The over-the-counter acid reflux treatment medication Nexium and stomach cancer have been linked in a recently released study.

The goal of the study’s investigation was to figure out just what role long-term use of Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) like Nexium played in the development of gastric cancer when the presence of a common stomach bacteria known as H. Pylori was removed.

H. Pylori is without a doubt a precursor to many ulcerative conditions and stomach cancer as well.

Eliminating H. Pylori from the system reduces the risk of gastric cancer significantly—although it can reside asymptomatically in many people.

According to a recent article posted on Medical News Today, it colonizes the stomachs of about 2/3 of the global population. Also, people without the bacterium can and do develop stomach cancer.

The study was undertaken at the University of Hong Kong’s Department of medicine and involved 63,397 people over the age of majority.

The enrollees were first treated for seven days with a PPI and two different antibiotics with the aim of killing off any systemic H. Pylori. In an effort to tease out the link between Nexium and stomach cancer, the participants were followed for close to eight years.

Nexium and Stomach Cancer

After the elimination of H. Pylori through the seven-day triple treatment, researchers separated participants into two groups in an effort to tease out the reason that PPIs like Nexium and stomach cancer had been linked. Other research had pinpointed this connection, but with the bacterium in the picture, it was difficult to determine which was which in terms of disease causation—H. Pylori or PPIs.

According to the article, 3,271 enrollees took PPIs for an average of three years after H. Pylori elimination while another 21,729 enrollees used a different type of over-the-counter acid reflux treatment known as H2 blockers. Examples of H2 blockers are Pepcid AC and Tagamet.

Of the entire block of participants, 153 people developed gastric cancer despite triple treatment. It was discovered that taking PPIs like Nexium and stomach cancer development were connected by more than twice the risk factor than that of taking H2 blockers.

It was also found that frequency of PPI use had an effect. If you took a PPI four times a week instead of once a week, it was determined that your likelihood of getting gastric cancer would be four times that of the weekly taker.

Additionally, risk factors for use of PPIs, Nexium and stomach cancer increased with length of treatment with a fivefold risk factor for one year, sixfold for two years and reaching eightfold by the third completed year.

Prof. W. K. Leung that headed up the University of Hong Kong study feels that the take away from it should be that personal physicians should be cautionary when prescribing or encouraging a patient to take PPIs.

They should steer them towards determining the source of the problem—excess weight, intolerance to certain foods—rather than giving them the green light to merely suppress the acid reflux symptom through PPI use. Also, steering patients toward what appears to be the safer alternative—H2 blockers—is a next best option.