Cut on heartburn pills to avoid serious side effects: Study
Doctors must prescribe heartburn and acidity pills in lowest possible doses and for shortest time to patients to ward off potential side effects, researchers warn. Called Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), such common over-the-counter pills like omeprazole, rabeprazole and pantoprazole are taken to alleviate gastric distress from stomach acid. "Proton pump inhibitors are associated with a number of rare but potentially serious adverse effects," wrote Dr Todd C. Lee, internal medicine specialist at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec."These uncommon effects become highly relevant when considering the tens of millions of patients who take PPIs worldwide," he added. Some PPIs have been associated, in observational studies, with increased risk of heart attack in patients taking the antiplatelet agent called clopidogrel. Other adverse effects, which occur in varying frequencies, include rebound heartburn after discontinuing PPIs, malabsorption o...