The headlines contending that hormone therapy increases the chance of heart attacks and cancer are not completely accurate, according to one expert.

Hormone therapy for older women, in their 60s and 70s, does carry increased risk of heart attacks, says Dr. Leon Speroff, who spoke at a conference Saturday celebrating the first anniversary of the tower at BryanLGH Medical Center's Institute for Women's and Children's Health.

But for younger women, that's not the case. A number of studies indicate estrogen therapy very likely does reduce heart disease in women under 60, said Speroff, who offered a nuanced analysis of the studies in an interview Friday.

The much publicized Women's Health Initiative found that heart attacks increased only in women over the age of 70, he said.

A re-analysis of the data published in 2007 showed that women ages 50 to 60 who participated in the study had a reduction in coronary heart disease, he said.

So the message today is different from the original message in 2002, he said.

"Slowly but surely, an accurate assessment of the Women's Health Initiative data has emerged," says Speroff, a national expert in the field of reproductive endocrinology and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Oregon Health and Science University.

He is also a consultant for Warner Chilcott, a pharmaceutical company that produces hormone replacement drugs.

Speroff believes estrogen's relationship to breast cancer has been overstated.

The small increased risk of breast cancer shown by the studies - "If it is real," he said - is less than the risk associated with a positive family history, drinking every day or being overweight.

Speroff believes hormone therapy most likely increases the chances of detecting tumors already in progress rather than causes cancer.

Cancer develops slowly. It takes on average 10 years for a malignant breast cell to become clinically detectible and seven years to be detected by mammography, he says.

Yet in studies, the cancer shows up within two to three years from the beginning of hormone replacement therapy, he said.

Rather than cause cancer, Speroff believes hormone therapy affects a tumor already there.

In fact, hormone therapy may be helpful, he says.

A massive analysis of more than 12,000 women and six mammography screening centers, published last year, indicated that women on estrogen-progestin therapy for five or more years had a reduced risk of dying of breast cancer compared with women who had never been on hormone therapy, he said.

The benefits of hormonal treatment are numerous, from preventing fractures and osteoporosis to likely reducing the risk of colorectal and ovarian cancer, Speroff said.

"There aren't many treatments that have such a broad spectrum of benefits," he said.

More advice from Speroff:

* Forget the progestin patch. The progestin "is not absorbed."

* Estrogen is absorbable in a cream. However, estrogen is hard to regulate, and women should be tested to assure they are not getting too much. Estrogen at high levels can increase the risk of cancer of the lining of the uterus, and in older women it increases the chance of heart attacks.

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.