Suzanne Somors hormone replacement???

I don't believe she has a "hormone replacement" product...at least not that I know of.  Suzanne takes several different supplements and uses bioidenticle hormones.  She talks a lot about what she uses in her books.

Wow!  So much confusion!!!! I must admit, I am interested in ANY thing that will help my hot flashes!! But in doing research, it sounds like the jury is REALLY out as to whether these"bioidentical" hormones are helping or hurting those of use diagnosed with breast cancer.  Heck, I am wondering if those years of soy supplements were actually a really bad idea, as even though they most definitely helped with my menopausal symptoms, i may  have developed breast cancer as a result (or not).   I am SO CONFUSED!!!!

I am curious if Suzanne Sommors had hormone positive breast cancer, because it seems insane that she would TAKE bioidentical estrogen with having had breast cancer that was es or pr +.  I have done a little searching and have not found specifics except that she had a lumectomy and radiation - no chemo.  I have a "helpful" neighbor who has followed many of Suzanne's health books - with success in weight loss.  My neighbor is constantly telling me that Suzanne refused to do chemo, and Suzanne takes mistletoe for cancer.  However, this "helpful" neighbor also believe raw milk cures cancer, and pretty much any other wacky cancer cure you read about.  Really annoying - I have told my neighbor that just because Suzanne Sommers can do it after BC doesn't mean I can as BC has lots of nuances that vary with each individual.

Overall, I am really irritated that Oprah et. al are singing the praises of hormone replacement therapy when many of us would have devastating effects.  I only watched the Dr. Northrup show - which did not mention breast cancer AT ALL as a potential issue.  I realize that it can help many, but how about discussing the other side????

Sorry - my cancer history is new, I have my 4th chemo tomorrow, and I am still in a wierd place!

Susan

So, let me get this straight. Suzanne had a lumpectomy and rads, and no return of her cancer to date. And she takes tons of supplements.

Well, jeez, there are a gazillion women out there who had a lumpectomy and rads and have no recurrence to date. Supplements or not.

We are just beginning to learn about tumor types, which ones may have a propensity to spread, which ones never will. Is it the tumor's genetics, or the supplements, or both, that make the difference?

I say be careful. Suzanne's cancer is not YOUR  (or MY) cancer. I do hope she makes the caveat that what has worked for her may not be right for everyone.

Anne

There is a difference between bio-identicle hormones and HRT.....do your research

I don't think anybody here would take Suzanne Somer's word for anything...but she has gotten people to start looking at options. 

Self-education is the key!

Now read this one..

-----------U.N. Classifies Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) as ìCarcinogenicî
Date Published: Saturday, July 30th, 2005
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A newsinferno.com Special Report on HRT

After years of research, analysis, and debate, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.N.'s cancer research agency, has reclassified HRT from "possibly carcinogenic" to "carcinogenic."

The panel of 21 scientists concluded that the evidence from several recent studies was consistent and reliable enough to link HRT to breast cancer thereby fully justifying the reclassification. The normal risk of a woman (not on HRT) developing breast cancer is slightly more than 14%. Long-term use of HRT raises that risk to almost 17%.

The panel also concluded that HRT slightly increases the risk of endometrial cancer when progestin is taken fewer than 10 times per month.

While most experts agree with these conclusions and see no real departure from what was already generally accepted with respect to HRT, the panels finding that a common form of birth control pill was linked to a slightly increased risk of certain cancers was met with skepticism by many doctors.

HRT has been a long-standing and widely accepted treatment for women experiencing some of the more uncomfortable effects of menopause. In the past few years, however, this popular therapy has come under fire as a result of evidence linking HRT to many serious health risks.

A number of studies suggest that women undergoing HRT are exposing themselves to long-term harm that far outweighs the severity of the symptoms being treated.

For some women, HRT might consist of an estrogen-only treatment while others are given a combination of estrogen and progestin. This latter option is slightly less common but is still a popular solution to menopausal discomfort. Both types of HRT are used by an estimated 13.5 million women in the United States alone.

HRT has been around since the early 1940s when women began taking high doses of estrogen to counteract many of the temporary, but recurring, discomforts of menopause. In the 1970s, however, it was discovered that this particular form of estrogen therapy created an unacceptably high risk of uterine cancer. This prompted the trend by doctors to prescribe progestin along with significantly lower doses of estrogen.

Recent studies now show that there are too many health risks associated with HRT to justify its being used automatically as a "cookie cutter" treatment of choice or as if it were a woman's only available option.
Women should consult their physicians to discover whether HRT would be a benefit or a detriment given their own particular circumstances. While HRT undoubtedly alleviates a number of menopausal symptoms in many women, for some, the cost of that immediate relief may include unwanted long-term effects.

Prempro and Premarin:

Prempro and Premarin are the two major HRT drugs. Both are manufactured by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Prempro is a combination estrogen-progestin treatment and Premarin is an estrogen-only treatment. There are approximately 6 million women taking Prempro and 11 million women taking Premarin. In 2003, the two drugs had combined sales of $2.1 billion.

Although Premarin, the first HRT drug, was introduced in 1942 for the purpose of alleviating symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes and vaginal dryness, a study in the Journal of American Medical Association ("JAMA") has linked it to ovarian cancer.

Prempro, on the other hand, has been linked to various serious side effects including dementia, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, lupus, heart attack, and breast cancer.

Women taking Prempro have a 29% higher risk of heart attack, a 41% higher risk of stroke, and a 26% higher risk of breast cancer. Those figures alone should prompt women to consult their physicians regarding alternative treatments or methods of treatment. This is especially so for women who experience only minor symptoms of menopause such as vaginal dryness for which respond to alternative treatments such as creams and vitamin E.

The most important thing stressed by researchers and medical professionals alike is that Prempro, Premarin and other HRT drugs should be taken in the smallest dosages (that produce effective results) for the shortest duration as possible.
In addition, women who are only experiencing minor symptoms of menopause might want to forego HRT therapy altogether.
Finally, even women seeking relief from more severe symptoms should do their own benefit/risk analysis by asking questions, reading available reports, and keeping in mind the potential risks associated with HRT.
Harmful Effects of HRT:

As Prempro and Premarin are the two major existing HRT drugs, the following information is primarily related to the usage of one or the other. However, other drugs and treatments may have the same harmful effects.

Dementia:

HRT medications can double the risk of vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease, especially in women over 65. Short rather than long-term use is recommended in order to avoid this unwanted side-effect.

This information was first made public in an issue of the Journal of American Medicine released in May of 2003. The Women's Health Initiative Memory Study, which was funded by Wyeth, analyzed data from about 4,500 women, aged 65, who had not been diagnosed with dementia before the study.

I took HRT from back in 1993 until I just received my diagnosis....my Breast Surgeon believes it was the HRT that caused my cancer.......there are class action lawsuits out there over this....Here is another story I just read..........Studies have not gone on long enough to determine if bioidentical hormones are safe or not safe....I sure wouldn't trust them.....

----------------------

.Foundation & Claims of "Bioidentical" Hormones

Bioidentical hormones are typically derived from plant extracts and chemically altered to be identical in structure to endogenous human hormones.[5] Sources for these hormones often include plants (soy or yams), although de novo synthesis of hormones in the laboratory is also possible. Bioidentical is not a medical definition but one that has become popular with the media and public.[52,55] Celebrity self-help books written by Suzanne Somers and Michael Platt, along with many internet websites, promote bioidentical hormones as safer alternatives to conventional hormones prescribed for women to get "the exact dose that they require" to replace the body"s estrogen and progesterone.[8,9] These books state that FDA-approved products are "drug hormones," which only treat symptoms, and that nothing is being replaced. Bioidentical hormones are further described as the "secret elixir" and "fountain of youth", which can reverse the aging process and keep people mentally sharp and fit, although none of these claims have been clinically tested. As a result of these unsupported claims, the FDA recently sent warning letters to seven compounding pharmacies that were making false claims regarding their products for menopausal women.[55]

A characteristic of bioidentical estrogen compounds is the frequent inclusion of estriol in the product. The metabolism of estradiol includes its reversible metabolism to estrone, with further irreversible conversion to estriol.[10] After menopause, estradiol is no longer produced by the ovaries, but estrone is produced in fat through the conversion of androstendione. Estriol is the end product of estrone and estradiol metabolism.[10] The reason for the inclusion of estriol, a weak estrogen, which is an end product of metabolism in bioidentical estrogen formulations, is largely based on animal data suggesting that estriol may be safer with regard to the development of breast cancer. In studies by Lemon, virgin Sprague-Dawley rats premedicated with estriol were exposed to a known carcinogen.[11-14] In the animals pretreated with estriol, rats had reduced tumor induction. Furthermore, when estriol was implanted after exposure to the carcinogen, tumors tended to regress. However, other experiments suggested that ethinyl estradiol had the same effects in these rats. Unfortunately, when older women with breast cancer were treated with estriol, 25% had increased growth of metastases.[15] Overall, his experiments led him to conclude that continuous estriol was not an effective therapy for breast cancer in women. Thus, the "safer" theory of estriol therapy over estradiol and estrone with regard to breast cancer prevention in postmenopausal women has not been established.

The first time I saw my oncologist and he gave me some books to look over to help me get through this ordeal.....he made it quite clear that I was not to buy , read or even look at Susanne Somers book. But so now I'm interested to see what she has to say....I'll be taking it with a grain of salt.

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Deb,

Whatever your doctor "believes" is irrelevant. Her/his belief system has no scientific validity.

Studies show HRT takes get a much more survivable cancer. You should be grateful you were taking HRT.

Also, if you post an article, would you please cite its origin? It could have been written by anyone.

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Thanks, Lisa 

Dr. Erika is good. I've read her stuff and her blog. Dr. Elizabeth Vliet has written several good books and has a weekly net-based call-in show. I will try to find the link for it and some of her speeches in which she scientifically refutes the American scuttlebutt about HRT and BHRT.

I'm not fond of Dr. Northrup's thinking style tho she is very pleasant. She isn't specific enough for me. After she finishes speaking, I wonder what she actually said.

There are a lot of long time survivors taking BHRT, including me. This stuff has been around since the 1980s. Actually, estradiol in the form of Estrace was around before that.

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Ditto for me......I meant to record it, but forgot!  This whole thing has me very confused.  I am in the throes of hot flashes,  I can't sleep at night. I need help!!! I really want to know what to do and if this is safe for estrogen postive women like me.  I am ER positive 100%.  What to do??????

yellowfarmhouse....I completely agree with you. Although I missed Suzanne on Oprah today , I have seen her before doing other interviews with Larry King and Ellen. I felt like throwing my TV out the window. Hormones may help some woman who DO NOT have a personal history of BC, but for those of us who do, I think they are just plain dangerous.

My 2cents too..

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Suzanne Somers did a good job but didn't get into breast cancer. I wish she had talked about all the long term survivors who have taken bioidenticals after breast cancer. Or the studies showing the survival of breast cancer patients taking HRT doing better.

I never liked Suzanne Somers but she has written a solid, information-filled book with interviews with the most cutting edge doctors. You have to give her credit, whether you like her or not.

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