What Every Woman Should Know: Staying Healthy After 40

The physiological transformations of growing older are elucidated clearly in this comprehensive, up-to-date maintenance manual for women over 40. Lila Nachtigall is a gynecologist and reproductive endocrinologist at New York University School of Medicine; Robert Nachtigall is chief of the division of reproductive endocrinology at the California-Pacific Medical Center. With medical journalist Heilman, they draw on the latest medical research for this instructive volume that follows an accessible, although sometimes sclerotic Q&A format. Specific chapters address such issues as birth control, giving birth and menopause; breasts, ovaries, sex; weight control and appearance. The authors strongly support hormone replacement therapy (except in cases of clear contraindication) for reducing the effects of aging and estrogen deprivation. Nutrition, exercise and lifestyle recommendations are offered along with healthful approaches for reducing risk of such common diseases as breast and colon cancer, for maintaining one's sex drive and having a baby in midlife. (July)