I remember the first time a friend told me she was using the birth control injection, Depo-Provera. she lamented that no matter what she did to lose weight, she seemed to be gaining. and it gave her mood swings. But, hey, at least she wasn’t overweight and moody from being preggers! (Though you would think with symptoms like that, you might as well be!) well, now research has gone and found another lovely side effect of the birth control shot: a 50 percent higher risk of breast cancer.

Women who used the shot of synthetic hormones for at least a year had double the risk of getting breast cancer, according to the study published in the journal Cancer Research. Family history, obesity, age, and pregnancy history didn’t seem to make a difference. Creepy, no?

There is some silver lining: Users’ risk dropped to that of non-users after several months of being injection-free. Plus, risk is low to begin with in younger women — like those in their 30s (1 in 233, according to the National Cancer Institute) — who tend to be the ones on Depo.

But here’s my Q … have they studied the long-term effects that do linger? there are plenty from certain types of birth control pills (vaginal dryness, gallstones, low libido), so I wouldn’t put the same past the shot. especially because the fake progesterone in the shot is the same used in the postmenopausal hormone therapy pill, Prempro, which was shown to boost women’s risk of breast cancer by 24 percent.

That finding plus this new one just serve as further proof that women need to be very cautious about using any drug made with fake hormones. It’s clear the body simply doesn’t know what to make of them, and they are prone to throwing our super-individual, delicate lady hormone balance off. even the maker of the drug, Pfizer, notes that women have to consider the “benefits and the risks” of their birth control. and if they’re admitting it, you know it’s true!

Does this study freak you out?

13 March 2011 last updated at 20:09 ET Share this page Laurie Whelan: Helping further cancer research

When Laurie Whelan's brother "bullied" him into going for a prostate cancer check, the retired scientist was unconvinced.

Despite both his brothers having been diagnosed with the cancer, he had no obvious symptoms and did not believe it could happen to him.

Even his GP was sceptical, telling him the condition did not run in families.

But, as Laurie was to learn for himself, we now know that's not the case.

What is more, Laurie, and his three sons are helping to track down the genetic flaws that give some men a higher chance of developing the disease.

They are taking part in a new study to investigate whether we have enough knowledge of the genetics of prostate cancer to screen men with a strong family history.

Laurie's son Tim, aged 49 and from London, says: "there aren't that many people with such a strong family history

"It's one of those diseases that because it's a bit embarrassing, no-one knows about it. when my dad asked me to join the study I was happy to help."

Prostate cancer – the most common cancer in men – has cast a shadow over two generations of the Whelan family.

Both of Laurie's brothers were diagnosed with the condition in their fifties. they later died from unrelated conditions.

It was Laurie's younger brother, who was diagnosed in 1997, who persuaded Laurie to see his GP.

"My brother told me it was likely to be genetic and to get tested. he bullied me – so I finally got the test and I did have it."

The cancer was already fairly advanced, and surgery was not an option. so he was given hormone therapy in a bid to shrink the tumour, followed by radiotherapy.

Laurie is now 82, and in good health.

When he was invited to take part in the study, he had no hesitation.

"I'm very pleased to take part in it," says Laurie, who lives in London. "it is a good thing to help further the cause.

"also I am being monitored more closely than I otherwise would."

Like other participants in the study, he has had his DNA tested for the 31 known genetic variants linked to a higher risk of prostate cancer.

Having one of these genes gives only a tiny added risk, but when combined they can add up to higher risks.

Professor Ros Eeles from the Institute of Cancer Research is leading the study, known as PROFILE.

She says: "this study will show us whether we have enough knowledge about prostate cancer genetics to help find men at higher risk of the disease, and whether we should therefore start screening these men.

"Screening men at higher risk could potentially lead to earlier diagnoses, which would improve their chances of a cure."

Men taking part in the study give a blood sample, from which DNA is extracted.

Scientists then screen for genes known to raise the risk of prostate cancer.

Men with a higher risk are offered a biopsy to check for cancer. they also have a blood test to look at levels of prostate specific antigen – PSA.

The aim is to see whether genetic profiling can help give a better picture of men at high risk of prostate cancer, when combined with the current screening method of a PSA test and sometimes a biopsy.

The PROFILE study is open in London, and will eventually be extended to Oxford and Cambridge. Men aged between 40 and 69 with a family history of prostate cancer are invited to apply. More information is available on the Everyman Male Cancer Campaign website.

RONI CARYN RABIN Published: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 3:15 a.m. Last Modified: Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 5:20 a.m.

More bad news about post-menopausal hormone therapy: a new European study reports that women who take hormones are at significantly increased risk for ovarian cancer, which is rare but often fatal.

Findings from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, which included some 126,920 post-menopausal women, were presented at a conference of the American Association for Cancer Research this week in Philadelphia.

After nine years of follow-up, 424 ovarian cancers had been diagnosed. Even after controlling for body mass index, smoking, and several other risk factors, researchers found that women taking post-menopausal hormone therapy had a 29 percent greater risk of ovarian cancer, compared with women who did not use hormones.

Women who used estrogen-only hormone therapy, typically taken after a hysterectomy, faced an increased risk of 63 percent compared with non-users, while the increased risk of ovarian cancer among women taking a combination of estrogen and progestin did not reach statistical significance.

Still, the study’s author, Konstantinos K. Tsilidis, a cancer epidemiologist at the University of Oxford’s Cancer Epidemiology Unit in England, said there was a clear increase in risk for current users of all hormones, though only if they had been using hormones for at least five years.

“It’s important to get the message out to women,” Dr. Tsilidis said. “this is a very lethal cancer.”

The number of women taking hormone therapy plummeted after a large trial, financed by the National Institutes of Health, found that hormones increased the risks of stroke and blood clots, and that combination therapy also increased the risk of breast cancer and heart attacks. still, many women continue to use hormones to treat menopausal symptoms, though they are advised to take the lowest dose for as brief a period a time as possible.

A Scottsdale philanthropist has donated $50,000 to the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute and the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich., to begin a study on a rare form of ovarian cancer.

Foster Friess, the founder of Brandywine Funds and who has homes in Scottsdale and Jackson, Wyo., has previously given $300,000 for ovarian cancer research. his latest donation is in memory of Taryn Ritchey, the daughter of his personal assistant, Jody Jost of Cave Creek.

Ritchey, 22, died in 2007 of small-cell carcinoma of the ovary. the cancer strikes fewer than 250 women per year.

“Taryn’s dying wish was to be able to help other young women so they won’t have to go through what she went through,” Jost said in a statement.

Tom Benford of Peoria plans to donate to the project a portion of the proceeds from sales of his new book, “Standing Tall,” inspired by his daughter, Andrea Benford Theis, 31, who died of SCCO in 2006.

TGen’s head of breast and ovarian cancer research, Dr. Heather Cunliffe, said SCCO has been tagged a silent killer because the symptoms, such as abdominal pain and nausea, are vague and easily misdiagnosed.

Also, doctors may consider ovarian cancer as a possible cause of such symptoms in women who have completed menopause because that’s when most ovarian cancers typically strike, she said.

But SCCO is unusual in that it emerges in much younger victims; the average age of diagnosis is 24. This means doctors are less likely to consider ovarian cancer as a cause until it has spread.

Even if doctors do catch it in its early stage, SCCO is resistant to chemotherapy and fast-spreading, Cunliffe said.

“Almost all patients die within one to two years,” she said.

Cunliffe said she has been wanting to study SCCO to identify a potential genetic commonality in tumors that could lead researchers to create a successful treatment.

“I was contacted by the loved ones of women who have been lost to SCCO to ask if there is anyone anywhere doing any research on SCCO,” she said. “The answer is: no.”

To obtain samples of tumors from SCOO victims and patients who have been recently diagnosed, TGen and VARI researchers created a secure website, tgen.org/scco, where families or patients can download forms to take to physicians to fill out so they may produce a tumor tissue sample and ship it to the institutes’ labs.

Cunliffe said researchers do not know the women’s identities. Tissue samples are assigned a number.

Cunliffe is the principal investigator. she is working with researchers Dr. Brian Haab, head of VARI’s Laboratory of Cancer Immunodiagnostics; Dr. Kyle Furge, head of VARI’s Laboratory of Computational Biology; and Dr. Jeffrey Trent, president and research director of both TGen and VARI, who also leads an active cancer research laboratory.