Customer Reviews

Menopause and the Mind : The Complete Guide to Coping with the Cognitive Effects of Perimenopause and Menopause - Including Memory Loss, Foggy Thinking and Verbal Slips

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Dr. Warga's book, Menopause and the Mind, does women an enormous favor in presenting frontline research on estrogen and the brain as those familiar with this research area know. Every year, the scientific literature on estrogen's known effects on the brain (and the effects on the brain of estrogen loss), has grown more massive but women have mainly been left out of the loop on it over the last ten years.

Anyone with internet access can judge its size for themselves by logging onto the excellent PUBMED site on any search engine - it accesses the full scientific and medical literature in the National Library of Medicine. Anyone can punch in "estrogen AND the brain" on this site and read actual abstracts (or just titles) of the thousands of articles that now document the effects of estrogen on the brain - predominantly beneficial effects - in humans and in animals. In the year 2000 alone, hundreds of new studies documenting this association have been reported.

As a baby boomer, I am aging today and need to know what options I have to weigh until the ideal studies come out over the decades to come.

I found Dr. Warga's synthesis of this material a wonderful, clear and easy read and more than fair-minded. I feel she bent over backwards in the book to warn off women, who for personal reasons, shouldn't take estrogen. In the book, she's far from dogmatic in pushing estrogen on everyone for the mind changes she describes. I thought I was going crazy or had early, early Alzheimer's disease before I read about the symptoms of the WHM Syndrome and read what could reverse it.

By studying the many effects estrogen has been found to have in the brain, she's been able to offer women who can't or won't take estrogen, rational arguments - and the research evidence - for alternative factors besides estrogen that can help women experiencing memory, speech, and attention changes. I would never have known that estrogen affects glucose metabolism - the fuel of the brain - and that sugar can help memory.

Many of us know that women's health research needs have been given short shrift for too long. It's great to know that someone at least cares enough about women to be clueing us in to what does exist and the choices we have open to us.

Grateful

Wow! I'm 47 and was convinced I had early onset Alzheimer's because 3 or 4 times a day, I find myself using bizarrely wrong words ("wishbone" instead of "washcloth"; "plane" instead of "phone"). Dr. Warga's is the first book to point out how very, very common this is for women in perimenopause (pre-menopause) and that it doesn't get worse -- in fact, these symptoms usually stop when you've achieved actual menopause (because, as I understand it, it's not the estrogen loss that causes this syndrome, it's the wildly fluctuating estrogen levels of perimenopause that cause it). If you're a pre-menopausal woman who is experiencing mental fog, forgetfulness, word misusage, etc., you HAVE to read this book. It will allay your fears about Alzheimer's, etc. It has literally saved my life and my sanity! Thank you, thank you, Dr. Warga, for writing this groundbreaking book.

I am 50 yrs. old, and am a 5 yr Breast Cancer survivor. I had a mastectomy and 6 mos.of chemotherapy.My breast cancer was "estrogen"related, but it was also non-invasive, caught very early.With the help of God, I have overcome all obstacles.I also chose reconstructive surgery.Having had chemotherapy,I became menopausal. My quality of life changed drastically,I felt like I was just existing. I enjoyed nothing, nor wanted to be sociable anymore. I felt like I had no emotions.I became very insecure,irritable and negative. I KNEW something was wrong, but I was determined not to accept it as"just getting old".After all my LIFE was just beginning again. I started seeing a Psychiatrist, and went to the library and read Dr.Claire Wargasbook, Menopause and the Mind. All the emotions I had been feeling were in her book! I RAN to my oncologist & gynocoligist.Aftersome blood work, I was recommended by BOTH to get on the estrogen.My whole life has changed in a matter of days,I elected the Estradial patch with progesterone.Within days (2) I felt alert,active and Alive again. I am starting to feel feminine, and wanting to be around people. Suffice to say, at the second session with the Psychiatrist,she told me I did not need to return, my whole outlook had changed! I cannot express the change of positive emotions I have experienced. Instead of existing I am living. Because I am "high risk"so they say, I will continue to be monitered carefully, This has been my decision after researching data on estrogen and the mind, as opposed to estrogen and breastcancer. PLEASE READ DR. CLAIRE WARGA'S BOOK about Menopause and the Mind, IT CHANGED MY LIFE!!!

This wonderful, sanity-saving book DOES offer a lot of non-hormonal alternatives for dealing with perimenopausal mental fogginess. The fogginess can be very frightening, and because I had breast cancer I'm not a candidate for HRT - I can't even use soy products. I thought I was doomed to several years of confusion, memory & vocabulary loss. Dr. Warga's book not only explains the medical reasons behind all of the symptoms, but also shares coping strategies other women have developed to deal with these symptoms. The fact that the symptoms go away was the best news of all. GET THIS BOOK! It's reassuring and informative.

I found this book to be a long, repetitive and often tedious commercial for hormone replacement therapy. While the author makes many wonderful and important points about symptoms, the benefit of reading the book is reduced by the repetition of cases. I also was hoping for a more balanced approach with respect to treatment, but it seemed that just about every page touted HRT as the cure for EVERYTHING.

to "Estrogen and the Mind". Claire Warga does an excellent job of compiling the data and cases describing the very real symptoms experienced at this time of life for many women (not all women). Unfortunately, she immediately defaulted to estrogen as the SOLE cure - natural or synthetic. What about the other hormones that decline at this time of life? Why has there not been research on the effects of progesterone and the mind? Research is primarily funded by pharmecutical companies and they hold no patents on progesterone - surprise. We get only half the story with this book. Now most current research has debunked that estrogen is the cure for Alzheimers.

Lately I've been worried about misusing words. For instance, I described a painting as having an architectural theme rather than an agricultural one. I make this kind of mistake frequently and have been mortified. It never occurred to me that my estrogen levels could be the culprit in my memory loss. After reading Dr. Warga's book, I have had my levels checked and adjusted.

Menopause and the Mind is almost a blueprint for menopausal sanity. It's very easy to read, frank and informative, and lets women like me know that there is hope and that we are not alone. I have bought this book as a gift for a friend who turned 50 and she insists that it is one of the best gifts that she has ever received.

The absolute best book I have read about how estrogen affects the brain during menopause. I never realized how my brain fog and problems with spelling and memory were directly related to low estrogen levels.

In writing my own recent book, "The Care and Feeding of Your Brain" I searched the world's medical literature to produce a brief but well-documented "for women only" section. I can tell you that both the cyclical and the menopausal hormonal changes can wreak havoc on normal and even super normal brain function if not dealt with and managed properly. In "Menopause and the Mind",Dr. Warga documents this very clearly and offers many of the solutions I found in my own research and interviews. I enjoyed it immensely. It is well written. May I also suggest "The Care and Feeding of Your Brain" as a good companion guide to support this and to help you with optimizing your natural baseline of mental functioning...All the best to Dr. Claire Warga...Kenneth Giuffre MD

This book was excellent in helping me understand what was happening to me. It did not do a very good job of covering treatment options. I read Menopause for Dummies which didn't cover my symptoms as well as this book did, but did an excellent job of covering the treatment options.