Dr. Susan Love's Menopause and Hormone Book: Making Informed Choices

Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC ATTITUDE!!
Review: This is a revision of Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book - which was updated and republished after the Prempro arm of the Women's Health Initiative was halted.

The best thing about this book is its perspective. Susan Love writes as a woman experiencing menopause. She's a doctor and serious researcher who insists on hard EVIDENCE, not just good theories. She's a doctor who feels a responsibility to her patients and readers, a responsibility to fully and accurately INFORM them, so that they can make their OWN choices. She's a researcher who knows how to analyze and re-analyze data. She is open minded.

This book sets out to inform women about menopause, its mechanisms, its symptoms, its accompaniments, and ALL the available treatment choices from positive thinking, to diet, to acupuncture, to herbs, to pharmaceuticals, to exercise, and everything in between. It includes information on what is and isn't known about each possible treatment, as well as the risks and benefits of each.

Dr. Love is not looking for "converts" to one side or the other of the "hormone wars," as so many menopause/hormone authors seem to be. She is not the sort of doctor who tells patients/readers what to do. She clearly feels that every woman should make her OWN choices, and that those choices will be different for each individual woman. While educating her readers, she is also good enough to state her own positions, so readers can factor in consideration of her personal prejudices. Yet, she clearly supports women's choices whether or not they are ones she would make herself. She asks only that those choices be based on understanding and knowledge.

The Prempro phase of the Women's Health Initiative was halted due to the serious side-effects of that drug. Susan Love largely predicted those results in the earlier editions of this book. She had the courage to stand-up to other doctors in a field which is not her specialty (she's a breast surgeon), and question the "evidence" upon which they relied for their theories and therapies. She stuck to her guns although she was severely criticized (and readily admitted when she herself was in error). Despite the fact that Dr. Love was widely vindicated by the Women's Health Initiative, she refrains from taking an "I told you so" position in this new edition that incorporates the Prempro findings of the WHI.

This book goes further than just informing. It goes into detail on just about every possible form of menopause therapy: eastern, western, new-age and old wives' tale. It also details virtually every variety of drug, every dosage, every form of administration, as well as the particulars of what actions specific medications, herbal and naturopathic remedies might have. Dr. Love educates us with whatever solid knowledge there is about each, and she gives us tools to help evaluate future data. She is a scientist whose mind is open to considering all possibilities. And, she's a woman who knows the menopause experience.

Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC ATTITUDE!!
Review: This is a revision of Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book - which was updated and republished after the Prempro arm of the Women's Health Initiative was halted.

The best thing about this book is its perspective. Susan Love writes as a woman experiencing menopause. She's a doctor and serious researcher who insists on hard EVIDENCE, not just good theories. She's a doctor who feels a responsibility to her patients and readers, a responsibility to fully and accurately INFORM them, so that they can make their OWN choices. She's a researcher who knows how to analyze and re-analyze data. She is open minded.

This book sets out to inform women about menopause, its mechanisms, its symptoms, its accompaniments, and ALL the available treatment choices from positive thinking, to diet, to acupuncture, to herbs, to pharmaceuticals, to exercise, and everything in between. It includes information on what is and isn't known about each possible treatment, as well as the risks and benefits of each.

Dr. Love is not looking for "converts" to one side or the other of the "hormone wars," as so many menopause/hormone authors seem to be. She is not the sort of doctor who tells patients/readers what to do. She clearly feels that every woman should make her OWN choices, and that those choices will be different for each individual woman. While educating her readers, she is also good enough to state her own positions, so readers can factor in consideration of her personal prejudices. Yet, she clearly supports women's choices whether or not they are ones she would make herself. She asks only that those choices be based on understanding and knowledge.

The Prempro phase of the Women's Health Initiative was halted due to the serious side-effects of that drug. Susan Love largely predicted those results in the earlier editions of this book. She had the courage to stand-up to other doctors in a field which is not her specialty (she's a breast surgeon), and question the "evidence" upon which they relied for their theories and therapies. She stuck to her guns although she was severely criticized (and readily admitted when she herself was in error). Despite the fact that Dr. Love was widely vindicated by the Women's Health Initiative, she refrains from taking an "I told you so" position in this new edition that incorporates the Prempro findings of the WHI.

This book goes further than just informing. It goes into detail on just about every possible form of menopause therapy: eastern, western, new-age and old wives' tale. It also details virtually every variety of drug, every dosage, every form of administration, as well as the particulars of what actions specific medications, herbal and naturopathic remedies might have. Dr. Love educates us with whatever solid knowledge there is about each, and she gives us tools to help evaluate future data. She is a scientist whose mind is open to considering all possibilities. And, she's a woman who knows the menopause experience.