Popular acid-blocking meds can up your risk of stroke!

Not too long ago, it took a doctor’s visit and an Rx to get your hands on any of those acid-blocking drugs called proton pump inhibitors.

Now, we’ve got Larry the Cable Guy doing wheelies with his truck to pitch us Prilosec.

And despite that fact that you can buy these meds in practically any convenience store, they’re extremely powerful drugs with a long list of very serious side effects.

Now, that list has just gotten longer.

A new study has found that PPI meds can put you on the fast track to having a stroke.

That’s why if you’re taking any of these drugs, it’s more urgent than ever to get off of them. But if you don’t do it the right way, you may find yourself with an acid problem a thousand times worse than ever before.

Eyes wide shut

As an eAlert reader, you know that I’ve been sounding the alarm on PPI drugs for years now.

So much bad news has come out about them that it’s almost unbelievable the FDA has refused to act.

For example, five years ago the consumer group Public Citizen filed a petition requesting that a black box warning be slapped on meds such as Nexium, Prevacid and Prilosec. The group wanted the FDA to make sure users knew about risks such as C. diff infections, fractures and critically low blood-magnesium levels.

After waiting three years, they finally heard back. And guess what? The agency said it didn’t think those things were serious enough to warn about.

Well, I guess they won’t think this is very serious, either.

Researchers from the Danish Heart Foundation in Copenhagen found that these meds can up your risk of having the most common type of stroke by over 20 percent. And this wasn’t some tiny 10-person study, either. They crunched the medical records of over 240,000 patients.

But it gets worse.

Taking Prevacid can up your stroke risk by 30 percent. And Protonix, which is still an Rx drug, can give you a whopping 94 percent higher risk of having a stroke.

And get this – Protonix has been approved by the FDA for use in kids as young as five!

Now, the FDA can hem and haw all it wants to about these drugs. But this isn’t the first time we’ve been warned about heart and stroke risks.

This spring I told you about a big study from three prestigious medical institutes that found PPI drugs interfere with some very important cells that line our blood vessels. These cells produce an acid that helps clear away waste products so things don’t get sticky inside.

The researchers found that these meds can basically disable these special cells, increasing your chances of having a heart attack or stroke.

And add to that another warning issued just last year about PPI drugs upping your heart attack risk by interfering with “normal blood vessel function.”

Those findings come on top of an already long list of dangers, from broken bones to dementia to kidney damage to life-threatening infections.

And who knows what we’ll be hearing tomorrow.

Taking these drugs, no matter how well they may work, just isn’t worth the risk. If acid is making your life miserable, there are other things you can do. For starters:

• cut down on high-acid drinks (like coffee)
• take a glass of water every day with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and
• sleep with your head elevated.

If you’re ready to ditch these meds once and for all, here’s the most important thing you need to know: Don’t stop cold turkey.

That can cause something called “rebound acid hypersecretion.” In other words, the most awful case of acid you’ve ever had. That’s why it’s vital to taper down your dose slowly.

“Could common heartburn drugs increase stroke risk?” Dennis Thompson, Healthday, November 15, 2016, cbsnews.com