Antibiotics may pose risk of breast cancer

Chicago: A study suggests antibiotics might increase the risk of developing breast cancer, but researchers said the data should not stop women from taking the medication.

Women, who took the most antibiotics, who had more than 25 prescriptions or who took the drugs for at least 501 days, faced double the risk of developing breast cancer over an average of about 17 years, compared with women who didn’t use the drugs, the study showed.

The authors said more research is needed because it could have been the diseases women used antibiotics to treat — rather than the drugs themselves — that increased breast cancer risk. Also, since antibiotics are widely used to treat a variety of common infections caused by bacteria, including strep throat, some pneumonias and many gastrointestinal infections, it may be that women who never took the drugs were unusually healthy and therefore unusually resistant to cancer, the researchers said. “It’s very premature for people to stop taking antibiotics,” said lead author.