Cancer, salmonella, E. coli, autoimmunity and, among others diseases, asthma are becoming more and more commonplace. Could these diseases result from antibiotics ? And if yes, by what mechanisms ?
Evidence of a Relationship between Antibiotics and Multiple Cancers
In 2004, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association compared 2,266 women with breast cancer to 7,953 women without, all aged over 20. The study noted how often and over how many years these women took the most commonly used antibiotics. This research found that the more antibiotics the women used, the higher the risk of breast cancer. The specific data for this study states that women who took 1 to 25 antibiotics over a 17-year period had one-and-a-half times a higher risk of breast cancer as compared to women who took no antibiotics. (Source)
A more extensive study of 2.1 million women, surveyed over 9 years, found that the use of any antibiotic was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. (Source) More recently, a 2015 published study showed a strong correlation with multiple cancers and antibiotics.
“…125,441 cases and 490,510 matched controls were analysed. For gastro-intestinal malignancies, the use of penicillin was associated with an elevated risk of oesophageal, gastric and pancreatic cancers. The association increased with the number of antibiotic courses and reached 1.4 for gastric cancers associated with >5 courses of penicillin (95% CI 1.2-1.8). Lung cancer risk increased with the use of penicillin, cephalosporins, or macrolides (AOR for >5 courses of penicillin: 1.4 95% CI 1.3-1.6). The risk of prostate cancer increased modestly with the use of penicillin, quinolones, sulphonamides and tetracyclines. The risk of breast cancer was modestly associated with exposure to sulphonamides….” (Source)
States that have the most antibiotics also have the most cancer
Pending
Discussion
Gut microbes affect immune system
The key issue is to determine whether the above mentioned correlations are causative. Given that 80 percent of the immune system resides in the gut and that the microbiota helps the immune cells to accomplish their job, it is not unreasonable to suggest that this correlation is causal, if only because when antibiotics are used, much of the microbiota is destroyed. And today, we know that without a good microbiota, the immune system ceases to function efficiently.
The Nobel winners in cancer immunotherapy have highlighted the importance of the immune system with regard to cancer. Because of these researches based on checkpoint inhibitors (Cf blog) a new era of cancer treatment is beginning. However, even if these therapies can cause dramatic tumor regressions in some patients, most patients do not benefit.
In this perspective, mice have been used in two studies to investigate what might be happening. Specific members of the gut microbiota influence the efficacy of this type of immunotherapy (see the Perspective by Snyder et al.). Vétizou et al. found that optimal responses to anticytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen blockade required specific forms of bacteria.
Conclusion
By design, antibiotics disrupt intestinal microflora (that help protect against cancer) and also activates the intestinal microflora metabolism of estrogens (that encourage cancer).
Pr Joubert (Biogerontolist)
Text under construction
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