The quest for the perfect tan gave Yale School of Medicine Writer-in-Residence and lecturer Randi Hutter Epstein, MD ’90, MPH, her first lesson in hormones.
As girls growing up in Yonkers in the 1960s, Epstein and her sister spent summers at their grandmother’s pool club trying to attain that just-right shade of nutty brown, said Epstein, author of the new book Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything. The siblings couldn’t understand how their grandmother achieved the coppery skin tone they so desired while staying in the shade all day playing canasta.
