The researchers followed 37,000 women for eleven years.
Women who had been on HRT for FIVE years or less had as much as an 80 percent greater chance of getting breast cancer than those who had NOT taken pharmaceutical hormones.
Women who had been on HRT longer than five years, had 165 percent greater chance of getting breast cancer.
But, researchers added, the type of breast cancer USUALLY caused by HRT has a better chance of being cured than other types of breast cancer. That's not saying much however. The fact remains that to cure breast cancer usually involves a mastectomy and long bouts of chemo and radiation therapy. And even in view of the fact that there are more cancer survivors today than in past years, estimates say that 40,000 - 90,000 women die of breast cancer annually.
Knowledge of this link is nothing new. Researchers in the 1930's had known that injecting rats with estrogen caused them to come down with breast cancer. (This study was repeated in Canada in 1960 with the same results)
What is new is that the American Cancer Society is admitting the link even though trying to underplay it as if ANY type of breast cancer is a walk in the park...
According to Wyeth-Ayrest, there are nine million women taking Premarin.
Perhaps it's time for those women on HRT to re-think their stategies as there are available, products which protect against breast cancer while relieving the symptoms of menopause. One of these, is TOFU, one of the most natural ways of obtaining estrogen. The other is the Progesterone Cream found in Health Food stores.
The Journal of the American Medical Association 1999;281:2091-2097,
2140-2141.
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