Medical advances in the second half of the twentieth century brought two great improvements to women’s lives: development of oral contraceptives (the pill) and Menopausal Hormonal Therapy (MHT also known as HRT or Hormone Replacement Therapy). The pill gave women freedom to choose whether or when to have children and MHT managed symptoms associated with the menopause.
While the benefits of both medicines were widely promoted, there were fears amongst women taking them about possible long-term adverse health effects, including increased risks of developing cancer and other diseases.
To address the women’s concerns many investigations were conducted but they presented conflicting results, with no satisfactory conclusions reached. It was because of the lack of consensus regarding use of the pill and MHT that Valerie Beral set up the Million Women Study which included about one quarter of all UK women aged 50-64 in the late 1990s.
The results provided evidence in 1996 that the pill had little effect on breast cancer and offered long-term protection against ovarian and endometrial cancer. However, data collected over two decades for adverse effects of MHT therapy showed an increase in breast cancer risks.
Valerie Beral (1946-2022) graduated in medicine from the University of Sydney. She joined the staff of LSHTM where she spent 20 years in the Department of Epidemiology before transferring to Oxford University where she was Director of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit in 1989 (now part of Oxford Population Health). It was from there that Beral set up the Million Women Study, the largest ever survey of women’s health. Today, the Million Women Survey continues to provide definitive evidence about the determinants of many common diseases.
Portrait of Beral
LSHTM Library’s resources provide links to many of Beral’s research papers through its catalogue (Discover).
discover.lshtm.ac.uk/discovery/search?vid=44HYG_INST:44HYG_VU1r
A search under the terms ‘million women study’ produced a plethora of relevant results, just one of which is shown below:
Article
Breast cancer and hormone-replacement therapy in the Million Women Study
Beral, Valerie The Lancet (British edition), 2003-08, Vol.362 (9382), p.419-427
…. The Million Women Study was set up to investigate the effects of specific types of HRT on incident and fatal breast cancer…
Peer Reviewed Read Online
Additional databases and resources available through LSHTM Library provide further references to Beral’s work. A range of support is available via the Information Services Team help users in exploring these materials. Those based at LSHTM can also access this support via our Moodle pages here: https://ble.lshtm.ac.uk/enrol/index.php?id=88
For her pioneering work in advancing understanding of women’s health for generations to come Beral was made a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).
References
Anonymous, 2022. Prof Dame Valerie Beral. Epidemiologist whose groundbreaking research into women’s health helped to show the pill was safe. The Times 8.10.2022 : 83 portrait.
