HRT Prevents Colon Cancer

Women that take hormone replacement drugs during the menopause are more protected against colon cancer than those that don’t.

A large study undertaken by scientists from Mayo, the world famous clinic in Rochester recently reported its findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

It confirms what other research has indicated that alternative treatments for the menopause do not have the same ability as HRT to prevent cancer of the colon in women. However the reason for the protection that the medicine provides is still unknown.

Funded by the National Cancer Institute, the study was undertaken by several research teams including the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of Southern California, the University of Iowa, the University of Minnesota and Minneapolis’s Masonic Cancer Center.

The research team spokesperson, David Limsui, M.D. is intrigued that they still do not know the reason why. Estrogen obviously has cancer preventing properties and more research is now required into examining the links between this hormone exposure and molecular subtypes found in colon cancer.

Up to a third of women who used HRT avoided developing the cancer because they were taken the hormone replacement therapy. Figures, that are quite obviously very significant. Other studies into this are also seen as reliable due to the large number of women involved.

In the eighties over thirty thousand females contributed to the research and decades later another sixteen thousand were part of a study known as the Women’s Health Initiative.

All the evidence is conclusively in place, it is now up to scientists to find out exactly why a woman’s risk from colorectal cancer is so much lower when taking HRT.