Diana Schwarzbein, MD is a board certified physician specializing in endocrinology.  In over twenty years of private practice she has helped thousands of women effectively and safely manage their menopause.  A pioneer and recognized expert in the use of bio-identical hormones for treating menopause, Dr. Schwarzbein is now the country’s leading advocate for changing the way in which menopause is understood and managed by physicians.  She provides the expertise, the experience, and the energy behind Menopause Power – her initiative to educate women to take the lead in bringing about this long needed change.

Having completed her medical degree and residency in internal medicine at The University of Southern California, Dr. Schwarzbein was selected to do a two-year fellowship in endocrinology at USC.  Upon completion of her fellowship, she was chosen to be the head of the Department of Endocrinology at the Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara, CA.  Her acclaimed success in this role led her to establish The Endocrinology Institute of Santa Barbara and later The Schwarzbein Institute through which she has treated thousands of patients with exceptional results. 

The publication of her groundbreaking first book, The Schwarzbein Principle, in 1999, established her as an authority in the emerging fields of metabolic health and integrative medicine.  Since then she has been a frequent and favorite lecturer to physicians and other healthcare providers regarding metabolic health, including the management of menopause, diabetes, thyroid, and adrenal health issues.  Along with The Schwarzbein Principle, her subsequent, best-selling books, The Transition and The Program have made her thinking and practices available to an appreciative worldwide audience.

Dr. Schwarzbein’s calling to become a physician and to adopt a highly scientific, integrative approach to the practice of medicine was born of personal experience.  As a child and adolescent, she encountered medical problems that were misdiagnosed and mistreated.  For her, this experience underscored the need to think holistically, to educate her patients and to enable them to act as a partner in the management of their health.


Currently Dr. Schwarzbein maintains a limited private practice in Santa Barbara, CA where she lives with her husband and ever-growing family of rescued horses and dogs.  The balance of her professional time is dedicated to educating the public and physicians to cause them to adopt more modern thinking and practices based on well-documented science and abundant clinical evidence. 

"My most important role as a physician is to educate.  What matters most to me is that people make confident, informed decisions about their health – decisions based on a proper understanding of the facts, not on fear that is rooted in misinformation, myths and beliefs."

The Schwarzbein Principle

First articulated in the late 1990s, The Schwarzbein Principle is notable for: (i) its departure from conventional thinking, (ii) its solid grounding in science, (iii) the degree to which it has since been validated by published research and clinical data, and (iv) the extent to which it has been embraced by physicians, other healthcare providers, and the general public.

The Schwarzbein Principle is:The degenerative diseases of aging are not genetic; they are caused by metabolic imbalance.

In the late 1990s, the idea that degenerative disease is substantially preventable through proper nutrition and lifestyle habits and by keeping all hormone systems balanced, was definitely new thought.  In response to numerous challenges to her principle, Dr. Schwarzbein has convincingly demonstrated its scientific grounding and validated its truth through her clinical experience with thousands of patients and the thanks and feedback from the hundreds of thousand of people who have adopted her Schwarzbein Principle Program.

Since then, a growing body of research and clinical data now provides further support for her position.  The Schwarzbein Principle is central to the orientation and practices of the fast-emerging schools of integrative and functional medicine.  The Schwarzbein Principle books are required reading for numerous medical education courses.

By practicing what she teaches – by focusing on nutrition and lifestyle habits and ensuring the balance of all of the hormone systems of the body – Dr. Schwarzbein consistently restores her patients’ metabolic balance and resolves myriad medical conditions with an exceptionally low reliance on prescription drugs.  Evidencing the truth of The Schwarzbein Principle, the incidence of degenerative disease among her patients is also exceptionally low.

Leave a Reply