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This book states too much insulin causes weight gain. This has been disproven (PMID: 27385608). You may also consider the fact that GLP-1 receptor agonist medications increase insulin secretion and are associated with weight loss (PMID: 22236411). Briden hardly touches on PMDD. She possibly gives out a three line paragraph at the very beginning of the book, and a wrong description of what it actually is, at the very end of the book. She describes PMDD as a condition that just causes anxiety and depression. PMDD actually causes up to 40 psychological and physical symptoms, and I personally, suffer with around 37 of those, each month. I would love to know why something that woman have taken their own lives over, isn't recognised, and taken seriously enough. I don’t like the snarky tone of this book or the I-know-better attitude of the author. Naturopathic medicine has so much to offer and I would hate for someone who could benefit from it to be put off by the attitude of it. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar! While the book has valid concerns about hormonal birth control, I’m not convinced that it has been as detrimental to women and women’s health as portrayed in the book. I could see this argument be used as a method of controlling women and reinforcing patriarchy and paternalism. Women should be informed about the risks and benefits of all types of birth control and then be supported to make the choice that is right for them without bias or judgement. Absolutely we should be advocating for better, healthier birth control options that have less side effects - but we still need to recognize that many birth control pills work well for many women.
Lara Briden - The Period Revolutionary
Why am I nearly THIRTY SEVEN years old and no one ever taught me this stuff???????? I feel that I have been deprived of extremely important medical information for the majority of my life, to the (sometimes severe) detriment of my health and wellbeing. All because the existing medical establishment is too lazy and cheap to actually research the female body and reproductive functions, instead opting to shut them off with hormonal birth control any time there is an issue. Your period is not just your period. It is an expression of your underlying health. When you are healthy, your menstrual cycle will arrive smoothly, regularly, and without symptoms. When you are unhealthy in some way, your cycle will tell the story. Estrogen, etc and there’s significant clinical and observational research that says soy could help hormonal issues assuming the woman doesn’t have thyroid problems 🤷🏻♀️ I am going to guess that this will probably be one of the most formative books I ever read in my life. I don’t know that it’s necessarily the best book out there on the topic, but because it’s the first one for me (you better believe I have like 8 more on hold at the library) it’s the one that is going to shift my thinking the most. But the way Briden keeps talking about hormonal contraception throughout the book makes it seem like she believes it's a thing from the depths of hell. I had a bad experience with the pill and I know lots of people who went through the same things. But I also know a bunch of people for whom the pill works and that's marvelous for them and I hope it keeps helping them and I don't like how Briden insists that everyone should stop using it.In this book we are also shown that the monthly cycle is a report card of our health, and how to understand what the problems in our cycle can tell us about our overall health, and what to do with that information. Alright so now that my soap box is out of the way, let’s talk about this book. I’ll just jump right to the bad: there’s a lot of hormonal birth control fear-mongering in here. Concerns that simply are not supported by the literature or the vast majority of gynecologists. The main argument is that BC suppresses ovulation, and is therefore bad because it covers up potentially serious conditions. There are too many false and uncited claims mixed in with some good information. Here are some troublesome statements I came across: I do highly appreciate the information and overview of the different types of available birth control options. They were informative and piqued my interest to do some more researching.
Hormone Repair Manual • Lara Briden - The Period Revolutionary
Sleep is another priority strategy for period health. Getting seven or eight hours of quality sleep each night will do more for you than almost any supplement or herb we discuss in this book. Why is sleep so important for hormones? For one thing, it stabilizes your HPA axis and cortisol. It also improves insulin sensitivity and regulates the release of luteinizing hormone (LH), estrogen, and progesterone. Sleep is more important than exercise. Hopefully, you have time in your day for both. If you have to choose between sleep and exercise, choose sleep! Aim for at least seven hours each and every night. If you have trouble sleeping, then please take a minute to consider the underlying reason. What does natural treatment entail? Sleep, Diet, Exercise, and Supplements. A side note about sleep...The way Briden talks about periods while on the pill (what she calls "pill bleeds") not being real periods, reminded me of the way Matthew Walker talks about sleeping pill induced sedation not being real sleep in his book Why We Sleep, which I highly recommend. Period Repair Manual and Why We Sleep were both eye-opening for me. I was happy when Briden mentions the importance of sleep in this book: I truly believe as a society we have been gaslit into thinking that hormonal birth control is a feminist concept, but what would ACTUALLY be feminist is learning about the female body and teaching folks with a female reproductive system how to properly take care of it, and maybe, just maybe, doing some research into male birth control (as I understand the technology very much exists but funding for clinical trials and approval does not). I appreciate the author’s sentiment that she’s not 100% against using hormonal birth control, but it should be prescribed only if the person using it is fully aware of what it actually does to their body (it doesn’t “regulate your hormones” - it shuts them off) and/or other less invasive options have been carefully considered and ruled out if the birth control is being used for a medical condition. Which is typically never the case. This is not the kind of book that you necessarily want to let all your friends on goodreads know that you have read. But I want to give it a review, because it is an amazingly helpful and empowering book, and I believe that all women should read it. And of course I have to disclaim that maybe not everything in this book should be taken at face value, as it is really just based on one ND’s experience and her interpretation of the scientific evidence where it it exists (which is often scarce for any kind of women’s health issues, see Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez for an infuriating primer). But like… it makes so much sense. It make more sense than anything I have ever heard or read before. I am unwilling to believe it is some sort of conspiracy by the anti-sugar lobby or something. As well the majority of treatments discussed are very non-invasive and can’t hurt to try. I can’t imagine one getting LESS healthy from cutting sugar and alcohol from their diet, for example. (As mentioned above though, there’s an element of having the resources to do so involved, which is outside the scope of this book and a symptom of larger societal issues.)
Period Repair Manual is published by Pan Macmillan and is your guide to better periods. It explains how to use natural treatments such as diet, nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, and bioidentical hormones and provides advice and tips for women of every age and situation. If you have a period (or want a period), then this book is for you. Even if you aren't currently experiencing period problems, I would still recommend this book to all women. Whether you're a teenager who just started menstruating, you're approaching menopause, or you're somewhere in between. Chances are, you'll experience period problems at some point in your life. I would have loved to have this book available to me when I started experiencing period problems myself at the age of 15. It's never too early or too late to take a good hard look at your period health and try to understand what your body is telling you. One of the core concepts of this book is that menstruation is a legitimate VITAL SIGN. It provides clues about your general health and whether your body and hormones are functioning properly. Yet, doctors generally opt to shut off this vital sign (with The Pill) when it starts telling us that something is wrong instead of trying to find out the cause and correct it. HOLY SHIT Y’ALL!!!! HOW IS THIS A THING!!!!???? Please let this sink in for a minute. We are essentially lobotomizing our reproductive systems, usually temporarily but sometimes permanently, because the medical establishment is unwilling to do any research into this topic because hormones are “too complicated.” How is this “do no harm”? Women commit suicide over severe PMS and it is well-known that hormonal birth control is linked to depression. I can’t say I’ve met anyone who has truly been happy with their experience on hormonal birth control – it is treated as a necessary evil, but apparently it doesn’t have to be that way. I had hoped that this book would be “here are some alternatives you could try instead or in conjunction with hormonal BC” but it was really more “your bc is bad, stop it.” I have no judgements towards individuals who seek alternative treatments after the traditional medical system has failed them.
Period Repair Manual • Lara Briden - The Period Revolutionary Period Repair Manual • Lara Briden - The Period Revolutionary
Essential reading for all women over 40, and their doctors!' Dr Natasha Andreadis, fertility specialist and host of the Fanny Mechanic podcastAs for the information on how to enhance natural cycles, I feel like some changes could be made in terms of the book’s organization. As other reviewers have noted, the book encourages the reader to read the whole book, but then also is repetitive in repeating information and will redirect the reader to other chapters. Much of the information in this book is general how to be healthy information. I would have preferred an overview that gives this advice once at the beginning instead of repeating it for each section. Of course diet/exercise/reducing stress will be beneficial to all period problems. Briden covers many more period complaints and complications, such as endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, menopause, heavy periods and many others, and with each of these, she prescribes different medicines, such as vitamins and dietary changes, to try and combat the effects the condition is having on the body. For me, much of this didn't apply, but it was interesting to read up on what could help, in that situation. Obviously, in the most severe situation, surgical intervention is probably the only option, and it tends to be the last option that a woman has. Other issues: she strongly discourages a vegan diet but gives no supporting evidence except that “vegan diets may be low in certain vitamins and minerals” 🙄 🙄 this can also be said for the typical western diet. For vegans, she recommends they take a number of supplements, like taurine, but doesn’t say why, what they do, how they will help, what a low level might do, what food sources might have them, and why a vegan might be “low” in the first place. Most of these things cannot be tested for—that is, you can’t know if you’re low or not. She also quips that vegans must eat beans with rice for a complete protein and this is so old/outdated/misinformed it made me question everything else she’d said 😞
Hormone Repair Manual | BIG W Hormone Repair Manual | BIG W
I do wish the dietary recommendations were a bit more realistic. Majority of people, myself included, don't have the time or money for lamb shanks and salmon steaks as regular dinners (same for the breakfast and lunch suggestions), just saying. I felt that I had to disregard most of the diet suggestions and will have to figure out my own system for that. It seems geared toward people who have a good chunk of money and time, which I doubt is the majority of readers.Me decanté por buscar libros en inglés y encontré este. La autora, si no me equivoco, no es médico. Sino que trabaja bajo la llamada naturopatía (medicina alternativa). Quiero aclarar esto porque la medicina alternativa NO está basada en la evidencia científica. La naturopatía se fundamenta sobre todo en cambios en el estilo de vida y la nutrición. No me disgusta, pero habiendo estudiado medicina lo mínimo que puedo hacer es dejar muy claro este punto.
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