Gastric emptying of two radiolabelled antacids with simultaneous monitoring of gastric pH.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Antacids in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Continuous monitoring was started 1 h prior to the meal (baseline) and lasted 3 h (post-prandial, post-antacid and final periods).

The antacid capacity of labelled and unlabelled antacids was similar.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 16 volunteers were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, crossover and parallel-group.

Because people in this Antacids study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the volunteers nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Antacids, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Each person switched between Antacids and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

The Antacids group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

Intragastric pH was measured for at least 4 h, using ambulatory pH-metry with a dual-crystant antimony catheter.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Aluminum Hydroxide, Antacids, Drug Combinations, Gastric Acidity Determination, Gastric Emptying, Hydrogen-Ion Concentration and Magnesium Hydroxide.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and crossover study of Antacids in 16 volunteers.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The publication is from 1995 (European journal of nuclear medicine), a journal based in Germany.

More context: all human trials.