For the study, researchers examined health data on more than 500,000 people collected in a database in Tayside, Scotland. Individuals living in the community who took the acid suppression medications displayed a 1.7-times and 3.7-times higher risk for C. diff and Campylobacter, respectively. Among hospitalized patients, the risk increase was 1.4 times and 4.5 times higher for patients exposed to the medications than for patients not.
“Users of these medications should be particularly vigilant about food hygiene as the removal of stomach acid makes them more easily infected with agents such as Campylobacter, which is commonly found on poultry,” said study author Thomas MacDonald, MD, a professor of clinical pharmacology and pharmacoepidemiology at the University of Dundee in Scotland.
According to the CDC, C. diff caused approximately half a million infections in 2011. Among those infected, 29,000 died within 30 days of the initial diagnosis.
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