What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause: Balance Your Hormones and Your Life From Thirty to Fifty
by John R. Lee, Virginia Hopkins, Jesse Hanley

Publisher:  Warner Books, Incorporated
ISBN:  0446673803

Has your doctor ever prescribed estrogen or progestin pills, or patches to treat your gynecology problems? If you tried these methods of symptom management, and they failed to decrease your symptoms then Dr. John R. Lee's latest book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause, may be just what the doctor ordered.

Dr. Lee and co-authors Jesse Hanley, M.D., and Virginia Hopkins discuss what Dr. Lee calls estrogen dominance and the effects too much estrogen, and not enough progesterone, may have on your body. According to Dr. Lee estrogen dominance may be the explanation for weight gain (despite exercise and diet,) tender or lumpy breasts, menstrual abnormalities, thyroid dysfunction, fibroid tumors, PMS, loss of sexual desire, fatigue, insomnia, and a host of other maladies often encountered. Women with particular health problems, from the inability to maintain a pregnancy to menopause, find specific instructions for using natural progesterone.

The author stresses the importance of reading labels when purchasing natural progesterone cream. He says that because a product says it contains wild yam extract is no guarantee that it actually contains real, natural progesterone. Although he does not personally endorse any particular product, Dr. Lee includes a resource list of products which he knows contain the recommended amount of natural progesterone, and he only lists ones that he is personally aware contain the proper amount of real natural progesterone.

Dr. Lee believes these symptoms occur because a woman's body already has an abundant supply of the hormones typically prescribed by physicians to treat these problems. He discusses how natural progesterone can effectively reduce the symptoms of hormonal imbalance and related conditions by restoring the body's natural hormone balance. He also explores the role our environment plays on our hormones, the danger of using hormonal contraceptives, and how nutrition and exercise contribute to your health and well being.

Before I read this book (I now know) I was in severe estrogen dominance. Nine months after my hysterectomy, and over 250 daily does of synthetic estrogen and progestins later, my body weighed almost forty pounds more than the day of my hysterectomy, and I knew my eating habits hadn¹t changed that much. I experienced anxiety, fluid retention, breast tenderness, and headaches until I learned about natural progesterone and bought my first tube of natural progesterone cream. Six months after discovering this eye-opening book, and adding natural progesterone to my routine, I no longer experience any of the side effects of estrogen dominance. Regardless of age--young or old--all women can benefit from the information presented in this thought-provoking book.

Dr. Lee's views are based on extensive medical research, and over twenty years of promoting the use natural progesterone. He is an internationally acknowledged pioneer and expert in the study and use of natural progesterone, and on the subject of hormone replacement therapy (HRT.) Dr. Lee is a graduate of Harvard, and the University of Minnesota Medical School. He retired from a thirty-year family practice in northern California and began writing, traveling, and speaking about progesterone to lay people, physicians, and scientists.

Co-author Jesse Hanley, M.D. is the medical director at Malibu Health Center and Malibu Health and Rehabilitation. Her interest in natural methods is inspired by her own experience curing a chronic illness. She believes in empowering the patient to make educated health care decisions.

For over twenty years since her graduation from Yale University Virginia Hopkins, M.A. has been a writer and editor. She holds a master's degree in applied psychology from the University of Santa Monica. She is the co-author of Dr. Lee's What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause. She is the managing editor of the John R. Lee Medical Letter and has written or co-authored over twenty-four books on women's health, alternative health, and nutrition.

Tracee Cornforth, your Guide for Women's Health