Drugs for stomach acid increase your chance of catching the C.difficile bug, one of the most common cases of diarrhea.
Stomach acid is one of the body’s natural defences against the bug, but antihistamine drugs reduce the levels so that infection becomes much more likely, especially in hospitals and care homes.
The risk seems to be restricted to prescription antihistmaines, say researchers from the Mayo Clinic, and the over-the-counter preparations don’t appear to have the same effects.
(Source: PLoS One, 2013; 8: e56498).
