The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed On Women Exploding The Estrogen Myth Second Edition Deals on Barbara Seaman

The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Es...

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Editorial Reviews

A Library Journal Best Consumer Health Book of 2003 and an American Library Association/Booklist Editor’s Choice Book of 2003

“Barbara Seaman is the first prophet of the women’s health movement and her prophecies are still coming true.”—Gloria Steinem

“A wake-up call to women about unquestioningly accepting doctors’ orders.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Lively and impassioned . . . [Seaman] certainly makes her point.”—Gina Kolata, The New York Times

With the ardent tone of a close friend, Barbara Seaman draws on forty years of journalistic research to expose the “menopause industry” and shows how estrogen therapy often causes more problems—including breast cancer, heart attack, and stroke—than it cures. The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women tracks the well-intentioned discovery of synthetic estrogen through the unconscionable and misleading promotion of a dangerous drug.

One of our most tireless health advocates, Barbara Seaman was the co-founder of the National Women’s Health Network and an advanced science writing fellow at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, and had been investigating and writing on synthetic estrogen since before her first groundbreaking book, The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill, was published in 1969.

Customer Reviews

Seems Barbara Seaman was right all along

Reviewed by Peachaggi, 2006-12-16

In a NYT article by Gina Kolata (12/15/06) Barbara Seaman's life long research and obsession were proven right. Breast cancer rates dropped 7% in 2003 - a year when many women stopped taking estrogen after a stude showed that estrogen created a small increase in breast cancer .

This book provides a detailed and amazing history of hormone products. It is written with a normal person in mind. No medical background is necessary. Barbara seems to make the medical jargon easy to understand.

For any woman it is an interesting read, and a necessary one.

Estrogen Myth

Reviewed by a reader, 2006-08-11

I think anyone reading this book would appreciate the indepth research and Barbara's long legacy in the area of women's health.

Then I would keep the following in mind:

- hormones are primarily the result of life processes, not their cause. A healthy female body will produce the amount of estrogen best suited to her constitution. External estrogen "success" is merely based on the 'high' provided versus any real correction of the female hormonal status or balance.

- hormonal substitution or augmentation is (at best) a crude method of furnishing the desired hormones. It is impossible to supply the hormones at the natural rate of grandular secretion, or to know exactly what secretions need augmentation in order to balance the entire female endocrine system.

- there is no discussion of the nutritional toll external estrogens have on the body, thus further reducing female reproductive health and hormonal balance.

I think its safe to say estrogen produced by a healthy female body is not the problem here - per Ms. Seaman synthetic estrogens are, additionally I would say because bio-identical estrogen (balanced or not) still provide an artifical interference with the wisdom of the body, in no way provide for the corrective production of hormonal status or balance, and would also be a problem.

But women should read Ms. Seaman's information and then judge for themselves whether the medical community has provided the whole story or even an accurrate one to support the practice of prescribing hormones (synthetic or bio-identical).

Only part of the whole picture

Reviewed by Beth Rosenshein, 2005-10-17

In The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women, Barbara Seaman aptly describes how hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been given to women for decades in spite of mounting evidence of the detrimental effects on a woman's body. She goes into painstaking detail of how women have been wrongly led to believe that HRT would restore the hormones their ovaries once made. She aptly points out how estrogen out of balance with other ovarian hormones is unhealthy. Unfortunately, she does not discuss that estrogen in balance in with testosterone and progesterone is a healthy balance.

Ms. Seaman does not discuss bio-identical hormones

Reviewed by A grateful reader, 2005-03-25

Although I agree with much of what Ms. Seaman writes about synthetic estrogen, (made from mares' urine,) and progestin, (synthetic progesterone), I strongly disagree that all estrogen is potentially "dangerous" to the female body. (Pls. see Dr. Uzzi Reiss's comments on bio-identical estrogen in his wonderful book, Natural Hormone Balance for Women, in which he, (Dr. Reiss), states:
"Currently estrogen is "under attack" as a major risk factor in the epidemic of breast cancer. I find this ludicrous. Estrogen is the hormone that distinguishes women's unique gender. After 2 million yrs. of human evolution, could the female hormone suddently have turned into a serial killer? Would nature suddenly decide to create a one-gender species? Of course not. Incriminating estrogen is as logical as saying that your liver is the cause of liver cancer." (p. 28 of Dr. Reiss's book). I thoroughly agree with Dr. Reiss. I, (along with something like 70% of women in menopause), had terrible symptoms of insomnia, lack of energy, lethargic depression, muscle/joint pain, and minor anxiety. It took me two yrs. of physical symptoms to finally discover bio-identical estrogen, and I consider it a "lifesaver." It has literally given me back my sense of who I was before menopause. Within 1-1/2 hrs. of taking the hormone, I became in control of my mind and mood again, regained my stamina, slept better than I had in 2 yrs., and within a few days started to lose the excess wt. I had gained. My recommendation is that in addition to Ms. Seaman's book, readers might like to read Dr. Reiss's book, (from a purely clinician point-of-view,), rather than just a political one. Hooray for Tri-Est!! (name of the bio-identical estrogen formula I used).

Regain confidence in your intuition

Reviewed by Naweko San-Joyz, 2004-12-28

Barbara Seaman's work is a women's must read because it encourages women to take complete ownership of their health and bodies.

Seaman details story after story of why women should question their doctors and pharmaceutical companies. From taking drugs that destroyed their babies to taking cancer provoking concoctions, women have served as uninformed guinea pigs for years.

Accordingly, Seaman gives women a reason to say "No" to new drugs and new therapies that promise to make our lives easier in the ever popular crusade to ease "woman problems".

The female physique is inundated with mystique. That which is not understood faces constant scrutiny and treacherous attacks. Seaman sends a message loud and clear to all women- Take control of your own health because there are thousands of people out willing and waiting to experiment with your well-being while hailing promises of new found youth and renewed vigor.

I suggest your cross read The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women with Uzzi Reiss' Natural Hormone Balance for Women. Reiss claims that estrogens have a "bad" rap because studies such as those covered by Seaman only address synthetic hormones or those derived from horses. I did not find Reiss' arguments compelling, it just offered another view of the women's hormone scene.