Women Weight and Hormones or Hooked

Women, Weight and Hormones

Author: Elizabeth Lee Vliet

Hormones. Weight gain. Women's fat-storing bodies vs. men's fat-burning metabolism. What's the difference? Why do women struggle with weight issues so much? This book is a well-researched look at the issues.

Publishers Weekly

Vliet (Screaming to Be Heard: Hormone Connections Women Suspect... and Doctors Still Ignore) is the founder and director of HER Place, which has several medical centers specializing in hormone evaluations for menopausal women. Very detailed and somewhat overwritten for women just interested in losing weight, her second book presents an array of information on hormone found in the body. Vliet explains how estrogen and progesterone levels change and interact at midlife to slow female metabolism, which may lead to weight gain. But, she argues, a combination of hormonal balance, healthy eating, exercise and improved self-esteem can reverse this pattern. Before Vliet gets to the cornerstone of her "meal action plan" (MAP), which will interest many women, the reader must plow through complicated explanations of the biological changes that occur before, during and after menopause. Vliet believes that women should be tested for hormone levels in their 20s and 30s, so that these baseline results can be used to adjust levels at midlife to prevent excessive weight gain. (She advocates hormonal supplements based on individual need.) Based on her daily dietary recommendations of 35% protein, 30% fat and 35% carbohydrates, Vliet provides 14 days of MAP meal plans. Although much of her diet and exercise advice will be helpful to overweight women, her hormonal plan, advocated at HER Place centers, is complex and theoretical. (Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Why do women seem to have a harder time losing weight than men? Why is it even more difficult as we age? Is losing weight really as simple as eating less and exercising more? Yes and no. Vliet (Screaming To Be Heard), a physician specializing in women's health and preventive and climacteric medicine, here describes the different hormones that affect women before and after menopause. Some estrogens produced before menopause are largely unavailable in hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Too much estrone and not enough estradiol or imbalances in progestone, testosterone, and thyroid can result in weight gain, depression, and other difficulties. Vliet discusses the popular HRT drugs and weight-loss programs that fail to target these imbalances or make them worse. After describing the various hormones in detail with case histories, she recommends a battery of blood tests to pinpoint one's chemical profile, a consultation with a doctor (preferably an endocrinologist) to achieve the right balance, and a diet and exercise plan to take advantage of the better physiological climate thus engendered. Although this book is too technical for most lay readers, Vliet's thesis contains a core of good sense that might well benefit motivated readers. For libraries serving an educated clientele. Susan B. Hagloch, Tuscarawas Cty. P.L., New Philadelphia, OH Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Book review: Pot Roast Politics and Ants in the Pantry or Kentucky Bourbon

Hooked: Five Addicts Challenge Our Misguided Drug Rehab System

Author: Lonny Shavelson

"The human face of drug addiction has been lost in a blizzard of statistics, stereotypes, and hyped-up media images. In Hooked, Lonny Shavelson takes a powerful and unprecedented journey into the lives of addicts struggling to get clean. Shavelson, a noted physician, photographer, and journalist, trailed five addicts for two years through different California drug rehabilitation programs, some voluntary and others court-mandated. On a gripping trek, he follows addicts behind the closed doors of rehabilitation centers, doctors' offices, and judges' chambers, and, often, back to the street." "Defying expectations about drug treatment and how it works, Hooked highlights the links between drug addiction, mental illness, and trauma, including child abuse - links that are too often overlooked by current treatment efforts. Shavelson argues for an integrated approach to drug treatment that addresses the root causes of drug abuse, not just its outward behaviors." "The topic of drug addiction touches almost every family, and Shavelson explores it with the same sensitivity and insight he brought to his previous book on physician-assisted suicide."--BOOK JACKET.

Journal of the American Medical Association - Barry Liskow

Shavelson has provided a valuable service to his community, profession, and the five troubled friends he made in writing this book. He has given those entrapped in a web of addiction, poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and uncoordinated care a face and a voice. Both the faces and voices insist that they not be abandoned to the current well-meaning but all too often ineffective system for helping them recover from the their disease of addiction and its consequences.

Booknews

Shavelson is a physician and journalist who followed five addicts through various drug rehabilitation programs in California. Their stories, often told in their own words and punctuated by b&w photos Shavelson took as the five traversed the system and the streets, highlight the links between drug addiction, mental illness, and trauma, including child abuse. Shavelson argues for an integrated approach to drug treatment that addresses the fundamental causes of drug abuse, not just its outward symptoms and behaviors. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)