Customer Reviews

Sex, Lies, and Menopause: The Shocking Truth About Hormone Replacement Therapy

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

When I read this book early in September, hot off the press, I immediately felt my heart and soul cry "yes, yes, yes". I have suffered terribly through menopause with lack of sleep, hot flashes, weight gain and an underlying depression, anxiety and irritibility that was driving me and my loved ones apart. After reading the book I got right down to business - convinced my brave gynocologist to prescribe the creams (I signed a release form), used a direct lab service for the blood testing, waited for the cycle of the moon to be correct and began the protocol on September 29. I've been on it for a month and am astounded by the changes - hot flashes gone, blessed sleep returning (7 hours straight last night), brain fog lifting, creativity returning, and my good humored old self coming home. Some breast tenderness during the last part of my cycle has been the only side effect. It has also been absolutely fascinating to know where I am in my hormone cycle each day and to understand and recognize the shifts as the hormones peak and ebb.
Yes, this book is controversial...I'm willing to be the guinea pig because I want my life back...I understand the risks of an unknown protocol...all my friends are watching and waiting. I've sent about 20 copies of the book so far.
The only criticism of the book for me is that the protocol is not as clearly presented as it could be. You really need to decipher exactly what tests are needed (measure total estrogen not estradiol levels), how much cream to buy total each month (it's 9 3ml syringes of each cream)and how to use all the blood sugar info (I haven't tackled that one yet.) My costs have been about $90 for the cream per month and $75 for each blood test (only needed for the first 3 months). I have chosen to do this outside my insurance.
The book also contains vital information for younger women about pregnancy, breast feeding and birth control pills. Many questions are also answered about cancer, puberty, weight gain, carbohydrates, yearly cycles, body systems etc. I loved the book just for knowledge gained about the totally of a woman's biological life.
I encourage everyone to read this book - analyze it, discuss it, share it, give it to your daughters.
I salute T.S. Wiley for her new approach, her evolutionary perspective and for the options she has given women of all ages.

I am a professional science writer. Time and again as I read this book, I marveled at how brilliantly the science was explained. This book is in the first tier of all books that translate complex scientific information so that a non-specialist can understand. If it shines in that general category, it is incandescent in the narrower category of books addressing menopause and related hormonal issues. It's "the" book against which all others on the subject should be judged because it is so very good, so very provocative. Its central argument favors bioidentical hormone replacement in a dosage pattern mimicking the hormonal cycles of young women. Even if the reader does not agree with that point of view, the book is a treasure trove of information vital to the biological life and, even more crucially, death of women in the developed world. If it has a flaw, it is the use of "menopause" in the title, which could restrict its readership to those over 40. This is a book for all women who need to know how their decisions with respect to pregnancy and lactation may relate to the when and the way of their dying.

Ladies....how many of your friends have been diagnosed with cancer...how many of your daughters take birth control pills...female cancer is an deadly epidemic and this book will tell you why it has happened and what to do.
Ms Wiley has written a great book on the overview of the BIG LIE that American medicine has (and still is) telling women.Any Dr who suggests synthetic hormones has NO CLUE and you need to RUN out of his/her office. Each woman has a different menopausal experience and if yours is not good then read Wiley's book and Dr Uzzi Reiss's book "Natural Hormone Balance for Women".
I had read over 20 books and knew I needed help, but had difficulty finding a Dr who was more interested in fixing my health than endangering it with HRT. If you want to find a Dr who can really help and prescribe just for your needs, contact the Women's International Pharmacy...go to Google and type it in...they are GREAT...they will send a list of physicians in your state who work with women to re-establish health and balance...women who have no problems with menopause have had low estrogen levels all their lives, so the loss is not as great and the symptoms are minimal.
Do yourself a favor....if you KNOW you are not yourself and are tired of feeling all the odd things menopause brings...take control of your health..find a proper Dr., do saliva tests,hair analysis,and blood tests and find out what is causing your problems! It is not an easy fix, but you will find out what your body needs to feel good again and not endanger your life...you can greatly improve the quality of your life and possibly save your daughters from real danger as they age as well. GOOD LUCK!

Many women, even in their 20s and 30s, are experiencing health problems related to hormonal imbalance. These include adrenal exhaustion, endometriosis, thyroid problems, mood swings, depression, etc..

I never saw the hormone connection to all this until I myself was diagnosed with breast cancer in my early 40s and started to research ways to return to health. I started the Wiley protocol and have chosen to balance my hormones rather than go with invasive forms of cancer treatment.

It's clear that cancer has a strong hormonal component. Instead of attacking my body's estrogen production with hormone blockers and aromatase inhibitors, and I am so grateful to have found the Wiley protocol to replace hormones according to a natural monthly cycle. Thank you, T. S. Wiley, for bringing this well-researched and fun-to-read book which introduces something I've not seen elsewhere: how to replace hormones in a natural cycle.

I've bought copies of "Sex, Lies and Menopause" for every oncologist I know.

After trying a natural approach to Menopause symptoms (didn't work) then trying traditional physician recommended HRT(worked a short while) then going back to heavier doses of natural substances(black cohosh, wild yam, bla bla bla) which alleviated symptoms greatly, I was still confused and scared of cancer possibilities. This book exposes the manipulation of studies funded by Drug companies to get results they want to profit from HRT that harms more than it helps. It will inform you, educate you, and rid you of the fears that estrogen and progesterone promote cancer ( they do in conventional HRT, hormones not identical to your physiology) This book gave me hope that aging is not a possible early death sentence, my waist is not destined to hopelessly expand no matter how much I diet and excersise, and that my cognitive abilities are not a thing of the past, I really can remember that I put my car keys in the Fridge. It's all about natural beta-17 estrogen(like you use to produce) and natural(USP) progesterone . The reason they're not perscribed to you is because they are natural, and therefore can't be patented, ergo, no money for the Big Drug Co.s. This book ties in your body as an entire organism, and explains how hormones have to be in sync to keep you healthy. When your hormones are in sync, heart disease, brain disease(Alzheimers) and other ills of "old Age" can be greatly reduced. If you want to take charge of your own health, read this book!

One of the gifts of having some maturity, now being "une femme d'un certain age", is I am learning to read selectively and critically. Often we encounter vital and needed information whose presentation may dismay; such is the case with T.S. Wiley, Julie Taguchi and Bent Formby's "Sex, Lies and Menopause". When I read this book something inside of my deepest being said, "at last..........an explanation, a solution!!!" Don't let T.S.Wiley's verve take you away from the real subject at hand.
We have the dubious priveledge to live in an era wherein we can jet around the world in less time than our ancestors traveled to a nearby village. Hearts and livers are replaced while staving off deadly infections with antibiotics. Why not add a measureable quality to this portion of women's lives? This portion of our life wherein we have the opportunity to reap the benefits of all our life's experiences and pass them on. This portion of life when many of our mother's were driven nearly insane with menopausal symptoms. A measureable quality, without the risk of the cancer's associated with synthetic HRT.
This is not the first time we as a society have found ourselves at odds with established thinking on health issues. All change starts with the individual. I applaud their sincere, startlingly informative and courageous effort on all our [women's] behalf's. I will pursue this treatment for myself.............Give the book to your Doctors and Health care associates.......

Regardless of what your prior knowledge might have been on the subject of menopause, you will find this book extremely informative. It is a must read. Forget what you think you know about natural hormones - such as what can be bought online or at health food stores. This book goes beyond the courageous Dr. John Lee's books.
Most of what we know about hormones comes from the scientific and medical professions. But so much of the research is either based on incomplete or faulty information. Many conclusions and recomendations for treatment are based on this lack of information. In recent years we have all been on a roller coaster - one day hormones are on, and we must take more, the next day they cause cancer and need to be suppressed. It's enough to make your hair fall out! The Woman's Health Initiative has done some research that has again caused many to jump to conclusions. From those conclusions there have been some scary extrapolations. Most of the research on hormones was not done using bioidentical hormones. That means most of the hormones used were a synthesis of mare's urine. (Yes pregnant horse urine is what you are taking if you are using traditional synthetic hormones.)

In a nutshell this book asserts that hormones should be applied using not only natural bioidentical hormones, but applied in the exact way and amount that they are made in the body of a young,healthy reproductive woman.
The book also illustrates the connections between hormones and heart attacks cancer. Synthetic hormones probably cause cancer but the lack of hormones may cause heart attacks. Though there are other books on bioidentical hormones, such as Suzanne Somers new book "The Sexy Years", I do not know of one that advises their application in this manner or goes this far.
You may have many ideas about hormones and aging or you may have no information. This book tells you why no information on this subject can be deadly. There are so many implications involved in this kind of hormone replacement therapy; issues pertaining to our youth-crazed culture, sexuality, religion, spirituality and the authority of the medical and pharmaceutical professions. This book addresses all of them.

Susan Wiley has put together all of the relevant research on hormones and her honest look at the scientific and medical community is sobering. Yet she manages to maintain her sense of humor, which you will feel as you turn the pages. This is a brave book and all of the people involved should be applauded for putting their proffesional necks on the line. If you are in your twenties, if you are approaching menopause or past menopause, or if you have had a partial or full hysterectomy' or yep even if you are a man, this book is for you.

In the interedst of full disclosure
I am repeating this review from my website http://www.marlasapothecary.com
Since putting the review up on my site I found a homone specialist who was also excited about this book. I have now been on this protocol for a year. I feel great, I look great (At least I think so) , I would recommend it to anyone and I do.

Marla S Wilson holistic health care advocate.

I agree with previous reviews. This book is deeply flawed. It is frustrating and confusing, has little to no organization, provides inconsistent support for often wild assertions and recommends a complex hormone replacement protocol while failing to provide much critical information. Yet the book is important and does contain some pearls of great value; despite its flaws, it deserves serious consideration.

The book repeatedly exclaims that it is all about biology, not about politics. Then, it goes on to make numerous unsupported and extravagant claims. There are repeated anti-feminist rants (nearly every chapter), blunt statements that gay men are maternally inclined (designed by nature to take care of orphans in a stressed society) and "more creative" than the rest of us. (I will say that I was surprised and troubled to learn that Margaret Sanger was likely a eugenicist, though I still admire her efforts at making birth control legal and available).

Without knowing the religion of the author, I would offer that the book presents the Catholic (or protestant fundamentalist) line on sex, birth control and feminism as scientific fact, citing studies that, while providing relevant evidence on hormone replacement, have nothing to do with the social commentary. For example, Wiley repeatedly states the world does not have an overpopulation problem, yet women everywhere are having fewer children. Not everyone would agree there is no population problem; certainly not anyone (like me) who has been to (or even flown over) massive population centers like Mexico City, Seoul, Tokyo, or parts of Southern California. In one paragraph she castigates population demographers for predicting crises that have not occurred (yet). Two paragraphs later, she is citing U.N. population predictions to "prove" a pet theory.

Ms. Wiley falls into the intellectual fallacy of citing scientific studies and then making hypothetical leaps to unrelated situations. For example, the author cites a study reporting that women unconsciously use their sense of smell (picking up on male pheromones) to help identify and reject partners who are genetically incompatible (i.e., with whom she cannot reproduce ideally). The study also showed that birth control pills disrupt this inborn ability to choose the right mate. I read the same study and so far, the author cites the serious conclusions accurately. But, she then goes on, without any scientific support, to pin a global rise in infertility on the use of the Pill to avoid pregnancy, because it supposedly wreaks havoc with this female ability to choose a proper mate. She neglects, however, to consider that throughout recorded history, in most of the world and even in many parts of the world today, a human female has not been permitted to choose her own mate. Women were (and still are) sold, traded, or married off by fathers (or by families, in more "enlightened" environs) for political or financial gain. It could be said (with the same level of scientific support - i.e., none) that the infertility rise has its deeper roots in patriarchal religions that mandate male control over female reproduction. The book is full of similarly faulty logic.

There is truth, however, in the author's assertions that nature favors those individuals at the peak of the reproductive prime. In both sexes, these are blessed with the best health, are the most alluring, the quickest and the strongest. Cycling hormones create the blueprint that nature reads to identify her favored ones. For that reason, I buy the assertion that reproducing the natural hormonal cycle, using substances as genetically close to those naturally occurring in humans as possible, can perhaps fool nature into bestowing some of the vigor of youth. And no, of course it can't keep us from death, but it can possibly improve the last half of our lives (the part that nature never intended us to have.) I agree too, that there is nothing romantic in "natural menopause." In my mind, it is simply decay. From nature's point of view, if we can't procreate, we're simply taking up space. So, I'm trying the natural hormone replacement protocol, but working closely with my nurse-practitioner to monitor the effects.

I believe, also, that the author is also on terra firma when detailing how the unholy trinity of the pharmaceutical companies, doctors and insurers do not always (or even generally) promote effective remedies for wellness, especially for women. Wiley is not the first (nor most articulate) to describe their male-dominated and obsessive "pathologizing" of the female body and its functions in pursuit of power and profit.

Ms. Wiley is absolutely correct when she asserts that true women's rights can't be addressed without considering the context of motherhood. What passes for "women's rights" in the US today, is simply a pretense to squeeze increased production out of the working population. We all must have "real" jobs to earn our keep because the work and benefits of childrearing are invisible to the global capitalist system. True women's rights must include not only the rights of education, physical autonomy and reproductive choice for women, but also the right to raise and care for our children in the healthiest manner possible.

I've now spent a couple of months with this book, having read all of it at least twice and chasing down many of the references. I'm a physiologist working in the area of human metabolism, and spend my working life reading and writing scientific papers, and I felt this book had the potential to be as important as "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes.

I did not, like others posting here, feel confused by the writing or feel the book was in any practical way disorganized. This book is written for the lay reader and not intended to be delivered like a technical review of the literature. I wasn't at all bothered by the song titles and largely ignored them, and felt they really didn't create a problem in finding a topic I wanted to review. If I wanted to go back to something, the index was usually helpful. There was an important case in which the index was not helpful, though, and that was in returning me to the discussion on the necessity of peaking estrogen levels on progesterone receptors. I had to go into the medical literature online to track back to that because it was easier for me to find it that way. I think the main problem with the writing is that it attempts to cover a LOT, and it's therefore quite dense. It gives one a lot to track down to determine how much is really supported by the evidence and how much is stretched to fit a bias. I personally have no problem that Wiley is not medically credentialed. To me, that criticism is just a dogmatic harumph. There are journalists and statisticians writing about medicine who's work I completely respect, and Wiley does have two credentialed co-writers. I'm sure they were all able to handle the material expertly.

And yeah, it is biology not politics. Just because what she's saying is definitely not what many of us want to hear, from a strictly biological and evolutionary point of view, a lot of it is just plain accurate. Accurate also is her description of our ancestral diet and how that impacted hormonal regulation. I try not to, but I upset people every day in my practice when describing the damage they're doing to themselves with their [ADA recommended] high carbohydrate diets, and just because they don't want to hear it because they've placed their confidence in our medical research establishments and because they're addicted to these sugars, doesn't make what I'm saying wrong. This book upsets many of us who are feminists, but she's a feminist too, trying to open our minds to certain evolutionary realities and how we might mitigate the fallout; she's just not saying what we want to hear. We shouldn't shoot the messenger.

There are complaints here in the reviews that her citations are not relevant or supportive of her statements of facts. I found some instances where she cited support for a statement and some of those citations had nothing to do with her statement, although others cited in the same group did. What I found was not so much a lack of support for her cited statements, but that sometimes the studies themselves were bad and so you can't really use them to support a conclusion. In vitro studies, observational studies and studies in species that don't have any common metabolism with humans [such as cholesterol studies in rabbits] are really weak. But they're all she can quote as the only human hormone studies are with synthetic hormones, not natural ones. This, however, does not diminish the weakness of the evidence and the leap that must occur to turn an animal model into a human application. It does certainly suggest a mechanism but it does not prove her many statements that "YOUR HORMONES" do this or that. She got a lot right, tho, including the problem of breast cancer survival statistics with or without treatment, the well-known problems with mammography and breast cancer treatments, how medical treatments largely arose from the military-industrial complex. She also got right all the stuff about saturated fat, cholesterol and statins in her discussion of menopausal heart disease. And there's plenty of evidence to show cardioprotective benefits of estrogen, and John Lee and his clinic's work has accummulated important information with bioidentical progesterone.

She does, very much, rant on the drug companies and the NIH, and the barbarism of medical practice both now and in the past. It's hard not to when you work in medicine. National health policy [the one that recommends what you eat and what kinds of procedures/medications you can have] is deeply corrupted by institutional career making and drug money. An important example is the development of the food pyramid, which recommended a reduction in saturated fat based on rigged science that linked it to heart disease. That national health initiative has been largely credited with causing the current diabetes epidemic while doing nothing at all to lower heart disease. It can make you downright shrill when the damage of health policy meets you everyday in your work, and I don't begrudge her shrillness.

There is also an inherent logic to a central thesis that if estrogen caused cancer, why are cancer rates basically non-existent in females with the highest estrogen levels [young females]? In my experience, human biology always boils down to common sense, and this is an important piece of common sense that should not be ignored.

So here's my two problems with the book. She assumes that all the diseases we actualize as aging women are strictly related to sex hormones, and she makes many conclusive statements that are without citations. On the latter point, I found myself continuously writing in the margins "Ref?", and sometimes "REF?!" if the statement was particularly leaping.

On the former point, she does a bang up job describing insulin resistance and chronically high cortisol levels from our changing diets and lifestyles, and then states that the diseases related to insulin resistance and cortisol are all due to deranged sex hormones on these other hormonal regulators. I went, "Say what?" way more than once. Could it be that these diseases are also just directly related to insulin resistance and chronically high cortisol levels? And of course, there's sufficient evidence in the medical literature that they are. And that's the big issue in menopause research overall; when we're talking about what causes these diseases, how much of the variance is related to estrogen/progesterone and other sex hormones, and how much is related directly to insulin/cortisol and the other messengers that control obesity?

One way to try to get at how much of the variance is just sex hormones is to go back to the inherent logic presented in the book that if estrogen caused cancer, then why aren't cancer rates soaring in women with maximal estrogen? A similar logical question could be that if low estrogen and absent progesterone are *the* thing responsible for our diseases of aging [cancer, insulin resistance, heart disease], then why have the incidence of some of these diseases skyrocketed in females with maximal levels of sex hormones? A population study published in the journal Diabetes Care [Bloomgarden 2004] indicates that as rates of obesity [defined as greater than 95th percentile of BMI] have increased from 4.6% in 1970 to 15.5% in 2000 among teens up to 19 years of age, rates of impaired glucose tolerance, systolic blood pressure, triglycerides and reduced HDL have also significantly risen vs. normally weighted teens of both sexes. All of these parameters are known precursors to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Recent investigations have also linked the rise in c-sections to metabolic syndrome in pregnant women. Both of these groups, teens up to 19 and pregnant woman, have maximal sex hormones and yet suffer - in increasingly disturbing numbers - the diseases that Wiley claims are disease of old women. This seems to indicate that very much of the variance is related to insulin/cortisol etc, and this is something that menopausal women can do A LOT about via lifestyle changes, whether or not they choose supportive hormonal therapy.

And therein lies the problems I have with her leaps.

For the record, I am a perimenopausal female and I take natural hormones because I definitely feel better on them and I'm also convinced that they afford a level of protection against cancer and heart disease. I am not, however, taking the Wiley Protocol. I know many women on BHRT who are still significantly insulin resistant because of their diets, still have high chronic stress chemistry, and are not addressing either of these with exercise or refreshing sleep. They are still very much not well, even though they are on BHRT.

I found this book a fascinating read, and found myself in it, too: a symptomatic perimenopausal woman dealing with breast biopsies due to calcification, hoping cancer is not found so I can go on transdermal ERT. I want my life back ! But to be able to go onto the type of hormone therapy Wiley suggest's is impossible for most of us dealing with HMO doctors and prescription plans. Try and get a doctor to prescribe you anything from a compounding pharmacy ! We largely just have to choose our hormone replcacement from the big drug company's menus and hope we pick something that does the least harm.
This book is well worth reading, though, if only for the history of how womens bodies work and what we were built for.
I was already aware that it is our diet, lack of babies and lactation, hence the fact that we have too many periods in our lifetime, that put us in danger in our menopausal years. But to put things back in their natural order would mean changing our whole culture. Still, women should be aware of the consequences of choices they make throughout their lives from using birth control to delaying childbirth and not breastfeeding and this book certainly sheds light on those issues and more.
Sadly, due to the book title, probably only women in midlife will read this book, but really every college age woman should read it. If I had known then what I know now......