Synthetic hormone replacement therapy, already linked to increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease stroke, and dementia, nearly doubles a woman’s risk of dying from lung cancer.
This new research, published September 18, 2009, found that there were 83% more deaths in the group using Premarin plus Progestin hormone therapy than the group using the placebo. (Lancet. 2009 Sep 18. Epub ahead of print)
“This is a new, lethal side effect of Estrogen plus Progestin use,” said Dr. Rowan Chlebowski lead author of the study, from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
This latest bad news about standard hormone therapy comes on the heels of a study published in February 2009, in the New England Journal of Medicine, that found that women who take Estrogen-Progestin combination hormone therapy for more than five years suffer a doubling of their risk of getting breast cancer and the risk doubles again every year they continue to take the drugs.
In 2004, researchers found that Estrogen-Progestin drugs not only did not prevent Alzheimer’s as was previously thougt, but actually increased the risk of dementia and mental decline by 47%. Thirty-five million Americans now have dementia.
In 2002, the results of the Women’s Health Initiative, reported that Premarin plus synthetic Progesterone increased a women’s risk of breast cancer by 26%, her risk of a heart attack by 29%, her risk of stroke by 41% and her risk of blood clots by 113%.
Collectively, these findings should end the debate as to whether or not the risks of these drugs are worth the benefits.
Why Don’t Doctors or the FDA send out Recall Notices?
Despite previous warnings – increased risks of heart attacks, stroke, invasive breast cancer, pulmonary emboli, blood clots, gall bladder disease and dementia – millions of postmenopausal women still use the combined hormone therapy to fight the symptoms of menoupause.
Dr. Chlebowski says that 25 to 30 million hormone prescriptions are written every year that are probably responsible for half of the 40,000 breast cancers discovered in women every year.
Perhaps women are not seeing the headlines or hearing the news. Perhaps their doctors should be required to send them a RECALL NOTICE, rather than continue to refill their prescriptions.