This is exactly the WRONG way to treat kids or adults with asthma

Parents, if you have a child or grandchild with asthma, DO NOT allow your pediatrician to treat the asthma with a proton pump inhibitor (PPI).

Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) is common in kids and adults with asthma. So naturally, conventional doctors treat their patients’ GER with PPI drugs. But over time, some doctors (and PPI makers) have imagined that the PPIs may actually help alleviate asthma symptoms.

Well, we wouldn’t want to pass up a chance to substantially widen the use of this popular class of drugs, now would we?

Researchers for the American Lung Association mounted a study that tested a popular PPI drug on more than 300 kids with asthma.

The results: The PPI did nothing to reduce asthma symptoms or improve lung function, but the kids did have increased risk of adverse events that included respiratory infection, sore throats and bronchitis.

Fortunately, this study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association, so with any luck many doctors will get this signal loud and clear: PPIs are not suitable asthma treatments.

But you can be certain that PPIs will still be used in asthma patients who develop GER. And that’s simply bad medicine for one outstanding reason: PPIs have been shown to deplete magnesium.

And the kicker: Research suggests that one of the causes of asthma is…yep…magnesium deficiency.

In fact magnesium treatments are sometimes used by naturopathic doctors to help control asthma. But that’s a serious uphill fight if an asthma patient is already taking a PPI.

Sources:
“Lansoprazole for Children With Poorly Controlled Asthma” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 307, No. 4, 1/25/12, jama.ama-assn.org