11.   Drinking more than two drinks a day also elevates breast cancer risk, studies show, since alcohol appears to raise estrogen levels.

12.   Early menopause, which results from a loss of estrogens produced by the ovaries, has long been known to reduce breast cancer risk.

13.   Even with all the emerging data, she says, it still appears that short-term use of hormones at menopause does not appear to raise breast cancer risk.

14.   Even if the breast cancer risk was enormously increased, he said, these benefits alone would argue that women are better off taking hormones.

15.   In addition, the survey found that more older women were using birth control pills, despite the fact that breast cancer risk rises with age.

16.   In their study, Dr. Stanford and her colleagues found no effect on breast cancer risk in taking either estrogen alone or estrogen plus progestin.

17.   Initial claims that the hormone might lower breast cancer risk have not been borne out by three studies.

18.   No increased breast cancer risk was found among women who had miscarriages, or spontaneous abortions.

19.   On estrogen alone, apparently the increase in breast cancer risk is very small.

20.   Others, like Dr. Louise Brinton, chief of the environmental studies section at the National Cancer Institute, think the hormones do increase breast cancer risk.