Anytime the media or conventional MD's discuss bioindenticals, there is so much misinformation and omitted details the conclusions are incomplete, if not totally misleading.



In this case, they once again throw natural progesterone in the same category as synthetic progestin that was used in the 2001 study, even though research has shown they behave much differently in the human body. (Of course this research is done mostly outside the US since the FDA, which is controlled by big Pharma, won't sponsor research into non-patentable BHRT.) They also cite both estrogen and progesterone as reducing with age, ignoring the crucial detail that progesterone reduces sooner and to a greater extent, thus creating the E2 imbalance that contributes to most breast cancers. The whole interview and content sounds like it was produced by the pharmaceutical industry.



Classic example is the so-called breaking news on NBC last week that Arimidex reduces the incidence of breast cancer in susceptible women by almost half, claiming the drug should now be used as preventative medicine. They aren't satisfied with destroying the health of women who are diagnosed with BC, now they want millions of other post-menopausal women to endure the horrendous side effects of the AI drugs. And of course their research into drugs to combat those side effects is continuing with new drugs on the market soon. If one wonders why such slanted reporting is allowed without journalistic questioning of side effects, alternatives, etc., just watch the commercials of network news; practically all big Pharma ads. Follow the money and the real story will surface.



I know this all sounds like conspiracy theory; it is not, simply observation of the same pattern for decades.

Very well. I apologize. Please remove the "...controlled by big pharma" comment (even though the notion of the FDA being free from influence of the pharmaceutical industry is absurd - in my opinion), and exactly what about the rest of my post is false? Also, I didn't say "all women have horrible side effects."

All the women that my wife and i know who are taking AI's do, but I suppose that is coincidental. Fear mongering... I wish we would have heard some fear mongering a few years ago. There is no doubt in my mind that for some women, the AI's may be a life saving drug. But, to prescribe them for practically every BC case regardless of the chance of recurrence is not good medicine. Again, just my opinion, although based on personal experince. .

kvg - all breast cancers have a chance of recurrence, so prescribing hormone drugs for those who are hormone receptive seems very sensible to me no matter what percentage reduction in recurrence is hoped for. 

My mom worked for 2 big pharma companies. At her last job, which she had for a decade, she was, among other things, in charge of logging and inventoring the endless piles of documentation needed for FDA approvals. Considering how nervous everyone was about meeting FDA requirements and the disaster it was if it failed for whatever reason, I remain dubious about this whole conspiracy deal, even if the idea is extremely popular these days.

The main thing at work, I think, is a human universal - people tend to pick a paradigm and work within it, which in turn reinforces and perpetuates said paradigm. So, the pharma industry and a good chunk of doctors are stuck in a fairly narrow way of thinking about the problem of, for example, cancer treatment.

However, there are also many other researchers and doctors who are aware of this limiting mindset and who are actively pushing for applying new angles to the problem. I just heard about one study, as an example, that had used a novel and dynamic analysis model, which allowed researchers to find things that worked much faster and with fewer people in their study.

KVG, I have LCIS and an estimated at least 30% chance of developing breast cancer. I've already had ovarian cancer. An AI will cut my risk 50% to about normal 12 to 15%. I hardly think they are intending to "destroy my health" & I find your hyperbole offensive. Personally, I find it more offensive when you are posting on "behalf" of your wife.

This may help, kayb, explain the difference... a hormone is considered "natural" if it comes from a plant source; however, this can be misleading as "natural" can, also, mean that it is foreign to the human body.  Plant source hormones are "unnatural" to the human body as, as such, our bodies do not make these hormones and, thus, do not possess the ability to process these hormones into something the body can use effectively.

In addition, "synthetic" just means that it was processed in a lab.  A natural compound can be synthesized in a lab to create a hormone replacement product.  The lab converts the plant chemicals into a chemical/molecular structure mimicking the kind of hormones our body produces.  Thus, all "natural" hormones are, technically, "synthetic"; they've been altered by a scientific process, otherwise our bodies would not be able to process them.

"Bioidentical hormones" are synthetic hormones - derived from plant sources - that have been manipulated by the lab into a form that is chemically identical to the hormones our body produces and, thus, can use effectively.  But this "synthesizing" means that it is no longer a totally "natural" product.  Science has altered it.  Technically, the body can't tell the difference between a bioidentical hormone and estrogen; however, there doesn't seem to be any consensus of what level of hormones we should be aiming for; they are merely used to relieve the symptoms of menopause.  That, in my opinion, raises a red flag to the use of bioidentical hormones in patients who are at high risk for- or who've had breast cancer, at least, until more information is available.

http://www.herplace.com/hormone-info/natural-vs-synthetic.htm

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/What-are-bioidentical-hormones.htm

Selena, thanks for the links. It would seem, according to the Harvard link, that the bioidenticals behave exactly like the "homemade" estrogen. So, if I had my ovaries yanked and take an AI to make sure I have none of this stuff in my system, surely it would be completely insane for me to start taking these products.

Momine ... I agree.  It would be insane to take these products until much, much more is learned.  For me, it's kind of like the sugar argument.  Sugar is sugar.  It doesn't matter whether- or not it comes from cane or beets, or whatever; our bodies are going to see it as sugar.  The body doesn't go, "... oh, this is cane sugar, so I'm going to process it differently than if it was beet sugar..."   And some of us have bodies that process sugar much more efficiently than others.

 I can't help feeling that the bioidentical hormones will be the same; they're hormones and the body is going to treat them like hormones.  Like sugar, our bodies will process it with varying degrees of efficiency.  Until more research is done, women in our position (with hormone positive breast cancers) need to talk to their doctors- and oncologists about how to interpret the current information in order to make the safest possible decision.

Thanks for that.  It's always good to learn more about anything.  I'm one of those people that hates not knowing stuff.

Which kinda leads me to... what will more research about bioidenticals show?  Will the body recognize the differences and adjust accordingly like it does with sugar?

the market had organic cranberries yesterday: today I juiced some, yum a few with the rest of the jicing things. lots of celery as no organic cucumbers there

"In summary, the increased risk of breast cancer associated with estrogen-plus-progestin therapy declined markedly soon after discontinuation of the therapy and was unrelated to a change in the use of mammography. This finding supports the hypothesis that the recent reduction in the incidence of breast cancer among women in certain age groups in the United States is predominantly related to a decrease in the use of combined estrogen plus progestin."

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0807684#t=articleBackground

Fallleaves... that's what I've been reading about lately.  Which is why it's SO important to discuss these things with your doctor/treatment team and not just relying on what we read on-line.  Some of the distinctions in treatment are turning out to be so fine, that it takes someone who has several years of education and experience to help sort it all out and to apply that information to our own personal case.

Falleaves, that article is indeed interesting.  If I read it correctly, it addresses whether hormone replacement therapy can cause breast or endometrial cancer.  But most of us reading this thread have already been diagnosed, and our concern is the nutrition, so to speak, of any wandering cancer cells still remaining in our bodies.  Whether existing cancer cells recognize and gobble up hormones, from whatever source, is quite a different question from whether these same hormones might cause cancer in a healthy person.  Considering that AI's and tamoxofen reduce our chance of recurrence by significant margins (50% in my case), I have a very hard time understanding why anyone with estrogen or progesterone receptors would want to take these products after diagnosis.

Brookside, that reminds me of something that I have been wondering about with HRT. When the studies showing harmful effects came out there was a rapid movement away from HRT and breast cancer rates went down in the several years afterwards. I found that curious, as I have read that cancer can take 10 to 20 years to be detectable. So, how would stopping HRT "prevent" cancer from occurring so quickly? In my mind, the HRT may be acting as an accelerant on existing cancer, moving it more quickly to the detectable stage. Just a theory

Interesting viewpoint.  That would jive with the fact that cancer occurs at the cellular/genetic level; therefore precluding HRT as a cancer causing agent, but explain why it could provide "fuel" for an existing estrogen-positive cancer (occult or otherwise).