This splendid reference text, updated from the original 1999 Element title, with significant additional material, is a masterful blend of science, physiology, nutrition, case studies from real women, peppered with inspirational quotations from such diverse sages as Maimonedes and Gurdjieff.

Here is an ideal author collaboration. Dian Shepperson Mills Cert Ed (Nutrition), Dip ION, MA, clinical nutritionist and academically qualified in health education, with her own considerable painful personal experience of endometriosis, is director of the Endometriosis and Fertility Clinic at the Hale Clinic, London. Michael Vernon PhD HCLD, reproductive physiologist, expert in uterine physiology, endometriosis and assisted reproductive technology is Director at the Woman's Hospital of Baton Rouge Louisiana, adjunct full professor at Louisiana State University and past chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the field of reproductive biology. These two individuals bring an immense authority to this debilitating condition which afflicts perhaps ten percent of women, for whom diagnosis and treatment is often a painful, protracted and seemingly never ending series of drugs, operations, recurrences and more drugs and operations.

The book, which makes for somewhat dense reading, contains extremely informative chapters about hormonal and reproductive anatomy and physiology, ovaries, ovarian cysts and Syndrome X, fertility, the nervous system, the immune system, digestion and the reproductive system, with solid information about nutrition and biochemical pathways and nutritional treatment approaches for endometriosis. Blended throughout this 400-page book are hundreds of case stories from long-suffering women who have been helped through dietary changes and nutritional supplements. The book is superbly referenced, contains an excellent index, glossary of medical terms, as well as pages of useful reading resources and relevant contact organizations.

What needs to be broadcast far and wide is the message which comes through loud and clear, that many women who have suffered the pain of endometriosis for decades and have been subjected to numerous interventions – drug treatments, laparascopic and laser operations – have enjoyed complete remission of their symptoms, often by avoiding certain food groups, including, depending upon the individual, dairy and wheat products, fermented foods (if candida is involved), refined sugar and alcohol. There are extremely useful recipes and menu suggestions, along with detailed recommendations of nutritional supplements.

This authoritative book should be on the syllabus as required reading for medical students, nutritionists and physicians; I hope that Thorsons Harper Collins will make an effort to reach this professional market. Women suffering the exquisite and tortuous pain of endometriosis will find this book compulsive reading.