Women’s Health: Hormones, Emotions and Behavior

Women’s Health: Hormones, Emotions and Behavior

Regina C. Casper, editor

Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press; 1998. 328 pp

ISBN: 0-52156-341-0 (hardcover)

Cambridge University Press has initiated a very useful series of clinical texts in the area of psychiatry and medicine. The editorial board of this series is to be congratulated for its selection of books and for its uniformly high standard of publication. This book is no exception. It is a “must read” for all mental health professionals, both women and men.

Women’s Health: Hormones, Emotions and Behavior is well written and informative, but not overly detailed. It covers the important areas and keeps the reader’s attention throughout. Women’s health has become a popular topic and there has been a recent spate of books in this area. This is the best one. Although it is multi-authored, the editor has kept a strict rein on the contributors, has participated actively in each of the chapters and has ensured a high level of readability, comprehensiveness and up-to-date thinking on a common theme.

She has done what is very difficult to do — she has interwoven highly sophisticated neuroendocrine and neuropharmacological information and recent thinking about the impact of roles, functions, supports and losses in women’s lives so seamlessly that perspectives from many different fields are integrated into a complex framework. The readership will emerge not only with knowledge but also with wisdom.

The field of women’s health is evolving so quickly that the book is already a little out of date. The discovery of a second estrogen receptor and of several ways in which selective estrogen receptor antagonists affect and protect different body tissues all promise new insights and new therapies. The role of estrogens in Alzheimer’s disease is attracting new attention. Our increasing awareness of autosomal differences between the sexes, and of immune differences, will incrementally contribute to this field. As all this happens, women’s (and men’s) roles will change and diversify, and will no doubt induce hormonal and neurotransmitter changes, which perhaps will stand all the old findings on their heads. As we have recently learned, the expansion of the universe we inhabit is accelerating. So is knowledge in this field of study. This is a book we should all read to try to keep up.