According to researchers in the U.S. millions of asthma patients taking the drug Nexium, (esomeprazole), or a similar drug are doing so unnecessarily.
Nexium made by drug company AstraZeneca was developed to treat acid reflux and has been widely prescribed for decades to relieve the symptoms of asthma.
But now scientists say Nexium which is a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), is not effective against asthma and does not reduce breathlessness and other symptoms.
A PPI is usually prescribed on the basis that there may be a link between stomach acid that backs up into the esophagus and poorly controlled asthma and because many asthma patients also have reflux.
The drugs first became available in the 1990s and they aim to control respiratory flare-ups in asthmatics for whom steroid therapy and other drugs have already failed.
But researchers at the Ohio State Medical Center's asthma center collected detailed health reports on 412 men and women with asthma symptoms despite drug therapy - half took daily doses of the most commonly used proton pump inhibitor -- 80 milligrams of esomeprazole (Nexium) -- while the rest received a placebo.
The volunteers had no better control over their asthma whether they were given the placebo pills or Nexium and the researchers say the longstanding practice of prescribing PPIs is "ineffective" and "unnecessarily expensive.
Dr. John Mastronarde who led the study says evidence suggests that proton-pump inhibitors should not be routinely prescribed for asthma symptoms if the patient does not have symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux and he believes the study results will change clinical practice and suspects the finding applies to all Nexium-type PPIs.