Guest guest Posted October 21, 2003 Report Share Posted October 21, 2003 http://healthy.net/scr/article.asp?PageType=Article & id=2347 In Memoriam John R. Lee, M.D. (1929 - 2003) Official Web Site of John R. Lee, M.D. John R. Lee, M.D. passed away unexpectedly on Friday October 17th, 2003, of a heart attack. Dr. Lee was known by millions of people as the doctor who pioneered the use of transdermal progesterone cream and bio-identical hormones, and who had the courage to stand up against the medical establishment’s dangerous and misguided HRT (hormone replacement therapy) treatments. He kept a full schedule, giving talks and teaching worldwide (he had recently returned from a speaking tour in Europe), writing his best-selling books and monthly newsletters. Dr. Lee was gratified by the thousands of women who wrote and called to tell him how dramatically their health had improved when they followed his recommendations, and by the hundreds of clinicians and researchers he corresponded with who had integrated his work into their practices and research with great success. Dr. Lee was thankful that his analysis of the problems with conventional HRT were finally validated by the medical establishment during his lifetime. Dr. Lee’s friends and colleagues will carry on his legacy, as will the millions of others whose lives he touched over the years. We know that many of you will write, asking “What can we do?” The most meaningful way to remember John R. Lee, M.D. and carry on his work is to educate others, one-to-one, and give them the gift of optimal health, as he gave us. His family asks that in lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Progesterone Research Institute. To learn more about Dr. Lee's life and work http://www.johnleemd.com/meetdrjohlee.html A History and Overview of His Important Work John R. Lee, M.D. was a family doctor in Northern California when, in the early 1970s, he began seeing a lot of menopausal women with health complaints who weren't able to use estrogen because of a high cancer risk, heart disease, or diabetes for example. About that time he attended a lecture by Raymond Peat, Ph.D. who claimed that estrogen was the wrong hormone to be giving menopausal women, and that what they really needed was progesterone. Dr. Lee took a list of Dr. Peat's references and checked them out, and sure enough, it looked like Dr. Peat was right. FOCUS ON PROGESTERONE Dr. Lee began telling his menopausal patients to try using a progesterone cream called Pro-Gest and to his amazement they were delighted with the results. They reported relief from menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and insomnia, and they also reported relief from a wide array of other symptoms as diverse as dry eyes, bloating, irritability, gall bladder problems, osteoporosis pain, hair loss, and lumpy or sore breasts, for example. As a result of this unanimously positive feedback, Dr. Lee began to collect detailed data on these patients, and also began to research progesterone more in-depth, gathering studies from his local medical library, and communicating with scientists around the world to discuss their work. He realized that progesterone probably had a positive effect on bone health and began to get bone density tests for his patients on progesterone. Within a few years he realized that these women were gaining significant bone density - particularly those with the worst bone density to begin with. DR. LEE'S FIRST BOOKS Dr. Lee was so convinced that his clinical experience with progesterone could have a major positive impact on the health of menopausal women, that he retired from his family practice and devoted all of his time to writing about natural progesterone and giving talks about it. He self-published a book for doctors called: Natural Progesterone: The Multiple Roles of a Remarkable Hormone and sold it out of his garage, and soon was engaged in a voluminous correspondence with hundreds of women, doctors and scientists from around the world. He also self-published a book called Optimal Health Guidelines, a general guide to good health written for the class he taught at College of Marin for 15 years. WHAT YOUR DOCTOR MAY NOT TELL YOU ABOUT MENOPAUSE A few years later a medical writer named Virginia Hopkins who was suffering herself from early menopausal symptoms came across Dr. Lee's book and called him to say, " You need to get this information out to the millions of women who are suffering from these symptoms, how about if we do a book together? " Dr. Lee agreed to the plan, and his second book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause (Warner Books) was published in 1996. This book is a " translation " of the medical language in the first book, and expands significantly on the original information. Sales of the " Menopause " book were better than anyone at Warner ever dreamed, and by the fall of 1998 nearly half a million books had been sold, almost entirely by word-of-mouth and through progesterone cream manufacturers who felt it was important to educate their customers about why they were using the cream, and how to use it. The " Menopause " book has the lowest return rate of any book at Warner, and sales continue to steadily climb. PROGESTERONE CREAM TAKES OFF Meanwhile, a progesterone cream industry was springing up, and soon there were dozens of companies selling progesterone cream. It literally became a multi-million dollar industry within a few years. Why? Because progesterone cream really works to alleviate the symptoms of estrogen dominance and menopausal symptoms in general, and conventional medicine has failed to address these concerns in a safe, effective manner. Women have intuitively known for decades that they were being mistreated by the medical profession when it came to hormone replacement therapy and have enthusiastically embraced this intuitively obvious and safe solution. Again, the bottom line is that for most women, it works very well and used as directed it is extremely safe. Occasionally there is a flurry of articles claiming that progesterone is not safe, but the research that these claims are based on has always been about the synthetic progestins, not on natural progesterone. (For a detailed explanation of the difference between natural progesterone and synthetic progestins, read What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause.) TALKING TO WOMEN FROM THIRTY TO FIFTY ABOUT HORMONE IMBALANCE As Dr. Lee traveled around the world giving talks and attending conferences, he soon discovered that at least half of his audience and maybe more was pre-menopausal ˆ women from their mid-thirties to their late forties. These women were suffering from a long list of symptoms, including PMS, fibroids, fibrocystic breasts, weight gain, fatigue, endometriosis, irregular or heavy periods, infertility, and miscarriage, which they intuitively knew were due to hormonal imbalance. When they tried progesterone cream they found that it worked wonderfully well to alleviate their symptoms, and Dr. Lee began to collect stacks of mail from women who had avoided hysterectomy, lost weight, had fibroids shrink, found relief from PMS, and had finally been able to conceive after years of trying. This experience led to writing the book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause: Balance Your Hormones and Your Life from Thirty to Fifty (Warner), available in January 1999. For this effort, Dr. Lee and Virginia Hopkins teamed up with Jesse Hanley, M.D., a Malibu, CA-based physician with a family practice, who specializes in helping women balance their hormones naturally. Dr. Hanley brought a rich new dimension to this book of the psychological, spiritual and emotional aspects of the premenopause years, as well as her extensive experience in using herbs and nutritional supplements to achieve hormone balance. THE JOHN R. LEE, M.D. MEDICAL LETTER Around the time the " Premenopause " book was finished, Dr. Lee and Virginia started a newsletter together, The John R. Lee, M.D. Medical Letter, designed to keep women up-to-date on hormone research, assess the latest media reports about hormones, and generally offer down-to-earth, practical and commonsense approaches to keeping hormones in balance and achieving optimal health. The newsletter also features interviews with clinicians and scientists who specialize in progesterone research and/or treatment, or who have a unique point of view on some aspect of health that could be helpful to readers. Another goal of the newsletter is to give women resources, including educational material, recommended reading, scientific references and access to natural progesterone cream. THOUGHTFUL ESSAYS FROM DR. LEE Dr. Lee is also a gifted writer of thoughtful essays, and these are shared with newsletter rs on this website. WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU, PLEASE WRITE! While Dr. Lee is not able to answer questions about individual health problems, he loves hearing from women who have used progesterone cream and what their experience has been, good or bad. These letters are a valuable resource for knowing which topics are important to address both in the books and the newsletter. Sometimes Virginia can provide quick answers to e-mails or can direct you to an answer in the books or newsletter. Dr. Lee is also very much appreciates networking, and receiving any research or magazine articles on the subject of hormones that you might come across, as well as reports and questions from clinicians whose patients are using the cream. You can send e-mail to info NEW WEB MESSAGE BOARDS - JOIN HERE. Alternative Medicine Message Boards.Info http://alternative-medicine-message-boards.info The New with improved product search Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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