With the number of Taiwanese suffering from gastroesophageal reflux and gastric ulcers on the rise, the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) yesterday released research that shows people who take a common drug used to treat those conditions face a fivefold risk of experiencing gastrointestinal infections.
The research team analyzed the National Health Insurance (NHI) records of about 73,000 people from 2000 to 2010 and discovered that those who took proton pump inhibitors (PPI) — which work to reduce the amount of stomach acid — within a year had a 4.39 times higher chance of suffering from salmonella infections than those who did not take the drug.
“Their likelihood was reduced to 3.2 times the risk faced by their non-prescription counterparts after they stopped taking the medicine for a week,” National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology researcher Kuo Shu-chen (郭書辰) told a news conference in Taipei.
“If they stayed away from the drug for one month or longer, their chance of being infected with salmonella bacteria became similar to that of individuals without the inhibitor,” he said.
People who were prescribed another stomach acid inhibitor known as H2-receptor antagonists also faced a 1.84 times greater risk of salmonella infections, he said.
The increased risk of intestinal infections was the result of the drugs reducing gastric acid secretions, as the acid creates a hostile environment for bacteria, Kuo said.
About 4,000 people are hospitalized with salmonella infections in Taiwan annually, Kuo said, making it the most common intestinal infections in the nation.
Symptoms of salmonella infections include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fever appearing six to 48 hours after being infected.
People taking gastric acid inhibitors should pay close attention to their diet and avoid consuming contaminated water and undercooked or raw foods, Kuo said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching