The Estrogen Errors: Why Progesterone Is Better for Women's Health

by Susan Baxter, Jerilynn C. Prior

In a book of importance to all women, expert authors provide an authoritative rebuttal to the widely held belief that estrogen therapy is the best treatment for perimenopausal women.

In this revealing work, a medical writer and an internationally known physician team up to explain the controversy over prescribing estrogen for perimenopausal women in the United States and to detail why progesterone is actually a far more effective, and far less risk-ridden, approach. Citing longstanding and emerging research, patient vignettes, and personal experience, endocrinologist Jerilynn Prior and writer Susan Baxter explain how false beliefs about estrogen became entrenched in U.S. medicine and culture―and how and why business and politics have played a role in this erroneous thinking.

Like most women in Europe now, Prior's patients find progesterone the key to dealing with a lifecycle transition that, contrary to Western medicine, these authors do not see as a disease. Challenging medical orthodoxy, The Estrogen Why Progesterone Is Better for Women's Health presents arguments and evidence that women and their doctors, male and female, will find compelling and useful.

276 pages, Hardcover

First published May 19, 2009

Reviews

[Lori Bamber · Rating 3 out of 5]

The more I learn about our medical system, the more important it becomes to me to stay away from our medical system. This book was an important lesson in the biases that effect women's health, and is a good read for any woman who has questions about hormone replacement (bio-identical or other).

It wasn't really an enjoyable read -- a bit like drinking bitter medicine -- but it makes my list of books that were most important to me this year because it gave me a better understanding into why it is so difficult for women to find effective treatment for hormonal issues.

[Judi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Much of what is written for women, unfortunately, is biased, unscientific, or motivated by profit." (P. 202) The authors of this book try to correct these failures by offering women a scientific and clinically-based assessment of what is currently known about perimenopause, menopause, women's hormones and treatment options.

I was impressed with the critical eye and scientific thinking taken to the subject, as well as the historical perspective to show how the medical establishment got their recommendations so wrong, and how many doctors continue to defend therapies that have harmed women. I was horrified to learn that so much of the treatment for women is based on past assumptions rather than current research. And that what research gets funded can be based on assumption rather than questioning what we think we know, which should be the basis of scientific inquiry.

Important take-always: estrogen as a treatment for difficulties with anything having to do with the reproductive system is not the panacea that it is made out to be by many gynaecologists. While standard treatment, it is not as good an option as progesterone therapy, and this book explains why.

This book is for women who like to learn and think for themselves. It is not for women who just like to do whatever their doctors tell them, because their doctors are likely to be doing what they learned in med school, which is based on incorrect assumptions and clever marketing by drug companies among other things.

It's not a light read by any means, but I would recommend it for any women approaching midlife to be armed with good information.