billion in sales, the

third highest seller in the United States, " H. Katz, M.D., of the

San Francisco Department of Public Health, wrote in an editorial

accompanying the reports.

Dr. Katz pointed out that these drugs can be effective treatments for

inflammation of the esophagus, ulcers and GERD -- but there is evidence that

between 53 percent and 69 percent of PPIs are being prescribed

inappropriately. What's more, doctors are too often pushing these drugs without

considering potential adverse side effects.

Bottom line: PPIs are often used to treat plain old common indigestion

(dyspepsia) in the absence of ulcers, inflammation or severe GERD. " That

proton pump inhibitors relieve dyspepsia is without question, but at what cost

(and I do not mean financial)? " Dr. Katz asked.

So what specifically is the downside to acid-suppressing PPIs? The new

reports in the current issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine offer some

disturbing answers to that question:

• L. Gray, Pharm.D., of the University of Washington and colleagues

reported that PPIs increase the risk of fractured bones in women after

menopause. They followed 161,806 women between ages 50 and 79 in the Women's

Health Initiative Study for eight years and found those taking PPIS had an

increased risk of spine and forearm or wrist fractures in addition to more

total fractures.

• D. Howell, M.D., M.P.H., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

and Harvard Medical School and fellow researchers studied the records of

more than 100,000 patients discharged from hospitals over a five year

period. Daily PPI use, they discovered, was linked to an estimated 74 percent

increase in infections due to Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), a

bacterium that can cause life-threatening diarrhea and inflammation of the

colon.

• Another group of researchers headed by Amy Linsky, M.D., of Boston

Medical Center, also found a worrisome link between C. difficile and PPIs. They

investigated approximately 1,200 patients being treated for C. difficile

and documented a 42 percent increased risk of recurrence with the infection

if PPIs were used.

" Harm will result if these commonly used medications are prescribed for

conditions for which there is no benefit, such as non-ulcer dyspepsia, "

Deborah Grady, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and San

Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and Rita F. Redberg, M.D., also of

the University of California, San Francisco, and editor of the Archives of

Internal Medicine, wrote in another editorial.

There's actually some good news related to the series of reports

discussing the dangers of PPIs and their overuse. The articles are part of the

prestigious medical journal's new series called **Less Is More** which is

similar in some ways to the kind of articles NaturalNews has been publishing

for

years -- the journal is launching investigations into how health can be

worse when patients receive more medical services.

**Evidence suggests that providing excessive health care service is most

likely to occur in situations in which there is not strong evidence to

document the benefit and harms of the service,** Dr. Grady and Dr. Redberg

stated in their editorial. **The Archives aims to address this deficit by

publishing articles that provide evidence that performing 'more' of certain

health care activities results in 'less' health.**

For more information:

_http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20458085_

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20458085)

_http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20458079_

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20458079)

_http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20458080_

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20458080)

_http://www.naturalnews.com/026361_drugs_drugs_hospital.html_

(http://www.naturalnews.com/026361_drugs_drugs_hospital.html)

_http://www.naturalnews.com/026836_heartburn_GERD_drugs.html_

(http://www.naturalnews.com/026836_heartburn_GERD_drugs.html)