117 of 126 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It helps to be rich!, September 14, 2008
This review is from: Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness (Hardcover)
Suzanne walks the walk for sure. The only complaint I have is that her suggestions involve thousands of dollars and really are only for the rich. IV Chelation costs thousands and is not covered by insurance. Stem cell preservation ($7500) and human growth hormone ($$ monthly). Also, you can't just take on her suggestions without the knowledge of a functional medicine type doctor. As a mom of 3 girls, I do and will continute to use BHRT with help from my functional medicine doctor but I even if I had the money couldn't bring myself to inject HGH. Her nutrition suggestions are spot on. If we only would all practice them consistently, we may have alot less disease.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
394 of 447 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
This "breakthrough" needs fixing, November 8, 2008
This review is from: Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness (Hardcover)
Ms. Somers has taken an important subject and made it unnecessarily complicated and perhaps inappropriate/impossible for the average reader. If one were to follow her "breakthrough" recommendations, they would be spending much of their life detoxing, eating organic fruits and vegetables(and little else), exercising, getting lymphatic massages, having their root canals and fillings extracted, getting their electrical currents measured, setting aside blood for future stem cell needs(at $7500 a pop), having chelation therapy, taking HGH shots, and eliminating all foods that provide a modicum of pleasure in todays world.
Much of what is stated is important and helpful, but a true wellness book should have been more definitive about people getting off medications, not just statin drugs. A true wellness physician should be able to eliminate all medications that his/her patients are on. This is achieved by eliminating the causation of illness, a subject that is not covered in this book. There are many people who have difficulty sleeping, have restless leg syndrome, anger issues, road rage, fibromyalgia( which is not an auto-immune disorder or an inflammatory condition as stated in the book ), depression or IBS from internalization of anger, hypertension, a problem with excessive drinking,or smoking, or drugs in order to "chill out", anxiousness-type feelings, bipolar disorders, excess cortisol production leading to weight gain, chronic interstitial cystitis, etc. Every one of these conditions are caused by an over-production of a hormone that is scarcely mentioned in the book - adrenaline, the fight-or-flight hormone. The control of this hormone is imperative to achieving wellness; ironically, it is easy to do. Every one of the conditions mentioned can often be eliminated by lowering the levels of this hormone.
I am a wellness physician and very much supportive of what Ms. Somers is trying to accomplish. It does not have to be complicated, it involves sitting down and talking to the patient, getting hormones in balance appropriately without unnessarily high doses of estrogen(or any at all since most women never stop making it),removing medications, an education in nutrition, and the correct use of supplements.
For the record I would like to clarify some statements in the book: Estrogen lowers IGF-1 levels. It is dangerous to use these levels as a guide to HGH dosage when taking estrogen(as does Ms. Somers).
Progesterone lowers insulin levels, it does not raise them.
HGH is not an anti-aging hormone; it increases IGF-1 which speeds up aging.
Testosterone does not lower cholesterol levels, but is certainly cardio-protective for both men and women.
In men,testosterone can easily convert into estradiol, the cause of prostate cancer. Perhaps some mention should have been made about how to prevent this conversion.
Migraine headaches are not "a classic response to low estrogen". They are caused by estrogen and are eliminated by progesterone cream.
"A backed-up gall bladder" is not the most common cause of headaches.
Suzanne Somers began her book with the same quotation that I ended mine with. My book begins with a quotation from Voltaire who stated that, "Doctors give drugs of which they know little/Into bodies of which they know less/For diseases of which they know nothing at all".
Michael E. Platt,md The author of The Miracle of Bio-identical Hormones,2nd edition.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
70 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WAKE UP TIME !!!, September 16, 2008
This review is from: Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness (Hardcover)
Eveyone should read this book!!!! It is a wake up call to all people to see what medicine in our country has morphed into. We have lost all insight into the way our bodies work and respond to the food we put in our mouths, the toxins we eat, drink and are exposed to. Our bodies were not made to ingest the chemicals and nasty oils. Read this book then start reading labels!!! And for the love of Pete, get your hormones checked if you are over 35!!! Why in the world would you not want to use natural bio identical hormone therapy to feel better and fight disease??? Some of the things that are cutting edge mentioned in the book are expensive. However, bio identicals, supplements and eating healthy is NOT! Find a good bio identical/alternative doc to handle your hormone replacement and help yourself. Don't let your standard medical doc talk you out of it because they don't know about it like mine did. The real wake up call from this book that everyone should take away is to be your own advocate. Don't just take what a doc tells you and believe everything they say. Check it out for yourself. Get off the pills and get your body right. YOU have to be the person in charge of your health. I have been through years of thyroid disorders due to the fact that the docs were using outdated info, failed to test thoroughly, and use common sense methods. Now I am scrambling to get it all back in order with great alternative doc. Lesson here, take this stuff to heart, do what you can to be healthy, spend the money on health rather than junk.
Suzanne has lots of info on cancer and treatments. We need to note how our medical society treats cancer and how they should be dealing with it. It is a very sad reality. This book has a lot to think about and a lot to act on. I highly recommend it to all my friends and family. Thank you Suzanne for putting yourself out there for our education.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
