Hi Friends:

First I want to say a heartfelt thank you to the hundreds of women who reached out to me, offering to be interviewed for my next book, THE ANGEL AND THE ASSASSIN: The Tiny Cell That Changed the Course of Medicine, and Gives us a Radically New Way of Looking at Human Well-Being, which will be published by Ballantine Books (Random House) in 2019. Your emails and stories, moved me. I’m on a mission to de-stigmatize brain-related health challenges, and you’ve once again proven you’re the best readers on the planet. (I do have all the interviewees I need at this point, and thank you all for offering to help. You’re amazing.)

I hope the book, when it comes out, helps every one of you. I’m setting out to show — based on hundreds of hours of interviews with neuroscientists and thousands of research papers — how and why symptoms of depression, anxiety, learning disabilities, OCD, memory issues, and Alzheimer’s are unequivocally related to tiny, overlooked (and all too often, overactive) brain immune cells – called microglia – which function as the “white blood cells of the brain.” When these little cells get agitated by triggers like toxins, infections, stressors, physical or emotional trauma, they can destroy brain synapses and circuitry, causing “neuroinflammation” and “neurodegeneration,” the same way that your white blood cells cause inflammation in your body. This truly amazing discovery – and the new understanding that the brain is an immune organ, ruled by these little immune cells — is one of the most revolutionary discoveries in the history of science, and it’s changing everything, including leading to exciting new avenues for treating seemingly intractable life-altering disorders.

To report this book, I’ve been traveling all over the country. What I’m finding is pretty much blowing my mind. (For updates, sign up for my blog and newsletter (scroll down on the right hand column of this page!)

Meanwhile, I’ll be giving several exciting lectures this fall and I hope some of you will be able to come say hi. (Psst… if you’re a UK reader, I’ll be in London soon to deliver the keynote for an international conference on chronic pain, held by the amazing group, SIRPA, at the Royal Society of Medicine (details below). Please join us and say hi!)

Here are a few of the upcoming venues where I’ll be giving keynotes and doing booksignings:

October 2-3, 2017
Keynote Speaker, Booksigning and Workshop, Children’s Trust of South Carolina
2017 Prevention Conference: Embracing Prevention, Empowering Communities
Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center
1101 Lincoln Street, Columbia, S.C.
Register here.

October 15, 2017
Keynote Speaker, SIRPA Chronic Pain Conference
Chronic Pain: The Role of Emotions
Royal Society of Medicine
London, England
Award-winning science journalist Donna Jackson Nakazawa who will discuss the decades of research linking adverse childhood experiences to ill-health, including chronic pain, in later life.
To learn more about the role of Adverse Childhood Experiences and emotions in chronic pain, register here.

October 19th, 2017
Keynote Speaker
Stony Brook Children’s Hospital School Intervention Program,
Helping Children with Chronic Illnesses Thrive
I’ll be talking about Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology – and how we can help kids facing chronic conditions and medical adversity achieve resiliency and well-being.
Stony Brook, New York
Register here.

November 14th, 2017
1 p.m. EST, I’ll be giving a live interactive chat & talk on
Survival of the Nurtured: Well-Being, Self-Care, and ACEs, as part of ACEs Connection 2017 Parenting With ACEs Fall Chat Series
(Members of ACEs Connection can Join Parenting with ACEs Community & go there at time/day of chat. If you’re not a Member of ACEs Connection, you can become a Member (free). Join ACEs Connection a day or more before chat. Then, join the Parenting with ACEs Community (PWA) & go there at time/day of chat. See “featured chat” at top of PWA page.) Be sure to check out the other speakers, too — the amazing Sebern Fisher, and Belleruth Naparstek.)

Also, I thought I’d share this essay one more time; it recently went viral with over 2 million hits worldwide. If it resonates with you, feel free to share on social media. It’s about the importance of the medical profession becoming trauma-informed to better help patients: Childhood Trauma Leads to Lifelong Chronic Illness – So Why isn’t the Medical Community Helping Patients?

Here’s to your healing,

Donna