Millions of people use blood thinners such as aspirin to help prevent strokes and heart attacks. But those drugs can irritate the stomach, so patients also take acid blockers.
The combined use of these drugs has been very controversial because some say the stomach drugs weaken the effects of the blood thinners.
The FDA issued a warning about their combined use in 2009.
Now, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that acid blockers reduced the unwanted side effects of blood thinners without decreasing their effectiveness.
But there are other studies that found an elevated risk of cardiovascular events. So the issue is far from settled.
