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Originally Posted by Vieope
I just read that one reason to stop HRT is that it increases the chances of breast cancer.
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Not true.
This comes from the largest prospective trial done; the Women's Health Initiative involving hundred thousand women or so pooled from different research and academic institutions.
Estrogen alone does not cause breast cancer. That is definative. The worrisome component is the progesterone.
The
combination of estrogen and progesterone (which women don't have to take unless they still have a uterus) caused 1.1 out of 100 women to have breast cancer vs. 1 out of 100 who didn't.
A statisticallly significant increase but not clinically or individually significant.
What was interesting was that even though these women had slightly higher chances of breast cancer it was more curative! (Less invasive and metastatic vs. the same cancer found in women not using hormones.) This was also borne out in another large clinical trial called the Iowa Women's Health Initiative which had about 50,000 study participants.
Let's not forget that women who use hormones have 40% decrease in colon cancer ( 2nd most common cancer in women) and prevents macular degeneration ( most common cause of age related blindness) , vaginal atrophy (dry thin vaginal mucosa that causes severe pain with intercourse) as well as osteoperosis. So if a woman has a family history of osteoperosis, colon cancer and is very sexually active, there is no reason not to give hormone replacement therapy.
What this big study showed is that we cannot use hormones to prevent heart attacks and strokes. The progesterone and estrogen increased your risk of both slightly (8/10,000 and 10/10,000) absolute risk if one used the combination of progesterone and estrogen. (
Once again, estrogen alone did not increase the chance of heart attacks, however slight, and increased risk of stroke to levels associated with birth control pills.) In addition, diabetic sugar control got worse when hormones were stopped.
Taking things into perspective, your chances of being hit by lightening according to the CDC is 5.7/10,000. (vs. 8/10,000 chance of a heart attack) So it is not as if women are dropping like flies from heart attacks due to hormone replacement therapy.
You need to talk it over with your doc and get the bigger picture and not the hysterical media trash that also does a disservice to the anabolics.
Just remember that the herbal alternatives do not necessarily provide protection against osteoperosis, atrophic vaginitis etc. Black kohash may help with vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes etc.) but there is a small study in Denmark that shows it increases aggressive breast cancer occurance in women with strong risk factors for breast cancer. Thus, they may not be so innocuous and have not been as well studied.
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