Does Hormone Replacement Therapy Prevent Colon Cancer?

Posted on February 10, 2010 by David Oliver

A study of 57,000 California teachers found that those on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) had a 36% lower risk of colon cancer than women who never used HRT. The study followed California teachers for a over a decade. The study, "Menopausal Hormone Therapy Use and Risk of Invasive Colon Cancer: The California Teachers Study" is published this month in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The effect, and by the way a 36% decrease in one of the leading causes of cancer is a pretty big deal, held whether the women were active or not, obese or not, taking NSAIDs or not, consumers of alcohol or not and was especially strong among women with a family history of colorectal cancer. Interestingly, the protective effect disappeared after 15 years.

So what should a perimenopausal/postmenopausal woman do? Is it just a matter of picking her poison? I've no idea. But until someone figures out how cancer really works it looks like we're stuck in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" dilemma.

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