I went to see my new age doctor. She has studied six different medical systems, including Western. I figured there were, at most, two. They hooked me up to two electrodes that in the span of 4 seconds reported that at a rest, my body burns 1600 calories a day. Pretty good, the doc says to me. I would have been happier with 3000. I told her that I have been fatigued and angry a lot, but when I mentioned menopause to my girlfriend, she told me to shut my face and get on a fast track to this doctor, that it was probably some other gland or body process that was beating me down. "You know, life isn't always our ovaries," my BFF insisted.

"It's your adrenal glands, I suspect," the doctor said to me at the end of a two hour session. I thought she was going to pin it on my thyroid, a popular diagnosis here where thyroids wear out faster than winter tires. So I was pleased she had something unique for me. What's an adrenal I wanted to know. But instead of a lot of info she gave me a laundry list of supplements, including licorice for the adrenal gland. I tried to look up information about faulty adrenal glands. I was three quarters down my first hit read before noticing the term "Veterinarian."