Oestrogen Matters
- Author Avrum Bluming MD and Carol Tavris PhD
- Narrator Carol Tavris PhD, Avrum Bluming
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Publish Date 27 November 2025
- Run Time 9 hours
- Format Audio
- Genre Endocrinology, Life sciences: general issues, Popular science, Reproductive medicine, Women’s health.
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What to expect
'I believe it is an ethical imperative for all clinicians who treat women in menopause or women with breast cancer to alert their patients to this book' Michael Baum, MD, Professor Emeritus of Surgery and visiting professor of Medical Humanities, University College London
'A thorough, careful and unbiased assessment . . . This extremely valuable message deserves to be widely disseminated' Lord Turnberg, former President of the Royal College of Physicians
A compelling defence of hormone replacement therapy, exposing the faulty science behind its fall from prominence and empowering readers to make informed decisions about their health.
For years, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was hailed as a miracle. Study after study showed that HRT, if initiated at the onset of menopause, could ease symptoms ranging from hot flushes to memory loss; reduce the risk of heart disease, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, and some cancers; and even extend a woman's overall life expectancy. But when a large study by the Women's Health Initiative announced results showing an uptick in breast cancer among women taking HRT, the winds shifted abruptly, and HRT, officially deemed a carcinogen, was abandoned.
Now, sixteen years after HRT was left for dead, Dr Bluming, a medical oncologist, and Dr Tavris, a social psychologist, track its strange history and present a compelling case for its resurrection. They investigate what led the public - and much of the medical establishment - to accept the Women's Health Initiative's often exaggerated claims, while also providing a fuller picture of the science that supports HRT.
A sobering and revelatory read, Oestrogen Matters sets the record straight on this beneficial treatment and provides an empowering path to wellness for women everywhere.
'A thorough, careful and unbiased assessment . . . This extremely valuable message deserves to be widely disseminated' Lord Turnberg, former President of the Royal College of Physicians
A compelling defence of hormone replacement therapy, exposing the faulty science behind its fall from prominence and empowering readers to make informed decisions about their health.
For years, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was hailed as a miracle. Study after study showed that HRT, if initiated at the onset of menopause, could ease symptoms ranging from hot flushes to memory loss; reduce the risk of heart disease, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, and some cancers; and even extend a woman's overall life expectancy. But when a large study by the Women's Health Initiative announced results showing an uptick in breast cancer among women taking HRT, the winds shifted abruptly, and HRT, officially deemed a carcinogen, was abandoned.
Now, sixteen years after HRT was left for dead, Dr Bluming, a medical oncologist, and Dr Tavris, a social psychologist, track its strange history and present a compelling case for its resurrection. They investigate what led the public - and much of the medical establishment - to accept the Women's Health Initiative's often exaggerated claims, while also providing a fuller picture of the science that supports HRT.
A sobering and revelatory read, Oestrogen Matters sets the record straight on this beneficial treatment and provides an empowering path to wellness for women everywhere.
Critics Review
This book is long overdue, and I salute the authors for their courage and effort (and their clear, witty writing). I believe it is an ethical imperative for all clinicians who treat women in menopause or women with breast cancer to alert their patients to this book. It will not only improve women's quality of life, but also, on balance of probabilities, extend women's lives by delaying death from all other causes.
Well written, insightful, and hard hitting, Estrogen Matters successfully rebuts the billion-dollar, government-led study known as the Women's Health Initiative, which claimed that hormones for post-menopausal women are harmful. That study was wrong. It turns out estrogens do matter for women's health.
How could one flawed scientific conclusion become a persuasive juggernaut that changed the practice of women's health worldwide? In their fascinating account, Bluming and Tavris challenge that conclusion and unpack the reasons for its remarkable impact.
This book is long overdue. Having spent over two decades advancing women's health, I was appalled by the Women's Health Initiative's efforts to sensationalize and distort their own findings to promote an anti-hormone-therapy agenda. Personally I have been taking HRT for over 25 years and have no intention of stopping. I hope Estrogen Matters draws enough attention to counter the fears and misinformation about HRT that so many women, and their physicians, still hold.
For far too many years women and their doctors have been held in fear of prescribing oestrogens - believing that they were dangerous because of a widely quoted study purporting to show that they were too damaging. Now it turns out that this seems to have been an example of 'fake' news. In a thorough, careful and unbiased assessment of all the scientific evidence Bluming and Tavris debunk this most widely quoted work and show that oestrogens are not only not dangerous, but beneficial for the vast majority of women suffering from post-menopausal symptoms, whether or not they have had breast cancer. This extremely valuable message deserves to be widely disseminated.
This book is long overdue, and I salute the authors for their courage and effort (and their clear, witty writing). I believe it is an ethical imperative for all clinicians who treat women in menopause or women with breast cancer to alert their patients to this book. It will not only improve women's quality of life, but also, on balance of probabilities, extend women's lives by delaying death from all other causes.
Well written, insightful, and hard hitting, Estrogen Matters successfully rebuts the billion-dollar, government-led study known as the Women's Health Initiative, which claimed that hormones for post-menopausal women are harmful. That study was wrong. It turns out estrogens do matter for women's health.
How could one flawed scientific conclusion become a persuasive juggernaut that changed the practice of women's health worldwide? In their fascinating account, Bluming and Tavris challenge that conclusion and unpack the reasons for its remarkable impact.
This book is long overdue. Having spent over two decades advancing women's health, I was appalled by the Women's Health Initiative's efforts to sensationalize and distort their own findings to promote an anti-hormone-therapy agenda. Personally I have been taking HRT for over 25 years and have no intention of stopping. I hope Estrogen Matters draws enough attention to counter the fears and misinformation about HRT that so many women, and their physicians, still hold.
This is such an important book, I want to do all I can to encourage every woman to read it. Groundbreaking and carefully researched, Estrogen Matters provides essential information about the many benefits of estrogen at menopause and even after a diagnosis of breast cancer. It reveals the misinterpretation of study results that led women (and their doctors) to have unwarranted concerns about estrogen use. The thoughtful information presented here will help women feel more comfortable taking estrogen, leading to healthier, longer lives for many.
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