Lewy Body Disease and Prilosec OTC

[Patient4Life]

Prilosec

Prilosec OTC works by directly blocking many of the active stomach pumps that produce acid before they start. Prilosec OTC is a proton pump inhibitor (PPI). The way the active ingredient in Prilosec OTC works to fight heartburn sets it in a whole separate class from other treatments such as histamine blockers or antacids.

Why is this statement significant for patients with Lewy Body Disease? (LBD) Because this OTC signals the brain to turn off the proton pump in the stomach. Apparently for LBD patients, changing brain signals pushes the patients into the disease. My sister related this information to me. She would attend an LBD support group for my mother.

And this information from LBDA.org:

Dementia and antacids linked

But they also inhibit the brain's cholinergic system, which is involved in memory and cognition. Low levels of cholinergic activity have previously been linked to dementia.

Widely Used Heartburn Drugs Tied to Dementia Risk

A popular class of heartburn medications might raise a senior's risk of dementia, a new study suggests.

Called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), this group of drugs includes Prilosec, Nexium and Prevacid. They work by lowering the amount of acid produced by the stomach.

Setting the record straight: PPIs do not cause Dementia

This research directly responds to a 2016 pharmacoepidemiologic analysis conducted using a large German health insurance database, which identified an association between dementia and long-term PPI use; however, these findings could not illustrate that PPIs caused dementia. Despite the attention this article received at the time, AGA expressed its concerns on this research at the time of publication.

And, because LBD is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's or just "dementia", I suspect this only happens with LBD patients. Again, it does not cause LBD but impacts and accelerates it.