Antibiotics are widely used throughout the world to treat the bacterial infection. According to new report antibiotics help to kill bacteria but they can also cause cancer. A study published in the journal Gut conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins school of medicine. The aim of study was to find the relation between use of antibiotics and colon cancer. Specifically, the risk was associated to antibiotics that kill anaerobic bacteria.For this study the health records of about 30,000 people from united kingdom from 40-90 years old who developed either rectal or colon cancer. The team categorized the antibiotics on the basis of drug classes like penicillins and tetracyclines. 70% of participants were prescribed antibiotics and were found with colon and rectal cancer. 68% of those did not have cancer.
urgent care canton miThe risk is varied depending on the type of antibiotics used according to scientist. The duration for which the patients used the antibiotics also played a role in colon cancer. The patients who used the medicines for 16 days had heightened risk cancer and patients who used the drugs foe more than 60 days had low risk of colon cancer.Further study found that antibiotic exposure was only linked with risk of only 15% for cancer in proximal colon. When individual classes of antibiotics were investigated it was found that penicillin was strongly linked with increased risk of colon cancer.Researchers found that people who developed colon cancer were exposed to antibiotics. The patients with rectal cancer and same exposure to antibiotics did not show association to colon cancer.In spite of result the team found that the study was observational. Also they were unable to establish cause and effect.
