Biology Reseach Project - Is Hormone Replacement Therapy safe?

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Is hormone replacement therapy good for you?

Menopause affects most women, with its peak occurring during the 50-60’s. This is the time that the menstrual cycle ceases and symptoms indicating hormonal imbalance start to occur; including hot flushes, fainting etc. To combat these symptoms many women are entitled to turn to the use of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). HRT is the use of synthetic hormones which is aimed to correct any hormonal imbalance which women may experience and reduce any persistent symptoms. However with its risks HRT also has some potential hazards on women. There is the issue to whether HRT provides more risks than benefits. It is known that HRT has a good effect on women’s health in terms of enabling them to continue healthy lives after menopause; HRT is also known to cut down osteoporosis. However there are a wide range of hazards that it imposes especially with prolonged use, such as being the greatest contributing risk factor for the development of many breast cancers. HRT has also been identified as a risk factor for cardiac events and heart attacks; this is already showing that the potential hazards already weigh up to more than the benefits.  

      Figure 1                                                                                                                          

There are many studies which indicate that HRT has a hazardous effect on women. These studies range between different areas of medicine.  In the 1990's a large study was done by the Women's Health Initiative that showed that HRT reduced the risk of osteoporosis and colon cancer but increased the risk of strokes, breast cancer, embolisms, and heart disease. There was a further follow up study in 2002 by the same organisation in 2002 which concluded that there are more risks than benefits. However to date do doctors do have knowledge of these factors and fail to specify to patients? This is not the case; it is in the patient’s best interests to make a uniform decision to whether their use of HRT will undermine their immune system.

HRT on Breast cancer.

 Looking at some of the studies which were taken we can observe that HRT has an increased on women developing breast cancer. The studies are not a 100% confirmable to all cases, thus giving us the second argument that the results are inadequate in providing a full conclusion.


In the January 26, 2000 issue of the
Journal of the American Medical Association the results of a cohort study of follow-up data for 1980-1995 were revealed. The study included 46,000 women in which 2082 women developed breast cancer. The risk in women who, either currently or within the last four years, used combined oestrogen/progestin therapy was 1.4.

Studies which have followed have been able to replicate the same results which imply that the trend does exist. There is knowledge that the female sex hormones impact breast development; Oestrogen stimulates mitotic divisions, and progesterone opposes this effect. The use of synthetic forms of these hormones especially in combination of both for treatment of menopause is known to be carcinogenic. When using the two sources in conjunction (Figure 1 and Figure 2) we can derive that Hormone Replacement therapy has a dominant effect on breast cancer cases.

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 However we can only deduct a correlation as not all women who are taking HRT in their lifetime exposure to HRT will develop any breast tumour.  When synthetic hormones are placed inside a body which is no longer producing them the effect is that the body will not benefit from it so well and as mentioned beforehand there will be a stimulus for cell proliferation (uncontrollable multiplication of cells which is not following the steps of normal cell division)

"Women on combined hormone therapy with oestrogen plus progesterone were twice as likely to die from breast cancer compared to ...

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