Study: Heartburn pills increase gut infection risk

Research links meds to harmful bacteria

The pills you take to control heartburn and suppress stomach acid may be linked to increased risk of a serious gut infection. A study published late last month in JAMA Internal Medicine reports that people who take indigestion medicines such as Prilosec and Zantac are at risk of repeat infection with the bacteria Clostridium difficile.

C. difficile can cause swelling of the colon. Symptoms range from mild diarrhea lasting a few days to life-threatening bleeding and leaking of the gut. Previous studies have shown that one class of medicines known as proton pump inhibitors, (Prevacid, Prilosec and Nexium) which are used to suppress stomach acid, can increase risk of a first episode of C. difficile infection.

The new study adds that another class of indigestion medicines called H2 blockers can also increase risk of infection with C. difficile.

H2 blockers include Pepcid, Zantac and Tagamet.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., analyzed data from 16 older studies which included 7,703 patients with C. difficile. Of these, about 1 in 5 patients suffered recurrent infection.

This doesn’t mean that you should stop taking medicines to treat heartburn and reflux. There are some important caveats of the new study to consider, including the fact that the researchers didn’t take into account exactly why patients were using proton pump inhibitors and H2 blockers in the first place.

The findings show that it might be worth stopping treatment with PPIs and H2 blockers in patients suffering or at high risk of C. difficile.

Rates of the infection have skyrocketed over the past decade and are linked to the overuse of antibiotics, which disrupt the balance of good and bad bacteria.

In the U.S., C. difficile caused half a million infections in 2011, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That year, 29,000 people died of C. difficile within the first month of their diagnosis.