Women who take soy or herbal supplements, such as black cohosh, red clover and ginseng, should do so with care, says a Cornell University expert affiliated with the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors (BCERF) at Cornell, the land-grant institution of New York state. “Although there is no direct evidence that any herbal medicines can increase or decrease breast cancer risk, some herbs can have estrogen-like actions and thus raise concern about their long-term use,” said Barbour Warren, a research associate with BCERF and the co-author of the fact sheet “Herbal Medicines and Breast Cancer Risk,” which is available free on BCERF’s Web site at http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/.
