The Blessings of the Curse: No More Periods?

Encouraging healthy menstruating women and even teenage girls to do away with their normal menstrual cycles by dosing themselves more or less nonstop with hormones (a multi-billion-dollar-per-year industry) is, in a word, reckless. What every woman and her doctor MUST know about the actual benefits of the normal menstrual cycle-naturally lowered blood pressure, reduced risk of heart attacks and strokes, healthy bones, rhythmic stimulation of sexual desire and creativity-and about the potential hazards of menstrual suppression (heart attacks, strokes, cervical cancer, osteoporosis, depressed libido) deserves a voice. I am determined that it will have one. -Susan Rako, M.D.