Can progesterone reduce breast cancer risk?

Natural progesterone reduces or eliminates premenstrual and menopausal symptoms in women. It can also reduce or remove benign breast cysts. But is it safe? Does progesterone increase or decrease the risk of breast cancer?

Recently Cambridge scientists tested the effects of progesterone and oestrogen (oestrodiol) on human breast cells when they are exposed to natural modulatory substances produced by the body called cytokines.

The scientists had previously established that when progesterone receptors were present in the cancer cells (not all breast cancer cells have progesterone receptors), the cells were able to produce a messenger molecule called nitric oxide. Also, when progesterone receptors and nitric oxide were present in the cancer cells, they found that tumours were lower grade and grew more slowly.

In the current study researchers found that when they exposed the cancer cells to cytokines alone, nitric oxide production was not increased. However when they added progesterone (but not oestrogen) this did enhance nitric oxide production and this significantly increased the death of breast cancer cells. They concluded that their findings suggested ‘novel approaches towards hormonotherapy and the treatment of cancer.”

Reference
Progesterone enhances cytokine-stimulated nitric oxide synthase II expression and cell death in human breast cancer cells.
Bentrari et al. Laboratory Investigation (2005) 85, 624-632, advance online publication, 21 March 2005

Some 300 million people now suffer from asthma. 40% of American children have allergic rhinitis. Eczema affects 15% of children in Europe and the US. IBS, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are also on the rise. What is causing these epidemic increases in allergy?

These findings are forcing a rethink of the ‘hygiene theory’, the current explanation for the overactive immune systems of adults or children who suffer from allergies (or atopy). The theory was that removing children from the ‘germs’ that caused childhood diseases had left their immune systems with no enemies to fight, and that this had caused the over-reaction of allergic responses.

Now the evidence is suggesting that it’s not exposure to old enemies that the immune system is missing, but exposure to certain old friends – the harmless bacteria that over the course of evolution have played a role in teaching our immune system how to keep its aggressive nature under control.

Work being done by several research labs is now showing that exposure to harmless micro-organisms can directly affect how well the immune system is able to control itself. For example mice with respiratory allergies get better when treated with dead Mycobacterium vaccae, a harmless bacterium commonly found in mud. Last year researchers at the University of California showed that the immune system can recognise DNA from the lactobacilli present in yoghurt and that this recognition triggers an anti-inflammatory response that reduces the symptoms of colitis.

The question now is which harmless micro-organisms have we eliminated from our daily contact which would once have protected our immune systems from over-reaction? The scientists first suggestion is that we would once have drunk from streams and had regular contact with soil and animals. In fact, studies in Europe, Australia and the US have shown that children who grow up on farms have a much smaller chance of developing allergies than those who live in cities. More recently researchers have found that the cots of farm babies contain greater quantities of endotoxin, a potent immune stimulant associated with many bacteria found in dirt (soil). Endotoxin is also more common in the homes of allergy-free children.

None of us can go back to childhood for ‘reprogramming’. But we can now supplement ourselves with a potent selection of these harmless soil-based organisms and the lactobacilli in Nature’s Biotic.

Read Dr. Paul Yanick's article on SBOs

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