Endocrinology Patient Resources

Middlesex Health's Encorinology department has compiled a list of books, documentaries, and resources that provide interesting and valuable information for their patients.

American Thyroid Association

A collection of brochures for patients, medical professionals, and the general public. Available in English and Spanish.

Thyroid Cancer Survivors Association 

A national, nonprofit organization that educates and supports patients and families affected by thyroid cancer

“Boning Up” Brochure - National Osteoporosis Foundation 

This brochure will help you determine whether you are at risk for osteoporosis. It will also guide you in working with your healthcare provider to prevent or treat it. If you don’t have osteoporosis, you can take steps now to prevent it. 

Calcium-Rich Foods List - National Osteoporosis Foundation 

Calcium is essential for bone health. The best way to get calcium is from the foods you eat. This list includes some good choices from A to Z.

Treatment for Osteoporosis - The Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation

This article from The Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation gives an overview of the treatment options for Osteoporosis.

Calcium and Vitamin D - The Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation

Calcium and vitamin D are essential to building strong, dense bones when you’re young and keeping them strong and healthy as you age. The information included here will help you learn about calcium and vitamin D – the two most important nutrients for bone health.

Exercise/Safe Movement - The Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation

There are two types of osteoporosis exercises that are important for building and maintaining bone density: weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening exercises. This article gives an overview of both. 

Frequently Asked Questions - The Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation

Answers to your frequently asked questions about bone health and osteoporosis.

American Diabetes Association (ADA)

The American Diabetes Association is a United States-based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about diabetes and help those affected by it through funding research to manage, cure, and prevent diabetes.

Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists - Patient Resources

The Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists has created a variety of tip sheets and other resources to help make living with diabetes more manageable. 

International Diabetes Center

The center provides clinical, motivational, and educational services for people with diabetes.

Diabetes Self-Management

Diabetes Self-Management offers up-to-date, practical “how-to” information on nutrition, exercise, new drugs, medical advances, self-help, and many other topics people need to know about to stay healthy.

Hormone Health Network

The Hormone Health Network gives you trusted information to better understand hormone-related conditions and treatment options. They also offer health care providers accurate, time-saving tools. Their free, online resources come from the most advanced clinical and scientific expertise in endocrinology.

GoodRx

Prescription drugs vary in price from pharmacy to pharmacy, and GoodRx makes comparing medication prices easy with their free app.

Novo Patient Assistance Program

The Patient Assistance Program provides medication at no cost to those who qualify. In addition, patients who are approved for the PAP may receive free diabetes medicine from Novo Nordisk. 

Lilly Insulin Value Program

Through the Lilly Insulin Value Program, most Lilly insulins are available for $35 a month. Whether you have commercial insurance or no insurance

BI Cares Patient Assistance Program

This program provides Boehringer Ingelheim medicines free to uninsured and underinsured US patients who meet their eligibility requirements.

Androderm

Androderm is used to treat adult males who have low or no testosterone due to certain medical conditions. Their website contains information on how to apply the patch properly.  

AndroGel 

AndroGel is a prescription medicine used to treat the symptoms of Testosterone Deficiency. Their website contains application information and safety instructions.

The Gender Quest Workbook: A Guide for Teens and Young Adults Exploring Gender Identity

If you are a transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) teen, you may experience unique challenges with identity and interpersonal relationships. The activities in this book will help you explore your identity internally, interpersonally, and culturally. And along the way, you’ll learn how to effectively express yourself and make informed decisions on how to navigate your gender with family, friends, classmates, and coworkers. The book also includes chapters on sex and dating, balancing multiple identities, and how to deal with stressful challenges when they arise.

Connecticut Department of Public Health -  Sex Amendment to Reflect Gender Change

Information on how to request an amendment to the sex designator on your birth certificate with the State of Connecticut. 

Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles - Make Changes to Your Driver's License

Information on how to request an amendment to the sex designator on your Connecticut driver's license. 

National Center for Transgender Equality 

The National Center for Transgender Equality advocates to change policies and society to increase understanding and acceptance of transgender people. Their website includes information on changing gender markers on documents in every state. 

FertilityIQ

FertilityIQ provides both educational courses and guides on every subject, as well as verified assessments on every US fertility doctor and clinic in the US. In addition, their data includes assessments of doctors, nurses, and clinics, as well as information on treatment plans, protocols, and costs.

Center for Advanced Reproductive Services - An Affiliate of the UConn School of Medicine 

A full-service fertility center focused on individualized clinical care to people experiencing infertility with locations in Farmington, Hartford, Branford, and New London, Connecticut.

UCSF Transgender Care & Treatment Guidelines

These guidelines aim to address the discrimination and health disparities faced by transgender and gender-nonconforming patients by equipping primary care providers and health systems with the tools and knowledge to meet the health care needs of their transgender and gender-nonconforming patients. 

Endocrine Society Transgender Guidelines

These guidelines standardize the terminology used by healthcare professionals and emphasize that a broader healthcare team is needed to provide mental health services and other treatments, such as gender-affirmation surgery.

CBT-i Coach

CBT-i Coach is for people engaged in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia with a health provider or who have experienced symptoms of insomnia and would like to improve their sleep habits. The app will guide users through learning about sleep, developing positive sleep routines, and improving their sleep environments. In addition, it provides a structured program that teaches strategies proven to improve sleep and help alleviate insomnia symptoms.

Headspace

Headspace is your guide to mindfulness for your everyday life. Learn meditation and mindfulness skills from world-class experts like a former monk and Headspace co-founder Andy Puddicombe. Choose from hundreds of guided meditations on everything from managing stress and everyday anxiety to sleep, focus, and mind-body health. Build your practice your way with meditations for every experience level and lifestyle — including short, 3-minute sessions that fit seamlessly into a busy schedule.

Intuitive Eating

Intuitive eating is an eating style that promotes a healthy attitude toward food and body image. The idea is that you should eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. Though this should be an intuitive process, for many people, it’s not. Trusting diet books and so-called experts about what, when, and how to eat can lead you away from trusting your body and its intuition. To eat intuitively, you may need to relearn how to trust your body. To do that, you need to distinguish between physical and emotional hunger.

How Not To Die: Michael Greger, M.D.

In How Not to Die, Dr. Michael Greger examines the fifteen top causes of premature death in America--heart disease, various cancers, diabetes, Parkinson's, high blood pressure, and more--and explains how nutritional and lifestyle interventions can sometimes trump prescription pills and other pharmaceutical and surgical approaches to help prevent and reverse these diseases. 

How Not To Diet: Michael Greger, M.D.

Dr. Greger hones in on the optimal criteria to enable weight loss while considering how these foods affect our health and longevity. He lays out the key ingredients of the ideal weight-loss diet?factors such as calorie density, the insulin index, and the impact of foods on our gut microbiome?showing how plant-based eating is crucial to our success.

Food Rules: By Michael Pollan

Eating doesn’t have to be so complicated. In this age of ever-more elaborate diets and conflicting health advice, Food Rules brings welcome simplicity to our daily decisions about food. Written with clarity, concision, and wit that has become bestselling author Michael Pollan’s trademark, this indispensable handbook lays out a set of straightforward, memorable rules for eating wisely, one per page, accompanied by a concise explanation.

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based

Dr. Esselstyn convincingly argues that a plant-based, oil-free diet can prevent and stop the progression of heart disease, and reverse its effects.

The Longevity Diet: Valter Longo, PhD

The culmination of 25 years of research on aging, nutrition, and disease across the globe, this program lays out a  solution to living to a healthy old age through nutrition. The key is combining the healthy eating plan the book outlines with a fasting-mimicking diet.

The Physicians Committee - Recipes 

Delicious low-fat vegan recipes that will kickstart your health and help you feel great!

Kick Diabetes By Brenda Davis, RD

The Kick Diabetes Cookbook provides a blueprint for what to eat to defeat diabetes and offers 100 quick-and-easy recipes that are delicious and satisfying.

The Whole Food Plant-Based Cooking Show 

An ever-growing library of delicious health-promoting recipes

Jane Esselstyn's Channel

Jane is an avid and inventive designer of plant-based recipes and the co-author of The Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook. Jane presents her work, research, and high-energy demos on her YouTube channel.

Eat To Live Quick and Easy Cookbook

Too busy to shop? Too tired to cook? Not sure what's healthy? From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Eat to Live and the instant New York Times bestseller Eat to Live Cookbook comes Eat to Live Quick and Easy Cookbook, 131 super delicious, easy-to-prepare, incredibly healthy recipes. No guilt, no fuss, just amazing food that's good for you. 

The Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook: Ann Crile Esselstyn and Jane Esselstyn

Mother-daughter team Ann and Jane Esselstyn have decades of experience developing delicious, healthful recipes for both their family and Dr. Esselstyn’s many grateful patients. Now, they combine their expertise to offer you this cookbook. 

The McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook

By simplifying the work involved in preparing healthy, whole food, exciting meals, bestselling authors Dr. John McDougall and Mary McDougall continue to build upon the success of their acclaimed, low-fat, and plant-based McDougall Program books. This latest edition, shares their secrets for lowering cholesterol, alleviating allergies, and dramatically reducing the risk of heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes with food that is irresistible to the whole family.

The Engine 2 Cookbook

Lose weight, lower cholesterol, and improve your health, one delicious bite at a time in this companion to the New York Times bestseller The Engine 2 Diet.

Diet Fiction

This documentary confronts common misconceptions and misleading information propagated by the weight loss industry over the last several decades. The film shows the often-devastating effects that obesity has on people’s lives and exposes the viewer to new disruptive ideas and science-based evidence that could lead to long-term sustainable weight loss and improved health.

Forks over Knives

Researchers explore the possibility that people changing their diets from animal-based to plant-based can help eliminate or control diseases like cancer and diabetes.

In Defense of Food

In Defense of Food tackles a question more and more people worldwide have been asking: What should I eat to be healthy? Based on award-winning journalist Michael Pollan's best-selling book, the program explores how the modern diet has made us sick and how we can change it.

Game Changers

James Wilks travels the world on a quest for the truth about meat, protein, and strength. Showcasing elite athletes, special ops soldiers, and visionary scientists to change the way people eat and live

Code Blue

Doctors and leading health experts discuss how lifestyle changes can prevent, manage or reverse chronic diseases.

Forks Over Knives

Information on how to eat a low-fat, whole-food, vegan diet that can improve health. 

Mastering Diabetes 

An online coaching platform for people living with all forms of diabetes that focuses on low-fat plant-based whole-food nutrition.

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) is the medical professional society providing quality education and certification to those dedicated to clinical and worksite practice of lifestyle medicine as the foundation of a transformed and sustainable health care system.

Nutritionfacts.org

The latest nutrition research via bite-sized videos with captions offered in multiple languages, blogs, and infographics.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is committed to improving health and advancing the profession of nutrition and dietetics through research, education, and advocacy.

Yes2next

Free Fitness videos from a personal trainer specializing in senior fitness,  beginner exercisers, and those with limited mobility.