New England Journal of Medicine Says Long-Term HRT
Has Caused Breast Cancer in 200,000 Women
The Research: Chlebowski RT, Kuller LH, Prentice RL, “Breast Cancer after Use of Estrogen plus Progestin in Postmenopausal Women,” NEJM Vol 360:573-587 February 5, 2009.
The Conclusion: “In summary, the increased risk of breast cancer associated with estrogen-plus-progestin therapy declined markedly soon after discontinuation of the therapy and was unrelated to a change in the use of mammography. This finding supports the hypothesis that the recent reduction in the incidence of breast cancer among women in certain age groups in the United States is predominantly related to a decrease in the use of combined estrogen plus progestin.”
Commentary: The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Study in 2002 reported that estrogen-plus-progestin HRT (e.g. PremPro) increased the risk of breast cancer, stroke, heart disease and gallbladder disease. The following year HRT prescriptions dropped 66 percent. A large decrease in HRT drug usage during 2003 has lead to a dramatic decrease in breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Undoubtedly the discontinued use of synthetic HRT drugs saved countless women from breast cancer. A powerful fact worth repeating — When millions of women abandoned their synthetic HRT drugs breast cancer disease plummeted!
Shockingly, the study’s lead author, Dr. Rowan T. Chlebowski has stated; “Long-term (synthetic) HRT use has probably caused breast cancer in 200,000 women between 1992 and 2002.”
Dr. Virginia Hopkins has stated that, “The majority of those 200,000 women had to endure biopsies, surgeries, chemo and/or radiation needlessly. Their lives and those of their families were dreadfully affected and their savings severely depleted in order to pay costly breast cancer related medical bills.”
Dr. Hopkins concludes, “About 22 percent of women who get breast cancer die from it. By extrapolation we can infer that 44,000 women died during that decade due to taking synthetic HRT.”
Beside the needless pain and suffering costly medical procedures are the number one reason for bankruptcy filings among middle class Americans.
Dr. John R. Lee, M.D., International authority, best-selling author and pioneer in the use of natural progesterone cream and natural hormone balance, began speaking out about synthetic HRT and breast cancer issues back in the early 1990’s — long before strong and provocative research clearly linked HRT use to a 30 year history of skyrocketing breast cancer rates.
When Dr. Lee submitted his fifth book manuscript for What Your Doctor May Not Tell You about Breast Cancer in the fall of 2001, his publishers immediately approved and accepted it. Dr. Lee’s evidence was overwhelming and now, armed with WHI’s substantial research confirming the HRT-Breast Cancer link, everything Dr Lee had been saying for 20 years was vindicated!
Caveat emptor: Despite this study’s obvious conclusions, HRT drug company producers continue to lie, cover up and ‘spin’ the evidence and have convinced the FDA to ignore the irrefutable fact that synthetic HRT drugs actually increase the risk of breast cancer. Safe, natural, effective Bio-Identical hormones are available and well worth consideration.
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STUDY ABSTRACT: Breast cancer after use of [synthetic] estrogen plus [synthetic] progestin in postmenopausal women.
AUTHORS: Chlebowski RT; Kuller LH; Prentice RL; Stefanick ML; Manson JE; Gass M; Aragaki AK; Ockene JK; Lane DS; Sarto GE; Rajkovic A; Schenken R; Hendrix SL; Ravdin PM; Rohan TE; Yasmeen S; Anderson G
SO N Engl J Med. 2009 Feb 5;360(6):573-87.
BACKGROUND: Following the release of the 2002 report of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trial of estrogen plus progestin, the use of menopausal hormone therapy in the United States decreased substantially. Subsequently, the incidence of breast cancer also dropped, suggesting a METHODS: We analyzed the results of the WHI randomized clinical trial–in which one study group received 0.625 mg of conjugated equine estrogens plus 2.5 mg of medroxyprogesterone acetate daily and another group received placebo–and
examined temporal trends in breast-cancer diagnoses in the WHI observational-study cohort. Risk factors for breast cancer, frequency of mammography, and time-specific incidence of breast cancer were assessed in
relation to combined hormone use.
RESULTS: In the clinical trial, there were fewer breast-cancer diagnoses in the group receiving the placebo group in the study. The number of diagnoses increased over the course of the 5.6-year intervention period the estrogen plus progestin users. The elevated risk decreased rapidly after both groups stopped taking the study pills, despite a similar frequency of mammography. In the observational study, the incidence of breast cancer was initially about two times as high in the group receiving menopausal hormones as in the
placebo group, but this difference in incidence decreased rapidly in about 2 years, coinciding with year-to-year reductions in combined hormone use. During this period, differences in the frequency of mammography between the two groups were unchanged.
Women taking Prempro had a higher risk of some diseases and a lower risk of others, than those taking a placebo. The study followed 16,608 women for 5.2 years:
Disease Percentage change summary:
Breast cancer: 26% increase
Heart Attack & Cardiac Death: 29% increase
Pulmonary embolism: 113% increase
Stroke: 41% increase
CONCLUSIONS: The increased risk of breast cancer associated with the use of estrogen plus progestin declined markedly soon after discontinuation of use of the estrogen plus progestin hormone therapy and was unrelated to changes in frequency of mammography.
