The Hormone Therapy That Reduces Breast Cancer Risk & More

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

In A Rush?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• It can get a bit confusing when it comes to menopause and HRT if you have a history of breast cancer (or an otherwise increased breast cancer risk); must one settle for the lesser evil?

  • Today’s main feature looks at hormone modulating therapy, HMT, that reduces breast cancer risk while also helping to keep dementia (often associated with estrogen deficiency) at bay.

  • No word yet on how this stacks up against osteoporosis or other symptoms of untreated menopause, but it’s at least some good news so far, even just as–is.

• How’s your hydration looking? For most people, at any given time, it’s not great. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

  • Today's sponsor NativePath is offering a 365-day money-back guarantee on their range of electrolyte and amino acid drink mixes, which are great for your kidneys, bladder, and pelvic floor muscles.

• Today’s featured recipe is for fiber-fueled, protein-packed, twice-baked stuffed potatoes—great for your heart and your tastebuds!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

Take These To Lower Cholesterol! (Statin Alternatives)

Dr. Ada Ozoh, a diabetes specialist, took an interest in this upon noting the many-headed beast that is metabolic syndrome means that neither diabetes nor cardiovascular disease exist in a vacuum, and there are some things that can help a lot against both. Here she shares some of her top recommendations:

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Wildcard Wednesday

The Hormone Balancing Act

We’ve written before about menopausal HRT:

What You Should Have Been Told About Menopause Beforehand

…and even specifically about the considerations when it comes to breast cancer risk:

Menopausal Hormone Replacement Therapy

👆 this really does bear reading, by the way—scroll down to the bit about breast cancer risk, because it’s not a simple increased/decreased risk; it can go either way, and which way it goes will depend on various factors including your medical history and what HRT, if any, you are taking.

Hormone Modulating Therapy

Hormone modulating therapy, henceforth HMT, is something a little different.

Instead of replacing hormones, as hormone replacement therapy does, guess what hormone modulating therapy does instead? That’s right…

MHT can modulate hormones by various means, but the one we’re going to talk about today does it by blocking estrogen receptors,

Isn’t that the opposite of what we want?

You would think so, but since for many people with an increased breast cancer risk, the presence of estrogen increases that risk, which leaves menopausal (peri- or post) people in an unfortunate situation, having to choose between increased breast cancer risk (with estrogen), or osteoporosis and increased dementia risk, amongst other problems (without).

However, the key here (in fact, that’s a very good analogy) is in how the blocker works. Hormones and their receptors are like keys and locks, meaning that the wrong-shaped hormone won’t accidentally trigger it. And when the right-shaped hormone comes along, it gets activated and the message (in this case, “do estrogenic stuff here!” gets conveyed). A blocker is sufficiently similar to fit into the receptor, without being so similar as to otherwise act as the hormone.

In this case, it has been found that HMT blocking estrogen receptors was sufficient to alleviate the breast cancer risk, while also being associated with a 7% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias, with that risk reduction being even greater for some demographics depending on race and age. Black women in the 65–74 age bracket enjoyed a 24% relative risk reduction, with white women of the same age getting an 11% relative risk reduction. Black women enjoyed the same benefits after that age, whereas white women starting it at that age did not get the same benefits. The conclusion drawn from this is that it’s good to start this at 65 if relevant and practicable, especially if white, because the protective effect is strongest when gained aged 65–69.

Here’s a pop-science article that goes into the details more deeply than we have room for here:

Hormone therapy for breast cancer linked with lower dementia risk

And here’s the paper itself; we highly recommend reading at least the abstract, because it goes into the numbers in much more detail than we reasonably can here. It’s a huge cohort study of 18,808 women aged 65 years or older, so this is highly relevant data:

Alzheimer Disease and Related Dementia Following Hormone-Modulating Therapy in Patients With Breast Cancer

Want to learn more?

If you’d like a much deeper understanding of breast cancer risk management, including in the context of hormone therapy, you might like this excellent book that we reviewed recently:

The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons

Take care!

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This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between cashew nuts and coconuts—we picked the cashews (click here to read about why), as did 60% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

Recipes Worth Sharing

Twice-Baked Stuffed Potatoes

Packed with protein and fiber and dosed with healthy spices, these tasty treats can be enjoyed hot as they are, or cold as part of a salad dinner:

Click below for our full recipe, and learn its secrets:

One-Minute Book Review

Energize!: Go from Dragging Ass to Kicking It in 30 Days – by Dr. Michael Breus & Stacey Griffith

We previously reviewed another book book by Dr. Breus, The Power Of When. So what’s different in this one?

While the chronotypes featured in The Power Of When also feature here (and sufficient explanation is given to make this a fine stand-alone book), this book has a lot to do with metabolism also. By considering a person’s genetically predisposed metabolic rate to be fast, medium, or slow (per being an ectomorph, mesomorph, or endomorph), and then putting that next to one’s sleep chronotype, we get 12 sub-categories that in this book each get an optimized protocol of sleep, exercise (further divided into: what kind of exercise when), and eating/fasting.

Which, in effect, amounts to a personalized coaching program for optimized energy!

The guidance is based on a combination of actual science plus “if this then that” observation-based principles—of the kind that could be described as science if they had been studied clinically instead of informally. Dr. Breus is a sleep scientist, by the way, and his co-author Stacey Griffith is a fitness coach. So between the two of them, they have sleep and exercise covered, and the fasting content is very reasonable and entirely consistent with current consensus of good practice.

The style is very pop-psychology, and very readable, and has a much more upbeat feel than The Power Of When, which seems to be because of Griffith’s presence as a co-author (most of the book is written from a neutral perspective, and some parts have first-person sections by each of the authors, so the style becomes distinct accordingly).

Bottom line: if you’d like to be more energized but [personal reason why not here] then this book may not fix all your problems, but it’ll almost certainly make a big difference and help you to stop sabotaging things and work with your body rather than against it.

Click here to check out Energize!, and do just that!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you a wonderful Wednesday full of wellness,

The 10almonds Team