Acid Reflux Drugs Linked to Kidney Disease Risk

People taking protein pump inhibitors (PPIs) such as omeprazole (Prilosec), esomeprazole (Nexium) and lansoprazole (Prevacid) have a higher risk of developing kidney disease, a new study says.

Published in the Feb. 19 issue of “Scientific Reports,” the examination of the FDA Adverse Effect Reporting System (FAERS) database for unexpected consequences of PPI consumption was led by researchers from the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego.

Patients who took only PPIs were 28.4 times more likely to report chronic kidney disease and 35.5 times more likely to report end-stage renal disease than those taking histamine-2 receptor antagonists such as famotidine (Pepcid) and ranitidine (Zantac), the researchers found.

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Patients who took only PPIs reported a kidney-related adverse reaction at a frequency of 5.6%, compared to 0.7% for patients who took only histamine-2 receptor antagonists.