About Sara Szal Gottfried, MD

Sara Gottfried MD

How I Leveraged Precision, Functional, and Integrative Medicine to Become a World-Renowned Physician, Speaker, and Multiple New York Times Bestselling Author

Hi. I’m Sara Gottfried M.D. I’m a wife, mother, scientist, researcher, speaker, connector, scholar, seeker, and Harvard-educated MD with 25 years of experience, and author of four New York Times bestselling books.

Maybe you’re here because you want more than mainstream medicine offers. That’s what happened to me. In my thirties, I worked in McMedicine. I saw 30+ patients per day for many years. I was burning the candle at both ends, in couple’s therapy, overweight, and suffered with premenstrual syndrome. Advanced testing showed I was aging 20 years faster than my chronological age. I went to my doctor and he told me to take Prozac, ibuprofen, and birth control pills, but that didn’t feel right.

I decided to apply my medical training to myself. I discovered my cortisol level was three times normal (something my traditional doctors told me wasn’t a big deal) and it was leading to other downstream health consequences like blood sugar problems, moodiness, wear and tear on my joints and unresolved inflammation, multiple injuries, and belly fat. High cortisol led to prediabetes, a condition that 90% of Americans don’t know they have.

Within six weeks, I had fixed the root cause and felt significantly better. I resolved the niggling problems on my list and reversed my prediabetes. I ate better, exercised differently, and took 3 supplements. I lost more than 20 pounds and graduated from couple’s therapy. I was ON to something!

I took the solutions to my problems and translated them into evidence-based, personalized protocols for my patients, which worked extremely well on the 25,000+ people I’ve seen in the past few decades of practicing precision, functional, and integrative medicine. This includes men and women, professional athletes, executives, and other VIPs.

Now, I enjoy:

  • Plenty of healthy food that keeps my blood sugar in the optimal zone
  • Exercising less but more wisely with tech-enabled recovery, and I’ve maintained the 20-pound weight loss for many years
  • Running, hiking, and yoga with fewer injuries and down time
  • Spending quality time with husband and our labradoodle
  • Hanging out with my daughters, especially when we do things that amplify happiness, such as learning and being in nature together

I have reclaimed my life and you can too. Using my own path as a source of inspiration, I have written several books to help others, both health seekers and practitioners, reclaim their lives.

I practice medicine, but I don’t treat problems. I don’t even treat symptoms. I specialize in root cause analysis because I know – and evidence shows – that the greatest health transformations unfold when you address the root cause, not simply the signs. And the transformation sticks.

I treat people. I take a complete history via telehealth, which is how I perform consultations. I look at where you are right now, and how far you’ve come. Expect to get a blood panel for next generation biomarkers related to your health, nutrition, immune function, detoxification, and aging processes. I check your stress levels and cortisol metabolism to see how your hormonal “control center” is working. Often we test multiple ‘omics like your genome, metabolome, microbiome, and exposome, and make recommendations for how to improve current and future gene/environment interactions. I assess your gut/brain axis, run a toxin test, occasionally I’ll insert a continuous glucose monitor. Together, we design an n-of-1 study where you serve as your own control. I prescribe a few tweaks to your diet, such as an increase in your intake of prebiotic vegetables or probiotic foods. I recommend limited but targeted supplements that fill nutritional gaps that you might have. When needed, I prescribe wearables that measure heart rate variability, sleep, and recovery, so that we can connect to your deepest truths. After a strong foundation is in place, I may prescribe bio-identical hormones. Commonly, I recommend high intensity interval training and weight training if they are not already in place. Many times I prescribe all of the above. With every patient I see, I consider your unique context, physiology and preferences… and then invent a treatment plan to promote maximum health and function. It’s not one method fits all. It’s not fix-’em-up-and-send-’em-home. It’s a mission.

My mission at the Gottfried Institute – and in life – is to help people feel fully alive and balanced from their cells to their souls. That means lengthening your healthspan, the period of time you feel in your prime and free of chronic disease and inflammation. That means dialing in your weight (and lean body mass) right where you want it, adjusting micronutrients and phytonutrients, getting your performance and sex drive optimized, and doing it all naturally and safely. When you’re at peak health, you perform at your best.

Now it’s your turn to take action. A moment of clarity followed by action is sacred. Take your pick, but commit to at least one of the options below.

  • If you want to learn the basics of hormone balancing, pick up my first book, The Hormone Cure.
  • If you want to learn about how to slow down the aging process, check out my book Younger.
  • If you’re looking for hormonal detoxification, consider my book, The Hormone Reset Diet.
  • If you want to improve metabolic health and learn about how food talks to your hormones, and follow a ketogenic diet modified for women, purchase my latest book, Women, Food, and Hormones.

If you need more personalized help, you can find more information here.

Knowledge is important, but it’s the small actions sustained over time that help you become fully actualized.

To your best health, 

Sara Gottfried, M.D.