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In a population-based study from Scotland, use of commonly-prescribed acid suppression medications such as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) was linked with an increased risk of intestinal infections with C. difficile and Campylobacter bacteria, which can cause considerable illness.
Compared with individuals in the community who did not take acid suppression medications, those who did had 1.7-times and 3.7-times increased risks of C. difficile and Campylobacter, respectively. Among hospitalized patients, those using the medications had 1.4-times and 4.5-times increased risks, respectively.
Although acid suppression therapy is often considered relatively free from side effects, the findings suggest that there are significant adverse gastrointestinal consequences of their use. "Users of these medications should be particularly vigilant about food hygiene as the removal of stomach acid makes them more easily infected with agents such as Campylobacter, which is commonly found on poultry," said Prof. Thomas MacDonald, senior author of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology study.
DOI: 10.1111/bcp.13205
Maybe they should cut back on haggis and chips instead.
(Score: 2) by Ezber Bozmak on Friday January 06 2017, @05:14PM
Ironically, one of the most common causes of acid reflux, aka heartburn, is too little stomach acid. Or rather too little acid at the wrong time. There is a valve between your stomach and your esophagus that opens to let food in and closes to keep acid from going up into your throat (reflux). The body decides to close it based on how much acid there is in your stomach (I am oversimplifying). So if you don't have enough acid to trip the close reflex, it doesn't fully close and some acid can still leak out and cause heartburn.
One really common folk remedy is to take a little bit of diluted apple cider vinegar 5-10 minutes before eating a meal. The theory is that it ups the acid content in your stomach and primes the reflex that closes that valve. So when you put a meal into your stomach and acid production increases the valve closes off more readily.
Obviously apple cider vinegar isn't a cure-all for every case of acid reflux. But it doesn't seem to have any bad side-effects in an otherwise healthy digestive system, so its a low-cost and low-risk thing to try and no pharma company is getting rich of it.
Here's some info on apple cider vinegar [healthline.com] from a reasonably trustworthy health info website.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @05:18PM
Could you just add vinegar and citric acid to every meal?
(Score: 2) by Ezber Bozmak on Friday January 06 2017, @05:32PM
I don't know. But the way I've seen it explained is that you need to take the apple cider vinegar before the meal, not with the meal. Because taking it with the meal is too late to stimulate the reflex. But there is nothing stopping you from trying it yourself and finding out what works for you.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday January 06 2017, @05:56PM
Article's only scientific evidence is a single study. Study's abstract mentions extremely small sample size(N=7. Yeah, you read that right.). Study's placebo was chili, which... I'm not sure could be considered a legitimate non-factor in acid reflux reactions, nor anywhere near blind to the participants.
The P value was .62(a far cry from being below 0.05), even if the effect size was .25(pretty big by rapid medical treatment standards), their own statistical methods imply their data wasn't robust enough for that large size to be statistically meaningful.
All that's not to say "Hey, I affirmatively think the underlying ideas here are purely pseudoscientific" but instead that I'd just caution you against deriving any conclusions on such incredibly weak evidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:03PM
"Folk remedy"
"low cost and low risk to try"
Were those disclaimers insufficient for you?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Friday January 06 2017, @06:10PM
Those are heuristics. Heuristics aren't always right. Evidence assessment, on the other hand, is timeless.
For example: "rinse a cut in cold water" is more folk remedy than a prescribed medication. It's also cheap and low risk.. But the evidence says it works.
I'm a firm believer in evidence-based medicine. And the internet is chock-full of alternatives to that approach. It's pretty harmless to call them out when I see them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:17PM
Harmless and pointless.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday January 06 2017, @06:23PM
Bull-fucking-shit.
People die and suffer huge negative consequences all the time [whatstheharm.net] because they trusted treatments some ill-informed dickbag foisted on them.
A dash of stomach acid refluxing up the throat isn't going to kill anyone, but there's no need to ignore reality just to be polite to nonsense. It's only pointless in the same way nothing serves a purpose in this cold uncaring universe of ours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:34PM
Lol. Talking about harmless folk remedies is just normalizing fatal quackery!!!!
Get over yourself.
Maybe the problem is crying wolf - you're just training people to ignore warnings about fatal quackery.
Extremism in the defense of anything is a vice.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday January 06 2017, @06:43PM
See: you're extremely angry that I compared non-fatal quackery to fatal quackery on a pretty subjective "It's the same class of mistake" level. I even clarified the point that your whole point centrally depends on me glossing over.
The only deduction I can draw is that you are extremely angry about being wrong, and need to project your insecurities onto someone who harmlessly communicated a trivial factual correction to your worldview.
At no point did I engage in the "extremism" that you've convinced yourself is necessary to disagree with some bullshit assertion about medical effectiveness. If someone were to pedantically correct someone on this site about the difference between clock speed and operations per second on a CPU, I'm near certain that you'd ignore it as typical nerdish pedantic behavior. But heaven help you if you read someone's link, examine the evidence that it cites and raise valid field-specific concerns about data quality. No, then you're an evil anti alt-med extremist.
How about you get over yourself, you whiny goddamn hypocrite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @07:03PM
> I even clarified the point that your whole point centrally depends on me glossing over.
Admitting you are doing something stupid and then still doing it doesn't make it any less stupid.
> extremely angry
Gee, your post sure comes across as really shouty. What with all the bolding and accusations.
I think you're projecting there.
How dare I challenge your scientism!
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday January 06 2017, @07:37PM
"It's stupid to examine evidence and discuss it"
-AC.
Fuck off. It's only in contention at all because you have some desperate need for validation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @08:56PM
Wow. You sure are projecting.
As an AC I get zero validation.
You, however are putting on a performance.
Accusing me of all kinds of heinous evil. I mean come on!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @09:12PM
And this, children, is why we don't feed the trolls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @09:50PM
Not a troll. Ikanreed just can't handle criticism. He's got this nerd righteousness thing going on where he thinks the human component of life is unimportant, only context-free facts matter.
He's the kind of person more interested in calling anti-vaxxers stupid than in convincing them to get their kids vaccinated.
When being technically correct is more important than outcomes - not lab experiment outcomes but the totality of outcomes of people in their actual lives - then you've lost sight of the reason science is important in the first place. Its a philosophy of scientism which is really just the wrapping up of a superiority complex in the trappings of science.
(Score: 3, Informative) by purple_cobra on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:02PM
"A dash of stomach acid refluxing up the throat isn't going to kill anyone..."
Not in the short-term, no. In the long-term, it's thought to be responsible for Barrett's Oesophagus, a pre-cancerous change to the lining of the oesophagus; what that actually means in practice is that this changed tissue is more likely to become cancerous than unchanged tissue. People with known Barrett's usually undergo surveillance OGD every so often (I forget the timing for this; I've not been into work since mid-September so it's all long since gone out of my memory) to make sure that the Barrett's hasn't worsened or changed to something more sinister.
If you're over 50 and get reflux suddenly without ever having it before, or not having it so frequently before, get yourself to a doctor and get an OGD done; it could be a sign of oesophagogastric cancer and unless that's diagnosed early on, it's likely to be fatal. I only work in the backroom office of a hospital so that might not be 100% what a trained medical professional will tell you; that said, if in doubt, go and see a trained medical professional.
One other example: Smoker/ex-smoker with ongoing shoulder pain and/or loss of voice from no obvious source ? Get to a doctor and get a CT chest done as there's a possibility it's lung cancer. Don't think you need to be experiencing a nasty cough, because you don't.
If you get *any* ongoing problems that don't seem to have any precipitating factors, get to a doctor and get it checked out. A lot of nasty-sounding diagnoses are survivable if caught early enough. And Dr Search-Engine isn't a good first choice.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:32PM
There aren't enough informative mods in the world for this post.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jelizondo on Friday January 06 2017, @07:14PM
I can testify that cold water is good but ice is much better. After I bang or cut my finger, I get me a glass, some whisky and ice; then I use the damaged finger to stir the ice & whisky. After a little while I feel no pain at all. So try ice instead of cold water.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:28PM
Who cares? It's vinegar, Maybe next you'll be complaining that someone claiming "1 apple a day to keep doctor away" doesn't have scientific study behind it?
And to counter, statistics don't apply to individuals. I was given medicine that was not suppose to have side-effects that I was having. I was told "it's impossible", "it's in your head", bullshit. The "impossible" side-effects do happen. You are not 0.01% chance of getting some side-effect, you either get it or not. It's 100% or 0%.
As to antacids, I believe these are generally bad anyway. If your diet is causing acid reflux, then maybe your body is telling you are eating the wrong things and/or too much? Taking antacids can just be digging a hole you will never crawl out of.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday January 06 2017, @06:50PM
You know, I wasn't expecting so much outrage over reading a scientific study and pointing out major issues. I was expecting someone to point out that maybe I looked at the wrong table, and have an analysis of how many different tests it takes before you get to accidental p-hacking.
As to who cares? Obviously I care. I like people to get treatment that works. That matters to me on a moral level. Yes, even for non-fatal conditions. Undue suffering is bad.
I also care because I like analyzing research papers. I find it fun and interesting to do. And I like sharing my results.
Other people might also care, because hell, maybe others reading this thread also care about using treatments that work. I don't know. I certainly don't see the harm in sharing.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @07:06PM
No wonder you are all worked up.
You've made your objection into a part of your identity and the people telling you its misguided are now perceived as attacking your identity.
(Score: 3, Funny) by ikanreed on Friday January 06 2017, @07:40PM
"Sure you explained your motivations for bringing it up in fine detail, but I can still make up new ones for you that make you wrong"
Congratulations, the fictitious version of me whose identity is tied up in this is utterly destroyed. You defeated that dragon, and saved the princess, you can go home and continue being totally wrong in peace.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @08:58PM
Yes, if there is one thing you've demonstrated with all of your hyperbole its that you are a creature of pure logic and no ego.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @11:35PM
Where did you find that n=7? Can you quote the line? I see this:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bcp.13205/pdf [wiley.com]
Also, most people rightly ignore what gets produced by medical researchers. That community has failed to control the quality of what it produces to such an epic extent it is literally unbelievable to anyone who thinks too much about the consequences. So I am not surprised no one else cared about what it said in the paper.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday January 06 2017, @11:57PM
This was the one linked in the G^nP's comment [asu.edu] suggesting vinegar could be used as an alternative treatment.
I wasn't talking about the paper in the summary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @08:14AM
Thanks
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday January 06 2017, @08:19PM
[...] a little bit of diluted apple cider vinegar [theoretically] ups the acid content in your stomach [...]
I was about to post that the pH of stomach acid is much lower than that of vinegar, let alone diluted vinegar. However, I seem to have been mistaken in believing that:
The pH of your stomach varies, from 1-2 up to 4-5.
[...]
the proteases that cleave proteins work best in an acidic environment or low pH, so after a high-protein meal, your stomach pH may drop to as low as 1 or 2. However, buffers quickly raise the pH back to 3 or 4. After the meal has been digested, your stomach pH returns to a resting level of about 4 or 5.
--
http://chemistry.about.com/od/lecturenoteslab1/a/Stomach-Ph.htm [about.com]
Vinegar has a pH of 2.2, according to Dr. Anne Marie Helmenstine, a contributor to About.com.
-- https://www.reference.com/science/ph-vinegar-c215ade97402d6ca [reference.com]