ESTROGEN AND BREAST CANCER

ESTROGEN AND BREAST CANCER
Female secondary sex characteristic in girls at puberty is stimulated by the hormones called estrogen.
Among the better know estrogen estrone, ethnyl, estriol, two synthetic estrogen are respectively five and ten times as potent as estrone, their activities are similar to natural estrogen.
Estrogen in hormone replacement therapy carries risks which include breast or uterine cancer or cardiovascular disease. To be frank scientist are not able to understand at present what causes breast cancer. Studies suggest that several categories of women are at risk of having the disease The categories include.

1) Women with a long menstrual history. That is a menstrual period that started before age 12 after ages 50.
2) Those who never gave birth or who had their first child at 30 years.

Cancer researchers have found that about 5 percent of all breast cancer cases are associated with inherited mutations in genes. These genes include the BRCA2 and p53.
The protein HER – 2 (Also called HER2/ neu) produced by oncogenes is present in about one third of all breast cancer patients.

ESTROGEN AND ENDOMETRIAL CANCER
Women who develop endometrial cancer seem to relate to the estrogen hormone. Early or later menopause increases a women risk of having endometrial cancer probably by increasing the number of years during which the endometrial is exposed to estrogen.
Other things that can increase the risk of women having endometrial cancer include.

1) OBESITY
Obesity also increases the risk of endometrial cancer, probably because excess fat can increase the production of estrogen in a woman’s body.


2) DRUGS:
Drugs used to remedy other cancer related diseases may help increase the risk of women having endometrial cancer. Drugs such as tamoxifene used in preventing breast cancer, acts like an estrogen on cells of the endometrial cancer and raises the risk of endometrial cancer.

More to come