A Book Review:
This book has a special place on my bookshelf, the bookshelf nearest my desk, I might add. It is dog-eared and tired looking and It has more than thirty tabs sticking out of it marking the places that I draw much of the information that I share with other women. The reason this book is so helpful is that it ‘s author does a great job of outlining the symptoms of imbalance with all the pieces of the hormone puzzle, throughout all of the different phases of life. It is easy to understand and easy to identify where your particular situation fits.
Meet Dr. Uzzi Reiss – A video from his website that I encourage you to visit
The author addresses the differences between natural hormone and synthetic hormones, which is an important discussion, especially if you are new to the conversation. Additionally, the author clarifies the many approaches to replacement (i.e patches, gels, creams, pellets, pills etc.) along with benefits and differences.
This book offers several compelling charts that “dumb it down” for the average person trying to understand the endocrine system, which, in reality is complicated at best.
There are two areas of this book that I think are very useful in understanding the safety and effectiveness of natural hormone replacement therapy.
The first is in the very beginning of the book where the authors make an important point that I think is worth repeating. They suggest that it is just as important to balance your blood sugar and get your stress level under control, as it is to get sex hormones in balance. In other words it won’t do you much good to address sex hormone imbalance if Insulin and Cortisol are off the chart. Yes, insulin and cortisol are hormones too, and most people who are eating the western diet, ingesting a lot of simple carbohydrates and living a high stress life style are suffering from imbalances with these two powerful master hormones.
Not much time is spent on the subject of diet and nutrition but this chapter was placed at the front of the book implying that it is an important consideration in the overall scheme of things.
The second section I want to point out is Chapter Twenty-Three where the author address the confusion and fear about hormones and breast cancer. My only complaint is that they put this in the back of the book and not in the front.
“If you listen to media pundits and so-called experts, you begin to believe that hormones are carcinogens and that estrogen is on trial. “
“Your hormones, I assure you are not agents of self-destruction programmed to eradicate you. “
This is a direct quote from a pioneering gynecologist and anti aging specialist with a successful long-term practice and is the author of several books on this subject including this one. In a nutshell, he says the evidence based on the research does not show that estrogen increases the chances for aggressive breast cancer and that there is evidence that progesterone and other hormones have a strong protective effect against cancer.
The author goes on to explain the history of hormone replacement, the role of the pharmaceutical industry and the media. Both the drug companies and the media have a profit motive and it goes like this:
First, in order to patent a natural substance you have to change it by adding something to it. It is then considered a drug which you can patent and protect the right to sell it for a profit. Hormones are natural substances.
Since there is money to be made from the “chemicalized pharmaceutical substitutes”, research is funded by the companies that stand to profit from the “drug” understandably so.
In this case the “drug” research pointed to problems, (one of the major research programs was in fact discontinued) the natural substances took the rap along with the drugs which were not at all the same things.
Because no one stands to make a profit on a natural substance that they can not patent and the application of the use of natural hormones is not standardized (one size fits all) nobody is kicking down the cash to research natural hormones thus leaving a massive amount of miss information out their for the public to figure out for themselves.
So here is my simple analogy: it would be like if a water company added a little something special to their bottled water so they could patent it and sell it exclusively. Then later it was discovered that the bottled water product caused cancer so everyone freaked out and said “water causes cancer.”
But because no one benefits from studying water the misinformation just stays uncorrected. – Ridiculous right?
Wait it gets better, the media plays a role in all of this, and this is not coming from the book, this is coming from me, a person who has spent more than two decades working on different national magazines and understands the advertising game. The way this point became crystallized for me was, last year Newsweek Magazine ran an article trashing Oprah and Suzanne Somers for encouraging women to consider Bio Identical Hormones based on their homework and their personal experience, much like my self. As I read the article which was more of a personal attach on these women than an effort to offer solutions, it dawned on me that the first four pages of the print version of the magazine that week was a four page spread from a drug company. I investigated and found out that those pages cost approximately forty thousand dollars each. I can not know if it was conscious and I am not against the drug companies in general but the question that came to my mind was this:
What if natural hormones were to keep the baby boomer generation of women, millions of us that have been trained to take “a pill for every ill” from needing sleeping medication, anti depressants, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, heart, and arthritis medications? What would that cost the pharmaceutical companies and in turn the media companies? Wow – something to think about. I had already started BHRT and was feeling better than I had in years but that awareness made me feel even better about my decision.
Here is my mantra, It is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you that matters.
Do your homework, get educated, find a good doctor who specializes in anti aging medicine and make a decision that you are going to age with grace, this is my philosophy. As always your comments are appreciated. The following are some resources I am personally familiar with:
This is a respected group of doctors, with doctors in many locations around the country, most recently expanding into Northern California. They are featured as an expert on Oprah.com and their website has a plethora of information on bioidentical hormones that I found to be really helpful.
Dr Chen not only specializes in hormone balance, she specializes in nutrition as well. You can find Dr. Chen at www.balancedapproaches.com
I would stay away from any doctor who doesn’t feel a need for testing prior to treatment or from doctors who demand large fees prior to even seeing you. I have checked out several doctors and doctors groups and I have, unfortunately met up with both of these experiences. Hormone balance is not only unique to each person; it is seams to be a moving target for individuals especially during peri menopause. Finding a skilled doctor has been really important in my experience.
For information on this topic see www.bioidenticalhormonereplacement.net
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