某些胃藥可能增加心肌梗死的風險
Heartburn Drugs Linked to Heart Attacks
某些胃藥可能增加心肌梗死的風險
The widely used drugs known as proton pump inhibitors, or P.P.I.'s — gastric reflux preventives like Prilosec and Prevacid — may increase the risk for heart attack, according to analysis of data involving almost three million people.
一項涉及近300萬人的數據的分析顯示，目前廣泛用於預防胃反流的藥物——質子泵抑制劑（proton pump inhibitors, P.P.I.，如奧美拉唑和蘭索拉唑等）可能會增加心肌梗死的風險。
Previous studies have found that P.P.I.'s are associated with poor outcomes for people with heart disease, probably because of an interaction with clopidogrel, a drug commonly prescribed after a heart attack. This new study examines the heart attack risk in otherwise healthy people.
既往研究發現，P.P.I.與心臟病患者預後不良相關，這可能是因爲它會與心肌梗死後的常用處方藥氯吡格雷發生藥物相互作用。而上面提到的這項新研究則分析了健康人中的心肌梗死風險。
The researchers used data-mining, a mathematical method of looking at trends in large amounts of data, to analyze the use of the drugs over time. Evidence that they were increasing the risk for heart attack was clear as early as 2000.
研究人員使用了數據挖掘，也就是一種從大量數據中尋找趨勢的數學方法來分析藥物使用隨時間的變化。研究結果表明，早在2000年，這類藥物會增加心機梗死風險的證據就已經十分明顯。
"This is the kind of analysis now possible because electronic medical records are widely available," said the lead author, Nigam H. Shah, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford. "It's a benefit of the electronic records system that people are always talking about."
"是電子病歷的廣泛使用才使得這樣的分析成爲可能，"該研究的主要作者，斯坦福大學(Stanford)的醫學助理教授尼加姆·H·沙阿(Nigam H. Shah)說。"這是電子病歷系統爲人津津樂道的優點之一。"
There was no association of heart attack with another class of drugs used to treat gastric reflux, H2 blockers like Zantac, Tagamet and Pepcid. The researchers suggest that P.P.I.'s promote inflammation and clots by interfering with the actions of protective enzymes.
治療胃反流的另一類藥物——H2受體拮抗劑/阻滯劑（如甲胺呋硫、泰胃美和法莫替丁等）則與心機梗死無相關性。研究人員認爲，P.P.I.會促進炎症和血栓是因爲它可干擾保護酶的活動。
A significant limitation of the study, in PLOS One, is that P.P.I. usage may be a marker of a sicker patient population, more subject to heart disease in any case.
不過，這項發表在《公共科學圖書館：綜合》雜誌上的研究也存在着顯著的侷限性：使用P.P.I.可能是病情較重的患者人羣的一個標誌，這些人本來就更容易患心臟病。
