WHO
IS D. LINDSEY BERKSON?
PUBLICATIONS:
2002 (January)
Natural Answers For Women's Health Questions
(Simon & Schuster)
2000 Hormone Deception (Contemporary)
2000 Healthy Digestion the Natural Way: Preventing and Healing Heartburn, Constipation, Gas, Diarrhea, Inflammatory Bowel and Gallbladder Diseases, Ulcers, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Food Allergies and More. (Wiley)
1994 Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide, one of three senior editors. (Future Medicine Press)
1983 The Foot Book, (Funk and Wagnall-hardcover) (Harper and Row--paperback)
1981 Body, Mind and Spirit, Contributing author, Stephen Greene Press
WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK
Hormones are extremely confusing, and whoever doesn't admit this is daft. Now mix into this confusion the new information that our bodies don't end at our skin anymore. Substances in the environment, called hormone disruptors, are gaining entry inside us and can affect our hormonal signaling systems, making the issue of hormones and our health even murkier.
Hormone disruptors can act like our own hormones, can affect how our hormones perform, and can even alter how our bodies metabolize our natural hormones. And where are these alien invaders found? In baby food, in your supermarket cart, on your dinner plate, in your shower and bathroom, and taking up residence in your fat cells. New studies show that they are also swimming around inside the average woman's amniotic fluid – that's right, in the womb – a place once thought of as the perfect image of safety and protection.
When I was floating inside my pregnant mother, her doctor gave her one of the most powerful hormone disruptors known to mankind, a powerful estrogenic medication (DES, the first synthetic estrogen), and the rest is history. I am a DES daughter. My whole life has been about being superestrogenized and suffering with multiple health disorders that come from excess estrogen. So when I read that substances in everyday food, air and water, and in products like plastics, flame retardants, pesticides and herbicides, were acting in a similar fashion to the medication given to my mother during pregnancy, I knew I was destined to write this book.
Due these health problems I went on to become a woman's health advocate. I have lectured on women's health, trained doctors for decades on how to treat women using nutrition in the clinical arena, and focused specifically on how hormones play a role in what ails most women. In the mid-1980s, I designed one of the first natural menopause remedies for women who are at risk for taking HRT.
For decades I have been a medical investigative journalist, nutritionist, lecturer, director of the Berkson Multi-disciplinary Clinic, talk show radio host, and presently am a consulting scholar at a scientific research think-tank, which is a collaborative effort between two universities – Tulane and Xavier in New Orleans, Louisiana. After they read the galleys for Hormone Deception, they wanted me to communicate to the public what the scientists in the ivory towers were finding out about estrogen, especially environmental pollutants and foods that act like estrogens.
There are those who believe that ignorance is bliss. I disagree. We live in a day and age where we cannot afford to live unconsciously. As a matter of fact, we can greatly enhance our ability to lead healthy and fulfilling lives, and to have healthy children who grow up to be "all that they can be," if we are willing to be aware of the challenges that confront us. Awareness is always the first step to healing both our personal health and the health of the world around us.
Sometimes life seems very complicated and the issues that confront us can appear overwhelming. Don't give up hope. We can make a difference, individually and collectively.
 |
Educator, Women's Health Advocate, and Consulting Scholar, Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities (research think-tank on estrogens); Visiting Scholar at Newcomb College Center for Research on Women. |
PUBLICATIONS:
2002 (January)
Natural Answers For Women's Health Questions
(Simon & Schuster)
2000 Hormone Deception (Contemporary)
2000 Healthy Digestion the Natural Way: Preventing and Healing Heartburn, Constipation, Gas, Diarrhea, Inflammatory Bowel and Gallbladder Diseases, Ulcers, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Food Allergies and More. (Wiley)
1994 Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide, one of three senior editors. (Future Medicine Press)
1983 The Foot Book, (Funk and Wagnall-hardcover) (Harper and Row--paperback)
1981 Body, Mind and Spirit, Contributing author, Stephen Greene Press
WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK
Hormones are extremely confusing, and whoever doesn't admit this is daft. Now mix into this confusion the new information that our bodies don't end at our skin anymore. Substances in the environment, called hormone disruptors, are gaining entry inside us and can affect our hormonal signaling systems, making the issue of hormones and our health even murkier.
Hormone disruptors can act like our own hormones, can affect how our hormones perform, and can even alter how our bodies metabolize our natural hormones. And where are these alien invaders found? In baby food, in your supermarket cart, on your dinner plate, in your shower and bathroom, and taking up residence in your fat cells. New studies show that they are also swimming around inside the average woman's amniotic fluid – that's right, in the womb – a place once thought of as the perfect image of safety and protection.
When I was floating inside my pregnant mother, her doctor gave her one of the most powerful hormone disruptors known to mankind, a powerful estrogenic medication (DES, the first synthetic estrogen), and the rest is history. I am a DES daughter. My whole life has been about being superestrogenized and suffering with multiple health disorders that come from excess estrogen. So when I read that substances in everyday food, air and water, and in products like plastics, flame retardants, pesticides and herbicides, were acting in a similar fashion to the medication given to my mother during pregnancy, I knew I was destined to write this book.
Due these health problems I went on to become a woman's health advocate. I have lectured on women's health, trained doctors for decades on how to treat women using nutrition in the clinical arena, and focused specifically on how hormones play a role in what ails most women. In the mid-1980s, I designed one of the first natural menopause remedies for women who are at risk for taking HRT.
For decades I have been a medical investigative journalist, nutritionist, lecturer, director of the Berkson Multi-disciplinary Clinic, talk show radio host, and presently am a consulting scholar at a scientific research think-tank, which is a collaborative effort between two universities – Tulane and Xavier in New Orleans, Louisiana. After they read the galleys for Hormone Deception, they wanted me to communicate to the public what the scientists in the ivory towers were finding out about estrogen, especially environmental pollutants and foods that act like estrogens.
There are those who believe that ignorance is bliss. I disagree. We live in a day and age where we cannot afford to live unconsciously. As a matter of fact, we can greatly enhance our ability to lead healthy and fulfilling lives, and to have healthy children who grow up to be "all that they can be," if we are willing to be aware of the challenges that confront us. Awareness is always the first step to healing both our personal health and the health of the world around us.
Sometimes life seems very complicated and the issues that confront us can appear overwhelming. Don't give up hope. We can make a difference, individually and collectively.