5.2.2. Hormone Therapy

Bowel health largely depend on hormones; for instance, Jhonson et al. (2009) found that sex hormones such as estrogen and progestin are related to protective e ffects against CRC in menopausal women [41]. Similar results were found by Rennert et al. (2009) in 5214 women in perimenopausal/postmenopausal stages with CRC, where the use of estrogen/progestin replacement therapy reduced the risk of CRC by 63% [41]. For men, Lin et al. (2014) found that higher levels of testosterone are related to lower risks of CRC [42]. Hormone therapy is a systemic approach with several side e ffects such as abdominal pain, headache, depression, acne, nausea, leg cramps, and stroke, among others [43,44]. The use of drug delivery systems can help in reducing the needed doses, which can lower the undesired side e ffects of the treatment [45].
