Questions About Data Linking Breast Cancer and HRT

Though not a fitness matter, this still serves to demonstrate just how unreliable/unproven a lot of medical data are.

The link between breast cancer and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is based on "unreliable evidence," assert the authors of a paper published online January 16 in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care. However, this criticism has been summarily dismissed by experts involved in the HRT studies.

The authors note that the claim that HRT with estrogen plus progestogen is now an established cause of breast cancer is based principally on the findings of 3 studies — the collaborative reanalysis, the Women's Health Initiative, and the Million Women Study (MWS).

The findings from these studies, which were reported in the early 2000s, led to warnings about the risk for breast cancer from HRT, and resulted in a dramatic fall in the use of these products.

However, these studies do not prove causality, say the authors, headed by Samuel Shapiro, MB, visiting professor of epidemiology at the University of Cape Town Medical School in South Africa. They examined each of the studies in a series of articles, the latest of which focuses on the MWS.

"HRT may or may not increase the risk of breast cancer," the authors note, and conclude that these studies do not establish causality.

Well, that resolves the issue, don't it?

Still think they have any idea what they are talking about?