Valerie Latona is a leading health/wellness writer and editor. She is the founder of Valerie Latona Health Media and is the former VP/Editor in Chief of Shape. Her work has been featured in numerous books, as well as websites and publications including Prevention, Women's Health, AARP, Allure, Harper's Bazaar, Yoga Journal, New You, Mother Earth Living, and more.

Valerie is also a former advisor to the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health.

Valerie is passionate about living a healthy lifestyle and communicating this—in a way that's easy to understand and get motivated by—to others through her writing. She is able to read and make sense of the latest research, helping to translate it so others can understand why it's important to their health.

Valerie incorporates what she talks about into her own lifestyle whenever possible. She is always regularly trying out new healthy foods and drinks, activities, skin and hair treatments, and classes as a way of understanding everything that's available. She lives an active lifestyle, incorporating running, biking, yoga, tennis, swimming, and/or strength training into her daily activities whenever possible. She is a mother of three children, who she works on keeping healthy too (or at least she tries!).

KRISTINE GEDROIC, MD, is the author of A Nation of Unwell and the Medical Director of the Gedroic Medical Institute in Morristown, New Jersey. As she discusses in A Nation of Unwell, Dr. Gedroic has helped patients with nearly every chronic condition, including autoimmune disease, neurological conditions, chronic fatigue syndrome, ADHD, depression, and more.

Dr. Gedroic graduated from Harvard University with a degree in biochemical sciences and from Thomas Jefferson Medical School. She's a Fellow of the American Boards of Family Medicine and Integrative Medicine and is Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. She lives in New Jersey with her family.

DR. GEDROIC'S OWN STORY

Dr. Gedroic is passionate about helping others recover their health because she lived through her own health crisis at age 28. Here's how she explains it in her book, A Nation of Unwell:

"At age twenty-eight, having just graduated from medical school with a spot in a coveted plastic surgery residency at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, my health started deteriorating after only the first year. I was working more than a hundred hours a week, and I chalked up the frequent, debilitating migraines I was getting to simply being stressed and having a lot on my plate. I also chalked up my newly diagnosed gastric ulcer to the same cause. After all, I had just run a marathon, so I was in “excellent” health. ...

I thought nothing of taking prescription migraine pills and acid blockers, which, in hindsight, were merely stifling my body’s cries for help. What began as medication to treat the occasional migraine, though, soon became daily pills that stopped getting results. I began to rotate from one medication to the next. Nothing seemed to work because I wasn’t addressing the underlying causes, only I didn’t realize this at the time.

It’s important to mention here that during this period, none of the doctors I consulted asked me about my diet. I was living on diet soda made with the chemical sweetener aspartame to stay awake, along with whole wheat bagels that I stashed in my white doctor’s coat and nibbled on all day long for energy. Years later, when I finally discovered my triggers for migraines (which ironically turned out to be gluten, dairy, and aspartame), I realized that removing these foods from my diet would have made my life, and my health, infinitely better back then. These same foods were also affecting my stomach and were part of what needed to change in order for my stomach to heal. But incredibly, not one single doctor ever asked what I was eating. By continuing to eat and live the way I was, along with taking prescription medicines, I was ignoring what my body really needed.

Soon my body’s cries for help got louder and, not surprisingly, my medical condition got worse, eventually spiraling out of control.

One of the medications I was taking had a severe, almost fatal, side effect. Along with a series of ensuing serious complications, I found myself, the marathon-running surgical resident in “perfect health”, in the ICU.

That’s when I realized how wrong my reality was. ... it wasn’t until my mother took me to see a nearby integrative physician that my health started to turn around.

This integrative doctor examined my diet, my daily routines, and my life and determined that changing these things, as well as taking some critical supplements, would transform my health. And it did, dramatically. Within only a few days, I was feeling stronger and healthier and had more energy. My migraines and stomach problems slowly stopped. Today I can eat gluten and even certain forms of dairy, but only for a few days at a time. When the old symptoms start to return, I am reminded of how beautiful our bodies are at letting us know when enough is enough. ...

Today, my clinic is called the Gedroic Medical Institute, and we see and recover some of the most complex medical issues people face. The work can be extremely challenging, but each case teaches me even more about the beauty of the human body and how gracefully it can recover if given the proper tools. The cases we see are truly transformative. Children with severe allergies, behavioral disorders, and chronic gastrointestinal complaints become well without medication. Young women and men with autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue, and neurological disorders have their conditions reversed. They never have to take medication again, and they go on to have healthy lives. Adults with chronic pain, fatigue, and depression recover and are once again able to enjoy life to the fullest. Over the years, these patients have been the consummate teachers. I have had to study each case and develop individualized roadmaps to recovery, but each recovery started with listening to what they and their bodies were telling me. Everything I’ve learned with each and every patient, I’ve used with subsequent patients. It has truly been a yellow brick road of learning with a goal of wellness for all as the driving force. To be able to assist my patients on their journey to wellness is a gift I never could have imagined."