Not so long ago, conventional hormone replacement therapy’s impact on breast cancer risk was 
still the subject of heated debate. This debate essentially ended when an article described by a Harvard Medical School professor as “close to being the final word” on conventional hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer was published in the Lancet.
Fifty-one studies involving more than 161,000 women were reviewed. The conclusion: Conventional hormone replacement therapy increased the risk of breast cancer with each year of use. Women using conventional hormone replacement therapy for five or more years were at 35 percent greater risk.
Another study revealed that after 10 years of use, estrogen replacement therapy (hormone replacement therapy using estrogen alone) increased a woman’s risk of dying from breast cancer by 43 percent. Other similar studies indicate that combined estrogen-progestin therapy, the kind used by most women, increases breast cancer risk even more than estrogen replacement therapy does!
Concerns about combined estrogen-progestin hormone replacement therapy were identified by a large National Cancer Institute study and were reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study concluded that women who took the combined treatment for five years were 40 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than women taking estrogen alone or no hormones.
Similarly, other studies have confirmed an even higher 60 to 70 percent increase in breast cancer risk with the long-term use of HRT.
While the figures vary from study to study, the evidence is clear, compelling, and consistent—conventional hormone replacement therapy increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, and with each additional year of use, that risk gets higher.
Opt instead for natural hormone replacement therapy options, such as maca, black cohosh, and bioidentical hormone replacement.
For more information on HRT and natural hormone replacement therapy options, visit Dr. Lark’s Web site.