The Book Of Hormones – by Dr. Shweta Patel

The subtitle promising “through every stage of life” is a slight overstatement, as the book barely touches on puberty, but we know that the vast majority of our readers have left that one far behind in the past, so probably this is not such an issue.

Where the book gives more attention is in general adult life, through the years of potential fertility, into menopause and beyond. This means lots about the hormonal fluctuations inherent to the menstrual cycle (both the normal, and the still-quite-commonly abnormal, e.g. in cases of PCOS etc), the before-during-after of pregnancy, and many hormonal matters that are not related to sex hormones, such as stress-related hormones and food-related hormones. As such, the book certainly lives up to its title; it is indeed “the book of hormones”.

The style is light and conversational; we get a lot of lessons in chemistry here, but it never feels like it, and there’s certainly no hard science, just clear and easy explanations.

Bottom line: if you’d like to understand hormones quite comprehensively but in a light-hearted manner, this book is a very pleasant and educational read.

Click here to check out The Book Of Hormones, and understand them!