Proton Pump Inhibitors: What You Need To Know

I firmly believe that you’ll never get rid of acid reflux by taking a proton pump inhibitor.

There are several PPIs on the market – omeprazole, lansoprazole, and Prilosec are a few examples. Millions of people take these drugs every single day, and sometimes for decades.

When I first met my father-in-law years ago, he had a whole line of 15 bottles of anti-acid medication in his garage.

What did we have for dinner that night? Well, my father-in-law had huge pieces of pork, and he ate all the fat that went with it, like big chunks of fat. And, then he had several cups of coffee with two or three teaspoons of sugar in each cup, along with lots of cookies. He would be sitting there, moaning about his stomach all the time.

To me, it’s almost like having a gun and shooting your foot, not understanding the source of the pain. I think it’s crazy. You can’t keep taking medication for a chronic problem like that without expecting something terrible to happen.

Further readings:

I just looked at the Harvard website, where they said that they’re cautioning people about prolonged use of a proton pump inhibitor. In my opinion, you should be concerned about using a PPI for any longer than a week.

When you take a PPI, you inhibiting the ability of the stomach to secrete acid. Now, the stomach isn’t functioning correctly.

It would be like me putting it a brick under the gas pedal. Next thing, you’re driving, and you put your foot down, “Man, this car, what’s wrong with it? It’s not going. It’s just sitting here, you know? And, I can’t get it up to 50 miles an hour. All I can do is 10 miles an hour. What’s wrong?” Well, it’s the brick.

In the case of your stomach, the PPI is the brick. You’re creating a problem. You’ll end up with hip fractures because you’re not getting calcium absorption. You’ll have magnesium deficiency leading to circulatory dysfunction, heart attacks, and strokes. I think even dementia has been linked to PPIs.

Many chronic diseases are linked to prolonged use of PPI drugs. These drugs are dangerous over the longterm. Some doctors are even encouraging people to discontinue their PPI.

You’ll never get rid of reflux disease using PPI because you’re not addressing the underlying cause.

Turn off the pizza, turn off the beer. Turn off the taking lots of aspirin for knee pain every day, whatever you’re doing.

A lot of my friends are medical doctors that do fantastic work with people, but they’re caught in the system. They can only spend five to ten minutes per patient – which isn’t enough time to review the lifestyle advice, which is key to addressing reflux disease.

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