By Ben Spencer Medical Correspondent For The Daily Mail
Published: 00:11 BST, 25 April 2019 | Updated: 02:17 BST, 25 April 2019
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Women who use antibiotics for more than two months at a time are at increased risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke, research suggests.
Experts believe the long-term use of the drugs wipes out healthy bacteria in the gut - creating an imbalance that increases inflammation, narrows blood vessels and ends up damaging the heart.
They think this creates a cumulative effect, so the more frequently a woman uses antibiotics during her lifetime, the greater the eventual risk.
The researchers, who tracked 36,500 women in the US, found over-60s who used antibiotics for more than two months were 32 per cent more likely to develop heart disease in the next eight years than those not taking the drugs.
The study is the largest long-term investigation of the link between antibiotic use and heart disease ever carried out
For those aged 40 to 59, there was a 28 per cent increased risk.
For younger women aged under 40, there was no discernible effect.
Researcher Dr Yoriko Heianza, from Tulane University in New Orleans, said: ‘By investigating the duration of antibiotic use in various stages of adulthood we have found an association between long-term use in middle
