Cancer: antibiotics increase the risk slightly

The consumption of antibiotics could be associated with a slight increased risk of suffering from certain cancers, according to researchers at the National Public Health Institute of Finland. Observation1 The study was conducted among a large cohort of more than three million reports of which none had suffered from cancer and for which data were available on their use of antibiotics between 1995 and 1997. During the period 1998 to 2004, approximately 4.5% of subjects were diagnosed with cancer. Statistical analysis of data indicates that the use of antibiotics is associated with a slight elevation, but significant relative risk of suffering from various forms of cancer, including breast, prostate, lung and colon. These results indicate that antibiotics are a direct cause of cancer, stress the authors. They prefer, for now, talk about a potential indicator of future risk of suffering from cancer. The act of taking regular antibiotics may indicate that a person suffers from a weak immune system or that its body is often the victim of inflammation, which can help to trigger a cancer, explain the authors of the study. Without calling into question the usefulness of antibiotics to combat bacterial infections, the Finnish researchers pointed out that some antibiotics affect the intestinal flora plays an important immune. These drugs could also disrupt the metabolism of estrogen and thus facilitate the development of cancer hormone, they say.