Those taking popular prescription heartburn drugs - Prilosec, Prevacid and Nexium - seem more prone to getting diarrhea caused by the bug Clostridium difficile.
C-diff, as it's known, can cause severe diarrhea and crampy intestinal inflammation, called colitis.
Dr. Sandra Dial and colleagues at McGill University in Montreal examined data on over 18,000 patients in the United Kingdom from 1994 to 2004.
In that time, 1,672 cases of C-diff were diagnosed, and the numbers increased from less than 1 per 100,000 in 1994 to 22 per 100,000 last year.
Patients with prescriptions for powerful acid-fighters called proton pump inhibitors, including Prilosec and Prevacid, were almost three times more likely to be diagnosed with the bug than those not taking the drugs.
Those on less potent prescription drugs called H2 receptor antagonists, which include Pepcid and Zantac, were twice as likely than nonusers to get C-diff infections.
The widely used, heavily advertised drugs reduce levels of gastric acid that can keep C-diff germs under control.
Doctors think the increased trend is due in part to overuse of antibiotics but the new data suggest overuse of acid-fighting drugs may be another reason.
Dr. Michael Brown, a gastroenterologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, who was not involved in the study, says the drugs prove popular because they are effective at fighting stomach acid, and are generally very safe.
