Do the benefits outweigh the risks of acid-blocking drugs, also known as proton pump inhibitors like Nexium, Prilosec, and Zantac? What about baking soda?
Indigestion is the medical term for an upset stomach. After eating, your stomach may be WoundYou may feel bloated, nauseous, overly full, or you may belch. “Despite the high prevalence of this disorder, there are no approved treatments” for indigestion in the Western world. As I discuss in my video Are acid-blocking drugs safe?This leads people to Order Steer clear of alternatives like baking soda, which the manufacturer promotes for use on upset stomachs. The problem is that it contains sodium bicarbonate, so it “has the potential to cause significant toxicity when taken in excess.” and “The baking soda problem can lead to serious electrolyte and acid/base imbalances.”
Baking soda labels were amended in 1990 to include the warning “Do not give to children under five years of age,” “due to reported seizures and respiratory depression in children.” Even a “click” might be too much for an infant, and some large spoons could be fatal for a baby.
Another new addition on the product label is the “stomach warning,” which stresses the importance of not consuming baking soda when overindulging in food or drink. Why not? If you’re familiar with the baking soda and vinegar volcanoes, which are popular at every class science fair, you know the dangers! It’s like adding baking soda to the acid in your stomach. “This warning was added at the request of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to multiple case reports of spontaneous gastric rupture”—that is, when the stomach actually ruptures.
Stomach blowing aside, simply sticking to the suggested dosage could lead to adverse effects. Therefore, baking soda cannot be recommended for indigestion, especially for young children, pregnant women, alcoholics, and people taking diuretics, which are common blood pressure medications sometimes referred to as water pills.
What about acid-blocking drugs like Nexium or Prilosec? that they The job Better than a sugar pill, but not by much, helping 31 percent of those with indigestion compared to 26 percent with the help of a placebo. In other words, drugs are 5 percent better than nothing! These so-called proton pump inhibitors “have also been very profitable for the pharmaceutical industry,” tricked billions of dollars annually. But, we now have huge computerized databases of patients, so we can begin to assess potential long-term adverse effects, including increased pneumonia, bone fractures, bowel infections, heart disease, kidney failure, and even all-cause mortality. The last concern to surface was the association between PPI [proton pump inhibitor] Use and risk of dementia!
The problem with all these studies that only show “associations” is that they don’t prove cause and effect. Taking the drugs probably didn’t make people sick. The disease may have caused people to take drugs. Or it may not be that these drugs are the cause of these infections, fractures, death and dementia. They may be signs of illness. There are potential mechanisms by which these drugs might have some of these effects. As you can see at 3:00 in my country videothe longer the person open For drugs, the higher the risk of premature death. How can inhibiting acid production in the stomach increase the death rate from diseases such as heart? Well, suppressing acid isn’t the only thing these drugs do. They may also lead to a decrease in the synthesis of nitric oxide, the enzyme that makes the “open semolina” molecule that helps keep arteries healthy.
In terms of dementia, a major event in the development of Alzheimer’s disease He is Buildup of sticky protein plaques called beta-amyloid. If you put Alzheimer’s-like cells in a petri dish and drip on increasing levels of the drug Prevacid, the diseased cells begin to produce more amyloid. Same thing happens with Prilosec, Losec, Protonix, and Nexium, as you can see at 3:39 in video.
Just because something happens in a petri dish or mouse model doesn’t mean it is Happen or occur in humans. This is certainly true, but most studies to date have Found This link between “an increased risk of dementia with the use of proton pump inhibitors,” these proton pump inhibitor drugs. The largest study of its kind to date, involving tens of thousands of patients, I finish Avoiding chronic use of these drugs “may prevent the development of dementia.” An alternative explanation for the link is exposure to aluminum, which may occur by itself game role in dementia. Maybe people who use acid-blocking medications get heartburn and use more aluminum-containing antacids, so what’s the real reason? We still don’t know.
We know, however, that there is He is A “quasi-cultural belief” in stomach acid suppression as a form of medical treatment, which has “led to a gradual escalation of PPI’s dose and efficacy,” as evidence mounts She suggests The drugs are “associated with a number of adverse effects and are over-prescribed.” How exaggerated is the description? Inappropriate use of these drugs He is On average it’s higher than 57% in patients admitted to general medical wards and 50% higher in patients managed in primary care facilities,” that’s about half. Half of people on these drugs shouldn’t be on them!” These rates Too high and concerning, because it means that PPIs are prescribed for indicators other than those recommended by the expert consensus data” – that is, for conditions for which they should not even be prescribed, which means that there are no proven benefits that outweigh the risks.
I explore indigestion further in my video Last Friday: The best diet for an upset stomach.
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