taking a risk without deriving any benefit.”
But an expert not involved in the study said it’s unclear whether PPIs, themselves, are responsible for the higher death rates.
Dr. Lawrence Kim is a member of the American Gastroenterological Association’s governing board. He said the current study, like others before it, is “observational” – that is, it used medical records to track patients’ outcomes.
Those types of studies cannot prove cause and effect, Kim said. There may be other explanations for the higher risks seen among PPI users.
In 2017, Kim said, the gastroenterological association published a review of the research into the issue.
“The report concluded that the evidence supporting all of these risks was low- to very-low quality,” he said. “Therefore, there’s insufficient evidence to conclude that these adverse outcomes are likely to be an effect of the PPI therapy.”
PPIs work by blocking the enzyme system that creates stomach acid. They are commonly