231 - Getting to the truth around HRT and breast cancer with Dr Avrum Bluming

The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Dr Louise Newson

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Medicine

4.8 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Leading US oncologist Dr Avrum Bluming joins Dr Louise Newson to talk about the crucial role of oestrogen in women’s health. Despite HRT’s proven benefits in protecting against heart disease, bone fracture and cognitive decline, many women still avoid it over breast cancer fears. It’s been more than 20 years since media headlines about a study called the Women’s Health Initiative linked HRT to an increased risk of breast cancer. In this podcast, Dr Bluming says that in fact we now know oestrogen alone decreases the risk of breast cancer development by 23% and risk of death from breast cancer by 40%. He also disputes the findings of the WHI study that combined progesterone and oestrogen HRT leads to a small increase in breast cancer cases. ‘It is very upsetting when such an influential study continues to misquote their own data,’ says Dr Bluming, who has spent 25 years studying the benefits and risks of HRT in breast cancer survivors. Dr Bluming points out that oestrogen used to be a treatment for breast cancer before chemotherapy was developed, and that rates of breast cancer increase as we age, despite the fact our oestrogen levels fall as we get older. You can read about Dr Bluming's latest paper here, and listen to an earlier podcast Dr Newson and Dr Bluming recorded here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr Louise Newsome. I'm a GP and menopause specialist, and I'm also the founder of the Newsome Health Menopause and wellbeing centre here in Stratford-Pon-Avon.
0:21.6	I'm also the founder of the free Balance app.
0:25.6	Each week on my podcast, join me and my special guests where we discuss all things perimenopause
0:31.6	and menopause. We talk about the latest research, bust myths on menopause symptoms and treatments,
0:38.2	and often share moving and always inspirational personal stories.
0:43.7	This podcast is brought to you by the Newsome Health Group,
0:46.9	which has clinics across the UK dedicated to providing individualised perimenopause and menopause care for all women.
1:02.8	So today on the podcast I have someone who's in the US, so not near me, but I've had him on my
1:09.1	podcast before and I'm hopefully have him again,
1:12.2	someone called Avram Blooming, who some of you might have known, who is a very inspirational
1:16.8	and academic doctor, who has got the most amazing knowledge and also clarity about things.
1:24.6	And I first heard him talk at the Royal Society probably about seven years ago
1:29.6	and thought, wow, this is so interesting because he's saying some really common sense things.
1:36.1	And common sense often gets lost in medicine. We're always trying to find the biggest,
1:41.5	the bestest, the most impressive cure for something. And then we
1:45.5	forget basic science. And Averin's talk at the Royal Society just made me sit and reflect and
1:51.9	think, Louise, what are you doing? Go back to basics in medicine, which is what we often do.
1:56.7	So he's helped me more than he knows over the last few years, really trying to unpick evidence
2:02.1	in a very simple way. So I'm very delighted, I've rem, to introduce you again to the studio.
2:08.6	So thanks for joining me.
2:10.0	It's a pleasure, Louise, as always.
2:12.3	Ah. So yours and my backgrounds are similar but different in that you've been an oncologist for many years
	...

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