Book review: The Estrogen Errors

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 52, No. 5, June 2010, Page 266 News

By Jerilynn C. Prior, MD, and Susan Baxter, PhD. Praeger Publishers, 2009. ISBN: 0-313-35398-0. Hardcover, 255 pages. $56.00.

I read this book essentially as a layperson might; my comfort with the details of reproductive endocrinology somewhere in the distant past. 

I also kept in mind that there is controversy about estrogen and progesterone’s role in perimenopausal health, and that some practising physicians might reflexively disagree with Dr Prior’s belief that progesterone has more importance when it comes to easing the transition to menopause. 

The book is well written, clearly laid out, and understandable to an educated reader. It points out what we now know are inconsistencies and outright errors in the previously widely accepted prescription of estrogen to normal women during their transition to menopause. 

The most recent negative evidence of estrogen’s ability to im­prove the health of normal perimeno­pausal women is clearly reported, and throughout the text and appendices of this book evidence is presented that supports a trial of progesterone during the transition to menopause. 

I worry that the authors may, a bit too often, imply a conspiracy by medical and pharmacological leaders against ac­knowledging the truth of women’s natural hormonal changes, in the quashing of questions against estrogen, and the lack of interest in progesterone. 

As true as the message may prove to be, the style sets a tone that may lead some physician readers who are more comfortable with cooler medical publications to dismiss it as overly zealous. I think the book offers a significant amount of information for both physicians “treating” and women approaching menopause, from both an estrogen and progesterone perspective. I’m really glad I read it. 

I appreciated the clarification of terminology, the effort to demedicalize a natural process, and the confidence to look outside the box at commonly accepted doctrine surrounding what has been happening to women since the beginning of human life.
—CV

Cynthia Verchere, MD. Book review: The Estrogen Errors. BCMJ, Vol. 52, No. 5, June, 2010, Page(s) 266 - News.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply