Category: Health and Fitness

Proton Pump Inhibitors Linked To Kidney Disease

This is the article from MSN – Medical Daily

Taking OTC Meds For Heartburn, Acid Reflux May Just Lead To Other Problems

Common over-the-counter acid reflux and heartburn medications may be causing kidney failure in its users.

Every year, doctors prescribe medications to patients who complain of heartburn, acid reflux, or ulcers, and roughly 15 million Americans are given a class of drugs that can cause some serious, long-term damage to their kidneys. Researchers at the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System and Washington University in Saint Louis zeroed in on proton pump inhibitors (PPI), one of the most widely sold and over-prescribed drugs in the world, to not only confirm from previous findings that it leads to kidney disease, but that it also led to renal failure at an alarming rate.

The results emphasize the importance of limiting PPI use only when it is medically necessary, and also limiting the duration of use to the shortest duration possible,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, in a statement. “A lot of patients start taking PPIs for a medical condition, and they continue much longer than necessary.”

For the study, researchers selected 173,321 new users of PPIs, 20,270 new users of histamine H2 receptor blockers, which are in another class of medications that are also used as an acid suppressing regimen. They spent five years following up with the patients, who were selected from the Department of Veterans Affairs national databases. Their findings, published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, reveal PPIs have the propensity to increase the risk of chronic kidney disease by 28 percent and developing kidney failure by 96 percent. They found the longer the patients took the drugs, the greater they put themselves at risk for kidney damage.

Recently, researchers from Johns Hopkins University published a study in JAMA ’s February 2016 edition that found the same risk exists between PPI use and chronic kidney disease. Not only do the results from Al-Aly and his team confirm the cause-and-effect between PPI use and chronic kidney disease, but they took their study a step further and found the medication also drastically increases the risk of developing kidney failure. To make matters worse, PPIs are also available over the counter.

“You or I could go to Walgreens or CVS and get Prilosec or other PPI medication over the counter and it has the same risks as prescription,” Al-Aly told Medical Daily. “We all assume that what we get over the counter is absolutely safe, I don’t have to worry about it because the FDA must have done their due diligence. But we’re finding with these medicines there is quite a negative effect and it should not be ignored, cannot be ignored.”

Medications like Prilosec put users at an elevated risk for developing kidney disease and renal failure. © Photo courtesy of Mario Villafuerte/ Getty Images Medications like Prilosec put users at an elevated risk for developing kidney disease and renal failure. PPIs are a relatively new class of drug with highly limited long-term studies until now. Previously, patients with acid reflux relied on H2 blockers for acid reflux, however PPI drugs were seen as the more powerful and effective option for treating acid reflux. PPI drugs can be both prescribed and purchased over the counter — in strengths that both cause the same level of damage to the kidneys. Researchers recommend PPIs should be avoided, especially when acid reflux or the like can easily be treated with kidney-safe H2 blockers.

“Since PPI inhibitors are associated with this effect but the H2 blockers are not, I think that’s a useful control and gives legitimacy to the finding,” Dr. David Goldfarb, the clinical chief of nephrology and professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, told Medical Daily. “When they are able to look at another group of drugs used for similar indication and see that they don’t demonstrate an effect on kidney function; that makes their findings incredible.”

Researchers aren’t quite sure why PPIs have such a negative effect on the user’s kidneys. Al-Aly and his research team can only speculate it may have to do with patients who were at a higher level of risk because they had acute kidney injury or interstitial nephritis, which is inflammation of the kidney tubules, both of which could lead to renal failure.

“This is really the subject of ongoing investigation now so I cannot determine definitively. We’re just scratching the surface here,” Al-Aly said. “Next, we need to determine if there are any genetic markers that could predispose a patient to kidney disease progression with PPI use.”

Source: Al-Aly Z, Xie Y, Li T, and Balasubramanian S. Proton Pump Inhibitors and Risk of Incident and Progression of Chronic Kidney Disease and ESRD . Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 2016.

I’m not sure why it states in the article that PPI drugs are a relatively new class of drug, because I’ve been taking Prilosec or the generic version of it for about 20 years.  However, I’m not at all surprised about it’s “highly limited long term study”  It’s about money people! 

Honestly, who can you trust?

Trust yourself, do the research, buy organic, eat clean and eat real food.  Read labels, make sure it’s ingredients you can pronounce and understand and keep it to five or less ingredients.

Cook your own food as much as possible, and buy foods as local and with as little packaging as possible.

I hear people all the time saying organic is so much more expensive.  My response to that is you’re either going to pay for it now or pay for it later with poor health and medical bills. 

We have got to get off of these medicines, NOW!

You can follow along with my “Weaning Off Of Omeprazole” by clicking on the Omeprazole tag and it will take you to all of the post detailing the process I’m using. 

Take Care, Friends!

Lori

 

April Goals and Little Balls

It’s time to start thinking about April’s goals.  As I mentioned in a previous post a group of friends and I set goals for ourselves each month.  Monthly goals for me are easier to focus on rather than 3 or 4 or 12 goals for the entire year all made on January 1st, which are usually forgotten about and / or given up on by the end of March.

My big goal or resolution if you will for 2016 was to quit smoking.  I had also set a smaller goal to get some exercise in to try and offset the 20# “quit” gain.  So far so good with those goals.  And on a side note, I have to admit that the smell of cigarette smoke disgust me so much now that it’s hard for me to believe that I ever smoked.  How cool is that?

My April challenge / goal is to kick the Omeprazole.  If you’ve been reading my blog then you know I started my April challenge in March.  But I’ll be refining it in April to include daily exercise, keeping a food journal of what I can and can’t eat, when I can and can’t eat, and slowly lowering the dose of the medicine.

All the research that I’ve done so far indicates that there really isn’t one diet that fits all, especially in this area of trying to heal the gut and prevent GERD.  There are many different opinions out there about what foods to eat and what foods not to eat.   But one thing that does seem consistent in the research is eating habits that will help.  Such as smaller portions, eat less but a little more frequent, drink plenty of water, but don’t drink beverages with your meals, go for a little walk after your meals if you can, and don’t eat 2 to 3 hours before going to bed.  Also there is a consensus that there are specific triggers for GERD and should be avoided.  Chocolate, Alcohol, Mint, Coffee, Caffeine and Smoking.

There is a lot of information out there on different ways of lowering the Omeprazole dosage.  This is what I’ve done.  Each of my capsules is 40mg which has approximately 190 to 200 microscopic little pain in the ass to count balls in them.

Yes, I did that, I opened a capsule and counted the little microscopic balls of one pill and decided that it would be a fair assumption that every pill would have the same number of balls in them.  Think about that for a minute.    You probably have the same look on your face that the Z Man was giving me.  That side eye look like “what the hell is she doing now”

Anyway… I removed 50 of the little microscopic little balls and closed the capsule back up.  Then I repeated this process for 6 more pills.   See where I’m going with this?  This is what I have in mind….

  • 3/27 – 4/2  capsule with 150 little balls
  • 4/3 – 4/9  capsule with 125 little balls
  • 4/10 – 4/16  capsule with 100 little balls
  • 4/17 – 4/23  capsule with 75 little balls
  • 4/24 – 4/30 capsule with 50 little balls
  • 5/1 – 5/7  I will take a capsule with 50 little balls in it every other day.  Then DONE!

And I am fully aware that after I’ve counted out all these microscopic little balls for a month that I will probably be in need of some other form of medication for my insanity, but hey, we’ll cross that bridge then.

So, that’s my challenge for April.  I’m going to be playing with a lot of little balls all month.  WOW, did I really just type that?

What’s you April challenge going to be?

Till Next Time,

Lori

 

 

 

Homestead Life

It has taken me a while to get comfortable with thinking of us as homesteaders.  The reason I suppose is because we both still work outside the home for our income, we also rely on electricity, gas and other technologies to live our daily lives.  I am writing a blog and taking pictures with a smart phone, lap top and sometimes even a tablet.  I have a hard time considering those things “homestead” materials.  But that just goes to show that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

People sometimes ask if we are preppers in a tone that is to assume we are in some way preparing for a zombie apocalypse.  That’s the all or nothing way of thinking.  I think if we felt like we had to do any of this (to be prepared for something) it would take the joy out of it for us.

It’s really just a simple matter of the Z Man and I wanting to live a better life, eat “real” food and get away from all the consumerism, the waste and the Jones’s lifestyle.  We plant our gardens thinking about what we like to eat and how much we will need to get us through until next years planting season.  It’s really just for the food, that’s it.

And, I have to say that after listening to Michael Pollan’s book on cd  The Omnivore’s Dilemma and watching his television series Cooked, I have a new and better perspective of how I want to live and what I want to put in my body.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to hear what he has to say, then you really should.  It puts things in a very different perspective.

Here are a few of the things we do mainly because we like saving money.

 

  • We raise two good size gardens every year
  • We “put up” (canning, freezing or preserving) those garden harvests
  • We have chickens
  • We raise pigs (for food) and process them ourselves
  • We cook most all of our meals from scratch
  • We heat our home with a wood stove from wood that the Z Man cuts and chops himself
  • We fix or recycle as much and as often as we can
  • We use a clothes line to dry our clothes
  • We prefer to live a simple life
  • We spend less than we earn and we save as much as we can
  • We do our best not to waste
  • We reuse, repurpose and recycle
  • We often barter for services or goods when we can

 

No we don’t have a huge plot of land and we do pay a mortgage for the couple of acres we live on.  But, to be able do these things and live a simple life you don’t have to have acres and acres of land farming large plots of grains or livestock.  Homesteading is a lifestyle.  We try to live life as much as possible by the things we can do for ourselves.  There are no specific requirements to do that, other than to try to be as self sustainable as possible.  I said a simple life, that doesn’t mean “easy life”

 

We are looking forward to Spring.  Hopefully the weather will let up a bit because it has been a very wet fall and winter and the ground is saturated.  But with the first warm, dry days we will be playing in the dirt, getting the pig pen ready and hopefully starting our bee hives.  I’m really looking forward to that.

If this lifestyle that makes us happy also makes us homesteaders then I’m good with that.

Till Next Time,

Lori

 

 

Week Three, Done! And a Funny!

Week three is done.  Thanks to 10 days of the flu for the Z Man and I, I had no trouble abstaining from wine.   But, week three is done and I’m glad the flu is done too!

My husband, the Z Man is absolutely hands down the funniest person I know, or have ever known.  It’s “one” of the reasons I fell madly in love with him.  I don’t remember a day that he has not made me smile.  It just comes natural for him to find the lighter side of life and that is a beautiful quality.

Since I’ve been taking a break from wine, I’ve been finding different beverages to sip on, like the grape juice spritzer.  And, here lately, I’ve been sipping on a cup of chamomile tea before bed.

Last night I asked the Z Man if he would like a cup of chamomile tea, and his response was…

No, I don’t want any “camel milk”

REALLY?  SERIOUSLY???  I couldn’t stop laughing.

He honestly thought I was drinking camel milk.

Now, to his credit, I have brought some crazy things into our kitchen in the past.  But, he was not going to partake of any camel milk, NO WAY!

At least now I know where he draws the line.

Take care,

Lori