My Top 5 Hormone Superheroes: My Genius Bar. My Peeps. My Go-To’s.

Here are the Best of Class in Hormonal Health, Peace + Love.

Thought leaders, change agents, supersmartypants, Malcomb-Gladwell-types of women’s health and longevity, nutritional radicals, early adoptors, cultural creatives, and, oh YES! the Voice of Reason (guess who!).

The folks I go to when I have a question, and Pubmed came up dry.

Wanted to share ‘em with you.

1. Mary Shomon. Yes, top of the list is not a doctor. How subversive. But Mary has an almost mystic-like capacity to understand complex problems related to the thyroid, explain them succinctly… and, frankly, NO ONE has outpublished this fireball of intellect and grace. Check out her latest book, The Thyroid Diet Revolution: Manage Your Master Gland of Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss. Currently, Mary is writing a book with former Baywatch star, Gena Lee Nolin, called Thyroid Sexy. They are going to rebrand the thyroid from the stuff of middle-aged frump to the hottest new hormone to address. Check out my interview with them right here and buy Mary’s book! It came out this month and it’s so beast!

2. Uzzi Reiss, MD. While you may not easily understand his Israeli accent, his book, Natural Hormone Balance for Women, forever changed my world view when it came out in 2002. Dr. Reiss’s book confirmed all the stuff I believed, but at the time, I felt like an outlier with my beliefs about choosing more natural options for hormonal health, such as botanicals, nutrition and bioidentical hormones.

3. Jeffrey Bland, PhD. Another non-MD! Dr. Bland is a nutritional biochemist who synthesizes like no one else. He founded the Institute of Functional Medicine, and well, I think he founded the entire field of Functional Medicine! I’ve learned more from him than any professor at Harvard Med, hands down. Grateful. And I won’t say anything cheeky about his facial hair.

“We need to listen to the patients’ story and develop a response to it. The approach to complex syndromes may be much more profound than just trying to point a round peg into a square hole and get a singular diagnosis. ”

— Jeffrey S. Bland, PhD

4. Christiane Northrup, MD. Chris Northrup feels like my adoptive mom yet I’ve never met her. How many feel that way after growing up with her books and Wisdom-of-the-female-body message? I heard about her before going to Harvard Medical School, maybe on PBS, and I said to myself, “I’m going to be that kind of a doctor.” Thank you, Dr. Northrup, for shining the light for the rest of us.

5. Andrew Weil, MD. I love this man. I know, I know… that beard is a bit stuck-in-the-70s but he’s crazy smart and I think we can all agree that he was the first on base when it comes to integrative medicine. Have you read his books? OK, I can’t finish them either, but he is my go-to for the voice of reason when it comes to my wilder ideas about herbal therapies and green tea and nutrition. Sometimes I feel like Andy and Chris Northrup’s love child.

Now, Lovies, your turn. Who’s runnin’ your Genius Bar? Or if you’ve found great resources, share those too. Would love to hear from you.