San Francisco Gynecologist’s Book Helps Women Figure Out What’s Right for Them
Every week it seems like there is new and many times conflicting information about hormone therapy for menopausal women. Now, thanks to a leading gynecologist at a prestigious San Francisco medical center, women can clear up the confusion and take an unbiased look at bioidenticals, the newer, safer hormones that are exact copies of those made in a woman’s body.
Dr. Ricki Pollycove’s Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Bioidentical Hormones is newly published by Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group, Inc. It is available for $9.95.
This mighty little myth-buster of a book changes attitudes towards estrogen use in menopause. Estrogen use became the center of a storm of controversy in 2002. The resultant confusion strikes at the heart of Baby Boomer women’s confidence about healthy aging and hormones.
With this punchy pocket guide women will abandon old fears about estrogen and get the full benefit of hormone support for total body health.
The books helps women learn about:
- The wise use of estrogen lowers a woman’s risk of breast and colon cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, spine and hip fractures, and dementia. Even skin cancer outcomes are better in women who take estrogen.
- Because of old fears opportunities for better health are lost by over 80 percent of American women for whom hormone supplements are appropriate.
- Beauty experts agree that estrogen makes for better skin and body tone. Estrogen is better for the internal organ systems as well.
- Women will benefit from appropriate estrogen support throughout the many stages of the menopause transition
- Time-tested truths are revealed through reanalysis of trust worthy data on millions of women (2007 -2009 WHI writer’s group publications and world medical literature in English).
This is a book that bridges the gap between heightened consumer expectations and American-trained physicians. Women will be well-informed for a productive conversation with their doctors and get the hormonal support they need to prevent disease and age with vitality and strength.
Backgrounder on the book
Estrogen is one of the secrets to healthy aging. Controversy has paralyzed millions of women making the decision whether or not to take estrogen to treat the troubling symptoms caused by low estrogen in menopause. Each cell in the body functions better when estrogen levels are at a critical minimum—curiously about the level present in men across their life span. Yes, men do have estrogen and part of their better bones and less wrinkled skin is due to this profound difference in hormone production.
Wise use of estrogen can lower a woman’s risk of osteoporosis, hip fractures, heart disease, colon cancer and dementia. Yet fewer than 17 percent of American women for whom hormone supplements are appropriate are actually taking them. This lack of use reflects consumer mistrust of the pharmaceutical industry and organized medicine in general, accentuated by fears regarding breast cancer. Conflicting reports in the medical literature have only amplified the confusion. The first 5 to 10 years of menopause is the window of opportunity for reducing risks for disease with estrogen. Overcoming fears from false alarms, lingering mistrust of estrogen, may be the biggest disease prevention decision a woman can make in midlife.
Bioidentical hormones are hormones created from plant molecules, transformed into hormones identical to those found in the human body, atom for atom. These newly available hormone products, manufactured to the highest pharmaceutical standards, broaden the treatment options, providing women with another resource to meet the needs of aging with improved safety.
The Pocket Idiot’s Guide™ to Bioidentical Hormones provides the evidence on what is safe and what is not. The Guide presents a wide range of options for supplementing hormones, within an easy-to-answer discussion of Hormone Therapy in general. Synthesizing vast research data, the book answers an extensive list of questions. Coverage includes:
- What exactly are bioidentical hormones, how they are made and monitored
- The clear cut case for hormones—bioidentical or otherwise
- The safety issues—which bioIdentical hormones work, which don’t really help much, and which situations are not best
- Bioidentical hormones beneficial effect on the heart, bones, and brain
- Creating an individualized health plan—which hormones, in what combination—how much and how often
Backgrounder on Ricki Pollycove
Original thinker and contrarian, Dr. Ricki Pollycove has spent a career spanning over 30 years dedicated to women’s health, breast cancer advocacy and healthy aging. With her broad perspective on women’s wellness she brings together powerful facts that support taking hormones for optimal health. She has been an active Obstetrician-Gynecologist since 1981, with her gynecology practice in San Francisco, California. She is a Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a member of the North American Menopause Society, the American Society of Breast Diseases, the San Francisco Medical Society and is the founding Director for Education of the CPMC Breast Health Center and a past chief of the division of Gynecology at the California Pacific Medical Center. She earned her MD from the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, a Masters of Science from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor’s degree, also from UC Berkeley, in Zoology and Immunology. She is a volunteer clinical faculty at the UCSF School of Medicine, and has taught Integral Physiology and Anatomy in the Integral Health Studies Master’s Program at CIIS. She serves on two non-profit boards, the Sophia Project for mothers and children at risk as well as the California Institute of Integral Studies, a university devoted to East-West integral education in San Francisco.