Synthetic HRT linked once again to causing breast cancer

Friday, October 01, 2010 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: HRT, breast cancer, health news

(NaturalNews) A Canadian Cancer Society study has discovered what many other studies from around the world have found: that synthetic hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drugs increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. Researchers observed that among women who had stopped taking HRT drugs, there was a 10 percent decrease in breast cancer compared to women still taking the drugs.

"The drop in breast cancer incidence was fairly significant," said Prithwish De, an epidemiologist with the Canadian Cancer Society, and author of the study. "We saw a 10 percent drop in the incidence rate of breast cancer from 296 per 100,000 women to about 278 per 100,000."

In 2002, a large Women's Health Initiative clinical trial in the U.S. revealed not only that HRT drugs increase women's risk of breast cancer, but they can also cause heart attack, stroke and blood clots in the lungs. The results of this study led to a more than 60 percent drop in the number of women willing to take HRT drugs.

Another U.S. study published in 2007 found that in 2003, the year after millions of American women stopped taking HRT drugs due to the findings about their harm, breast cancer rates dropped significantly. However, the new study is the first of its kind in Canada to have come to this same conclusion.

"It certainly gives a Canadian perspective to the growing international evidence around the association between breast cancer incidence and HRT," said De. "It also supports the Canadian Cancer Society position (that) women should avoid using HRT for any reason other than managing severe menopausal symptoms."

Bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, on the other hand, was not included in the study. Millions of women successfully use bio-identicals instead of synthetics to treat post-menopausal symptoms because they are safer and more natural.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20100924/Br...