News & Blog
Join our mailing list and keep up to date with Integrative Healthcare news, events and top tips via our monthly Newsletter – Integrative Medicine Matters
Scroll down to see our latest Blogs
Connect, inspire and inform and join a like-minded community
Sign up to Society for Integrative Healthcare
Highlights of the Integrative and Personalised Medicine Conference
What a superb few days at the Integrative and Personalised Medicine Congress 2024. Highlights included talks from Dr William Li, Dr Uma Naidoo, Professor Kerry Bone, Simon Mills, Professor Robert Thomas & Dr Alex Wilber.
The Magic of Medicinal Mushrooms
Medicinal mushrooms offer a host of health benefits, making them a valuable addition to anyone’s wellness routine.
Chelsea Flower Show 2024: One Health
Our beautiful little garden at Chelsea Flower Show represents the balance between the health of the personal, social and ecological and how they work together for the ultimate ‘One Health’ experience. It is also about finding ways to encourage all our health systems to work together and take a ‘one health’ approach.
Alzheimer’s Prevention
It’s estimated that around 1 in 100 cases of Alzheimer’s is genetic, meaning 99% of Alzheimer’s cases are caused by lifestyle factors which can include diet, exercise, substance use, vitamin D deficiency, exposure to pollution, stress management and others. This is not to lay blame at the door of those that get the disease – but to emphasise the need for education on these serious illnesses and ways you can try and lower your own risk.
Personalised Fasting
Something I’ve learnt in my recent study is that genetics are determining around 20% of what we might develop in our lives but those epigenetics – how the genes are switched on – can be influenced by lifestyle. When we fast we activate Sirtuins, a type of protein involved in regulating cellular processes. If you remember we also mentioned the colourful polyphenols found in berries, so although I’m not encouraging you to cheat on your five day fast, if you’re struggling during fasting a few raspberries or blueberries might not only help you psychologically but encouraged those healthy pathways to activate.
Taking Care of Cholesterol Through Fasting
Another piece of feedback from my fasting blog is that I’m still communicating like a doctor using words that not everyone might understand like metabolic health and lipid profile. Many of you may have seen your lipid profile on a readout from a doctor which includes the cholesterol, the triglycerides, low density (LDL) and high-density lipoproteins (HDL) and their ratio plus non-HDL lipoproteins which is a measure of everything that isn’t the good type of cholesterol! So out of this complex array of measures let’s focus on HDL because we want more of that.
Fasting in the Menopause
Fasting as a means to finding greater health and wellbeing. Some of the advantages of the five day fast are that it teaches your body flexibility and how to move from burning sugars to burning fat more easily. This means that hunger is not so stressful and the prolonged fast triggers a repair response. But the emotional and psychological response to depriving ourselves is important to discuss also.
My Secret to Good Digestion – Fennel
As ever we are always looking for sustainable change with things we can incorporate easily and enjoy, so hail to my next herb tea Fennel! It’s a wonderful digestif, calms the bowels and helps with digestion – plus it’s delicious.
Using Fasting as Preventative Medicine
At the heart of Integrative Medicine lies the potential for preventative medicine so that we can stay well longer into later life. This might sound an obvious thing to aim for but we all need a wake up call to making changes in our life because we’re hardwired as humans to enjoy being comfortable.
The Spiritual Dimension of Fasting
Fasting can strengthen one’s connection to the divine and with other traditions like Ayurveda the body is also seen as divine and ancient traditions of fasting and cleansing are being researched and shared within the Integrative Medicine model.
Detoxing with Nettle Tea
Detoxing with nettle tea plus the benefits of fasting at home and supervised fasting at a special retreat
Learning to Love My Liver
Learning to love my liver – as part of my journey with fasting, to help reduce my visceral fat, I am learning how to look after the health of my liver.