Popular stomach acid blockers linked to higher death rates

Suffering from acid reflux, I read at some point (I guess it was on Mayo Clinic) that something like 80% of people diagnosed as producing too much acid actually produce too little.<p>Since stomach valves are pH activated, having too little acid causes the valves not to clause, which can result in reflux or downstream acid leakage. I tested this by taking HCL supplements, which did fix the issue.

PPIs are pretty difficult to stop taking -- I started taking Prilosec in 2004 for reflux and after a few tries at stopping abruptly resulted in horrid symptoms, I finally manged to tail off by reducing the dose 1&#x2F;8 at a time every 2 weeks, over a total period of 2 months. From all accounts H2 blockers are easier to quit.<p>I was pleasantly surprised that I didn&#x27;t have any heartburn or reflux issues when I was done -- apparently the original cause was gone.

Not something I enjoy reading after being on lansoprazole for around 8 years for heartburn. I decided to get off them with dietary changes a couple years back after reading how they are approved for short term doses and long term effects were untested.<p>Doctors never showed much interest in discovering and treating the cause of the acid problem and even found it odd that I was trying to get off the tablets.<p>I haven&#x27;t been able to find if the damage they potentially cause in areas beyond the stomach reverses over time.

It bugs me that they just say &quot;risk of death&quot;<p>which could mean anything; being shot, dying in a car accident, getting cancer having a heart attack... which is ridiculous<p>I mean they do mention food poisoning and dementia etc but nothing about which of these factor strongly against the numbers of those that died. Is the food poisoning numbers effected by the poor nutritional practices (obese buffet eating crowds?), I know that many PPI takers are on the drug due to poor eating habits, where others are on it despite excellent eating habits.<p>Also, a common reason for dementia symptoms is B12 deficiency which is a known problem with PPI and common advice for those taking it is to bump their intake of Vit B12.<p>so really.. this study is looking very loosey goosey to me.

Looking at the article in BMJ Open, I don&#x27;t see that they controlled for obesity, either by BMI or any other measure. This is a huge confounder, making reflux symptoms worse and being an independent predictor of mortality. If I&#x27;m right, this is a huge oversight on their part.

What did (or didn&#x27;t) this study control for? I appreciate them stopping short of saying that proton pump inhibitors kill people, but without a causal mechanism it seems more plausible that chronic use is correlated with other life-shortening factors.

Getting off of PPIs is a miserable experience. It gave me the worst acid reflux of my life, lasting almost a whole month. Everything is back to normal now (I don&#x27;t think I should have been taking them in the first place), but I wonder if the crappy withdrawal process contributes to this somehow.

What if PPI users are more likely to have some other health issues compared to other patients due to some unobserved variable (e.g. lifestyle, strength of the physiological reaction to stress, genetic factors affecting both the likelihood of becoming a PPI user as well as the likelihood of having other health issues)?<p>Oh, man... correlational studies... shame they didn&#x27;t directly link to the article, too.

Sentences like this make me question everything about the article (and taint the research by association):<p>&quot;Use of the drugs was associated with a 25 percent greater risk of death,&quot;<p>Given that we all have a 100% chance of death, what does this mean?

Is that a higher death rate compared to the entire population which includes people who have no need for these blockers? Or compared to just those who need the blockers just as much as the users, but don&#x27;t use them?

They&#x27;re talking about millions of data points. They could probably find significant correlations between anything at that point.

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... in a small, biased sample.