HORMONE THERAPY DOUBLES CANCER RISK

Hormone therapy doubles cancer risk

By Rashmee Z. Ahmed

Friday, August 8, 2003
London - In a damning blow to the multi-billion-dollar industry supplying hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to post-menopausal women mainly in the West, the treatment has been found to double the risk of breast cancer.

The new, million-woman study, conducted in the UK, is the biggest and most comprehensive since HRT began the so- called "second women's revolution after the Pill".

Experts said the damning new findings effectively flicked off the switch for the American-dominated $ 3.3 billion
HRT drug industry to make inroads into India and the developing world.

And it's thought likely to prompt new interest and dreams of a fortune for manufacturers of herbal alternatives to
HRT, such as an Indian soya-based drug and Western trial preparations containing the American herb black kohosh, sage and rose.

HRT, which is available in the UK on the government-run health service, aims to replenish natural hormones that decrease in a woman's forties, i.e. at menopause.

In India, it is considered a select, short-term urban luxury, and its cheapest form is Estriol, worth just a few rupees a day.

But Western HRT manufacturers are thought to be increasingly interested in the Indian market, with one interested study calculating that 80 per cent of the world's post-menopausal women would soon be living in
India and the developing world.

term HRT and breast cancer had the effect of a bombshell.
It was published in the authoritative London medical journal The Lancet.

The study, carried out by Cancer Research UK's
Epidemiology Unit in Oxford, monitored more than one million women aged 50-64. The women joined the study between 1996 and 2001. Half the women were using HRT or had done so in the past. It estimates the treatment may have been responsible for an extra 20,000 cases of the disease in Britain in the last decade. The study found that women using dual-pill HRT, were twice as likely to develop breast cancer as non-users.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/ articleshow?msid=121672
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The million women study asked a million women having mammograms to fill in questionnaires about their use of HRT.
It found that those who took combination HRT over a long term had a higher risk of bc.

They found that 5% of women will have developed breast cancer by age 65 without HRT.
Of those who had been taking Estrogen-only HRT for ten years, 5.5% developed bc by age 65.
With Combination HRT for five years, 5.6% developed bc.
With Combination HRT for ten years, 6.9% developed bc.

They also found that after stopping HRT most of the excess risk had gone after one year, and it was undetectable after five years.
It should also be mentioned that Estrogen-only HRT is associated with an increased risk of uterine cancer.

Source: BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour interview yesterday

I presume the "double the risk" headline figure applies to estimated lifetime risk when using combination HRT from the menopause onwards.

Tim Jackson http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/ articleshow?msid=12167
2

How do you know he's a clone and not a natural?

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Use of HRT was also associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimers and other disorders it purportedly claimed to help prevent.
It does make one question the integrity and validity of the original research which led to its approval by the FDA for use. And, if the original research was fraudulent for HRT, what about research for other new medicatios?
I remember a book that was required reading in high school math -- HOW TO LIE
WITH STATISTICS. I wonder if it is still published or available???
This latest study was done in the UK. At one time the FDA had the reputation of upholding the highest standards for research. Not only does it make one wonder about what is going on now, but also makes one wonder about the past, too, especially when there is more outside world involvement not only in studies but research institutions as well. Whom can one trust?
We have a friend, a molecular biologist who has worked in research and administration with top pharmaceutical companies. One of the companies he worked at was taken over or bought out by another company who manufactures one of the newer, more common cancer drugs. When I saw him I mentioned the side effects I experienced with that drug--that many woman have shared on-line as also having; yet, the information disseminated by the manufacturer does not indicate or even lead one to expect that the effect I had were common, let alone did not even suggest the intensity of the experience (pain) related to this drug. In addition I know that 4 out of 5 of us who had this drug reported a similar experience with it. When I reported this to our friend, he smiled and said that was one of the reasons why he started looking around elsewhere for a new position and left that company less than a year after the take-over.

You'll find a lot of information on the topic by searching Google.

Jai Maharaj http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti