Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Infection

Spironolactone and increased mortality

Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology volume 9, page 3 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Patients with Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) who receive spironolactone have a twofold increased mortality rate compared with those who do not receive spironolactone.

These important and novel findings came about as a result of research into whether spironolactone (an antifibrotic medication that is very effective in patients with congestive heart failure) could have beneficial effects on intestinal fibrosis in the setting of IBD. Peter Higgins and colleagues found that spironolactone was effective at attenuating fibrosis in vitro. However, this agent caused rapid death in two rodent models of intestinal fibrosis. Given that spironolactone use is rare in patients with IBD, this finding led the researchers to investigate whether spironolactone therapy is associated with mortality in another common cause of inflammatory colitis—CDI.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Johnson, L. A. et al. Spironolactone and colitis: increased mortality in rodents and in humans. Inflamm. Bowel Dis. doi:10.1002/ibd.21929

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Isobel Franks
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Franks, I. Spironolactone and increased mortality. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 9, 3 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2011.242

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2011.242

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing