UNDERSTAND THE RISK OF TAKING ANTACID DRUGS, HOW THEY LEAD TO INCREASED DEATH AND WHAT YOU CAN DO TO AVOID DEATH FROM THESE DRUGS

September 3, 2019Blog

Over the past 6-7 years it has become apparent that acid reducing drugs (antacids) may be causing more harm than good in millions of patients that take them every day.  These class of drugs were first approved by the US FDA in 1989 for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).  They were approved to be taken once daily for 4 weeks.  These drugs were never approved to be taken daily indefinitely but yet hundreds of millions of Americans take these drugs daily, either from a prescription or an over the counter drug.  There are now multiple large scale studies showing very convincingly that people who take these drugs have a higher incidence of osteoporosis, heart attack, kidney disease, stroke and death.   People with acid reflux experience pain and discomfort that is relieved in many cases with antacid drug therapy and many people tell me they have to have these drugs to get through the day. Just like most other drugs on the market, antacids simply mask the symptoms rather than treat the actual cause.  Most consumers do not understand how the body works or the consequences of taking drugs that interfere with normal body processes.  They simply believe what the companies selling the products tell them.  Well I hope to set the record straight and inform you on how these drugs interfere with essential and critical body functions and why it is killing people unnecessarily.

Antacids disrupt and interfere with at least four normal functions necessary for the body to operate, heal and function.

1. They inhibit nitric oxide production.  There are two ways the human body produces nitric oxide and these drugs inhibit production from both pathways.  Nitric oxide is necessary for maintaining the integrity of the cardiovascular system by keep blood pressure normal and for preventing plaque from depositing in your arteries.  Nitric oxide also is responsible for activity of the gastrointestinal system (which is part of acid reflux).  When you lose the ability to produce nitric oxide, your blood pressure goes up, your arteries become stiff and narrow, you develop erectile dysfunction, your digestion and stomach health become compromised and you have decreased blood flow to every cell in the body. All very bad things.
2. They prevent the digestion and breakdown of protein into amino acids. The human body is not designed to ever absorb proteins, only amino acids.  Our body is required to have stomach acid in order to break down proteins in our diet into amino acids.  Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins.  The animal or plant protein we eat must be broken down into amino acids so we can make our own proteins.  Without stomach acid, proteins can not be digested and broken down. As a consequence, we get short protein or peptide fragments that are absorbed across our gut wall and transported in our blood.  Our immune system recognizes these as foreign invaders (infections) that then causes and immune reaction and antibody production (almost like a vaccination).  Then every time we eat protein (milk protein, gluten protein, peanut butter, animal protein, etc), we get an immune reaction and get flu-like symptoms after some meals.  This is the basis for food-borne allergies.  When you eat something the body knows it shouldn’t ingest, you have a vomiting reflex.  When you don’t digest your proteins, your body pushes them back up into the esophagus.   You are diagnosed with GERD, the very thing these drugs treat.
3. They prevent absorption of trace minerals and vitamins needed for normal metabolism. It is known that most Americans are deficient in most trace minerals and vitamins such as magnesium, chromium, selenium, iodine, B vitamins, folic acid, zinc, etc.  These nutrients are designed to be absorbed in the presence of acid in the stomach.  When there is no stomach acid being produced, these nutrients are not absorbed and simply go through our digestive system and are excreted.  Deficiency of these nutrients will affect cellular function and metabolism to the extent that they cause cellular and organ dysfunction.  We must have stomach acid in order to absorb nutrients from our food and diets.  Do you see how these drugs perpetual the problem?  No wonder so many Americans are deficient in so many nutrients.
4. They affect total body pH. Our bodies are designed to operate at a very narrow range of pH or potential hydrogen (pH 7.4 in the blood).  Regulation of pH is controlled by stomach acid production.  Whenever you put anything into the stomach, it attempts to go to a pH of 2.0 (+286 mV).  As acid is produced in the stomach, bicarbonate is inserted into the blood.  When there is sufficient stomach acid production, every time the stomach empties into the duodenum (first part of our gut), this acid dump causes the pancreas to release bicarbonate to neutralize the acid.  When there is no stomach acid being produced, the pancreas does not release bicarbonate (buffer) so the body becomes acidic.  This creates an environment for fungal overgrowth, cancer, and poor performance just to name a few things.

The science is very clear on the importance of stomach acid production and the clinical data reveal the consequences of stopping stomach acid production, YOU DIE.  So now that we understand the problems with reflux and the problems associated with antacid drug use, the question is how do we fix the problem.  Since reflux is really a symptom of insufficient acid production that is further propagated by antacid drugs, we must first restore stomach acid production.  Lack of stomach acid starts with lack of iodine.  The cells of the stomach that produce acid need iodine, zinc and Vitamin B1.  Most people are deficient in these vitamins and minerals.

Treatment:

1. Stop taking these drugs.  However, you cannot stop taking these medicines cold turkey. You have to slowly wean off.  Start by cutting dose in half and taking every other day for a week or 10 days.  Then stop taking completely.
2. Supplement with iodine, zinc, and Vitamin B1 to correct for the deficiencies.
3. Take betaine or apple cider vinegar with each meal in order to acidify the stomach until the body can begin making its own stomach acid.
4. Take a clinically proven nitric oxide supplement to restore nitric oxide in the body. You need nitric oxide in order to regulate blood flow to all cells and organs in the body.

My philosophy is if you give the body what it needs and remove from the body what it doesn’t need, the body heals itself.  Many prescription and OTC drugs prevent the body from healing and absorbing what it does need and the consequences are deadly.  The health problems of today are many times self-inflicted based on what we do on a daily basis.  Prescription and OTC drugs contribute to this.  Eat a good balanced diet, get some exercise and allow the body to do what it is designed to do.  Optimal health is really pretty simple once we understand how the body works.

REFERENCES:

Ghebremariam YT, LePendu P, Lee JC, Erlanson DA, Slaviero A, Shah NH, Leiper J, Cooke JP.  Unexpected effect of proton pump inhibitors: elevation of the cardiovascular risk factor asymmetric dimethylarginine.  Circulation. 2013 Aug 20;128(8):845-53.

Shah NH, LePendu P, Bauer-Mehren A, Ghebremariam YT, Iyer SV, Marcus J, Nead KT, Cooke JP, Leeper NJ.  Proton Pump Inhibitor Usage and the Risk of Myocardial Infarction in the General Population  PLoS One. 2015 Jun 10;10(6):e0124653

Yan Xie, Benjamin Bowe, Tingting Li, Hong Xian, Yan Yan, Ziyad Al-Aly. Risk of death among users of Proton Pump Inhibitors: a longitudinal observational cohort study of United States veterans. BMJ Open, 2017; 7 (6): e015735