Originally published September 29 2005
Acne medications could increase respiratory infection risk
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
People who take antibiotics to treat their acne for longer than six months may have twice the risk of developing an upper respiratory tract infection, according to new research.
Patients who use antibiotics for more than six weeks at a stretch to medicate their acne have about twice the risk of developing an upper respiratory tract infection, compared with non-users.
Antibiotic use was not, however, associated with increased risk for urinary tract infections, according to David H. Margolis, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics here.
Acne patients, many of whom use a combination of topical and systemic antibiotics for long periods, make ideal subjects for studies of antimicrobia, drug resistance and the risks associated with bacterial colonization, they added.
Most of the patients (92.6%) used a combination of topical and oral agents; 6.1% used topical only, and 1.3% used oral agents only.
During the first year of observation, 18,281 patients (15.4%) had at least one upper respiratory tract infection, and 4,270 (3.6%) had a urinary tract infection.
To determine whether the increased diagnosis of an upper respiratory tract infection in the acne patients could be the result of more frequent office visits, they compared the frequency of infections among both antibiotic and non-antibiotic users with a cohort of similar patients without acne who were being treated for hypertension, a condition also requiring frequent office visits.
"While it might seem odd that the topical application of an acne antibiotic could have an effect on the development of a upper respiratory tract infection," Dr. Margolis and colleagues wrote, "studies have previously shown that topical antibiotics used to treat acne do have an effect on cutaneous flora distant from their site of application, as well as on the colonization of bacteria in the nares, a commonly noted reservoir for Gram-positive bacteria, and even on other persons closely situated to the acne antibiotic user."
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