Barry Sears

Dr. Barry Sears is recognized as one of the world's leading medical researchers on the hormonal effects of food. He is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller The Zone as well as Mastering the Zone, Zone-Perfect Meals in Minutes, Zone Food Blocks, A Week in the Zone, The Age-Free Zone, The Top 100 Zone Foods, The Soy Zone, The Omega Rx Zone, Zone Meals in Seconds, and What to Eat in the Zone. His books have sold more than five million copies and have been translated into twenty-two languages in forty countries.

The Zone diet advocates balancing protein and carbohydrate ratios instead of caloric thinking as an approach to eating. It is not primarily a weight-loss "diet" (though it can be used quite successfully for that purpose); rather it is a way of eating — the intake of food that produces the best results within the human body based on a hypothesis of how it has evolved to cope with varying food intake through the ages.

Sears describes a Zone meal as follows. Eat as much protein as the palm of your hand, as much nonstarchy raw vegetables as you can stand for the vitamins, enough carbohydrates to maintain mental clarity because the brain runs on glucose, and enough monosaturated oils to keep feelings of hunger away.

Dr. Sears continues his ongoing research as President of Zone Labs, a biotechnology company in Danvers, Mass. In addition to continuing research on the hormonal effects of food, Dr. Sears has expanded his research in developing a new generation of dermatological formulations for wound healing, innovative dietary approaches to treating neurological conditions and improved cognitive function by re-modeling neural networks in the brain, in addition to his ongoing work in treating Type 2 diabetes.