Got Heartburn?
By Dr. Mercola
An estimated 15 to 20 million1,2 Americans use acid inhibiting drugs to treat heartburn. Indeed, PPIs are among the most widely prescribed drugs today, with annual sales of about $14 billion.3 This despite the fact that they were never intended to treat heartburn in the first place.
Research clearly shows that proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are severely overprescribed and misused, and do far more harm than good in the long run.4,5,6,7,8,9
If you suffer from frequent heartburn, rest assured there are many alternative treatment strategies that will help you eliminate this problem without serious side effects, which I’ll review toward the end of this article.
Beware: PPIs Are NOT Advisable for Majority of Heartburn Cases
Proton pump inhibitors like Nexium, Prilosec and Prevacid are actually designed to treat a very limited range of severe problems,10 including:
- Bleeding ulcers
- Zollinger-Ellison syndrome (a rare condition that causes your stomach to produce excess acid)
- Severe acid reflux, where an endoscopy has confirmed that your esophagus is damaged
These drugs were never intended for people with heartburn, and 90 to 95 percent of people taking them are not good candidates for these drugs. PPIs should also only be taken for a short period of time, yet many continue to take them for months or years on end.
PPIs Can Be Habit Forming and Dangerous
It’s important to realize that if you’re taking a PPI drug to treat your heartburn, you’re treating the symptom only; you’re not addressing the underlying cause, and by doing so, you’re exposing yourself to additional and potentially more dangerous health problems.
PPIs suppress the production of stomach acid, and contrary to popular belief, most cases of heartburn are actually due to having too little acid in your stomach, not too much. So taking a PPI will actually worsen your condition since stomach acid helps digest food protect against ingested pathogens.
Lack of stomach acid makes you more vulnerable to a number of problems, including nutritional deficiencies, food poisoning, and digestive system infections such as clostridium difficile.
Moreover, if you try to quit them cold turkey, your symptoms typically return with a vengeance. As noted by Marcella Lafayette, a 62-year-old heartburn patient interviewed by NPR:11
“I can’t seem to get off the drug, because when I do, I experience severe stomach pain. I can’t eat anything without experiencing stomach pain. It just feels like you’ve got a knife in your gut. It’s just really painful.”
How to Wean Off Your Heartburn Drugs
Since you can quickly develop both tolerance and dependence on these drugs, it’s important to wean yourself off them gradually to avoid severe rebound symptoms. NEVER stop taking proton pump inhibitors cold turkey.
To get off them, gradually lower the dose you’re taking while simultaneously implementing the recommended lifestyle modifications listed at the end of this article.
Once you get down to the lowest dose of the PPI, you can start substituting with an over-the-counter H2 blocker like Tagamet, Cimetidine, Zantac, or Ranitidine. Then gradually wean off the H2 blocker over the next several weeks.
PPIs Associated With Dementia and Other Serious Health Risks
Research has linked PPIs with a heightened risk for a number of serious health problems, including chronic kidney disease,12 pneumonia, osteoporosis, hip fractures, and dementia.
According to recent research13,14,15 published in JAMA Neurology, seniors over the age of 75 who use PPIs on a regular basis had a 44 percent increased risk of dementia, compared with nonusers. Men were at greater risk, raising their dementia risk on average by 52 percent, compared to 42 percent for women.
As noted by NPR:16
“How PPIs might increase the risk for dementia is unclear. But other researchers recently reported that, in the brains of mice, PPIs seem to increase levels of a damaging protein that accumulates in the brains of dementia patients, known as beta-amyloid.”
PPIs Linked to Heart Attack, Even in Those Without Cardiovascular Disease
Last but not least, you could even try the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). In the video above, EFT practitioner Julie Schiffman demonstrates how to tap for acid reflux.
Sources and References
- 1, 11, 16 NPR February 16, 2016
- 2 Reuters June 10, 2015
- 3 CBS News June 10, 2015
- 4 Archives of Internal Medicine May 10, 2010; 170(9):784-90
- 5 Archives of Internal Medicine May 10, 2010; 170(9):779-83
- 6 Archives of Internal Medicine May 10, 2010; 170(9):772-8
- 7 Archives of Internal Medicine May 10, 2010; 170(9):765-71
- 8 Archives of Internal Medicine May 10, 2010;170(9):751-8
- 9 CBS News December 27, 2011
- 10 Archives of Internal Medicine 2010 May 10;170(9):747-8
- 12 NPR January 12, 2016
- 13 JAMA Neurology February 15, 2016, doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2015.4791
- 14 New York Times February 17, 2016
- 15 Time February 16, 2016
- 17 PLOS ONE December 27, 2013, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0084890
- 18 PLOS One June 10, 2015 [Epub ahead of print]
- 19 New York Times June 10, 2015
- 20, 21 Scientific American June 10, 2015
- 22, 27 Green Med Info Acid Reflux
- 23 WebMD Hiatus Hernia
- 24 Everydayroots.com, 15 Natural Remedies for Heartburn & Severe Acid Reflux
- 25 University of Maryland Medical Center, Slippery Elm
- 26 Science Daily May 22, 2009
- 28 eCAM 2011, 2011:249487
- 29 Molecular Nutrition & Food Research Mar 2007, 51(3):324-32
- 30 Phytomedicine Jun 2008, 15(6-7):391-9
- 31 University of Maryland Medical Center, Slippery Elm
- 32 Science Daily May 22, 2009
- 33 Byron Richard’s Wellness Resources October 26, 2013
- 34 Journal of Pineal Research Oct 2006, 41(3):195-200
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