Breast
Cancer Linked to Antibiotic Use
From the February 18, 2004
issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA) comes an
alarming study that suggests that breast cancer is linked to the use of
antibiotics. Researchers pored over the medical records of thousands of
American women and found that those who took the drugs most often had
twice the risk of the disease.
Dr. John D. Potter,
director of the division of public health sciences at the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center in Seattle and an author of the report noted, "This
is potentially worrisome, but we don't know why this connection exists, we
only have an observation." He went on to qualify his findings by saying,
"At the moment, we need to see these results replicated with more research
before drawing any conclusions."
This was not the only
study on this phenomenon as in 2000, scientists in Finland found that
women younger than 50 who had taken antibiotics for urinary tract
infections also had an elevated risk for getting cancer.
The original JAMA study
ended with a compelling conclusion, "Use of antibiotics is associated with
increased risk of incident and fatal breast cancer. It cannot be
determined from this study whether antibiotic use is causally related to
breast cancer, or whether indication for use, overall weakened immune
function, or other factors are pertinent underlying exposures. Although
further studies are needed, these findings reinforce the need for prudent
long-term use of antibiotics."
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