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Rating: 
Summary: Anti-hormone slant.
Review: I was looking for something a little more objective.
Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive Resource
Review: This book covers all the bases you'll want to consider when facing menopause. The author discusses many aspects of menopause, including symptoms, treatments (both conventional and alternative), and long-term risk of breast cancer, osteoporosis, and heart disease. Some of the things I really like about this book: The author dispels several myths (like taking estrogen leads to youthful-looking skin) and pulls the curtain back on the cozy relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and medical research. The reason all the "gold standard" studies on menopause have been done using Premarin, which contains horse estrogens not found in humans, is because researchers get that drug free from Wyeth-Ayerst (the Premarin manufacturer and patent-holder). As the author acknowledges, the collecting the urine that goes into Premarin causes hardship to countless horses and their offspring, and women ingesting the drug get all sorts of serious medical complications. It will be great for women everywhere when medical researchers give equal study to the hormones that are found naturally in human women (which so far seem to be much more benign than Premarin, but being non-patentable hold less potential for financial profit). Some things I didn't like about the book: The author cites a lot of evidence gleaned from nonhuman studies (done on monkeys, rats, and mice) even though common wisdom holds that animals are a very poor model for humans. (About 80% of the drugs that pass animal tests are later found to be harmful to humans.) She does mention the importance of vitamins and minerals beyond calcium and Vitamin D, but I'd like to see more emphasis given. (See books like The Bone Density Diet or Preventing and Reversing Osteoporosis for more on that.) Finally, she doesn't acknowledge that women without a uterus can also benefit from taking progesterone; in fact she often muddles the (important) difference between progesterone and progestin and falsely implies at times that the harmful effects of taking progestin apply to progesterone as well. (Note: progesterone is natural to a human woman's body; progestin is a molecularly altered compound which can be patented but which acts differently from progesterone in the body.) Overall, there is a ton of helpful information in this book and the good certainly outweighs the bad. This is a great primer for women who plan to live for a very long time!
Rating: 
Summary: Great balanced viewpoint
Review: This book presents a comprehensive discussion of hormones and alternatives to dealing with premenopause, menopause, and long-term prevention. Details are provided which include alternative approaches, including diet, exercise, etc. It even includes a final helpful chapter on making your own decisions. The only negative thing is that it was written in 1997, and there may be more current information available now. Wish she would release an updated edition.
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