Proton Pump Inhibitors PPIs

Category: Medicines

Type

Involuntary and voluntary

Introduction and description

What causes an upset stomach? 

Well it could be bacteria or viruses, fungi, toxins – a pathogen in other words. 

What do we want our stomach to do in this case? 

The answer is to secrete as much acid as possible so that the pathogen is killed or disabled.  We may get temporary discomfort, but on the whole, better to suffer a bit of discomfort than to have the pathogen enter the body.

What else can cause an upset stomach – so called GERD gastric acid reflux, when the stomach contents regurgitate, or even when you just get heartburn or indigestion?

Well one cause can be gluten intolerance, so the obvious answer here is to get yourself tested for any allergens – any, as they will all do the same thing.  The body thinks it is being poisoned so it tries to either make you sick, or creates a lot of acid to try to get rid of it through the intestines.  Quick throughput.

Anything else?  Indeed yes – stress.

Stress of all sorts invokes the sympathetic nervous system – the flight or fight response.  In the old days when we faced visible threats like dinosaurs and sabre tooth tigers, the one thing we didn’t want to have happen is our digestive system bubbling away whilst we ran like crazy or [bravely] attacked it with a stick.  People get upset stomachs from fear, loneliness, grief, panic, and depression.  Unable to cope, at a very low ebb their sympathetic nervous system is working overtime to help them flea, but sadly the ‘threat’ cannot in many case be flown from that easily.

Indigestion means just that, the body cannot digest its food because we are so stressed it has gone into 'lack of activity' mode.  It is not too much acid, the body under stress is not actually secreting any, so we have lack of digestion, which feels like a big lump in our stomachs that lasts for a very long time and gives us pain.

And what do we find if we take a look at the statistics for just one drug - Nexium, at random? The top conditions involved for these people, according to the eHealthme web site were:

1. Pain (97 people, 23.15%)
2. Depression (87 people, 20.76%)

So the answer is clearly to solve the stress problem, the sadness, the loneliness, the hurt.  There are all sorts of kindly ways of helping the lonely, the fearful, the grief stricken and the depressed and they do not involve and should not involve pharmaceuticals.  They need to involve people helping people.

So what are PPIs?

Proton Pump Inhibitors [PPIs]

Proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) are a group of drugs whose main action is to reduce gastric acid production.

They are the most potent inhibitors of acid secretion available today.

Needless to say without acid in our stomach, pathogens can enter the body and we can no longer digest food properly, meaning that large food particles will enter the intestines and may even enter the gall bladder and possibly cause yet more problems.

They do not help if the person has gluten intolerance or any other food allergy and they will not help with the stress.  They will exacerbate its effects.

They are used to treat the following  symptoms , in effect this is symptom based medicine not cause based medicine:

• Dyspepsia
• Peptic ulcer disease (PUD)
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GORD or GERD)
• Laryngopharyngeal reflux
• Barrett's esophagus
• Stress gastritis
• Gastrinomas and other conditions that cause hypersecretion of acid
• Zollinger-Ellison syndrome.

They act by irreversibly blocking the hydrogen/potassium adenosine triphosphatase enzyme system (the H+/K+ ATPase, or more commonly gastric proton pump) of the gastric parietal cells. The proton pump is the terminal stage in gastric acid secretion. Targeting the terminal step in acid production, as well as the irreversible nature of the inhibition, results in reduction of gastric acid secretion “by up to 99%”.

Theoretically.  Again the theory goes that if you get rid of the acid in the stomach it will help heal duodenal ulcers, and reduce the pain from indigestion and heartburn.

However, lack of stomach acid or ‘ hypochlorhydria’, the lack of sufficient hydrochloric acid, or HCl can be a problem. Hydrochloric acid is required for the digestion of proteins and for the absorption of nutrients, particularly of vitamin B12 and of calcium. Calcium is used in bone formation of course.  Thus one of the side effects is nutritional deprivation – mineral deficiency and vitamin deficiency - and osteoporosis.

According to Wikipedia “The effectiveness of proton pump inhibitors has not been demonstrated ...., despite their widespread use for these conditions”. The FDA advises that no more than three 14-day treatment courses should be used in one year.

Side effects

We will now turn to the eHealthme site which records and summarises the Adverse Drug Reports submitted by doctors to the FDA and SEDA.  The effects and figures are only for the USA as this system is USA based.  The side-effects aremarkably consistent across drugs and are in many ways expected, for example:

Most common Nexium side effects:

• Nausea in Nexium (5,995 reports)
• Pain in Nexium (4,750 reports)
• Breathing Difficulty in Nexium (4,371 reports)
• Fatigue in Nexium (3,888 reports)
• Nausea And Vomiting in Nexium (3,888 reports)
• Chest Pain in Nexium (3,793 reports)
• Diarrhea in Nexium (3,763 reports)
• Drug Ineffective in Nexium (3,714 reports)
• Weakness in Nexium (3,708 reports)
• Dizziness in Nexium (3,674 reports)

Now compare this with Omeprazole and we get a remarkably similar set of side effects

Most common Omeprazole side effects:

• Nausea in Omeprazole (5,045 reports)
• Breathing Difficulty in Omeprazole (4,543 reports)
• Diarrhea in Omeprazole (4,500 reports)
• Fever in Omeprazole (4,394 reports)
• Weakness in Omeprazole (4,287 reports)
• Fatigue in Omeprazole (3,938 reports)
• Nausea And Vomiting in Omeprazole (3,901 reports)
• Pain in Omeprazole (3,525 reports)
• Anaemia in Omeprazole (3,453 reports)
• Dizziness in Omeprazole (3,350 reports)

Many of these side-effects are consistent with being poisoned.

Deaths

Again, using the  eHealthme site which records and summarises the Adverse Drug Reports submitted by doctors to the FDA and SEDA.  The number of side effect reports and the deaths are as follows.  The figures are only for the USA as this system is USA based.

• Aciphex - On Jan, 29, 2016: 11,601 people reported to have side effects when taking Aciphex. Among them, 180 people (1.55%) have Death
• Dexilant - On Jan, 13, 2016: 1,348 people reported to have side effects when taking Dexilant. Among them, 15 people (1.11%) have Death
• Kapidex - On Jan, 2, 2016: 524 people reported to have side effects when taking Kapidex. Among them, 12 people (2.29%) have Death
• Dexlansoprazole - On Jan, 29, 2016: 368 people reported to have side effects when taking Dexlansoprazole. Among them, 10 people (2.72%) have Death
• Nexium - On Jan, 11, 2016: 71,320 people reported to have side effects when taking Nexium. Among them, 1,339 people (1.88%) have Death
• Esomeprazole - On Jan, 21, 2016: 4,531 people reported to have side effects when taking Esomeprazole magnesium. Among them, 71 people (1.57%) have Death
• Omeprazole - On Jan, 11, 2016: 90,145 people reported to have side effects when taking Omeprazole. Among them, 1,677 people (1.86%) have Death
• Omeprazole magnesium - On Jan, 29, 2016: 643 people reported to have side effects when taking Omeprazole magnesium. Among them, 1 people (0.16%) has Death
• Prilosec - On Jan, 16, 2016: 59,813 people reported to have side effects when taking Prilosec. Among them, 964 people (1.61%) have Death
• Zegerid - On Jan, 27, 2016: 1,009 people reported to have side effects when taking Zegerid. Among them, 19 people (1.88%) have Death
• Pantoprazole - On Jan, 25, 2016: 29,149 people reported to have side effects when taking Pantoprazole. Among them, 737 people (2.53%) have Death.
• Pantoprazole sodium - On Jan, 29, 2016: 13,065 people reported to have side effects when taking Pantoprazole sodium. Among them, 259 people (1.98%) have Death
• Protonix - On Jan, 3, 2016: 34,732 people reported to have side effects when taking Protonix. Among them, 939 people (2.70%) have Death
• Lansoprazole - On Jan, 9, 2016: 34,940 people reported to have side effects when taking Lansoprazole. Among them, 554 people (1.59%) have Death
• Prevacid - On Jan, 28, 2016: 39,824 people reported to have side effects when taking Prevacid. Among them, 684 people (1.72%) have Death
• Prevacid 24hr - On Jan, 29, 2016: 408 people reported to have side effects when taking Prevacid 24 hr. Among them, 4 people (0.98%) have Death
•  Prevpac - On Jan, 22, 2016: 368 people reported to have side effects when taking Prevpac. Among them, 6 people (1.63%) have Death
• Rabeprazole - On Jan, 29, 2016: 10,127 people reported to have side effects when taking Rabeprazole. Among them, 151 people (1.49%) have Death
• Rabeprazole sodium - On Jan, 25, 2016: 9,021 people reported to have side effects when taking Rabeprazole sodium. Among them, 140 people (1.55%) have Death

  Death appears to be relatively quick on these medications if the eHealthme statistics are a guide.  Again, at random

Time on Esomeprazole magnesium when people have Death  :

	< 1 month	1 - 6 months	6 - 12 months	1 - 2 years	2 - 5 years	5 - 10 years	10+ years
Death	40.00%	40.00%	20.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%

Gender of people who have Death when taking Esomeprazole magnesium  :

	Female	Male
Death	43.55%	56.45%

 Summary totals

Using only a summary of the figures above [there are more drugs in this category but they are either not approved by the FDA or not sold in the USA], obtained from the  eHealthme site which records and summarises the Adverse Drug Reports submitted by doctors to the FDA and SEDA.  The total number of side effect reports and the deaths are as follows.  The figures are only for the USA as this system is USA based.

Total Number of people with side effects:  412,936

Total deaths 7,762

 

References and further reading

Some of the photos on this page are by Camille Seaman

Observations

The number of hallucinations is shown in the table below.  The figures come from the eHealthme site which records and summarises the Adverse Drug Reports submitted by doctors to the FDA and SEDA.  The effects and figures are only for the USA as this system is USA based.  Figures as at January 2016.

The link takes you to the eHealthme site where more details of the side-effects can be found

Drug name	No of hallucinations
Aciphex	70
Dexilant	6
Kapidex [trade name for Dexilant]	2
Dexlansoprazole [trade name for Dexilant]	2
Nexium	406
Esomaprazole [generic name for Nexium]	21
Omeprazole	607
Omeprazole magnesium	2
Prilosec [trade name for Omeprazole]	437
Zegerid [trade name for Omeprazole]	4
Pantoprazole	157
Pantoprazole sodium	58
Protonix [trade name for Pantoprazole]	300
Lansoprazole	227
Prevacid [trade names for above]	293
Prevcpac [ditto]	4
Rabeprazole	59
Rabeprazole sodium	56
TOTAL	2,711

Related observations

Hallucination

• Aciphex 015632
• Anaphylaxis to drugs 025498
• Dexilant 018863
• Esomeprazole 017590
• Kapidex 019232
• Nexium 017591
• Omeprazole 017592
• Pantoprazole 015648
• Prevacid and Lansoprazole 015669
• Prevpac 019859
• Prilosec 015671
• Protonix 015678
• Rabeprazole and Rabeprazole sodium 015687
• Serotonergic or Anticholinergic Toxidrome: Case Report of a 9-Year-Old Girl 020086
• Zegerid 020393

In time

Synaesthesia, Pure or enhanced perception, Inter composer communication, Vision, Dream, Perception recall, Exploring group perception

• Danielou, Alain – On drugs you are possessed by the spirit being of the drug 022582