Why did so many women stop taking replacement hormone therapy?
The medical community has long known that these drugs can increase the risk of breast cancer, at least to a modest degree. But before 2002, the consensus was that other health benefits offset that risk. In 2002, big studies came out indicating that the long-term use of hormone replacement therapy, particularly the combination of estrogen and progestin, “did not seem to convey the health benefits that people once thought that they would,” Winer says. So the number of women taking hormone replacement therapy declined dramatically. Are there other possible explanations for this drop? The use of mammography declined slightly during this time. “But it’s hard to imagine that that decrease could lead to this fairly dramatic drop in incidence,” Winer says. In addition, he notes, more and more women are taking drugs like Raloxifene — or what’s commonly called Evista. Prescribed for osteoporosis, the drug also decreases breast cancer risk. But again, the size and suddenness of the drop in cases
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