HRT: Hormone Replacement Therapy VS. BHRT Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy

“GOOD" and "BAD" ESTROGEN: 
WHY HRT (Premarin) CAUSES CANCER

Dr. Jonathan V. Wright M.D., author of Nutrition & Healing, explains that the term estrogen doesn’t actually describe a single molecule; instead, it’s a “group word” covering two dozen estrogen metabolites. Early estrogen research focused mostly on three estrogen metabolites: estrone (labeled E1), estradiol (E2), and estriol (E3).  Estradiol (E2) and its nearby metabolite estrone (E1) were both found to be carcinogenic. Researchers found that the body treats these two hormones with extreme care, rapidly converting them to estriol (E3).

Wright tells of an important study in Israel that found estriol (E3) works to prevent cancer. The researchers reported estriol interferes with the pro-carcinogenic effects of estradiol (E2) by covering as many of the body’s estrogen receptors as possible, so that not as much estradiol can be “absorbed.”  In another study, researchers found a clear protective effect based on the amount of estriol (E3) women produced during their pregnancies: More estriol, less cancer later in life! Women in the uppermost 25% of estriol production during pregnancy had 58% less breast cancer over the next 30-40 years than women with the lowest 25% of estriol.
 

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The Cancer-Causing Facts about HRT & Why Bio-Identical Hormone Therapies (BHRT) are a Safe Alternative

Many women and their physicians have been shocked to learn that conventional hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can actually increase the chance of getting a major disease. The most recent controversial Women’s Health Initiative trial was abruptly halted in July 2002 because it showed that conventional HRT, using synthetic hormones such as Premarin, Prempo, Premphase, Provera, Cycrin, Amen, or any medication containing conjugated equine estrogens (made from horse urine) and a synthetic (manmade) progestin, medroxyprogesterone acetate, increased the chance
of some major diseases, as follows: * A 41% increase in strokes, * A 29% increase in heart attacks, * A 26% increase in
breast cancer, * A 22% increase in total cardiovascular disease, * A doubling of the rate of blood clots, * A possible contribution to Alzheimer’s disease. In July 2005, the U.N.’s cancer research agency reclassified synthetic hormone therapies from “possibly carcinogenic” to “carcinogenic.”

Why, with this much evidence as to the carcinogenic properties of synthetic HRT, are so many women still taking them? Better question: Why are their doctors still prescribing them?  “The problem,” says Dr. C.W. Randolph, Jr., an internationally known authority on natural medicine and women’s health concerns, “is that most physicians are ignorant about BHRT. We were not taught about bio-identical hormones in medical school…As a trained pharmacist and Board Certified gynecologist, I am appalled that synthetic HRT remains the treatment of choice for so many physicians.  Additionally, volumes of medical research supports the fact that when bio-identical progesterone and bio-identical estrogen are administered in physiologic doses (e.g. in dosages that re-establish the body’s optimal hormonal ratio of estrogen to progesterone) the bio-identical progesterone actually has cancer protective effects.”

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A dramatic decline in breast-cancer rates may be linked to a decrease in the number of women using hormone therapy. What women need to know about the new findings.  
  
By Barbara Kantrowitz; Newsweek, Dec 15, 2006  
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16228168/site/newsweek/

It was big news this week when researchers from the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston reported that breast-cancer rates dropped after millions of women stopped taking hormone therapy to relieve menopausal symptoms. But does that mean that these hormones (basically estrogen and sometimes a progestin) actually cause breast cancer? That’s the provocative question raised by the study. The researchers found an overall 7 percent decline in breast-cancer incidence in 2003, a year after a major study of hormones called the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) was halted early because of increased breast cancer and heart disease among participants. The steepest decline, 12 percent, occurred in the number of women diagnosed with a kind of breast cancer that is especially sensitive to hormones.
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BREAST THERMOGRAPHY -- the majority of breast cancer deaths could be prevented with an FDA-approved machine: D.I.T.I. -- Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging (Thermography).  Thermograms have detected developing tumors 10 years in advance of when they would be picked up in a mammogram or clinical breast exam., according to the International Academy of Clinical Thermography. (local DITI: 1-888-461-2345).     

In a four-year clinical trial published in 2003, researchers used thermography on 769 possible breast cancer patients with a 97% accuracy rate. Compare this to the high rate of inaccuracy for mammograms, both positive and negative: Mammograms sound the alarm for cancer in up to 10% of women who don't really have it, and it doesn't find it in approximately 17% of women who actually do have cancer." "A mammogram is essentially an X-ray of the breast, so women are exposed to a small amount of radiation when having one.  10 mammograms in 10 years increase a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer by 10%.  Thermography is safe, non-invasive, pain-free, has a high level of accuracy, and emits no radiation. Abnormal tissue growth can raise the temperature, and show up as a hot spot in a thermogram.