Access To Functional Information Is A'Changing

Progesterone: One great "Breast Protector!" But this science is harder to find.

Through the 50’s and up to 2002, hormone replacement therapies (HRT) were great prescriptive sellers. Popular. Docs whipped out their pads and wrote tons of scripts. Women smiled.

Women were promised you could not only be “Feminine Forever” if you took estrogen to “fix” estrogen deficiency, you could be “Healthy Forever”.

This was because HRT was being actively recommended by prestigious medical societies to “both” prevent and treat diseases. From osteoporosis to heart disease. To use immediately after heart attacks or a stroke or getting a stent. Or cross fingers, before you get issues like this, for prophylaxis.

When the 1st Women’s Health Initiative’s (WHI) “wrong” initial findings were published, this shook the plate tectonics of our hormonal planet.

So, I dove into the science.

Spent 3 years writing Safe Hormones, Smart Women. An in-depth analysis of the WHI.

In doing research, there was quite a bit in Pubmed.gov on articles about the protective benefits of progesterone. For example, pre-operative levels of progesterone before breast cancer surgeries.

Examples: If you were having any breast surgery that was was related to breast cancer, such as mastectomy, lumpectomy, lymphadenectomy, etc. If your blood levels of progesterone were at a “protective” level, you lived longer. With less recurrences.

Pubmed.gov is where historically anyone can go look up abstracts (summaries) to most “peer-reviewed” articles. This cite is paid for your tax dollars and mine. It’s been a fabulous service (up till now). Run by our NIH.

Peer review means colleagues check an article’s value before it’s officially published in a peer review journal and ends up in PubMed.

I have been a scientific peer reviewer myself. I have original research that ‘s been peer-reviewed and published in medical journals and Pubmed. But… I digress.

I cited many of these studies in Safe Hormones, Smart Women.

I recall there were perhaps 70 studies, if not more, on the topic of pre-operative protective levels of natural progesterone.

Dr. Carol Petersen, a world’s expert on progesterone, who will also speak at Everything Hormones, thinks there were about 100 articles. All extolling pre-operative protection by “natural” progesterone.

However, now, when I try to find these studies, they are very difficult to access. On Pubmed.gov.

They are buried. Or gone?

Sometimes even having the exact title of the article, doesn’t help. That’s totally nuts and unheard of prior till now.

Seems that many articles that discuss the protective actions of “natural steroids” like progesterone, are harder and harder to obtain.

If you use an alternative search method, such as Google search, it seems big Pharma has “bought” many “front” pages. Buried the protective natural steroid information way, way “behind”.

Or they’re simply… puff… “gone”.

It’s harder and harder to get to much of this “functional” medicine information.

I texted Dr. Pam Smith. She and often lecture together. We sometimes call ourselves Frick and Frack.

We are dear colleagues and friends.

She and I have been diving into the hormone science for decades. We almost “live” on Pubmed.gov.

I inquired of her,

“Hey, Pam, are you seeing this phenomena? Of the “science” that you and I know, that supports certain functional paradigms, getting more challenging to sleuth. To find. Are you experiencing this?

“Yes!” Pam echoed. “Exactly!” “It’s exasperating. Scary.”

So I dug deeper.

It seems that the “hiding” of pre-operative progesterone benefits, began in 2011.

I’ll call this”the natural progesterone cover-up”.

I found this article from 2011. Maybe this is why. The title reads: Single-injection depot progesterone before surgery and survival in women with operable breast cancer: a randomized controlled trial.

This group of Indian scientists says that since progesterone is a emerging as an anti-cancer agent, it may be helpful to give prior to surgery. Especially if a woman is node positive (cancer is found in lymph nodes).

These authors say:

Abstract

Purpose: Many nonrandomized studies have suggested better outcome for patients with breast cancer who undergo surgery during the luteal (progestogenic) phase of their menstrual cycle, but this is controversial. We investigated the effect of a single preoperative injection of hydroxyprogesterone in women with operable breast cancer (OBC) in a randomized controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier, NCT00123669).

Patients and methods: One thousand patients with OBC were randomly assigned to receive surgery or an intramuscular injection of depot hydroxyprogesterone 500 mg 5 to 14 days before surgery. Primary and secondary end points were disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), respectively. An analysis by axillary lymph node status was preplanned.

Conclusion:

A single injection of hydroxyprogesterone before surgery did not improve outcomes in all women with OBC.

This intervention showed significant improvement in node-positive women that may be considered hypothesis generating.

So, instead of natural progesterone, this was recommending a shot of synthetic progestin. Which btw has been linked to “irreversible bone loss”. This is what Dr. Brownstein teaches in our new Everything Hormones course. Coming soon!

Then later down the pike, an article actually wrote about progesterone being used as a cancer fighting med, given along with chemo, to make chemo even work better. To “sensitize” the tumor cells to chemo. So they will die more easily!

These Russian investigators say:

Abstract

Progesterone and its synthetic analogues, progestins, participate in the regulation of cell differentiation, proliferation and cell cycle progression.

Recently, their effectiveness in the treatment of hormone-sensitive tumors was revealed.

According to current data, the anticancer activity of progestins is mainly mediated by their cytotoxic and chemosensitizing influence on different cancer cells.

In divers ways (they go through the mechanisms), progestins can restore the proliferative balance, the ability for apoptosis, and chemosensitivity to drugs, which is especially important for hormone-dependent tumors associated with estrogen stress, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, and drug resistance. Wow;

These studies say progesterone fights cancer. In breast cancer patients.

But they recommend synthetic progestins.

Progestins have been the one synthetic form of progesterone, in my research, upping the risk of cancer.

But once the pharmaceutical version of natural progesterone was published, the science extolling the virtues of natural steroids seems to have gotten buried. Lost to us. I knew they were there. But young docs, they won’t know this.

What a disservice!

The big take-away, is that since the Big Pharma’s use of progestins is being highlighted, the articles that share the benefits of natural progesterone before surgery - are being “hidden”.

Out of sight.

Out of mind.

The older literature clearly showed that if a breast cancer patient had a protective level of progesterone in her blood stream (at least 4 ng/mL) then her outcome of survival over the next few decades was statistically better. Compared to women with low levels of progesterone in their blood.

I recommend to all my patients to take progesterone before any type of breast cancer surgery because the science, now disappearing, clearly shows you get better protection and safety. Down the road. It’s simple. Inexpensive. Protective.

Much healthier option than a Depot Provera shot. Ugh.

I recall many articles like this one, Presurgical progesterone in early breast cancer: so much for so little?”

But these articles are evaporating.

Younger docs aren’t getting the message.

Seems that the literature highlighting natural steroids as being protective, is being put “behind” some kind of “IT Walls”. It’s Big Pharma answers that show up more and more and more.

Women miss out.

Not sure what to do about this.

Be vigilant.

Aware.

Knowledge is power.

One would only know this if one has been diving into the rabbit hole of Pubmed.gov for decades. As I have.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Dr. B.

References:

Single-injection depot progesterone before surgery and survival in women with operable breast cancer: a randomized controlled trial. J Clin Oncol. 2011 Jul 20;29(21):2845-51.

Presurgical progesterone in early breast cancer: so much for so little? J Clin Oncol. 2011 Jul 20;29(21):2839-41

Progestins as Anticancer Drugs and Chemosensitizers, New Targets and Applications. Pharmaceutics. 2021 Oct 4;13(10):1616