A note of distinction
It's been nearly seven years since mainstream hormone replacement therapy (HRT) took its infamous hit thanks to the disastrous results of the Women's Health Initiative study. Just a quick refresher: That study was halted when researchers discovered that the synthetic hormones the women were taking actually increased their risks of heart attacks and cancer. Declaring them deadly certainly seemed like a no-brainer. But this was one cash cow Big Pharma and the medical mainstream just weren't willing to put to pasture. And they've been arguing against the risks uncovered by the Women's Health Initiative study ever since they were released. But a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine could cement its fate once and for all. This study not only tracked breast cancer rates in 15,000 women from the original Women's Health Initiative study, but also included women who weren't a part of that trial. In the first group, incidence breast cancer fell by 28 percent after 2002, when many of the subjects stopped taking the synthetic HRT. But the results in the second group were even more striking: 50 percent of the women stopped taking HRT -- which corresponded to a whopping 43 percent drop in breast cancer rates in a SINGLE YEAR (from 2002 to 2003). Women in this group who kept taking synthetic HRT had higher risk of developing breast cancer. In fact, the researchers found that women who continued taking it for five years doubled their risk every single year. Of course, the detail that this study overlooked is that when many women stopped taking the HRT drugs Premarin and Prempro, they turned instead to bio-identical hormone replacement therapy. Yet, breast cancer rates still plummeted. So not only does this study indicate that "traditional" HRT can be deadly, but it also shows that bio-identical hormone replacement therapy ISN'T. In fact, there are numerous studies showing that it actually lowers your risks of the very problems associated with the mainstream version of HRT. This is an important fact to keep in mind, particularly because the majority of those warnings against HRT don't bother making a distinction between the natural and unnatural versions. For the very best, safest form of HRT, your best option is to visit with a physician skilled and knowledgeable in natural medicine who can help answer all your questions about bio-identical hormones and determine the best program for your individual needs. To find one near you, contact the American College for Advancement in Medicine by calling (800)532-3688 or visiting www.acam.org.
"HRT cancer connection 'confirmed,'" BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk), 2/5/09 | 
