Invasive Breast Cancer Up to 144 Times Greater in Women Who Take Hormone Replacement Therapy

 

Breast cancer is one of women’s greatest fears, and invasive breast cancer is its deadliest form. A new, very large study was published by the journal PLoS one documenting an enormous increase in breast cancer in women given hormone replacement therapy. Of particular concern is the increase for women who have taken or are taking combination estrogen and progesterone therapies.

Particularly disconcerting is that combination estrogen-progesterone treatment was instituted when news of potential risks were were first coming out, because it was claimed—obviously without any basis in fact—that it was safer than simple estrogen supplementation.

Yet again, we can see that there is little truth behind claims that conventional medicine is evidence-based.

The study, entitled “Increased Risk for Invasive Breast Cancer Associated with Hormonal Therapy: A Nation-Wide Random Sample of 65,723 Women Followed from 1997 to 2008“, was a nationwide investigation into women of Taiwan who had or are still taking hormone replacement therapies (HRT) for any reason.

Good News/Bad News

The good news is that all excess risk from taking hormone replacement therapy exists only while taking it and for less than six years afterwards. Once a woman has stopped, her excess risk of invasive breast cancer returns to what it would be without taking hormones.

However, the increased risk while taking the drugs and for up to six years is enormously increased. If a woman between 55 and 79 is currently taking both estrogen and progesterone, her risk for developing invasive breast cancer is 144 times greater than if she’d never taken them!

Even disregarding the worst case scenario, the increased risk of invasive breast cancer with any hormone therapy is immense. With estrogen alone, the increased risk before 6 years for women aged 20-79 is a minimum of 2.65 times greater, and increased to 7.73 for women of the same age currently taking it.

The least dangerous is progesterone alone. Next is estrogen alone. Women who had taken estrogen, but then are given both together are at still increased risk. However, the increased risk for women who are taking or have taken both estrogen and progesterone together is enormously increased.

There is no safe form of HRT. All dramatically increase the chance of getting invasive breast cancer, the deadliest form.

The Results

The simplest way to see what was discovered is to present it in tabular format. Data is presented in terms of hazard ratios (HRs). An HR of 1.00 means that there is no increased and no decreased risk. It applies to women who have taken no estrogen or progesterone. An HR of 2.50 would mean that a woman is 2½ times more likely to get invasive breast cancer. The HR of 143.90 means that a woman is nearly 144 times more likely to get the disease.

Type of Hormone Replacement/ Time Since Last Use	HR Aged 20-79	HR Aged 55-79
Estrogen Alone
≥6 years	1.00	1.00
4-5 years	2.65	2.93
1-3 years	4.47	5.94
Current users	7.73	7.74
Progesterone alone
≥6 years	1.00
4-5 years	1.82
1-3 years	2.59
Current users	4.32
Estrogen alone & Estrogen-progesterone combo
≥6 years	1.00	1.00
4-5 years	2.71	7.09
1-3 years	3.80	9.51
Current users	8.18	14.58
Estrogen-progesterone combo
≥6 years	1.00	1.00
4-5 years	9.69	13.85
1-3 years	14.50	43.52
Current users	61.89	143.90

You may refer to the study itself for complete information.

Tagged big pharma, breast cancer hormone replacement therapy, breast cancer hrt, conventional medicine, drugs, invasive breast cancer, invasive breast cancer hrt, pharmaceutical drugs, pharmaceuticals