page_title: Suzanne Somers
section_title: Views on medical subjects
hierarchical_section_title: Suzanne Somers / Views on medical subjects
caption_attribution_description: Making its debut at the Lincoln Center venue, The Heart Truth’s Red Dress Collection Fashion Show unveiled its 2011 collection of red dresses designed to celebrate the Red Dress as the national symbol for women and heart disease awareness. More than 20 of today’s top celebrities walked the runway in red dresses by America’s top designers to inspire women to take action to protect their heart health. The Heart Truth® is a national awareness campaign for women about heart disease sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ® The Heart Truth, its logo and The Red Dress are registered trademarks of HHS. Participation by Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, Diet Coke, Swarovski, AOL, and Bobbi Brown does not imply endorsement by HHS.
context_page_description: Suzanne Marie Somers is an American actress, author, singer, businesswoman, and health spokesperson. She appeared in the television role of Chrissy Snow on Three's Company and as Carol Foster Lambert on Step by Step.
  Somers later became the author of a series of self-help books, including Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones, about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. She has released two autobiographies, four diet books, and a book of poetry.
  Somers has been criticized for her views on some medical subjects and her advocacy of the Wiley Protocol, which has been labelled as "scientifically unproven and dangerous". Her promotion of alternative cancer treatments has received criticism from the American Cancer Society.
context_section_description: Somers supports bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Her book, Ageless, includes interviews with 16 practitioners of bioidentical hormone therapy, but gives extra discussion to one specific approach, the 'Wiley Protocol'. Somers and T. S. Wiley, the originator of the Wiley Protocol, have been criticized for their advocacy of the Wiley Protocol. A group of seven doctors, all of whom utilize bioidentical hormone therapies to address health issues in women, issued a public letter to Somers and her publisher, Crown, in which they state that the protocol is "scientifically unproven and dangerous" and cite Wiley's lack of medical and clinical qualifications. The use of bioidentical hormone therapies is a very controversial area of medicine; its efficacy has never been tested and numerous groups have expressed concern over its safety and the misleading claims made by practitioners, which was the subject of an Associated Press article:
  "The problem, for many doctors: These custom-compounded products are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. ... Somers, whose hormone regimen involves creams, injections and some 60 supplements daily, got a huge boost earlier this year from Oprah Winfrey. 'Many people write Suzanne off as a quackadoo' Winfrey said when Somers appeared on her show. 'But she just might be a pioneer.' ... Yet Winfrey's tacit support of Somers gave her some of the worst press of her career. 'Crazy Talk,' Newsweek headlined an article on the talk show host earlier this year. Another headline, on Salon.com: 'Oprah's Bad Medicine'."
  In 2001, Somers was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy, and radiation, but declined to undergo chemotherapy. In November 2008,  Somers announced she was diagnosed with inoperable cancer by six doctors, but she learned a week later that she was misdiagnosed. During this time, she interviewed doctors about cancer treatments and these interviews became the basis of her book, Knockout, about alternative treatments to chemotherapy. In her book Knockout, Somers promotes alternative cancer treatments, for which she was criticized by the American Cancer Society:
  "The American Cancer Society is concerned. ... 'I am very afraid that people are going to listen to her message and follow what she says and be harmed by it', says Dr. Otis Brawley, the organization's chief medical officer. 'We use current treatments because they've been proven to prolong life. They've gone through a logical, scientific method of evaluation. I don't know if Suzanne Somers even knows there IS a logical, scientific method.' ... More broadly, Brawley is concerned that in the United States, celebrities or sports stars feel they can use their fame to dispense medical advice. 'There's a tendency to oversimplify medical messages.... Well, oversimplification can kill.'"
  She is also opposed to water fluoridation.
  In January 2013, she suggested that Adam Lanza went on his shooting spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School due to the level of toxins in his diet and the household cleaners he was exposed to. She stated that all these chemicals may "overelectrify the brain".
caption: Somers at The Heart Truth's Red Dress Collection Fashion Show (2011)
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