The Ageless Woman is the book that many of us have
been waiting for, written by the author we thought was best for
the assignment. I have had the privilege of knowing Serafina Corsello,
MD for the past 20 years. She is a high energy, life-long learner
who blends extraordinary clinical skills with a probing mind looking
for new answers to the health challenges that her patients bring
to her. Her busy New York medical practices have provided her with
a "laboratory" to evaluate the value of conventional and
integrated/functional medical therapies with her diverse patient
population. She has developed a truly unique and successful approach
to female health problems as a consequence of these experiences
and the intellectual rigor that she has employed in making her assessments
of what works and what doesn't.
In
The Ageless Woman, she describes her own journey in evolving her
medical practice through the experiences that
she has had with thousands of
patients. As the president of the Institute for Functional Medicine
I am proud that she calls herself an integrative/functional medicine
practitioner. Functional medicine has been said by some to be plain
old "good medicine." It is using the right tools at the
right times for specific patients to improve their overall function.
Functional medicine doesn't just treat symptoms, but rather helps
improve overall function, and in so doing, prevents later stage,
more serious illness.
Dr. Corsello is an expert in knowing how, when and
why to use various integrated therapies to improve the health and
quality of life of her patients. As such, she is one of the leaders
in both integrated and functional medicine. As has been said by
some about present day medicine, "If all you have is a hammer,
then everything is a nail." As an expert in functional/integrative
medicine, Dr. Corsello has more tools in her toolkit and therefore
is able to tailor the therapy to meet the needs of the individual
patient. This concept is beautifully described in The Ageless Woman
using numerous case histories, the medical/scientific literature
and simple summary action points as teaching tools.
I have read over 100 books on female health issues,
and I found The Ageless Woman to be the most readable and comprehensive.
I was very pleased to see that Dr. Corsello discusses the mind/body
issues in health and healing in a style that blends Western reductionistic
methods with Eastern intuitive and vitalistic concepts. This helps
set the tone of the book as balanced and providing a "whole
person" reading experience.
I particularly found the chapters on female hormones,
menopause and maintaining energy balance after age 40 to be of great
insight and clinical wisdom. There is significant "genius"
in this book that comes from decades of dedication as a doctor and
observing patterns in patients, which results in new therapeutic
insights.
I thank Dr. Corsello for her contribution in helping
to make complex concepts understandable and for providing sensible
approaches to the achievement of healthy aging. I know that The
Ageless Woman will be of tremendous value not only for the women
who follow its suggestions, but also for men, who can implement
many of the recommendations that are applicable to us all.
Jeffrey Bland, PhD
President, Institute of Functional Medicine
