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November 26, 2009
Welcome to the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research newsletter! We hope this newsletter will keep you informed of what's new in women's health research here at CeMCOR.
In today's edition:
Personal Reflections on the Creation of "The Estrogen Errors" The Essential Balance of Progesterone with Estrogen
by Dr. Jerilynn C. Prior, Scientific Director, Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research. This newsletter article is an interlude before we complete the series about ovulation and women’s health. I am taking this opportunity to share with you some of the story behind the publication of The Estrogen Errors.
How did The Estrogen Errors come to be? The short answer is that Susan Baxter, a medical writer and social scientist was pitching an idea for a book based on her Simon Fraser PhD research related to BC’s Pharmacare and decision-making. The editor at Praeger Press, an academic press that primarily publishes books intended for libraries, instead, suggested Susan write and investigative piece about cosmetic surgery. In rapidly rejecting that idea, Susan indicated she would like to write a book about women’s health. Around the same time, I think crowning with the successful publication—after more than 12 years of trying—of our study showing that medroxy-progesterone was as good for treating hot flushes as estrogen, I happened to have a conversation with Susan’s VGH physician-husband. He must have told of our meeting. Next thing I knew she was emailing and calling me. When I understood what she was inviting me to, I jumped at the chance.
How am I feeling about this new book? As time passes since the recent publication of Susan Baxter’s and my book, The Estrogen Errors—Why Progesterone is Better for Women’s Health (Praeger, Conn. 2009), I feel a growing sense of accomplishment. This happy feeling has grown the more this book has allowed me to talk with many, varied people. I have spoken with people with different views, backgrounds and ideas, from women’s health activists of the Our Bodies Ourselves collective, academic gynecologists in Boston and Munich, menstruation researchers in Spokane, the varied anti-aging conference audience in Paris, as well as those of my friends, family, research participants and former patients attending my October 29th Vancouver book launch. I’m getting excited about talking with more people at the Vancouver Public Library author talk on December 2.
I seem to be increasingly bubbling with satisfaction because of what this book has (finally) allowed me to say. I feel like I have finally found my voice. I’ve grown up enough (or clocked multiples of Malcolm Gladwell’s essential 10,000 hours to achieve expertise) to speak to the whole field of women’s health and thus to the whole culture out of which our current wrong ideas have grown.
Over the last more than 29 years I have been working away at particular and seemingly small bits in the arena of women’s health—the variability of ovulation in women, the relation of exercise to cycles, the relationships of progesterone to changes in bone, hormonal changes in perimenopause, women’s experiences of perimenopause, the effect of progesterone on hot flushes in healthy menopausal women... this book allows me to step beyond these specific areas of research and say something bigger and more important than the sum of all I’ve learned.
Here’s my key message—the balanced partnership of estrogen and progesterone is critical for women’s life-long well being. The Estrogen Errors, most of all, allows me to criticize Medicine and Culture’s approach to women and hormones. The current wrong approach can be summarized:
1) estrogen’s what makes a girl; and
2) progesterone causes women’s problems.
This activity of creating a book is a bit like giving birth—seeing this newborn book in different situations and reflecting varied people’s view of it, I find I grow increasingly fond. I have (already) forgotten the painful labour involved in writing, revising and answering editor’s (endless, picky) queries.
I also have almost forgotten how hard it was to co-write a book with someone you don’t know very well. Not to say that Susan Baxter and I don’t share a lot. We share a commitment to feminism, we have in common personally difficult perimenopause experiences, and finally, we both desire that women have access to accurate information. Beyond that, however, we differ in our areas of expertise, personal health decisions, circadian rhythms and even our approach to medical research.
All that being said, I believe that The Estrogen Errors is better for our many negotiations and our differing perspectives. I know for sure that this book is more lively and fast-paced because of Susan’s writing style.
What is my dream for The Estrogen Errors? I don’t want anything less than that this book is the beginning of a major shift in our ideas about women and hormones. Tall order!
However, I am just getting a glimmer of hope that the world may be ready for a broader and more ecological view of women’s health than the “estrogen deficiency gospel according to gynecology.” For example, I agonized over my recent lectures for gynecologists at the Technical University of Munich and also at my alma mater, Boston University Medicine Center. In both cases, I ended up with a talk titled, “The Estrogen Myth.” I could have ducked controversy and just talked about “Complex Endocrinology of Perimenopause” or “An Approach to Hot Flushes and Night Sweats” but I thought it important to say that our current view is more story than science. So I started with a quote by Bertrand Russell describing how myths are formed. I needed to show how silly it is, really, to even think about estrogen without also imagining progesterone. They are such tightly linked partners in all of women’s cells and tissues that it is frankly asinine to only focus on estrogen.
I have to say that, although perhaps dubious at the start of my talks, the majority of both gynecology audiences went away with some challenging new ideas, and a few with some changed concepts.
On a more practical note, I hope that the hard-back copies of The Estrogen Errors will totally sell out. Then I expect that this book, which now costs about $50.00 a copy, will go to paperback. As a “pocket book” (as my grandmother called them) The Estrogen Errors should become affordable for the majority of women. You can help make it possible for more women to read The Estrogen Errors by asking your local bookstore or library to order it (ISBN: 978-0-313-35398-7). (If you can't find it on line, we probably can get a copy to you. Contact us at cemcor@interchange.ubc.ca and use "Book Purchase" in the subject. We will get it to you ASAP).You can also share the new website and blog with your friends: www.estrogenerrors.com. I also hope that my royalties of about $US 5.00 for each book sale will increase the UBC CeMCOR Endowment Fund. That fund is accumulating so that one day I can retire knowing that The Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research will have leadership to continue into the future. In the next newsletter we will return to our discussion of ovulation and women's health, with the last installment of this series. Stay tuned!
Research News
We are looking for women aged 35-50 who are experiencing night sweats to participate in our latest study.This 4-cycle observational study will enroll 20 perimenopausal women with regular (less than 60 days apart) cycles and night sweats.
For more information, including eligibility criteria, visit the study web page. Please help us find participants by telling your friends and putting up study posters [PDF]in your local community centre, coffee shop, gym, etc.
NOW AVAILABLE:
 In this revealing work, Dr. Jerilynn Prior teams up with Susan Baxter, a medical writer, to explain the controversy over medicine prescribing estrogen for perimenopausal women in the United States, and to detail why progesterone is actually a far more effective, and a far less risk-ridden, approach. Citing long-standing and emerging research, patient vignettes, and personal experience, endocrinologist Jerilynn Prior and writer Susan Baxter tell us how false beliefs on estrogen became entrenched in U.S. medicine and culture, and why business and politics have played a role in this erroneous thinking.
What others are saying about The Estrogen Errors: "Jerilynn Prior can always be trusted to go beyond the surface to what is really happening in women's bodies. She is a true champion in women's health. This book will help you finally understand your body and hormones."
-Susan Love MD
President of the Dr Susan Love Research Foundation and author of Dr Susan Love's Breast Book
“In this provocative book, Jerilynn Prior and Susan Baxter raise many key questions that women's health researchers and clinicians have failed to ask or investigate. They are especially effective in deconstructing prevailing myths about "too little estrogen" during the peri-menopause.” -Judy Norsigian
Executive Director, Our Bodies Ourselves Book orders
You can order your copy at your favourite online retailer, including Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Barnes and Noble.com. A portion of all proceeds from the sale of The Estrogen Errors will be donated to the CeMCOR Endowment Fund.
Or visit your local bookseller and request a copy using the following ISBN number: 978-0-313-35398-7
Women's Health in the news
Ditching the pill for good: New health concerns have women looking for different choices - Maclean's - November 23, 3009
Another Loss for Pfizer in Drug Suits - The New York Times - November 23, 2009
Home birth with midwife safe as hospital - CBC News - August 31, 2009
The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research recently launched a new blog. Re:Cycling tackles all matters menstrual and features posts by CeMCOR researchers Dr. Jerilynn Prior and Christine Hitchcock. Check out the blog here!
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