Estrogen : The Facts Can Change Your Life [Paperback]

Lila Nachtigall (Author), Joan Rattner Heilman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1995

Highlighting new, groundbreaking discoveries in hormone replacement therapy's benefits, the nation's foremost authority offers a complete examination of this popular treatment used to counter the negative effects of menopause.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The generation that launched Our Bodies, Ourselves is coming into menopause and Dr. Nachtigall is right at the door handing out advice.... An excellent guide." -- Journal of American Medical Women's Association --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Lila E. Nachtigall, M.D., is professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at New York University School of Medicine and director of the Women's Wellness Center at NYU Medical Center. She has worked in the field of clinical research on HRT for the last thirty years.

Joan Rattner Heilman is a highly respected health writer, with more than a dozen books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles to her credit. She is the former women's editor of a national magazine.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Perennial; 2nd edition (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060926023
• ISBN-13: 978-0060926021
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,549,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fraud, December 12, 2008

By 

Readthis "Readthis" (Alhambra, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Estrogen : the facts can change your life

Dr. Lila Nachtigall is currently listed, under investigation, along with the pharmaceutical company Wyeth for their collaboration in ghosting writing articles.

The said company drafted outlines and self-wrote favorable reviews, including on a drug call Preempro- a hormone replacement (consisting of estrogen and progestins) that has been linked to causing breast cancer. Wyeth would then procure authors to sign off on their prefabricated works to be published in journals and studies. (sidenote: The FDA now mandates that Preempro now carry cancer warning labels)

According to the New York Times (December 12, 2008):


[D]ocuments show, Dr. Lila E. Nachtigall, a New York University professor and director of its Women's Wellness Center, was recruited by Wyeth as author of a 1999 journal article extolling hormone treatment after the manuscript had already been drafted.

Dr. Nachtigall, reached by telephone Friday afternoon, said she had written all of the approximately 1,000 articles and three books she has had published. Asked about the Wyeth documents, she said, "If they came up with the idea or gave me an outline or something, I don't remember that at all." Dr. Nachtigall, who is still practicing at age 75,added: "It kind of makes me laugh that with what goes on in the Senate, the senator's worried that something's ghostwritten. I mean, give me a break."

[]

Her credibility as a physician reflects upon works under her publication.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Outdated......, September 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Estrogen, 3rd Edition (Paperback)

I'm sorry, but I think the misinformation in this book is an absolute sin! Dr. Nachtigall continues to emphasize unproven benefits of estrogen therapy, is elusive about the nature or even NAMES of the studies she quotes, and continually undermines the growing concern about the hormone's link to breast cancer.
It may have been reasonable to assume at one time that estrogen was good for the heart because cholesterol levels were indeed improved, but the other potential benefits she emphasizes lack even more evidence, such as youthful skin and Alzheimer's. Lila also got one thing blatantly wrong in this book (whether intentional or from just lack of knowledge): that the breast cancers in postmenopausal women are nearly always estrogen receptor negative and for premenopausal women they are always ER+. Plus estrogen, to her, would be necessary to shrink these ER- tumors in postmenopausal women.

Another thing the good doctor does not specify in this book is the "nature" of Premarin. She says it's from "natural sources," without any denotation that it comes from the urine of pregnant mares. Fortunately, Dr Nachtigall was recently outed, both on television and in Barbara Seaman's new book THE GREATEST EXPERIMENT EVER PERFORMED ON WOMEN as being a paid lecturer and writer on estrogen's unproven benefits. I'm sure the Women's Health Network and other doctors such as Susan Love and Chris Northrup are fully aware of Nachtigall's ties to the pharmaceutical industry and of her endless ploy to prove estrogen does prevent heart disease, but I do hope some expert out there is working to get this package of clear lies off of the shelves!! Women deserve now, more than ever, to be getting the facts and to realize that estrogen "replacement" therapy is in fact not replacement at all, but rather an invitation for a life-threatening health incident! Menopause is not a disease. Hormone therapy does not make a postmenopausal woman premenopausal. It makes absolutely no sense for a woman to believe that her body does not have the wisdom to know what it is doing come midlife.

I would have rated Dr. N's HRT-endorsement a zero but unfortunately, that is not an option here! :)

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Outdated........., September 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Estrogen : The Facts Can Change Your Life (Paperback)

I'm sorry, but I think the misinformation in this book is an absolute sin! Dr. Nachtigall continues to emphasize unproven benefits of estrogen therapy, is elusive about the nature or even NAMES of the studies she quotes, and continually undermines the growing concern about the hormone's link to breast cancer.

It may have been reasonable to assume at one time that estrogen was good for the heart because cholesterol levels were indeed improved, but the other potential benefits she emphasizes lack even more evidence, such as youthful skin and Alzheimer's. Lila also got one thing blatantly wrong in this book (whether intentional or from just lack of knowledge): that the breast cancers in postmenopausal women are nearly always estrogen receptor negative and for premenopausal women they are always ER+. Plus estrogen, to her, would be necessary to shrink these ER- tumors in postmenopausal women.

Another thing the good doctor does not specify in this book is the "nature" of Premarin. She says it's from "natural sources," without any denotation that it comes from the urine of pregnant mares. Fortunately, Dr Nachtigall was recently outed, both on television and in Barbara Seaman's new book THE GREATEST EXPERIMENT EVER PERFORMED ON WOMEN as being a paid lecturer and writer on estrogen's unproven benefits. I'm sure the Women's Health Network and other doctors such as Susan Love and Chris Northrup are fully aware of Nachtigall's ties to the pharmaceutical industry and of her endless ploy to prove estrogen does prevent heart disease, but I do hope some expert out there is working to get this package of clear lies off of the shelves!! Women deserve now, more than ever, to be getting the facts and to realize that estrogen "replacement" therapy is in fact not replacement at all, but rather an invitation for a life-threatening health incident! Menopause is not a disease. Hormone therapy does not make a postmenopausal woman premenopausal. It makes absolutely no sense for a woman to believe that her body does not have the wisdom to know what it is doing come midlife.

I would have rated Dr. N's HRT-endorsement a zero but unfortunately, that is not an option here! :)