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Ed Reply to Levy

by , | Jan 1, 2011

Post Categories: Hormone and Metabolic Health | Integrative Medicine

Publisher’s Response:

Thank you, Dr. Levy, for setting me straight on the facts of the Women’s Health Initiative. The WHI trial did demonstrate an increase in breast cancer incidence in women treated with estrogen and progestogen, Premarin, and Provera. For much of orthodox medicine, this translates to hormone replacement therapy of estrogen and progesterone increases the risk for developing breast cancer. The results of the combination therapy stand sharply in contract to the MISSION study, which found that a combination of estradiol and bioidentical progesterone did not increase the risk of breast cancer. Admittedly, the WHI study was a randomized controlled trial and the MISSION study was a prospective study.

The main culprit appears to be the use of a progestogen, a synthetic form of progesterone, in increasing the risk for breast cancer. It is interesting that the WHI study arm using estrogen or Premarin alone found no increase in breast cancer risk. It has been long observed that estrogen treatment given without progesterone as hormone replacement appears to increase the risk of uterine cancer. Hence, the question of hormone safety depends on combination of estrogen and progesterone treatment.

Dr. Jonathan Wright points out that Premarin contains a minimal amount of estradiol and primarily contains conjugated equine estrogens, which are not natural to the human female. It would appear that the WHI study arm of estrogen-treatment-only demonstrates that horse estrogens are not significantly increasing the risk of breast cancer in humans.

Jonathan Collin, MD

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  • Jonathan Collin, MD

    Jonathan Collin, MD, recently retired, published the Townsend Letter for 40+ years, contributing content regularly, as well as deciding the content and order of every single issue ever published. In addition to his work on the Townsend Letter, Dr. Collin also had a successful private medical practice, seeing patients in two different offices, before he even started the Townsend Letter. The crossover of being able to use his real-life experiences to help guide the focus in the magazine, in addition to being able to use the knowledge gleaned from the countless articles he read, served in both the long term and the short term, to help improve the lives and health of unknown numbers of patients and readers, over the decades. This knowledge and insight also helped make the Townsend Letter a magazine that was mailed out to subscribers in more than 25 different countries, helping spread knowledge, wisdom, and overall health around the globe.

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