Kidney injuries from PPI use were first brought to the attention of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2011, with the agency finally requiring warnings about the risks on PPI drug labels in 2014, according to legal news wire Law360.
However, it was a scientific study released in 2016 that lent strong support to the claims of PPI kidney side effects among users of the drugs.
The study examined 200,000 patients over the course of five years of treatment and found a 20 percent higher risk of kidney disease in those who took PPIs compared with those treated with H2 blockers like Pepcid AC and Zantac, which are a different class of heartburn drugs, according to Consumer Reports. Chronic kidney disease is life-threatening because it causes a gradual shutdown of kidneys, which could leave the sufferer having to use dialysis or get a kidney transplant. The research wasn't clear why PPIs were potentially dangerous to kidneys, just that they could be.
The risk of increased heart disease is also a cause for concern. According to a 2015 study of three million people conducted by Stanford and the Houston Methodist Research Institute, there was a 15 percent higher risk of heart attack among PPI users.
PPIs are also associated with a 44 percent increase in the risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia over seven years, according to a study of more than 70,000 people aged 75 and older that was published in 2015 in JAMA Neurology.
Furthermore, a study published in July 2017 by British Medical Journal Open suggested the potential for a 25 percent increase in early death from any cause among PPI users, according to CNN.