Unless you had your head buried under the sand for the last few years, you should be aware that excess estrogen is one of the main causes of breast cancer.

The key here is excess. Women do need estrogen. The problem is that most western women have excessive amounts. Many women also have total hysterectomies in which their ovaries are removed. This is one of the few times where estrogen replacement therapy is appropriate.

Unfortunately the above study was quite small and did not seem to differentiate between these two groups.

However, in addition to estrogen increasing the risk of breast cancer, the study shows it increases insulin levels.

This is important as increased insulin levels are associated with not only increased risk of cancer, but high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and obesity.

Estrogen has also been promoted for many years to decrease the risk of heart disease. Well folks, this is simply not true.

Although estrogen does appear to lower cholesterol levels, heart disease prevention is clearly far more complex than cholesterol levels alone. It seems quite clear that estrogen supplementation in postmenopausal women who still have their ovaries does not lower the risk of heart disease.

Additionally estrogen is not the cure for bone loss that it is commonly promoted to be and estrogen does not decrease a women's risk of Alzheimer's disease.

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