Records of 4,830 chronic alcoholics were examined for the study to assess their risk for a diagnosis of alcoholic liver disease over 10 years. For the 1,024 active PPI users, the risk was 20.7 percent. For the 745 who had previously used proton pump inhibitors, the risk declined to 16.1 percent. And for the 3,061 who had never used PPIs, the risk fell to 12.4 percent.