Browse the index

Founded American psychology and, with Peirce, pragmatism; studied New Thought as 'mind-cure'.

German émigré who founded American naturopathy and its first college in 1902.

Discovered pantothenic acid and argued for biochemical individuality — the idea beneath functional medicine.

The Seven Countries Study put diet at the centre of cardiovascular prevention.

Polio vaccine, unpatented — 'could you patent the sun?'

Menninger researcher who founded clinical biofeedback and self-regulation therapy.

Her arrest and trial in California led directly to acupuncture's legalisation in the state.

You Can Heal Your Life and Hay House globalised affirmation culture; its health claims are contested.

Co-led the Adverse Childhood Experiences study linking childhood trauma to lifelong disease.

Documented the relaxation response at Harvard and made mind-body medicine measurable.

Framed clinical practice around the tack rule — take out what harms, put in what's missing.

Built The Healer's Art curriculum, taught in medical schools on four continents.

Founded the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and trained a generation of fellows.

Created Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in 1979; now standard in clinics worldwide.

Coined and codified functional medicine; founded the Institute for Functional Medicine in 1991.

Discovered the opiate receptor and argued the body is a single emotional-molecular network.

Wrote The Web That Has No Weaver, then founded Harvard's programme in placebo studies.

Co-founded Bastyr University, the first accredited natural-medicine university in the United States.

Vedic scholar whose texts linked Ayurveda, yoga and jyotish for Western students.

Proved lifestyle change can reverse coronary artery disease; first such programme reimbursed by Medicare.

First Westerner to earn India's BAMS degree and license; interpreter of Ayurveda for the West.

Neurologist who put diet, glycemia and the microbiome at the centre of brain health.

Reversed her own progressive MS disability with a mitochondrial-nutrition protocol, then trialled it.

His 1993 survey of unconventional therapy use forced US medicine to take the field seriously.

Directed the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine and built the evidence agenda for whole-person care.

Co-discovered nucleoside-modified mRNA.

Took functional medicine mainstream through the Cleveland Clinic Center and a run of bestsellers.

Herbalist-physician who shaped US botanical-medicine standards and education.