The Great Menopause Myth, a review by Joanna

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The Great Menopause Myth is a new guide to managing a woman’s transition through menopause, written by two American functional health practitioners/nutritionists who run a website which offers a remote treatment service. I’m nearing that stage of life myself, so I was curious to read what the current recommendations were. I found this book to be comprehensively researched, and well written, but very biased towards a very particular kind of treatment and anti the conventional medical & pharmaceutical establishment.

Beginning in Part 1 with a very detailed overview of female reproductive physiology, which I suspect would be a bit much for most lay readers (but was a nice refresher for me), they describe all of the terrifying consequences of oestrogen deficiency and make their main case – that other hormone deficiencies like diabetes and hypothyroidism are considered diseases and treated with lifelong replacement therapy, so why shouldn’t ovarian failure be managed the same? This point is hammered over and over and got a bit tedious. Part 2 discusses recommended lifestyle modifications, with a big focus on nutrition. I mostly agree with their advice although many would baulk at their insistence that animal protein is the key component of a healthy diet. Similarly, the exercise regime they suggest (resistance training three times a week plus cardio – I do actually do this but it takes a lot of time) and their advice to give up alcohol completely would be unpalatable to many readers.

Part 3 discusses all the available treatments, hormonal and non, including conventional and herbal preparations, supplements and alternative therapies. The brands are all American and many of the treatments would not necessarily be available in other countries. The final part includes the appendices, and this is where the book fell over for me. They casually suggest a plethora of blood tests required for monitoring health as often as four times a year, which would cost literally thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands on an annual basis, and require hours of time to interpret and discuss, even supposing you could find a specialist willing and able to request them. There’s no way a GP would have the time, and neither would or should they be funded by public health budgets. It all seems conveniently designed to drive readers towards their website…

The best part of the book for me was the analysis of the different research trials and explanation of how HRT has swung from the fountain of youth panacea of the 70s, to the health promoting necessity of the 90s, to the cancer & clot causing poison of the 2000s, and back to being recommended as a good option for most women with symptoms (the general medical consensus) and a necessity for long-term health (the authors’ position.) I’m not opposed to taking HRT when the time comes, and feel this book gave me some useful pointers as to what to ask for and what to avoid, but someone looking for a practical guide to managing the menopause may wish to find something more accessible, especially if they don’t have a background in healthcare.