Medical Science. Does one hand know what the other is doing? Aspirin and PPI drugs - the implication for patients.

Medical science is a wonderful thing, we are told. It provides us with the evidence base that underpins conventional medicine. It tells our doctors whether a drug or vaccine is effective. It informs us when conventional medicine is unsafe for patients.

Or does it? Consider these two pieces of recent news, straight from medical science!

The first concerns aspirin, and has been covered by the mainstream media. For instance, the BBC headline, 14th June 2017, said:

               "People over 75 taking daily aspirin after a stroke or heart attack are at higher risk of major - and sometimes fatal - stomach bleeds than previously thought, research in the Lancet shows."

This seems clear enough, although you might ask why the mainstream media is carrying a 'bad news' story about pharmaceutical drugs. The reason is simple. Medical science has made it into a 'good news' story, and the media as usual has merely parroted the transformation. These are the BBC's next sentences,

               "Scientists say that, to reduce these risks, older people should also take stomach-protecting PPI pills. But they insist aspirin has important benefits - such as preventing heart attacks - that outweigh the risks. And they warn that stopping aspirin suddenly can be harmful."

So that's alright again. If one drug is dangerous, take another one at the same time! And, as usual, the benefits outweigh the risks! And don't stop taking the drug, even if it is harmful, because stopping taking the harmful drug is also harmful. Okay? Does that all make sense? In essence we are being told:

• Pharmaceutical drugs may be harmful, but another drug will reduce the harm it causes!
• Pharmaceutical drugs may be harmful, but the benefits still outweigh the risks!
• It may be harmful taking pharmaceutical drugs, but it is also harmful stopping taking them!

However, there is worse! Another piece of medical science has recently led to new guidance being given to our doctors. This advice concerns PPI (proton pump) drugs, widely used by millions of people for indigestion, acid reflux, and other stomach complaints. And, of course, for people taking their daily aspirin! You may not have heard about this new advice on the mainstream media, the reason being simple, it constitutes 'bad' news, and as yet there has been no attempt to spin it into something good! You can read it here, in the doctors e-magazine, Pulse (4th July 2017), in an article entitled "GPs should ‘limit use and duration’ of PPIs". This is what it says,

               "Prescribers should be more vigilant about only prescribing PPIs when necessary as they are associated with increased risk of death, according to a new study. The observational study found that there was a heightened risk of death in patients taking PPIs compared to patients taking other drugs that reduce the amount of stomach acid produced, such as H2 blockers, leading researchers to suggest that doctors should be more selective about who they prescribe the drugs to."

So, thanks to medical science, the picture now seems much clearer (sic), and it goes something like this. 

• Patients are asked by their doctors to take aspirin in order to avoid a stroke or heart attack.
• Unfortunately, aspirin may cause fatal heart bleeds.
• So to protect again these fatal heart bleeds, we are told to keep taking the aspirin, but in addition to take PPI drugs too!
• However, PPI drugs also heightens the risk of death!

So what will our doctors do? Are they conflicted? Are they confused? Well, they have certainly been warned by medical science!

               "The findings in our study highlight a potential excess risk of death among users of PPI, and in particular among cohort participants without gastrointestinal comorbidities, and that risk is increased with prolonged duration of PPI exposure."

Yet once again a 'scientific' study that has linked a pharmaceutical drug to patient harm comes with a warning that the patient should not stop taking the harmful drug. 

               "Although our results should not deter prescription and use of PPI where medically indicated, they may be used to encourage and promote pharmacovigilance and emphasise the need to exercise judicious use of PPI and limit use and duration of therapy to instances where there is a clear medical indication and where benefit outweighs potential risk."

So now, older people over 75 years of age are taking two drugs, both of them dangerous, all in order to prevent them having a stroke or heart attack. So perhaps there is a third drug available, to counteract the dangers caused by PPI drugs? Watch this space! I will tell you about it as soon as I hear!

Yet surely it is good that our doctors now know that there is an inconsistency here. The Pulse article points out the inconsistencies of what are doctors are being asked to do,

               "The findings come as research published in June suggested that GPs should be co-prescribing PPIs in patients taking daily aspirin to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal bleeds in the elderly."

Pulse does not suggest a solution, and the GP comments at the foot of the Pulse article indicates that they are as conflicted and confused about the situation as medical science. "So many confounders here", says one. Another is more dismissive, "people who drink fluids and eat solids have a risk of death". Another goes further, "everything has a risk. Let us not eat, breath or walk, one might get cancer, from food and PM2.5 particles, or one might slip and fall". One might, indeed! But eating, drinking and breathing is not a voluntary action, like taking a dangerous drug! Another doctor appears more phlegmatic, "I would have thought this would be good news? Cut polypharmcy, cut expense, cut workload, cut risk.... why are we moaning?" And yet another doctor believes that if patients had to pay for their drugs the situation would be different. 

              "Any Drug prescribed will be taken only when necessary ONLY WHEN PATIENTS PAY FOR IT. When everybody is charged for medications, patient will ask doctors DO I REALLY HAVE TO TAKE IT? IS IT A MUST? At current rate of 89 % public not paying for medications, no matter of how much we telling people will work."

So even doctors are telling us we should not be taking the drugs! But doctors continue to prescribe them. Perhaps it might help if the mainstream media, and the conventional medical establishment, including our doctors, began to tell patients about the real harm done by the drugs and vaccines, we would all be better able to make an informed choice!

Aspirin causes gastrointestinal bleeding, so the solution is to take PPI drugs which cause .... and so it goes on!

Medical Research scientists at Oxford University have studied over 3,000 patients over 75 years taking anti-platelet drugs, notably aspirin, over a 10-year period. More than 300, that is, 10%, were taken to hospital for gastrointestinal bleeding. They concluded that the overall risk of developing serious bleeding was 10 times higher, which they concluded was "at least as likely to be disabling or fatal" as another stroke. The research was published in the Lancet yesterday, 13th June 2017, "Age-specific risks, severity, time course, and outcome of bleeding on long-term antiplatelet treatment after vascular events: a population-based cohort study".

The research estimated that between 40–66% of adults aged 75 years or older in the USA and Europe take daily aspirin, or another anti platelet drug. Aspirin is known to increase the risk of major gastrointestinal bleeding. Indeed conventional medicine has known this for decades, and this is not the first time medical science has proved it! So what is new? Nothing really. This research proves that aspirin causes more bleeding in more older people than was previously thought!

What this demonstrates is that it takes the conventional medical establishment a long time to work out the damage caused by pharmaceutical drugs! Aspirin was first patented as a drug in 1889, nearly 130 years ago, so it might have been hoped, even expected, that by now they might by now realise the full extent of the damage it is causing to patients. Clearly they do not!

It is proof, if proof is really needed, that conventional medicine is happy to provide patients with dangerous drugs, for a century and more, without fully realising just how dangerous they are to human health!

Worse is the conclusion that the researchers drew from this new evidence. Aspirin may be dangerous, but the solution is not to stop taking it, but to take another pharmaceutical drug instead, PPI's or Proton Pump Inhibitor drugs. So are these drugs safe? Of course not. As my 'Why Homeopathy?' webpage outlines, PPI's are known to cause a host of serious problems - the superbug C.Diff, Pneumonia, Osteoporosis, Heart Attacks, Kidney damage, and dementia. And, of course, all these diseases are suffered particularly by older people!

So, out of the frying pan into the fire? Well, not really. Patients take them together. So they are both in the frying pan and the fire!

It must also be remembered that conventional medicine has been using Aspirin and PPI's together for many years. It is not new advice.  This is how the doctor's e-magazine, Pulse, puts it.

               "Current NICE guidance on NSAID prescribing already recommends co-prescription of PPIs in patients at increased risk of adverse GI effects, which includes those aged 65 or above. Despite this, such treatment is not routine and among the study participants just one third of patients were prescribed a PPI. Experts are now calling for guidance to be updated so that patients aged 75 or above on long-term anti-platelet therapy are routinely co-prescribed a PPI."

So this is another piece of medical science that clearly demonstrates harm but does absolutely nothing about it. Yet there is a further problem. If patients taking Aspirin need to take another drug to stop gastrointestinal bleeding, do they also need to take further drugs to prevent its other known side effects? This is not mentioned! But Aspirin is known to cause a whole host of other serious side effects. My blog "Aspirin. That nice, harmless painkiller, outlines the following information:

• Although used to prevent heart attacks and strokes Aspirin is known that aspirin actually doubles the risk.
• Aspirin is known to cause a variety of eyesight problems, from macular degeneration to blindness.
• Although aspirin is sometimes used to prevent cancer, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that it is actually linked to "a significantly increased risk of developing cancer".
• And one study, undertaken at the University of Florida and reported in the magazine WDDTY (What Doctor's Don't Tell You), showed that patients taking regular doses of aspirin increased their risk of dying by 47%.

So do patients need to guard against these side effects? There is silence on this! And so the conventional medical circus rolls on, apparently learning lots, but understanding little. Conventional medicine is a game of pretence - pretending to care about whether pharmaceutical drugs cause harm to patients, but when they discover that they do, doing little or nothing about it. The charade just carries on.

• "The drugs do more good than harm!" - but with precious little evidence of what good they actually do.
• "All medical treatment has side effects!" - a nonsense statement for anyone who knows about homeopathy, acupuncture and most every other forms of traditional or alternative medicine.

Heartburn (PPI) Drugs and Dementia

Proton pump inhibitors are 'heartburn' drugs that seeks to reduce acid in the stomach. Some PPI brand names are Nexium, Omeprazole, Prevadic, Prilosex, Pantoloc Control, and Zanprol, amongst many others. They are used to treat stomach and duodenum ulcers for short periods, and to remove bacteria called 'pylori' from the stomach to prevent and stomach cancer. But as with all conventional drugs that seek to 'inhibit' specific bodily functions, PPI drug only cause 'side effects' , in this case, an increase in other bacteria, particularly 'clostridium difficile', or 'C.Dif' which can cause serious, and sometime fatal enteritis.

Indeed, PPI drugs inhibit much more, and by interfering with normal body functions, are known cause more serious harm to normal cell functions.  Heartburn drugs have already been linked to an increased risk of heart attacks and bone fractures, and, of course, to C.difficile infections. But now they have been implicated in causing dementia.

A study, conducted at the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Bonn, and published in the journal JAMA Neurology, looked at 11 years of insurance data covering 74,000 people over the age of 75. It identified 29,510 patients who developed dementia during the study period, of which 2,950 regularly took PPI drugs. It was calculated that those who took PPIs increased their risk of dementia by 44% compared with those who had not taken the drugs. The researches concluded:

          "The avoidance of PPI medication may contribute to the prevention of dementia." 

Even the mainstream media has picked up on this link, including The Mail, The Express, and The Telegraph. But the study has received a hostile reception from the conventional medical establishment, who have attacked the study in order to protect their reputation. They have pointed out, correctly, that the results provide only a statistical association, and have mostly demanded that more focused trials investigating the link should conducted.

Foremost amongst these critics is the British NHS, in their article "Link between indigestion drugs and dementia 'inconclusive'." The article says that "the Mail's headline sounds scary, but is no cause for alarm. The research behind the story provides no strong reason to stop taking PPIs as prescribed."

So, for the conventional medical establishment, such as association, even with a disease as dreadful as dementia, is insufficient to ensure that prescription of the drug is stopped, pending investigation. Rather, it is assumed that drug is safe (and is given to patients) until such time as it is proven to be harmful or dangerous!
          "This study found people taking PPIs had a 44% higher risk of developing dementia in a seven-year period compared with those not taking the drugs. However, it's not accurate to say this was down to the PPIs – the study couldn't prove this, and there are many possible explanations."

Such is the 'health and safety' rules applying to all pharmaceutical drugs, according to the UKs NHS! First, first the drug has to be proven to be dangerous, by the 'correct' type of study, then once they believe it, theywe will start protecting patients! H&S representatives in any other industry would be overcome with apoploctic rage! And of course neither the British press, or the NHS, mentioned that PPI drugs have been implicated elsewhere!

• There is no mention, for instance, that PPI drugs have already been linked to other serious illness, including heart and kidney disease, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
• And there is no mention, anywhere, that there have been other studies that have linked heartburn drug with dementia!

One study, ‘Acid inhibitors may raise risk of developing dementia’, found that they may lead to confusion, delirium and dementia, and particularly that memory problems were seen in older black people, who were chronic users.

Another study, ‘Risk of dementia in elderly patients with the use of proton pump inhibitors’ assessed the association between the use of PPIs and the risk of dementia in older people. It found that patients receiving PPI drugs had a significantly increased risk of any dementia … and Alzheimer’s disease … compared with non-users. They concluded that

     “Due to the major burden of dementia on public health and the lack of curative medication, this finding is of  high interest to research on dementia and provides indication for dementia prevention”.

Yet another study, ‘Inappropriate prescribing of proton pump inhibitors in older patients: effects of an education strategy’ found that there was frequent prescribing of PPI drugs for older patients that was entirely inappropriate, and “independently associated with co-morbidities and dementia”.

Despite all this, until conventional medicine understands, and then accepts the mechanism linking the drug with reduced cognitive function, it is unlikely that doctors will stop prescribing them. The NHS has said so. Patients have been told, don't worry. All is well! And it is well known that millions of patients are taking these drugs, routinely and regularly, throughout the world. 

And, of course, we also know that there has been an epidemic of dementia in recent decades - an epidemic for which the conventional medical establishment has no explanation!