Yet again, HRT is shown to triple the risk of breast cancer

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) dramatically increases the risk of breast cancer and one in 20 cases of breast cancer in the UK is due to HRT.

These findings, by a team from Oxford University, are the conclusions of the most comprehensive worldwide study ever undertaken on the drug. They also confirm previous studies. The team however, did not look at other cancers such as ovarian cancer which has also been shown in the past to be caused by HRT.

While 6.3% of women in the 50-69 age group who have not taken the hormone drug develop breast cancer, 8.3% of those who take or have taken HRT do so. This means that one in 50 women develops the disease directly because of the drug - a synthetic oestrogen/progestagen mix.

The research mirrored 2016 research from the Institute of Cancer Research which showed the same result - that HRT tripled breast cancer risk.

As long ago as 2004, the Lancet reported that HRT could double breast cancer risk. This is exactly the same figure that was found in the Boston Nurses Study a decade earlier. In 2015 the Lancet published a meta-analysis showing that 1 woman per 1,000 taking HRT would develop ovarian cancer because of the drug! The risk effects of HRT apparently stay with women for more than ten years even after stopping the hormone drug!

Professor Valerie Beral led the team, who showed that even the oestrogen and intermittent progestogen regime had an increased risk; that the belief that 'if women start HRT before the age of 50 there was no increased risk' was a complete myth; and that there was 'no benefit to heart health'.

Professor Richard Peto was clear saying "On websites in this country and other countries the risk is misrepresented and I hope that is going to change quite sharpley".