Taking Antibiotics Could Cause Deadly Aortic Aneurysm

Could the use of some of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the US be the Cause of Aortic Aneurysm, a deadly problem of the wall of the body’s largest artery becoming damaged and weakened, or even bursting. These antibiotics, known as the Fluoroquinolones, have names like Cipro, Levaquin, and Avelox. They are so common that almost everyone has or will take one or more ’rounds’ of these antibiotics in their lifetime. Have you been put at risk for this life-threatening medical condition unnecessarily?

These drugs are well-known to cause seemingly unrelated side effects, such as tendon rupture, vision problems, permanent nerve damage, psychiatric issues, and even a serious infectious intestinal infection, known as Clostridium Difficile, that can lead to a lifetime of digestive problems. However, tendon rupture is one of the most well-recognized adverse effects of these drugs, and we’ll see why that is important in a moment. If you are unfamiliar with the damaging effects of these drugs, please see the Introduction to Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics here.

Collagen Disruption is a Cause of Aortic Aneurysm and Tendon Rupture

These drugs cause aortic aneurysm by disrupting the body’s collagen production, the same reason why tendon rupture more than doubles with the use of these drugs, and why Levaquin for Dogs makes them lame by damaging their joints. Collagen is an essential protein in the body that produces such essential structures in the body as tendons, ligaments, the retinas of the eyes, arteries, and it’s even the substance in the skin of young people who keep them from developing wrinkles or sagging skin.

While tendon rupture is an accepted and well-known risk factor for these drugs ¹, and that the reason for the damage is the disruption of collagen from DNA Damage and Mitochondrial Disorder, up until now, there has been a blind spot in the literature in regards to the collagen disruption ability with OTHER body structures that contain collagen. This is despite thousands of reports to the FDA and on the internet of people complaining of various problems after taking these antibiotics. Problems that would seem to be related to damaging collagen, such as:

• Tendonitis
• Shoulder tendon ruptures
• Knee tendon ruptures
• Fibromyalgia-like symptoms
• Even complaints of sudden wrinkles and saggy skin

But the study Fluoroquinolones and collagen related severe adverse events, is one of the first studies to actually acknowledge what FQResearch and other sites have been saying for years: it’s impossible that a drug could SELECTIVELY damage the collagen in tendons so badly they can completely rupture, while believing that it cannot partially damage tendons or seriously damage OTHER body structures that depend upon collagen and hence can be a cause of aortic aneurysm.

While it’s great that we now have hard evidence for Fluoroquinolone damage to other body structures, unfortunately, it only looked for two different problems of collagen disruption: Fluoroquinolones as a cause of aortic aneurysm and retinal detachment. The study showed a clear doubling (2.2 times) of the incidence of aortic aneurysm and tendon rupture, but did not show an increase in retinal detachment.

What is an Aortic Aneurysm?

The aorta is one of the most significant and largest arteries in the body. It runs virtually the entire length of the chest and abdomen, starting in the heart and carrying blood to most of the rest of the body. Damage to this artery usually starts as a ‘bulging’ in the wall of the artery, much like you might see a bulging in a car tire when it gets damaged from wear and tear but has not yet punctured. This bulging is called, in medicine, an aortic aneurysm. An aortic aneurysm can, but does not always, progress to aortic rupture or the worst situation, an aortic dissection where the artery ‘rips’ down a long section.

An aortic aneurysm can range from something for doctors to just watch, to one of the most serious medical emergencies in existence. If the part of the aorta located in the abdominal cavity were to rupture or dissect, the entire body’s store of blood can be lost in a matter of minutes, with death as the result. So, this is a very serious condition, for which finding a cause of aortic aneurysm could save many lives.

A 50% reduction in fluoroquinolone prescriptions or a 50% reduction in fluoroquinolone treatment durations would have resulted in an estimated reduction of 602 tendon ruptures, 245 aortic aneurysms and 11 retinal detachments in patients.

 

Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics as a Cause of Aortic Aneurysm

In the case of the Fluoroquinolone drugs, the study authors state that just in the study population of approximately 1.7 million elderly people watched over a two-year period, that just by ending the 1/2 of Inappropriate Fluoroquinolone Use in conditions such as:

• Chronic Sinus Infections
• Chronic Prostatitis
• Bronchitis 
• Traveler’s Diarrhea

it would have prevented 245 people getting aortic aneurysms! Translate that out to 45 million elderly, the number of people over 65 years old in just the US and Canada alone, and just the INAPPROPRIATE use of Fluoroquinolones are causing over 30,000 cases of  aortic aneurysm every decade ².

These numbers are just from what the study determined is a medically agreed upon unnecessary use of these antibiotics. There are many other doctors, researchers, and scientists, including Beatrice Golomb who have stated,

Fluoroquinolone use should be restricted to situations in which there is no safe and effective alternative to treat an infection caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria or to provide oral therapy when parenteral therapy is not feasible and no other effective oral agent is available. ³

Adding in this class of those prescribed these drugs unnecessarily, where another drug could be used, would add tens of thousands more victims of Fluoroquinolones as a cause of aortic aneurysm every year to this growing list of health problems from this dangerous class of antibiotics. And this does not even include the completely unknown numbers of people YOUNGER than 65 who were diagnosed with aortic aneurysm from the unnecessary use of these drugs, since this study was only done on those age 65 years and older. With these numbers it’s clear that hundreds of thousands are suffering unnecessarily and billions of health care dollars caring for these serious health conditions.

This study brings important new information to the debate about the safety of the Fluoroquinolone antibiotics, and gives more intellectual fuel to the hordes of people claiming to have been injured by these toxic drugs. But in the end, those who have cared to read the information and science on these drugs are not surprised by the findings that they are one cause of aortic aneurysm. These drugs are well-known to severely damage collagen so badly they can rupture a tendon. It’s simply common sense that collagen throughout the body is also damaged, in lesser or worse amounts in differing people and in the different types of collagen in the body.

If you think that you might have been damaged by the Fluoroquinolones, we urge you to follow the protocol in The Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Solution. Of all of the things that we here at FQResearch have done, that is what improved our health the most, and we highly recommend it in order to overcome the toxic effects of these drugs.