Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Just when you thought the news about hormone replacement therapy couldn't get any worse, a study from England reveals more bad news.
It's called the million woman study.
More than one million British women were recruited to look at the benefits and risks of hormone replacement therapy.
The results, published in the journal Lancet, showed that taking hormones increased a woman's risk of breast cancer 22 percent.
Dr. Otis Brawley, Cancer Expert: "THEY ESTIMATE THAT HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY MAY HAVE CAUSED 20,000 BREAST CANCERS IN GREAT BRITAIN, A COUNTRY ONE FIFTH THE SIZE OF THE UNITED STATES, OVER THE LAST DECADE."
This comes hard on the heels of several U.S. studies showing HRT also increases a woman's risk of heart disease, stroke and blood clots.
This probably means that in future, instead of women being routinely prescribed HRT when they go through menopause, only those with severe symptoms will now receive the therapy.
Dr. Otis Brawley: "WE KNOW THAT WOMEN SHOULDN'T BE TAKING HRT, ESPECIALLY ESTROGEN PLUS PROGESTERONE, FOR PREVENTION OF DISEASES. THERE ARE SOME WOMEN WHO ACTUALLY HAVE SYMPTOMS OF HOT FLASHES. WE CALL IT THE CLIMACTERIC IN MEDICINE, MENOPAUSAL LIKE SYMPTOMS, AND FOR THEM THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DO A RISK BENEFIT ANALYSIS. FOR THEM THE RISKS MAY ACTUALLY BE SO SMALL AND THE BENEFITS SO GREAT THAT PERHAPS THEY SHOULD BE TAKING IT."
The good news is that the study found that if women stop taking HRT, their risk quickly drops back to the same level as women who never took hormones.
