ANTACIDS AND OSTEOPOROSIS
Aluminum-containing antacids, if used regularly, tend to cause extensive loss of calcium and phosphorus from the body, thereby seriously weakening the bones. X-rays of a 60-year-old woman with limb pains and excessive weakness revealed that her bones had lost so much density that they were scarcely able to support her tissues. Her osteoporosis, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association (244:2544), was due to the long-term daily use of an antacid containing aluminum hydroxide.
Antacids that contain aluminum, Archives of Internal Medicine (143:657) reports, can become a major factor in weakening the bones. However, since they do not produce any noticeable unpleasant side effects, people continue taking them for stomach pains and indigestion.
These drugs work by binding and neutralizing gastric acid. Unfortunately, they also bind with and prevent the absorption of phosphoric acid, which is then carried away in the stools. To compensate the body for this, the bones release some phosphorus into the bloodstream, together with the calcium with which it was bound. This calcium is quickly carried away through the kidneys.
In this way, aluminum antacids taken year after year can deplete the skeleton of calcium and phosphorus and cause thinning and weakness of all the bones. This results in fractures occurring in response to only trivial trauma, and to pseudofractures, a condition in which bones crack but do not break completely, causing weakness, pain, and stiffness that are often mistaken for arthritis.
Doctors, more and more, are becoming aware of this danger, but aluminum-containing antacids are still widely prescribed and can be purchased without prescription. The trouble is that it takes years for the cumulative bad effects of repeated doses to show up and, later in life, people tend to accept bone pain and fractures as a natural effect of aging.
To compensate for this danger, the Archives recommends, we should take extra calcium and phosphorus when using medications that contain aluminum or, better still, take stomach medicines that are aluminum-free. Aluminum, remember, poses other serious threats as well (see, for example, the articles on Alzheimer’s Disease). One of the least expensive and most readily available forms of calcium in tablet form is the antacid Tums. Before purchasing an antacid, read the list of ingredients on the labeling. The pharmacist can tell you about products that are aluminum-free.
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