Estrogen and Breast Cancer

Promising new research findings and a few other things that caught my eye this week.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming (ahem, a follow up post on supplements) to bring you some important news from the menoverse!

Actually, just one very promising piece of research that was presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and a few cool things that caught my attention this week. Let’s get right into it, shall we?

Researchers from Northwestern University conducted a study looking at the menopause hormone therapy drug Duavee to see if it could help prevent certain types of breast cancer. Duavee is a combination of conjugated estrogen and bazedoxifene, which can act as an estrogen or an anti-estrogen depending on the tissue.

Here is an excerpt from the article published by Northwestern.

Kulkarni’s team found the drug significantly reduced cell growth in breast tissue, a key marker of cancer progression. Unlike other breast cancer prevention drugs, which can cause difficult side effects and lead patients to decline taking medication, Duavee was well tolerated by trial participants.

“What excites me most is that a medication designed to help women feel better during menopause may also reduce their risk of invasive breast cancer,” said Dr. Kulkarni, who also is a Northwestern Medicine breast surgeon and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

Why is this a big deal? The hope is that Duavee may provide not just a safe - but protective - form of relief from menopause symptoms for women at high risk for estrogen receptor positive breast cancers. These are women for whom menopause hormone therapy hasn’t been an option and who may have had to suffer through severe menopause symptoms with limited resources for treating them.

Geeking out and want more in-depth information? You can read the study details here and the abstract here. And doctors Jen Gunter and Lauren Streicher both published articles about the study results on their respective Substacks here and here.

Also, can we pause for a moment and acknowledge that women are amazing? Case in point: ultra marathoner Stephanie Case won a 100 kilometer race last week despite stopping three times to nurse her baby! The race was her first after a three year break from competing to work through infertility issues and give birth to her baby. Just … wow!

Speaking of female athletes, I also really enjoyed reading a piece from the Washington Post on four ways women are physically stronger than men. Spoiler alert: strength isn’t just about brute force! You can read the social media post here or the full article (behind a paywall) here.

And finally, are you a member of the We Do Not Care Club? Pretty sure it’s one of the best places on the internet right now.

Until next week,

Rebecca