Black Cohosh side effects and Breast Cancer

Black cohosh side effects, a drug made from the plants root, may out way the benefits and be worse than the costly comfort. With relation to Breast Cancer and labor there is a safer way to stop the night sweats and nocturnal hydrosis. Many women are trying to deal with night sweats or sweating caused by night time hot flashes. Some of the women are dealing with this at the same time as they deal with cancer. This page is relevant to those having to deal with cancer and considering taking black cohosh for fighting night sweats. What are the black cohosh side effects, what is the cohosh root, what is the benefit to taking black cohosh and many other questions.

Vicki L. Davis et al., American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, July 11-14, 2003, Washington, D.C., abstract #R910

Black Cohosh May Increase Breast Cancer Spread

Background and importance of the study: Many women take herbal remedies, such as black cohosh, to relieve hot flashes brought on by menopause or breast cancer treatment. Even more women are turning to these herbal supplements

 now, following recent studies showing an increased risk of breast cancer with standard hormone replacement therapy (HRT). HRT has been the most common prescription treatment for easing menopausal symptoms.

Black cohosh is thought to help with menopausal symptoms because it contains phytoestrogens, substances that behave a lot like the hormone estrogen. One cause of menopausal symptoms is a big drop in the level of estrogen in a woman's body. Remedies like black cohosh that contain phytoestrogens are thought to help because the phytoestrogens can take the place of the missing estrogen in the body.

But it's important to remember that very little research has been done to test the effectiveness and safety of Black cohosh side effects and other supplements for treating hot flashes in women with or without a history of breast cancer. One recent study on black cohosh showed no difference in hot flash relief between this treatment and a placebo (a dummy pill).

Still, most women assume that even if black cohosh doesn't help, at least it doesn't hurt. This is not necessarily true. The study reviewed here, which was done in mice, suggests that black cohosh supplements may actually make breast cancer more likely to spread to other organs or tissues.

Study design: Researchers in this study used more than 200 female mice that are especially prone to developing breast cancer (all the mice had genetic abnormalities equivalent to HER2/neu abnormalities in humans). For most of the animals' adult life, half were fed a standard diet plus a daily amount of black cohosh. The other half received just a standard diet, without any black cohosh. The amount of black cohosh given to the first half was comparable to the amount that women take to relieve menopausal symptoms (45 milligrams for every 1800 calories in the diet).

Researchers then looked at how many breast cancers developed in the mice receiving the black cohosh compared to those who got the standard diet. They also checked how many mice had breast cancers that spread to the lungs in each of the two groups of animals.

Study results: The animals that got the black cohosh did not have significantly more breast cancers than those that did not get this supplement. But nearly three times more breast cancers had spread to the lungs in the animals fed the black cohosh (27%) as compared to those given the standard diet (11%).Black cohosh side effects

Conclusion: These results suggest that Black cohosh side effects supplements might not affect your risk of developing breast cancer. But if breast cancer does develop, black cohosh may make it more aggressive and likely to spread to other organs or tissues.

Remember that this is an early small study, done on mice. It's very hard to take information from animal studies and apply it to people. Still, based on these conclusions, researchers may consider it potentially unsafe for women with breast cancer to even try black cohosh.

Take-home message: This small study was done in animals, so its findings are not as reliable as those of larger studies done in women. But it suggests that you may want to think twice before taking black cohosh supplements to relieve your hot flashes or other symptoms. This herbal remedy may NOT be a safer alternative to standard HRT, especially if you have already had breast cancer. Black cohosh side effects