Heartburn Drug Linked to Bad Breath

If you take drugs like Prilosec or Prevacid to treat your chronic heartburn or acid reflux disease, you may end up with another unwanted problem -- bad breath.

New research reveals the class of medication that includes those drugs -- known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) -- is linked to halitosis or bad breath.

PPIs reduce the production of acid by blocking the enzyme in the wall of the stomach that produces acid.

Doctors in Brazil studied 23 adult patients with acid reflux disease (GERD) and 17 patients with indigestion. They found 39 percent of the GERD patients had bad breath, and in at least 75 percent of the cases, taking a PPI was one of the reasons. Also, 18 percent of indigestion patients had bad breath.