Brian Williams recently broadcasted a show about hormones and breast cancer.
Many of you have asked what Dr. Mahmud thought about the information presented. Please read his response below…
The much publicized recent JAMA article, an extension of the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study, once again proves that artificial drug “hormones”, specifically Prem-Pro, increase the risk of deadly breast cancer.
What is not being emphasized is the fact that Prem-Pro is a drug and not a real hormone. The Prem part [premarin] is mostly a horse estrogen, and Pro [provera] a chemical alteration of progesterone. Drug companies created these artificial “hormones” to receive patents, thus enabling them to sell billions of dollars worth with billions in profits. Real hormones, unfortunately, could not be patented and were therefore understandably sidelined.
Practicing physicians, and public, should understand that altering Nature’s molecules leads to trouble. You cannot add an O to H2O and still call it water – it becomes hydrogen peroxide- or add H to fats and fool mother nature, because, as every one knows, hydrogenated fats have already caused a lot of heart attacks.
Anti-Aging doctors have understood this difference for many years and have been evolving ways to give natural, “bio-identical”, hormones in natural ways to avoid all complications, not just breast cancer. I personally have published my results [Natural Hormone Therapy for Menopause, Gynecological Endocrinology, Feb 2010], a review [Hormones and breast cancer: Can we use them in ways that could reduce the risk; Oncology Reviews, 2008], and a book: Keeping aBreast: Ways to Stop Breast Cancer.
Numerous scientific articles in the literature explain the health benefits of natural hormones and the toxicities of drug “hormones”. More pertinent to this topic, a large French study by Fournier and associates, analyzing 80,000 hormone using women, has revealed that women using artificial estrogen plus artificial progesterone had a 69% increase in breast cancer; even women using only artificial estrogen had a 29 % increase; but those taking natural progesterone had no increase, despite the fact that they were also using artificial estrogen [Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2008, Jan]. A similar Canadian study [British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2008, June] showed that artificial hormones increase risk of breast cancer, but estrogen taken as a cream [like most Anti-Aging doctors use] did not increase the risk. Women using artificial hormones have been reported to have a 10-40% increased risk of developing abnormal mammograms. In our own practice [more than 400 patients followed for more than a year], there have been no mammographic abnormalities.
There is no question that natural hormones can be given to women for health benefits and without causing any harm. For now, conventional physicians, are not familiar with the use of such hormones. Women would do better to seek an Anti-Aging doctor, and enquire in advance that he/she is trained in using these hormones naturally and would monitor the patient and blood levels as therapy goes on.
Khalid Mahmud, MD, FACP
[Internist-Hematologist-Oncologist-Anti-Aging Specialist]