A new study suggests that people who use popular antacids to control stomach acidity may be at risk of serious vitamin deficiency, according to a Reuters report.

The study found out that people diagnosed with vitamin B12 deficiency were more likely to be taking proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) and histamine 2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs), popular drugs that treat acid reflux and peptic ulcers.

"This doesn't mean people should stop their medications," Dr. Douglas Corley, the study's senior author, and researcher and gastroenterologist at the Kaiser Permanent Division of Research, told Reuters. "People take these for good reasons. They improve quality of life and prevent disease."

"It does raise the question that people who are taking these medications should have their B12 levels checked," Corley added.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health said that the absence of vitamin B12 would make a person weak, tired, anemic, and constipated. The worse that could happen is that people who lack vitamin B12 might suffer nerve damage of dementia.

According to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, stomach acids help the human body absorb vitamin B12. However, PPIs and H2RAs limit the stomach's acid production. In other words, people who use popular antacid drugs have theoretically higher chance of suffering vitamin B12 deficiency.

Researchers of the new study compared nearly 26,000 records of residents of Northern California who were diagnosed with vitamin B12 deficiency between 1997 and 2011. The study also included people with healthy vitamin B12 levels who numbered nearly 185,000.

The researchers found 12 percent of those with deficient vitamin B12 had been using PPIs for at least two years. Another 4 percent had been using H2RAs for equally long periods.

"I think the study is interesting because we're becoming more and more aware that these drugs are being too widely prescribed," Dr. Peter Green, a professor of medicine and director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, told Reuters.