Friday, December 25, 2009

Medications For Acid Reflux Triples Risk Of Developing Pneumonia

By Christian Goodman

It has been found out at Wake Forest University School of Medicine by researchers that famous acid reflux medications increase the risk of developing pneumonia of very ill patients by three times.

Pneumonia acquired in the hospital is the leading cause of infection-related death among critically ill patients. Pneumonia increases the average length of the hospital stays by seven to nine days. It also increases the cost of care and risk of other complications.

Head of the Section on Critical Care in the Department of Anesthesiology David L. Bowton, MD, senior researcher said, "As best we can tell, patients who develop hospital-acquired pneumonia or ventilator-acquired pneumonia have about a 20 to 30 percent change of dying from that pneumonia. It's a significant event."

The Wake Forest study was published in a recent issue of the journal Chest. It compared acid reflux treatment of two drugs: ranitidine (Zantac TM) and pantoprazole (Prilosec TM). Stomach acid is decreased by these drugs. Prilosec is said to me more powerful than Zantac hence it has become the favorite in many hospitals. An analysis made among 834 patients has revealed that cardiothoracic surgery patients who are hospitalized and treated with prilosec are suppose to have three times higher chance of getting affected by pneumonia.

Marc G. Reichert, Co-author of the journal and pharmacy coordinator for surgery at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center said "We conducted this study, in part, because we thought we were seeing more pneumonias than we were used to having,".

Bacteria gets more comfortable with stomach when the acids in the stomach gets reduced. Very serious ill patients who are with breathing support are very much vulnerable to pneumonia when lungs gets affected due to refluxes of stomach acid. From early days physicians have prescribed these acid reflux drugs to the patients. But now it should be seriously considered whether it's more good or more bad. It is said by Bowton that ranitidine (Zantac) should be used in cases where an acid reflux drug is needed.

Reichert says "Stopping the drugs earlier appears to be the best thing for patients,"

Acid reflux drugs carry risks for all individuals, not just the chronically ill. Prilosec, for example, which is commonly prescribed for heartburn, commonly causes headache and diarrhea. OTC Prilosec is available, but that does not it's safe simply because you can get it without a prescription. Drugs are toxic substance which disturb the homeostasis within the body. Illness results from a disruption of this delicate balance. In fact, some acid reflux drugs can actually contribute to the problem of acid reflux with long-term use.

Natural solutions are always better than medications for acid reflux. Natural remedies consist of factors such as changing the diet, reducing the stress. By changing the diet to natural food, by reducing stress one of the patients who suffered from acid reflux is able to completely heal from the suffering. He has been completely cured without the help of those dangerous medications.

EL331014

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment