Hormones and Cancer
The fear of hormones causing cancer is by far the number one reason more people don't opt to replace missing hormones as they get older. For men, it is a "No Brainer". Testosterone replacement therapy makes men healthier from every perspective. This has been demonstrated over and over again in many studies and literature reviews. Any doctor who says testosterone is risky for men is not up to date on the literature. For women the story is just a little more murky. I personally believe hormone replacement for women makes them healthier as well, if done correctly.
And, I do not believe hormones cause cancer. However, there has never been a good study to prove it. There are two ongoing studies in Europe right now that are about 7 years old following women who went on bioidentical hormones right at the time menopause began. So far both of those studies are showing NO increase incidence of breast cancer. This is very promising. There was also an arm of (terrible study) The Women's Health Initiative which enrolled 160,000 post menopausal women, that used only equine estrogen without progestin because they had hysterectomies. This group showed NO increase in breast cancer and a reduction in heart disease. Of significant note is that the hormones used in this study were derived from pregnant horses urine and were administered orally. In spite of that, these estrogens appeared protective in the risk of breast cancer and heart disease. The culprit seemed to be the CONTINUOUS (and this is the critical word) Progestin. Note, this is NOT a bioidentical progesterone, but an analog of horse progesterone secreted into the urine, that was administered orally and continuously every day. The only time a woman would have continuous progesterone is during a pregnancy. Progesterone, as the word implies, is a hormone that supports pregnancy. Part of supporting pregnancy is stimulating the breast tissue to produce milk for the newborn. It makes no sense to me to administer that hormone on a continuous basis for years on end. It seems intuitive that it would cause problems. One of the basic tenets to cancer induction is the cellular loss of regulatory ability in terms of growth. This is called "Apoptosis", or telling cells when to die. If cells are not regulated as to when to die or turn over, they can continue to grow unchecked and degenerate into cancer.
Cyclical hormones regulate cellular apoptosis. When hormones are lost in menopause, this regulation is also lost. The incidence of breast cancer goes up every decade after menopause.
This is commensurate with the loss of "regulatory" hormones. By putting hormones back into the body in the same pattern that the body had before, ensures the maintenance of the cellular regulation and apoptosis.
As flawed as the Women's Initiative Study is, one thing it demonstrated was that estrogen(even horse estrogen) alone does NOT increase the incidence of breast cancer. Hormones are messengers telling cells what to do on multiple levels. One of those messages is telling cells when to die, and allowing new cells to take over. Without this regulation cells can continue to grow and thus create malignancies. This is exactly the scenario seen in menopause when hormones are absent. Cells no longer have their regulatory message that they received prior to menopause and thus can grow uncontrollably. The incidence of breast cancer correlates with the time in a woman's life when her breast cells lose their regulatory control from hormones. Replacing women's hormones should reinstitute that needed regulation and thus reduce the risk of breast cancer, instead of increasing it. Hopefully, the european studies will prove this . In the meantime, there are many other significant benefits. Heart disease alone kills more women than all the cancers combined. When women go through menopause their risk of heart disease rises to the same level as men. Heart disease in women is grossly under diagnosed. Then of course there are the other benefits; reducing osteoporosis,dementia,autoimmune diseases, insulin resistance, weight gain, diabetes, and general deterioration of quality of life. I wish we had all the answers. Until then hormone replacement should be used carefully. Balancing risk vs benefit is the basic rule in medicine. I believe hormone replacement for women provides similar benefit as it does for men. It needs to be done judiciously. I see so many women who have been treated with hormones so poorly in the past. There is no standardized protocol. And I think this is part of the problem that generates bad information. All hormone replacement gets lumped together. It is important to discern what hormones are being used,in what doses and how they are administered. Condemning all hormone replacement for women based on the information we have is very short sited. The current Baby Boomer generation is the first generation seriously interested in hormone replacement and anti ageing medicine. We have been pioneers in many areas before. I think we will elucidate this information as well. | 
