Dear Living Well Daily Reader,
Suffering from heartburn or acid reflux is miserable.
The constant burning, nausea and pain are so uncomfortable; you would take just about anything to get some relief.
And like most of America, you may reach for a pill to put the fire out.
But it turns out that some of the most popular heartburn meds around may come with deadly risks that we’ve never been warned about.
You see, research recently presented at an American Heart Association conference shows that some of these meds, like Protonix, may increase your risk of suffering from stroke by up to 94 percent.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are some simple things you can do right now to win the war with heartburn — no pills required.
For many years, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) have been prescribed for heartburn at an alarming rate, even though they’re associated with poor heart health, heart attacks, dementia and kidney disease.
And Danish researchers recently found they also can cause stroke.
The scientists studied nearly 250,000 patients who suffered from indigestion and stomach pain and were taking one of the following PPIs: Nexium, Prevacid, Prilosec and Protonix.
After scouring the data, they uncovered some shocking statistics.
Taking a PPI increased participants’ overall risk of stroke by a shocking 21 percent.
Additionally, they found that when taken at the highest doses, stroke risk upped 30 percent for Prilosec and Prevacid patients, 50 percent for Nexium and 94 percent for Protonix patients.
However, the researchers noted that patients who took the lowest available dose experienced little or no risk of stroke.
For decades now, many experts have questioned the amount of folks taking these types of drugs. Especially since making just a few lifestyle changes like quitting smoking, eating less, chewing gum after meals, losing weight and cutting down on spicy foods can resolve heartburn.
If you’re taking a PPI currently, you should talk to your doctor about it. Find out if you can lower your dosage or even get off it. Doing either of these might just save your life.
Live well,
Natalie Moore
Managing editor, Living Well Daily
Ed. Note: Please send your feedback: nmoore@lfb.org – and click here to like us on Facebook.
Sources
[1] Popular heartburn medication may increase ischemic stroke risk
