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Explore the latest articles by Dr. Sara Szal, where she blends science and holistic wisdom to address the most pressing issues in women’s health, longevity, and personal transformation.
The Holy Trinity – Or Charlie's Angels – of Vitality: Estrogen, Cortisol + Thyroid (and why they've got your back + your rack, baby)
Step into my time machine. We’re nine years old. It’s 1976. We’re fledgling feminists (already!) and we’re mad-passionately-crazy in awe of a trio of crime-fighting, bad-guy-busting women with brains, brawn and physical agility. And they are just like the hormonal system, when it’s working FOR YOU not against you. They’re amazing. They’re Angels. (They even…
Miscarriage Sucks: What To Do + Say
My heart goes out to women who miscarry. The delight of a missed period, the pleasures of the fantasies we all spin about our future progeny, the online shopping. Then, when it doesn’t work… devastation. Profound grief. Grief that doesn’t get honored and ritualized like the grief of a lost relative or friend. Instead we lie on our…
Feed Your Face
“Maybe it’s because women in L.A. are overly concerned with what they’re eating, but when I opened my own dermatology practice, I started asking every patient to tell me about her diet. Over and over I heard variations on the same theme: “I know that my diet doesn’t have an effect on my skin, but…
What I Eat: From Kale to Forbidden Black Rice
Given all the ways that food serves as medicine, as sacred substance, as a boost to divine vitality, I often get asked by my patients, yoga students and tribe what I eat. Not vague generalizations and broad categories, but nitty-gritty specifics. I happen to do well with nitty-gritty specifics. Do you? I learned at the ripe…
Road to Hormone Health Paved with Good Intestines: Top 5 Tips for Cleaning Up the Gut
After 20 years of balancing hormones in women, I consider the gut as the key change agent, the missing piece to the puzzle of how to feel most vital and restored hormonally. As Hippocrates put it, “All disease begins in your gut.” Another ways to put it: If your gut ain’t happy, your hormones ain’t…
Digital Sabbatical + Your Hormones
I just resurfaced after a digital “shabbat” — that is, no online love from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. No email, no tweets, no Facebook Big Ideas. Result? Better relatedness with my husband and daughters, oxytocin-raising dialogue with girlfriends, and more mindful eating. But, wait, that’s not all! Cortisol comes as close as you can…
Will Sleep for Thyroid
We all know sleep is a good idea. But just how important is sleep when it comes to thyroid health? Turns out that your thyroid’s production of hormone is dependent on several other hormones, in particular the right amount of cortisol, melatonin and growth hormone. Step 1: Nail down your cortisol. I see a lot…
Eat a Brownie and Overdose on Melatonin
Did you catch the NYT front page article yesterday on new snacks that deliver a walloping dose of the hormone melatonin? 8 mg per brownie. People, this is massive. This is madness. And it’s available at Walmart, 7-Eleven and the Harvard Coop. Where’s the voice of reason, here? Even the NYT seemed to think it…
Are Vegans Low in Irony?
I’m flirting with veganism, again. Seems every Spring I feel a recurring stirring. A gentle tug to eat differently. I consider the sweet mother cows whose babies are taken from them so they can produce tons of milk for you and me (and not their calves). But before I go all Alicia Silverstone on you,…