Naturopathic Nanna’s Club

I’m 100% confident that, as a professional group, among our highest values about healthy, preferable, food choices, would be characteristics like: ‘as close to nature as possible’, ‘unrefined’, ‘unprocessed’, ‘unadulterated’.  Tell me I’m wrong.

So, when I keep hearing about NEW! “Never seen before” (read: never in nature) modified (read: more processed, adulterated) nutritional supplements: water soluble vitamin D, fat soluble C, bioflavonoids with unprecedented (read unnatural) bioavailability

I’m left wondering what these companies are missing about their customer group (because we are clear about our valuing of nature & what’s natural & have a desire to minimise exposures to things that are not, right?

or what are we missing here, in the clear conflict of our core values these constitute?

I think if we find ourselves forsaking this core value & prescribing highly modified, unnatural supps, it’s the result of both hype & fear.  The hype is self-explanatory and I’ve written recently on how modifications exponentially increase profit margins for companies, all the while possibly reducing ours because patients are spending more on product and therefore there is less left over for the practitioner fees 🙁 [The ones spending hours with them face to face, not to mention years & thousands on our training]  The fear is perhaps less apparent, more insidious.  The fear is that we’re not using the best, being the most effective, and deeper still, inevitably that we will fail to action our patients return to health. This is a big one. I think it’s pervasive, if not omnipresent, and works as a motivator for many positive actions by practitioners – like engaging in further education, reading that latest journal edition on your lonesome laptop when you could be streaming some series on a shared sofa. But this same fear can also undermine us, overwhelm us and shake our tree of trust, that we believe to be so firmly rooted within us, of the healing power of nature.

So while my position sometimes makes me feel very ‘old school’, I’m not suggesting we return to nutritional prescriptions composed exclusively of bee pollen & brewer’s yeast and I absolutely recognise and respond to an individual who has very specific barriers to benefiting from nutrients in their natural normal forms.
But let’s be clear, they are a minority.

Some of you will know naturopath Dawn Whitten & know that she is one of my mentors.  I’ve had the benefit of speaking with her over the years about herbal prescriptions but also about the principles & philosophy behind our practice & in one of many conversations she told me that a key objective she has with her patients is to rebuild their trust in their body, their own biological resilience (I love this concept and that’s a talk for another time!) and ultimately in nature. Well jeepers Dawn – how did you get to be so wise so young?  But isn’t that central to vis medicatrix naturae? Maybe that Naturopathic Nanna’s club isn’t so fuddy-duddy after all.  Want to join us?

Speaking of using nutrients in their most natural state for the best health outcomes – the best B3 is probably not what you think!!….
The Balance of B3

Most of us have been taught to ‘balance the Bs’ when supplementing, which discourages the use of single B vitamins in case this interferes with the regulation and roles of others. In reality, outside of a couple of dynamic duos like B12 and folate, there is little concrete information & evidence of this. In the case specifically of B3, however, we now know, the risk of an excess of the most common B3 forms found in supplements and fortified foods, results not only in disruption of other nutrients but imbalanced B3 biochemistry itself. Given B3, in its coenzyme form NAD+, is regarded as highly valued currency in the prevention of many diseases, as well as the key to our optimal health and longevity, it’s critical to understand the different forms and functions of the various B3 sources.

 

 

I’m Using My Inside Voice 🙄

Maybe it’s tax-time, just my wintery whinge or a tirade triggered by missing my twins’ 21st birthday due to border restrictions 😶 but I’m sorry for all the shouting of late…about interpreting iron studies, about the copper misinformed etc etc. and my gorgeous new grad mentees copped a full monologue, with links to articles, recordings & the Coeliac Society, when they asked me to expand on why we must exclude coeliac disease before removing gluten from anyone’s diet.  I was so glad they asked though!  I’m now using my inside voice.  

But I don’t want my message to be misdirected and I fear it might be.
It’s not you and it’s not me

‘We’ are doing our best.  We are working in a field that demands us to be across soooooo many domains of knowledge and information, from the basic & not-so-basic medical sciences, to pathology interpretation, nutrition, herbal medicine and beyond.  It’s a lot.  None of us are across it all. I’m certainly not.  And I’m aware, that the frustration I feel at others’ misunderstandings sometimes is unfair, because I’ve benefited from excellent early teachers all the way through to having a job now, that keeps my head in the research daily. And even still, without a doubt, the gaps & shortfalls I observe and criticise in others, I could have made of myself, earlier in my career. We don’t know what we don’t know, until we know better, right.

It’s them

Who is this ‘them’ of which I speak? Well, 25 years ago when I completed my under-graduate (and walked 10 miles to school in the rain, without shoes or breakfast 👵) I believe I received the training required to be the naturopath that I needed to be. Safe, effective, knowing my scope – which was basically coughs. colds, atopy and risk mitigation for future chronic disease.  I never saw a lab test during my under-grad. I would have read a set of iron studies badly and something like ELFTs, like it was Latin. I wasn’t made aware by my lecturers of the critical part I could play in my patients’ lives, either by advocating and advancing correct diagnosis or by obscuring, confounding and delaying it (sorry, still thinking about the gluten debate!).  But back then, I think this was appropriate for the time, the state of play of our collective medical knowledge and for the role naturopaths were playing in the health landscape. Not any more.

If you haven’t had a chance to read the extensive research about ‘us’ (Australian nats, nuts & herbalists) published of late,  who we are, what we do, how we are viewed and what our patients expect, then you could be in for a surprise.

We’re perceived by many, if not most, of our patients to be a primary health care provider – either flying solo or co-piloting with the patient’s GP (& no auto-pilot function!!!) and as clinicians for chronic comorbid cases not the acute cold. My how times have changed and the question is – has the knowledge and level of competency of those in educational roles & the quality of what they deliver a good fit? Sorry, but if the majority of a large new graduate cohort have left their training with a mantra of ‘we must not diagnose’ and INTSEAD are likely to advocate a gluten free diet RATHER THAN Coeliac testing with the patients doctor first – then we’re falling at the first: Primum non nocere. Sorry,I forgot, inside voice 🙄🤐

Closing the Gap on Coeliac

This Update in Under 30 recording speaks to the seriousness and primacy of identifying Coeliac Disease in any patient reporting a suspected reaction to gluten and takes you through the latest evidence on the best screening protocol.  With an increased understanding about the strengths and limitations of gene testing, serology and biopsy, we have a clear map to follow now.  Along the way Rachel outlines 3 additional potential mechanisms for ‘gluten’ reactions amongst our patients, what to look for and how to tell the difference. 

Copper Crimes (via Misinformation) 🤯

I haven’t personally seen every medical condition known to occur, nor every micronutrient deficiency  & toxicity picture in the flesh but that doesn’t mean I doubt their very existence.  Sadly, it would seem some practitioners due to a) not knowing ‘where’ to look in terms of best assessment medium and/or b) not knowing ‘what’ they’re looking at, when faced with an actual Copper deficiency, have declared this uncommon, but certainly not unknown, nutritional issue to be a figment of others’ imagination!

I know I’ve been fortunate to see more labs than most would want to in an entire lifetime , a collection of my own, my student’s & my mentee’s patients, so let me share just 3 sets of results from 3 different individuals: an 11Y boy, a male teenage athlete and a female in her early 20s with an eating disorder, all with Copper deficiency.

Don’t worry, I have more – just ask.  What’s so dangerous about people spreading myths and misinformation in relation to copper in kids and teenagers specifically, is it shows complete disregard or ignorance of an understanding of how Copper is critical for development during these life-stages and how regardless of which developed country you live in Copper is expected to dominant over Zinc in blood, especially pre-puberty.

AM I SHOUTING???!!!

I’m sorry it’s just that my blood tends to hit boiling when exposed to the misinformed, misinforming others…
and that can make one call out in pain 🤯

You see, I literally heard a practitioner in an “educational” webinar purport that
‘Copper Toxicity is so prevalent in kids in her clinic’ and I was like,
OH.        EM.      GEEE.

Because if you start with that misunderstanding, and are unclear about what constitutes an accurate Copper assessment and how to recognise the pattern that follows low serum levels (each of these patients above had abnormalities in their FBE consistent with Copper deficiency) you are not only going to miss the thing you need to make a priority to fix, you’re going to make it worse!  Take ‘Volatile Vince’ the gorgeous sensitive 11Y boy I saw, whose increasing mood volatility had been misattributed to pyrroles and given large doses of Zinc!  So, Copper Crimes are a thing.  Guilty until proven innocent but in fact, never found innocent by some practitioners it would seem.  The ramifications of unchecked Copper deficiency include negative effects on mood and cognition, immunity, and the balance of other nutrients and kids are going to feel this impact the most!  What are the causes? Inadequate intake being uncommon outside of eating disorders, and excessive Zinc rarely the cause, we’re likely looking at a marker of malabsorption or a genetic issue.  Don’t buy into the confirmatory bias many use when they choose which research to read (risk of excess) and which to ignore (Copper as an essential mineral, critical to kids)  and let’s not discredit something as not being a thing because we haven’t seen it ourselves, yet, hey, anyway, at least, now we all have, right?!😵🥴😆

Copper In Kids

Copper, as a kingpin in angiogenesis, brain & bone building & iron regulation is a critical mineral during paediatric development. So much so, the kind of blood levels we see in a primary schooler might cause alarm if we saw them in an adult. So too their Zn:Cu.  But higher blood Copper and more Copper than Zinc are not just healthy but perhaps necessary during certain paediatric periods.  This recording redefines normal, low and high with a great clinical desktop tool to help you better interpret these labs, as well as reviewing the top causes and consequences of both types of Copper imbalance in kids.

 

Cracking At The Corners?

Name a B vitamin. Hey, Bingo! It’s on the list!   What list? The complete one from all the review papers & references to possible links between individual nutrient deficiencies & Angular Cheilitis – inflammation & cracking at the corners of the mouth. So does that mean more Bs are the answer for people presenting with this painful, recurring issue?…Ahhhhhh No.  Yes, you heard me correctly, these deficiencies rarely cause the breakdown of the integrity of this very specific area of skin in the patients we see.   So now we have a double ouch, right?

We might send patients away with a B complex and some lip balm and over a week the cheilitis resolves – which one was the most therapeutic?
…I hate to tell you 👀

What is the underpinning cause(s) & the important message we are missing with this presentation?  Well, it could be one or more of a long LONG list of differentials, ranging from anatomical, habitual, immune related to iatrogenic. And while many nutrient deficiency pictures can include this feature and therefore make the ‘possible’ list, only one makes the ‘probable’ list. And that’s iron but only in severe deficiency, aka anaemia and only affecting 1 in 5.

Me???
…Telling anyone to push the nutritional issues further down the list of differentials for any condition?
Well, that’s unexpected
…possibly unprecedented

And no, antifungals aren’t the answer either. Yep, that might be worth a listen….👂

 

Just an annoying, embarrassing, cosmetic condition or could it be the clue that helps you ‘crack the case’?  There is a surprisingly long list of differentials for this condition but most of us only know a few, reflexively reaching for either B vitamins or anti-fungal creams. Does either make sense?  Does either address the cause(s) which we now recognise to be a unique series of risk factors in each individual?  Or are we at risk of shooting the messenger and missing the message of Cracking Corners altogether?
You can purchase Cracking in the Corners – Angular Cheilitis here.
If you are an Update in Under 30 Subscriber, you will find it waiting for you in your online account.
You can become an Update in Under 30 Subscriber to access this episode and the entire library of Update in Under 30 audio’s and resources here.

Not A Savant? Me Neither

I’m a fluoro gal myself.  I take copious notes the old school way, on paper with pen and vast swathes of highlighted sections….I deface research articles much the same way. [And resist drawing moustaches on author pics😆] so I LOVE Ang’s hot tip with her hot tab system in her GIANT exercise book, that she filled (yes FILLED) with notes from our MasterCourse in Comprehensive Diagnostics last year.  Angela Haldane was one of many  people I saw firsthand making the absolute most of the course, applying something we’d just learned immediately in her patients and being rewarded with results 🤩

And now with another ‘EOFY- Lockdown-Cocktail’ upon us, maybe we can put our time to good use with 6 wks of intensive learning & up-skilling that will pop you out the other side of this – with a whole new skillset for patient work-up, prescription development, effective, objective monitoring of treatment & a common ground for us to walk, when we’re communicating about patients, with their GPs.


And there’s just just a week to go til 🐱‍🏍

And whether you’re a Onenote Wonder, a Diagram Diva, or anything outside of a savant, Good News!!!  We are in the process of ‘time-stamping’ these MasterCourse recordings.  That means that whether you have the recordings already, or purchase them in the future as a DIY package or, jump in now while you still have a chance and attend our Weekly Live Watch–Party that kicks off on the 8th Julyover the coming months we will be adding in time-stamps or bookmarks on your powerpoint notes, a la Angela tab style!  This means that you can more easily go back to a particular section of any presentation in the video and find the spot you need to rewatch.  This development was off the back of some lovely feedback we received from a package purchaser, who requested this, or even transcripts….yeah about transcripts…Some of these sessions go for 4 hrs and I speak on average a million words a minute (sligexaggerationion) and we still don’t have software that can understand my accent apparently 🙄  But we know this is going to make life a lot easier for you all because we hear from so many, they have these recordings on high rotation 🤩

This MasterCourse in Diagnostics is a goldmine of information and, as always, we’ll keep working on ways to help you reap even more from your investment! 

Come Dine Out On Diagnostics With Me – Every Thursday Afternoon-Evening!!

Starts on 8 July 2021 at 3.30pm AEST
Every Thursday for 6 weeks.
Each session starts with video presentation
Plus each session has LIVE Q&A with Rachel Arthur

You get to keep the 24+ hours of video presentations in your online account to watch anytime in the future. Bonus video presentations, audio, notes and resources as well. Live Q&A’s will not be recorded.

SOS! 2 Distress Flares In 2 Days 🤦‍♀️

While many of us have made it our business to ensure we are competent IN the business of understanding patients’ iron studies, it sadly seems, many even in teaching and training positions, still have not 🙁  I was sent 2 messages this week that had me lost for words (other than expletives).  The first, an email from a final year nat in student clinic with the subject: Please tell me I’m not crazy!!

“Fasted male with high ferritin & high-normal transferrin saturation at two time points, with constantly raised Liver enzymes & neurological Sx. He is currently being treated for blasto in student clinic because they think the high ferritin comes from “blasto infection!!!
He needs to be checked for an HFE mutation, right??”

Ok so high ferritin because of ‘blasto’ is NOT A THING! And on the HFE front…Correct! I ask, “Have you mentioned this to the supervisor?  What do they say?” Student’s reply, “They say HFE mutations are uncommon so, in  a word, it’s not it. But THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel sane again” So, what do I do? The student is studying at a leading institution, one that has sought advice and input from me in the past regarding their diagnostics curriculum, but it would seem, the clinicians they allow to supervise our precious next gen of nats are not expected to be even as competent as the students themselves. Danger Will Robinson! Danger! [old tv show reference…apologies, young folk!] I’ve [not] recovered from this when I get hit with the old 1-2! A naturopath messages me with a screenshot of a FB group exchange over a set of iron results: Ferritin over 400 but low serum iron and transferrin saturation values…which another health professional, who offers training to naturopaths, says is ‘Iron Deficiency’

Email says, “Please help me, I’ve worked so hard to understand iron studies and this has just CONFUSED THE #@*^ out of me!” 

Again someone who would typically defer to the voice of authority here, fortunately knows enough to know to question this (mis)interpretation.

I tell you…you may have thought that when I previously wished for all health professionals to be competent in reading studies…but it’s actually a big ask, it would seem 🤔  Could we just, as a start, get anyone who professes to teach, train or mentor health professionals, to actually get up to speed on this themselves or…keep their mouths 🤐

No wonder our “So You Think You Know How To Read Iron Studies” is in our top 3 downloaded resources!!!

Overt Iron Deficiency Anaemia or Haemochromatosis aside…do you understand the critical insights markers like transferrin and its saturation reveal about your patients iron status?  Most practitioners don’t and as a result give iron when they shouldn’t and fail to sometimes when they should.  This audio complete with an amazing cheat sheet for interpreting your patients Iron Study results will sharpen your skills around iron assessment, enabling you to recognise the real story of your patients’ relationship with iron.

Or better yet, go the whole hog, with our Iron Package

 

Elders & Young’uns – Best Of Both Worlds

Last week I had my say about acknowledging our elders & mentors, this week I want to speak to the power of the young peeps.  Just like a younger sibling, nipping at your heels can act as a great motivator to move faster, or having children can inspire us to do more to improve the ‘world’ we’re welcoming them into, my interactions with naturopaths, nutritionists & herbalists of the younger generations generally effect both responses in me! The best of these come from cluey ‘youngsters’ (mature-age-second-career-new-nats included!!) who ask the most difficult questions & show dogged determination in getting answers to these either via me or in spite of! 

This is exactly what’s been in play over the last few years (yes, you heard me…years) while I’ve been under the watchful gaze of Jostling Josh Weymouth! He’s a youngun’ – it’s all relative right – who has kept us both on the straight and narrow writing: The accuracy and interpretation of plasma selenium in our patients: a literature review, which has just been published in the the Australian Journal of Herbal & Naturopathic Medicine.

At the outset I was able to hand over a substantial selenium research hoard I had obsessively compiled, Josh was able to build on this, refine some fledgling theories I had and then completely redefine my appreciation & understanding of how chronic over-treatment (not toxicity…) is so deleterious to human health.  Check this out:

When Selenium (Se) saturation point occurs in plasma, there is a potential reduction in health protection… Se will progressively pool within plasma non-specifically as SeMet in lieu of regular, sulphur containing methionine, in albumin and other proteins…inducing oxidative stress via a complex disruption of cell reactions/signalling
This is likely to be how Selenium over-treatment increases the risk of both CVD and T2DM

Many of you may ‘Know Your Numbers’ when it comes to Serum Se targets in thyroid health or just generally know how to Stay Safe with Selenium Supplementation because I’ve spoken extensively about these in the past and you will be relieved to know neither my ‘numbers nor my message’ have changed BUT I encourage everyone to read this new article because Josh has added so much more, including the interplay between our microbiota and our individual selenium needs, handling and tolerance and and and….I could go on but…what I really want to say is, thanks Josh for your academic rigor, your firm determination & diligence and for nipping at my heels all this time. This important piece of work just wouldn’t have happened without it 🐶

 

I Stand On The Shoulders Of Others

I stand on the shoulders of my elders.  [I hope it’s not too painful for them, it’s been going on a long time now!!]  And I regularly lean on my mentors – who are often my peers, practitioners specialising in areas different from mine.  I recite their names often like a little mantra in our mentoring sessions: Kate Worsfold, Dawn Whitten, Tini Gruner, Michael Hayter, Jason Hawrelak and a few others that are on high rotation like ‘Rhiannon-repro’ Hardingham and I feel this is important to reaffirm that learning is lifelong for us all and to make clear the passing on and around of knowledge in our profession.  There’s been a long history of honouring our history, so to speak, in naturopathy.

My training definitely acknowledged, paid homage to & revered elders past and present & while I’ve never been one to participate in the making of herbal preps by a full moon, at solstice, in a field somewhere, in the company of said herbal elders (you know who you are!!)…

I do try to continue & foster this important collegiate quality of our professional community by reciting the names of the saints source of clinical pearls I have been given so generously by others.  

Lately, I’ve been wondering if we’re losing this tradition. I’m hearing practitioners present concepts as ‘theirs’, ‘develop’ & distribute teaching tools ‘adapted’ from others work, parrot identical ‘catch-cries’ even, with no mention of the origin, the source – even the inspiration.  Now perhaps I am showing my age, reflecting a very different time in naturopathic training when we were so fortunate to be taught by some of these amazing (solstice honouring, field dwelling, herbal making) elders, but even by today’s standards and the dominant EBM model, surely every emerging clinician understands the need to cite their sources?

The green tea & lactulose intravaginal wash recipe I use and frequently share with mentees always comes with the prelude – “I got this from Gould’s”
The tips on testing tools in mental health, I propagate like mad, has the epilogue – “All that I know, is because Kate taught me so!” 

Of course I say more than I cite (otherwise the sessions would be impenetrable!) but I like the way it helps us all to see we are a part of something bigger.

 

Cortisol – Have You Been Caught Out?

I have!  And just recently a stark contrast between the results from 2 different methods of cortisol capture in the same patient illustrated just how likely this is. How do we ‘capture’ something so ‘dynamic’ and  interpret anything of substance from a ‘static’ assessment technique?   But rather than throw up our hands and throw out the whole attempt to measure cortisol, we can improve the rigor, reliability and real-world meaningfulness of our patients’ results by refining our timing of tests, choosing the medium wisely & manipulating test conditions to answer specific questions about their HPA function.  Great ready reference resource included! 

If you’re already an Update in Under 30 Subscriber – go directly to your Active Content…it’s already there!
If you’re not and want to improve the accuracy of your Cortisol Capture in patients go
here!

Slippery Little Sucker Indeed!

[Ahem] Ok let me explain…Several catch-cries from Australian ads have earnt themselves a lifelong place in my head and heart, taking up space where something more important should be, no doubt, but does anyone remember this SPC canned fruit (REALLY showing my age now!!) one, where the little boy chases the grape around the bowl and declares it a, ‘Slippery Little Sucker!’? Ok so this little boy is every one of us when we’re trying to ‘capture someone’s cortisol’ and just like the boy we will eventually achieve a ‘result’ – get a ‘number’ but what in fact does this mean in relation to your patient’s HPA axis, stress perception, responsivity, recovery etc etc?

Recently I was presented with 2 cortisol results for a patient taken within the same 24hrs – her blood am result was above range, while her 24hr urine flagged under-functioning of her HPA axis generally.
Both were accurate.

Had I have only have seen one, I would have formed the wrong opinion and only gleaned part of her overall HPA story.  Every different type of cortisol capture – from different mediums: blood, saliva & urine – to different collection conditions: time of day, fasting V fed, specific stressor exposure etc answers a different question about our patient’s HPA axis.  So to use any form of cortisol assessment well we need to start with 2 understandings: 1) it is a slippery little sucker indeed and no one test can answer all our questions – or as Miller & colleagues more eloquently put it, “Remember, all models are wrong; the practical question is, how wrong do they have to be to not to be useful” and 2) be clear about the most important question you have about your patient you are trying to answer and that will make your choice of test (& timing & & &) patent. But do you know enough about cortisol regulation to be clear about the ‘sweet spot’ of each test?

The Cortisol Awakening Response has understandably attracted the bulk of the research focus over the last decade and accordingly has risen in popularity in practice & while it remains a very valuable way to answer certain questions about patients, our understanding of its limitations continue to grow.  For example there is a disconnect between CAR & diurnal cortisol secretion – so in essence your CAR can look woke but your ‘Slope’ may be broke!  If you’re a fan of this method, make sure you catch up on the CAR-Expert Consensus Guidelines by Stalder et al and if you’d like to get clear about which test and when, when it comes to all the key options for Cortisol Capture..
then let’s dive in together with my latest Update in Under 30 instalment

 

Cortisol – Have You Been Caught Out?

I have!  And just recently a stark contrast between the results from 2 different methods of cortisol capture in the same patient illustrated just how likely this is. How do we ‘capture’ something so ‘dynamic’ and  interpret anything of substance from a ‘static’ assessment technique?   But rather than throw up our hands and throw out the whole attempt to measure cortisol, we can improve the rigor, reliability and real-world meaningfulness of our patients’ results by refining our timing of tests, choosing the medium wisely & manipulating test conditions to answer specific questions about their HPA function.  Great desktop reference included!

 

You can purchase Cortisol – Have You Been Caught Out? here.
If you are an Update in Under 30 Subscriber, you will find it waiting for you in your online account.
You can become an Update in Under 30 Subscriber to access this episode and the entire library of Update in Under 30 audio’s and resources here.

Good Great Better Brilliant…

I’m experiencing some serious POTTS exhaustion – how about you?  No, not POTS, POTTS: Preposterous Over The Top Selling of supplements, which seems to be at an all time high even amongst our practitioner brands.  I saw a product name recently that included the word, ‘supreme’!*^#  Is the choice of nutritional supplements now on par with selecting our pizza toppings?

When I previously delivered university lectures on population nutrition & the role of the food industry – we acknowledged that all the processing, packaging, and promoting the food industry invests in, creates a market and a source of competition that essentially doesn’t exist for their primary whole-food ingredients.

Take apples.  How can we increase the profit margin on a humble apple? Aside from organic V conventional farming, the price that any of us would pay is pretty narrow and fixed.  But send that apple to the factory to make juice (and chuck in some added vitamins to boot so you can feature this on the label!!), puree and package it in the most non-biodegradable way for kiddies, dice and stew the stuff and put it in little plastic tubs for the slightly older or throw in a long list of nasties with ‘essence of apple’ to make sauce for idk and suddenly you have the capacity for mark-up, an exponentially expanded profit margin & ‘something to say and something to sell’.  In supplement companies, it’s not as far from this as you might imagine. Because nutrition (**WHAT A SURPRISE**) is a lot like primary whole-food ingredients – how does vitamin C compete with vitamin C? Hey,  make it liposomal!! And the nanoparticles that we’re fearful of in our sunscreens and cosmetics..let’s use the same technology for our ingestives!! YES!!! Ummm any one recall, our fears re folic acid?  Just asking…

Then I see the promotion of bioflavonoid supplements that have been modified to exhibit **UNPRECEDENTED BIOAVAILABILITY** and I am like, ‘Um, why?’ Given these show very low uptake across the gut naturally and research now speaks to a primary MOA or pivot point in their efficacy being the result of their interaction with our microbiota & digestive environs…

I propose that ‘practitioner only supplements’ come under the same plain packaging restrictions placed on tobacco in Australia [I am joking but only just].  Remove the bright shiny distracting graphics and hyperbolic descriptors and only state the full ingredients and excipients list plus source where relevant. Let’s bring it back to simple(?) science, basic quality ingredients and affordable effective products for our patients.  Then let’s see if we can spot the difference 🧐

The Supplement Sleuth

Rachel loves nothing better than breaking through marketing babble and spin to get to the truth about supplements – their real strengths, niches, weaknesses, contraindications, therapeutic doses and best forms & therefore there is a dedicated section of her website with resources and recordings that do just this, here. These include reviews on B3, B12, Folate, Selenium, Zinc & Iron (of course!), Calcium D Glucurate, Co Q10, Quercetin, high dose Vitamin D and Fish oils for Mental health. These are a mix of Update in Under 30 recordings and longer presentations and her library is ever expanding!  So, if you have a supplement you think needs some serious sleuthing on – send us an email…we’re always sniffing around for more!!

What’s happening with Lucy’s Labs?

What’s your knee-jerk response to 52Y Lipids Lucy & Liver, whose ALT & AST suddenly jumped above range when she was put on statins?  They’re damaging her liver?  You’d be wrong.  One of the practitioners who undertook the MasterCourse in Comprehensive Diagnostics just graduated with flying colours when she was able to correctly identify the true cause of this patient’s LFT abnormalities, can you? 

[Cheeky hint: there is more than one explanation/process at play]

This naturopath now knows her pathology patterns.  She knows the interpretation of any liver enzyme must also take into account the movement in other markers, to make meaning of the whole.  Because so-called ‘liver enzymes’ are never exclusive to the liver.  They are expressed in multiple other tissues and organs – sometimes at equal concentrations to their liver-level (e.g. ALP and bone). For some, even referring to them as a ‘liver enzyme’ is a mislabelling of sorts, with minimal expression in the liver itself compared with ubiquitous distribution all over the body (e.g. GGT & LDH).  Of course this is both a blessing and a curse.  A curse if you make the mistake of only interpreting their levels through a ‘liver lens’…a blessing if you know when they are flagging problems elsewhere through the specific pattern recognition.  So back to Lucy – the statins had induced a rhabdomyolysis not hepatocellular damage. The clues?  Significant AST dominance over ALT, above range CK and LDH.

So if the statins weren’t causing increased hepatocellular damage what is that increasingly high-normal ALP pattern all about?

Bones. And again, this practitioner picked it.  And then got to win herself some pretty BIG credit and credibility points with all the other health professionals sharing care of this patient by suggesting that they clarify and confirm this by referring her for an ALP bone isoenzyme assay, which answers the question: is the elevated ALP originating from the liver, the intestines or from the bone? Bingo, bones it is!  Or was, because this practitioner was able to alert not only the patient but all the other practitioners treating her to the increased bone remodelling taking place, independent of the statin reaction, but part of her perimenopause. Left unchecked this would escalate further of course at menopause and leave her bones in bad shape. This is just one illustration of how we can show ourselves the be the incredible one we are on the shared-care team. 

Being lab literate and pathology proficient, sets you apart from the rest and enables you to practice truly preventative medicine.
How else would we have known she was experiencing increased BMD loss that may be the start of something truly tragic?

 

Realise the true value you can extract from the most commonly performed labs.
Join Rachel Arthur LIVE on the MasterCourse I: Comprehensive Diagnostics WATCH PARTY
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Want to know more? Head over to my website here and check out more of the great benefits and bonuses of joining this program
This course is a fantastic learning opportunity to identify the many intricacies in cases that have previously been missed.

How Much Can You…?

“How much can you misbehave & get away with it?” I listened with fresh ears, as a practitioner asked my son this question recently. I use similar ones with my own patients but hearing it from someone else, I could sit back and appreciate its true purpose and how well it achieves this. Most of us adjust our behaviours, when we can, to ‘manage’ things that cause us problems.

Sure I can eat food I haven’t made myself
………..but once a week is my max. or ‘X’ flares

My energy is pretty good
…… but 1 night of poor sleep & I’m back on ’empty’

No impaired alcohol tolerance
………I just never have more than 1

My [insert: gut, skin, energy, immunity, mood] is not a problem
………as long as I don’t miss a dose (of supplement/medication etc)

And sometimes this ‘adjustment’ (or avoidance) is unconscious. Hence the beauty of the question: How much can you get away with, coupled with our understanding of how much ‘room to move’ there should be in a patient who is truly well.  So the teenage to early 20s patient sitting in front of us, theoretically, should be in their prime of wide mischief margins, and we are alerted to individuals in this age group who are having to live like an older person, needing to exhibit vigilance around early bedtimes and allowing themselves almost no indiscretions.  In contrast, as we age, we understand too, the margin for mischief narrows. Our over-50s selves are unlikely to get away with half as much as did in years gone by but we shouldn’t require the stricter self-care hypervigilance of our senior selves.  

And for the patient who answers ‘no’ to everything on your GIT or stress/mood screening questions, for clarification, follow them up with, “and how much can you get away with and still have no issues?”

You may very quickly get a different understanding of what lies beneath and how much ‘management’ is required to maintain ‘balance’ or ‘no symptoms’ or ‘health’ 🧐

MasterCourse in Comprehensive Diagnostics – Let’s Do It Together! 
**Our Watch Party & 6wk training starts 8th July**

The primary objective of MasterCourse I is to realise the true value we can extract from the most commonly performed labs (ELFTs, FBE, WCC, Lipids & Glucose) which constitute the largest biochemical dataset we have on almost every patient. By learning how to comprehensively interpret these labs in an integrated medical framework, using the very latest science, we can extract the gold often buried in this goldmine.  Accordingly, we prove ourselves to be the greatest asset to our patients, to other health professionals we are sharing care of patients with and we cut the cost of additional expensive testing, that is less well understood and validated.

MasterCourse I will help you access that gold and has been intentionally designed to match each lesson with real learning– with the time spent in theory and in application.  Delivered across 24+ hrs of streaming video sessions with bonus pre-sessions, audios, resources and tools – this MasterCourse is likely to be a genuine game-changer for the way you practise and the potency of your patient prescriptions.

B12…12kms?

Is it just me or do you view everything with a trained eye?   My son always laughed when I wrote him a shopping list: I would list items under each shop and I always wrote down our local supermarket the Independent Grocers Association, like this: IgA…you all see what I was doing, right?!! It’s actually known to everyone else as IGA…well truth be told, I didn’t until he pointed it out 😂 Then there’s this relic I regularly pass, as I walk through bushy parkland near my home, ‘Hmmmmmm, B12 hey?’, I’d muse. I’d be embarrassed to tell you exactly how long it was before I realised OMG it’s not  a shrine to the vitamin but an old road sign telling you…Byron 12kms!!! 

I preferred my take on it to be honest, because invariably once past this, the remainder of my walk was full of scintillating B12 banter. Just internally, people, no one panic, I don’t walk the streets of this town spouting out crazy random nutritional tidbits…although, let’s face it, I would be in good company in, the Byron Bay region!

I have a deep respect for B12 – weird but true. As a result of my clinical experiences helping patients who had a previously ‘unseen need’ for this nutrient and the significant improvements that come with its replenishment. Plus the deep dive I did into the science of the different forms and their actions last year. In particular, I now have 2 families where the TCNII SNP is evident in mum and all her children.  No gene testing necessary, the pattern is self-evident once you know what to look for and the clear ‘call to action’ – more B12 please! And just this month, a fresh aspect has come to my attention in regard some brand spanking new research on B12 and IBD and the microbial (im)balance of this vitamin as a pivot point for the pathophysiology. Wowza!  Early days, but I think we’re headed next level on this nutrient again! And I can’t say, I’m surprised.  For while I don’t think the CHOICE of the supplemental form for B12 is complex at all (hence why we need to separate the B12 from the B*S#!) I recognise it is a complex character far beyond what regular dietetics has reduced it to. 

Separating the B12 from the B*S#!

B12 is a routinely under-rated and recognised micronutrient, which is in fact in high demand by many of our patients. As nutritional research pushes back against defining adequacy as simply the prevention of the deficiency-associated disease (macrocyctic anaemia, irreversible neurological damage) we enter a new landscape of more individualised approaches where we’re better able to recognise and treat those at risk of falling below ‘optimal’.  But how do we accurately identify this and then choose the ‘best’ B12 (methyl- cyano- adenosyl- hyroxo-) supplement? Does it need to be this complex?  Time to sort the B12 from the B*S#!!  This recording comes with a bunch of great resources including a clever clinical tool.

 

Every Woman & Her Dog

The average woman & her dog (& likely every other member of her household, be they furred or otherwise), can tell you that sudden changes in sex hormones can undermine, derange, psychopathise, impact her mind and mood.  Hey, for me most days reverse parking is my mild super power, the envy of all, but on day 26 of my menstrual cycle, I can struggle with a ‘nose-to-kerb’! But if we are quick to attribute this to the fluctuating sex hormones produced by our ovaries, alone, we’d be making a mistake.  A portion of these peripheral steroids do cross the BBB and act in our brain, so changes to these levels during any kind of transition: follicular to luteal, pregnant to post-partum, menstruating to menopausal, early adulthood to andropause, will be ‘felt’ but the sex (hormones) we have on our brains at any given time, are far more abundant, potent and complex than this, thanks to the brain’s ability to make its own.

So in fact, the amount of sex hormones active in the brain represent an intersection between peripheral and central steroidogenesis. 
These Neurosteroids, made ‘on site’, are as much produced in response to our mood, our neurobiology, our psychological and environmental stress, to help us navigate these, as they are the creators of mood itself.

Yes, these particular sex hormones, due to their actions in our brain, belong to that growing list of CNS celebrities: the Non-Classical Neuromodulators.  Which, for the otherwise neurotransmitter-centric & obsessed among us (that’s everyone), makes mental health and illness much more complex than ‘serotonin deficiency’ or ‘glutamate excess’ and a whole lot more real.  We now need to consider other entities like: ‘suboptimal LDLs’, 5 alpha reductase over or under-expression & ‘xs inhibitory tone via progesterone’.

The ‘sex on the brain’ of any patient therefore is impacted by both their Endocrine (ovaries, testes, adrenals) and Synaptocrine (neural) contributions – and these demonstrate some shared dependence (for cholesterol & healthy mitochondria etc) and independence.

We all know the depressing stats in support of the ‘ovarian withdrawal hypothesis’ and the risk to women’s mental health with each reproductive transition, and also in andropause in men, but the time has come to now deepen our understanding and to recognise  we can have an imbalance of ‘sex’ on the brain – regardless of the ‘balance’ we might see in the periphery and put our thinking caps on about the options we have to address steroidogenesis either side of the blood brain barrier.

When it comes to a modern take on how sex hormones impact both the structure & function of our CNS, we need to blend the ‘old’ with the ‘new’.  The ‘old’ tells us, production of sex hormones is in the gonads and action at a distant target anywhere else in the body, including our brain. And the ‘new’ is in the form of the ‘Synaptocrine’ – where production of these sex steroids is actually within neural tissue itself and their immediate actions occur close-by, in the synpase and at the post-synaptic neuronal membrane. These two contributive pathways show some shared dependence but also independence from one another and the balance of both has now been recognised to be integral to the overall health of the nervous system.
You can purchase Sex (Hormones) On The Brain here.
If you are an Update in Under 30 Subscriber, you will find it waiting for you in your online account.
You can become an Update in Under 30 Subscriber to access this episode and the entire library of Update in Under 30 audio’s and resources here.

 

Present But Not The Problem

Something’s just come up today again and I think we need to talk about it.  A positive result on a stool PCR microbiome test for H. pylori, understandably, might be heard as a clear call to action to go in guns blazing with an eradication approach.  But is it?  Trust me, I’ve had more than my fair share of battles with this bug & can understand being keen to have it be gone BUT first things first, let’s be clear about what the result speaks to.  

Does it say, “Here!  Look over here!  Here’s the source of your patient’s GIT distress,”  or even, “Here’s a pathogen that has taken up residence in their GIT and is a risk for future dx!”

No, not necessarily. It speaks to its presence.

And that may be only fleetingly, as it passes through.  I’ve seen it before and so have many other experienced practitioners: a positive stool PCR that is at odds with the results of gold standard H.pylori testing, the UBT, faecal antigens or blood serology, all freely available through the GP.  And the reality is, if you have a negative UBT, there’s no urease production, the trademark trouble-making of this bug. If you have negative blood serology, your immune system has never ‘met’ this bug or, in the minority of cases, you’ve tested in that brief early exposure window prior to antibody production (2wks) so you should retest within the month, to confirm or refute. And if you don’t have any faecal antigen…it ain’t in da’ house…so to speak 😅 If there’s something new here, then have a quick read of Medscape’s great work-up summary.  So, clearly we need to confirm before we open fire.

 We (me included) have been so single-minded about increasing the ‘sensitivity’ with our testing methods, we may have left ‘specificity’, in broader sense, behind & that creates a new problem.

This leads us and the patient down the garden path of false attribution and time and money wasted ‘treating’ a ghost gut issue. And no one wants to be put on a pylori protocol when they really didn’t need to.  Trust me 🙄 But if someone does come back confirmed, well then…

H.pylori – Eradicate or Rehabilitate?

For a bacteria identified just a few decades ago as being a cause of chronic gastritis, atrophic gastritis and gastric carcinoma, the escalation of number of antibiotics used to eradicate it (4 at last count + PPI) has been nothing short of breath-taking.  A management approach more consistent with both integrative medicine and with an improved understanding of the delicate microbiome focuses on changing the gastric environment to ‘remove the welcome mat’. What do we know about how to do this successfully? It turns out…quite a lot.

Well…Does He Need Iron?!

If I could be granted 1 wish regarding all health professionals, it would be that we were all competent in reading Iron Studies.  Think that’s overstating the issue? Or not a bodacious enough way to ‘spend’ my wish? I don’t. Especially when you consider the impact of GPs in this space. 

This 57Y male was asked to make a follow up appointment with his doctor, to discuss his ‘abnormal’ results which he was informed constitute Iron deficiency. 
Consequently he was was advised to start an iron supplement! #@!*

Your thoughts?  Revoke this doctors medical licence?  Insist on some very du jour ‘re-training’ at the very least?  I mean, if you think this Iron pattern flags a deficiency or shortfall, then you’re as good as reading a map upside down and back to front…and written in a foreign language!! The ‘Ls’ in his latest labs flag he has suppressed transferrin, indicative of negative feedback inhibition of GIT uptake of this mineral, secondary to healthy stores or inflammation. And it’s not just that more iron is not indicated but that more iron in fact presents a patient like this with increased and unnecessary risk: to their microbiome, intestinal wall health, even according to the larger longer studies a potential correlation with colorectal cancer risk, if taken long term. Let alone the whole cardiovascular conundrum.  Better still this same patient was told a few years back that he might have iron overload!  Again the ‘map’ could only have been being read, upside down, back to front to reach such a conclusion! 

So the one patient in just a few years by 2 different doctors has been diagnosed incorrectly with 2 different iron issues. Yep.

And sadly I have sooooo many more cases of missed and mis-diagnoses with regard to this mineral.  The latest RCPA Position Statement on the Use of Iron Studies, underscores that assessment of iron status and GPs competence in knowing when to do this and how to interpret, is an important part of core general practice. Given it “is the commonest nutritional deficiency state in Australia and is significantly under-diagnosed” This succinct document offers a quick crash course in Iron nutrition for doctors and it hits all the right marks with advice about not ordering ferritin as a stand-alone because “the interactive nature of the three components allows for more accurate interpretation” and this simple but sage advice:

Transferrin, iron transport protein, tends to increase in ID…
A better strategy (than being tricked by Serum Fe) is to report transferrin saturation.
A low transferrin saturation in the setting of an equivocal ferritin level is suggestive of iron deficiency.
An elevated transferrin saturation is the first manifestation of iron overload.

I mean seriously, do doctors read these RAGCP resources & recommendations, or is it just me? 🤓😂  

Need a rip-roaring review on how to really read iron studies?  Or know another health professional who does?!! Consider this Easter Educational Gift Instead of Eggs!!
So You Think You Know How To Read Iron Studies?
Overt Iron Deficiency Anaemia or Haemochromatosis aside…do you understand the critical insights markers like transferrin and its saturation reveal about your patients iron status?  Most practitioners don’t and as a result give iron when they shouldn’t and fail to sometimes when they should.  This audio complete with an amazing cheat sheet for interpreting your patients Iron Study results will sharpen your skills around iron assessment, enabling you to recognise the real story of your patients’ relationship with iron.

 

We Need To Talk About Kevin…aka B3

Just like Kevin, ‘Niacin’ is profoundly misunderstood and consequently runs the risk of doing us harm. Unlike ‘Kevin’, we can’t watch the movie to see how this (our arguably excessive use of the wrong forms of B3 in supplements and fortified foods) is all going to play out, so that we can be suitably alarmed and start making some different choices. The risks that follow from our B3 ignorance are twofold:

One comes essentially from our gross under-estimation of this B vitamin – we’re stuck in the Pellagra Paradigm, believing that prevention of the 4 D’s is confirmation of adequacy.

The second, is our lack of discernment when it comes to the different forms or precursors of B3 & our unfamiliarity with their very specific physiological roles – good and bad.

In this regard we’re all likely to say, ‘Well back up there 1 second, we do know that Niacin (aka nicotinic acid) is different from the other forms!’  Producing flushing, yes.  Used as a lipid lowering agent in pharmacological doses, yes. But can you tell me, which serious concerns and biochemical disruption is shared between both gram doses of niacin and everyday ‘routine’ mg doses of niacinamide? Yep, that one, the so-called ‘safe’ one. Better still, can we all list the various B3 forms in order from most to least potent, in regard to their capacity for NAD+ promotion in the human body? 

Because this is now the definition of B3 ‘adequacy’ or ‘optimisation’ according to modern scientific understanding & it is a long long way from the absence of  Diarrhoea, Dermatitis, Dementia and Death!

In fact, the boosting and optimisation of NAD+ pools in the human body is key to life – a long and healthy one according to the current research consensus – and its depletion is akin to ‘death’, or a faster one, anyway.  From increased metabolic disorders, mitochondrial dysfunction, impaired gene stability (cancer, infertility etc) and higher rates of neurodegenerative disorders, just to start, these take up the lion’s share of our chronic health burden and battle that currently dominates the dis-ease landscape. And more niacinamide might just make that worse. 

I didn’t mean to to alarm you. I am alarmed.  Want to deep dive into this yourself?  Start with this older but still brilliant review article by Bogan & Brenner.  Want me to hold your hand while we jump off the high platform diving board together into this vastly different and powerful new understanding of B3?  Let’s do it!

The Balance of B3

Most of us have been taught to ‘balance the Bs’ when supplementing, which discourages the use of single B vitamins in case this interferes with the regulation and roles of others. In reality, outside of a couple of dynamic duos like B12 and folate, there is little concrete information & evidence of this. In the case specifically of B3, however, we now know, the risk of an excess of the most common B3 forms found in supplements and fortified foods, results not only in disruption of other nutrients but imbalanced B3 biochemistry itself. Given B3, in its coenzyme form NAD+, is regarded as highly valued currency in the prevention of many diseases, as well as the key to our optimal health and longevity, it’s critical to understand the different forms and functions of the various B3 sources.

 

You can purchase The Balance of B3 here.
If you are an Update in Under 30 Subscriber, you will find it waiting for you in your online account.
You can become an Update in Under 30 Subscriber to access this episode and the entire library of Update in Under 30 audio’s and resources here.

Ask Alexa?

‘Hey Alexa, What’s that formula for correcting urinary iodine for hydration status?’
Oh yes, if only she could answer these kind of questions!

There’s no one here by that name but we get these kind of emails all the time [Oh and also for Freya who hasn’t worked here in like 5 years!!😂]  But we love them because it means our blogs provide useful, sought after and (we like to think!) really really hard to get anywhere else answers . But hey try it, Ask Siri!  We’re always forthcoming with references – not just citations but the full low down and dirty full texts (as long as we’ve managed to get our hands on it!!) and we know which topics particularly hit a spot across our professional group by not just the number of enquiries but how far the actual blog they’re referring to, dates back.  So we’ve just received more comms regarding one that’s often on high rotation…a post I wrote on urinary Iodine Assessment & how and why we should adjust for hydration!  That was 2014…what a vintage 🤩 Show’s though how topical and tricky this little test is. 

So I dove back into the musty archives (no seriously we don’t use parchment) and thought it might be good to create a central source for all things Iodine…because…well there’s a LOT!
If you haven’t read the original post on the iodine creatinine correction – the fun starts HERE!
We named names (the companies that did correct for creatine and those that didn’t) – way back in 2015
We told you companies may change their reporting style but there’s one easy way to tell if the correction for hydration has been done for your patient’s results
I clarified, the Pitfalls of (so-called) Patch Testing for Iodine Status
And we linked you to my Free-for-all-FxMed talk on the Intricacies of Iodine – which discussed assessment & so much more!

Then there’s iodine and breast pain, iodine and sub-fertility & & &…& [ahem] turns out I perhaps have been a little Iodine Infatuated.  But you know, it’s still 100% warranted, right?  I mean here’s that latest Newsflash post Australia’s ‘genius’ bread fortification: Women Remain at Risk of Iodine Deficiency during Pregnancy: The Importance of Iodine Supplementation before Conception and Throughout Gestation. Oops, Britney style, I think I just did it again! Oh and don’t forget our website does have a search function – top right 😉

Iodine Deficiency, Toxicity & Treatment – Where are we now?

The iodine landscape has undergone radical change recently.  We’ve moved from recognising the resurfacing of a widespread deficiency, to large-scale food fortification that has failed to correct deficiency in most and produced excesses in a few. Parallel to this, we have the ever growing incidence of thyroid disorders and some radically contrasting ideas regarding iodine’s role in both aetiology and treatment.  Micrograms V milligrams?  Random urinary iodine or iodine loading test? Important new evidence and clinical experience helps us understand more about how to accurately assess patients’ need for iodine and know when & how to use it therapeutically & when not to!

Do You See What I See?

When I was 12 tartan was in.  Like, really in.  And I rode that tartan wave as far as it could go, arguably beyond where it should go…I had a tartan bowtie I wore. 🙄 I knew it was on trend because I saw it flashed across magazine covers (we never bought them so I couldn’t tell you what was inside!), my pop icons wore it and many of my fellow grad sixers had various tartan clothing items and accessories. It was a real overload for the eyes when we congregated together as a group of girls, on the town in our tartan, I am sure. All I can say is, thank goodness, we didn’t have the internet and socials. Why? Because it would have been far worse. Because now we have constant comparison to others, an acute awareness of daily dizzying escalation of things ‘trending’ and ultimately, in spite of these aesthetics perhaps originating from something original- ultimately perpetuating a loss of originality and distinction across those that ‘follow’ and ‘watch’ and ‘aspire’. I would have been a true follower and done worse than even my bowtie.

I feel so privileged to be a mentor to the next gen of naturopaths, nutritionists and herbalists and I worry about how this aspect is impacting them, their sense of themselves, the sense of who clients ‘want’ or ‘expect’ them to be and present.

Are you seeing what I’m seeing?  When I look at websites of many early-career practitioners I’m struck by their ‘sameness’.  Lots of white space background offsetting particular on-trend fonts, extraordinary high quality ‘visual food porn’ (there I said it!)  and of course lots of smiling, beautiful, young women often wearing linen (hardly a man in sight btw… hmmmmmm).  It’s me and the tartan all over again.  But at least I wasn’t trying to run a business that is based on communicating that I and the service I offer is accessible, relatable and inclusive, to any potential patients that happen to have found their way to my website! Older women, men, LGBTQIA+ individuals, people of different cultural backgrounds, or those with a disability.  Let alone, just people with minimal or zero interest, confidence or competency in cooking!  That includes me. When I look at some of these pages I instantly go, ‘No, not interested’, because it appears the path to health with this practitioner necessitates making vegan miso brownies decorated with rose petals and, you know what, I choose to spend my time doing other things! Brutal, but honest. We also need to remember that if we are reducing ourselves to pretty pictures and creators of healthy food we may distance ourselves further from other modalities and we may also limit people’s (patients and practitioners) understanding of how we work and what we offer. Now, of course, there will be plenty of patients to whom these same aesthetics appeal greatly.

But I have 3 questions we should all ask ourselves semi-regularly about our online presence:
1. Does this appeal to a large enough group of individuals to sustain a business?
2. Are the same individuals who ‘like’ & ‘follow’ your Insta stories also likely to pay to engage in a therapeutic relationship? Or are they there for the free *Insta Inspa* (aka inspiration)?
3. What are we communicating to potential and existing patients about what it takes to be healthy? An abundance of time, good genes, looks & money for all those ingredients & gorgeous clothes?

With Erica Mcintyre and colleagues survey mapping patterns of engagement with nats & herbalists, from the largest to date nationally representative sample of the Australian population, revealing that men and women were equally likely to have seen a naturopath or herbalist in the past 12mo and that,  approx only 1/4 of our patients come for ‘wellness’, without any chronic health condition, while a striking 16% present with 5 or more chronic health diagnoses, I wonder if we all need to rethink who we want & need to appeal and ‘speak’ to. Having had a wonderful conversation with Gill Stannard Naturopath & Mentor in preparation for my mentoring of New Grads this year, bouncing this and many more topics between us, I feel there is a need for us all to regularly reflect on our ‘messaging’, no matter what the medium,  not just as individual practitioners and business owners but as a bigger professional group.  I’m going to start campaigning to ‘bring back the tartan’, who’s with me? 

The MasterCourse in Comprehensive Diagnostics I is finally here as a self-paced learning program you can undertake yourself.  We know you’ll get as much out of it as those who attended live:

“I thought my pathology skills were pretty up there until I did Rachel’s Diagnostic MasterCourse! Nothing like being knocked off my perch by a literal avalanche of new information, especially when it comes from the most commonly tests that we all use so often. The course has been a fantastic learning opportunity for me, and has since helped me pick out many intricacies in cases that have previously been missed.”
– Rohan Smith | Clinical Nutritionist

MasterCourse 1: Comprehensive Diagnostics is a self-paced online program
Gives you access to 24+ hours of streamed video presentations2 x Bonus Update in Under 30 episodes (The Calcium Conspiracy & Using Urea to Creatinine Values for Protein Adequacy) PLUS resources, a template and pdfs of all presentations. This package includes $200 worth of bonus material and remains forever in your online account. You will also receive access to any future updates of resources and our template. More information can be found here.

Please note completion of MC I is a pre-requisite for MasterCourse II that will be delivered live in the second half of 2021.

 

 

I’ve Been Right Into ‘Glassing’ Lately, Apparently

Don’t know why on earth I would be discussing ‘Glassing’? I have a hunch.  I was supposed to be doing a deep dive into Taurine & Glycine & their CNS effects for the latest Update in Under 30 and due to a technical glitch we produced a software generated transcript from my first attempt at the audio recording. We’ve never done this before and it seems to suggest, I have an accent and I’m a little mortified.  I wasn’t under some delusion that my utterance was universal…my speech narrows my origins to certainly the ‘bottom of the globe’, but, ‘Strewth Sheila, how does any of yous guys understand me??!’

So we’re giving away 3 free copies of this recording to the first 3 individuals who can correctly translate the following from that transcript!:

“In fact, if we go back to their chemistry, you might recall that Glassing, well I refer to it as the naked amino acid. It refers to the fact that Glassing is the amino acid in its most stripped back form. It actually doesn’t have a side chain, which of course all other aminos do.  So therefore it doesn’t have eyes and ears. It doesn’t have an Alan O’Day form.”
🥴😵😬

What?!  Yes it took me a while to work it out…and I WAS THE PERSON IT WAS QUOTING!! So while I am currently using a medium released from my regional rhino-challenged speech, let me tell you why I am right into ‘Glassing’ as CNS support and as a sleep aid for many patients. Ever listen to the long list of enviable actions Melatonin has on the brain and think…’gee I wish we had something that wasn’t a hormone that could do that?’…hello Glassing, I mean Glycine. SCN sensitising, circadian entrainment, sleep architecture improvement without being a sedative or hypnotic…just to name a few.  And guess what?  The overlap between these two even extends to their behaviour within the upper GIT!  Both of course being shown to be helpful in aiding the healing and recovery of function and integrity in the stomach.  What else dose it do and how can we use it to its fullest benefit? The answers are in our latest instalment,  A Fresh Look: Taurine & Glycine In The CNS.

And you’ll be pleased to know, the transcript experience has certainly got me paying more attention to my enunciation than ever before. So you’ll understand every word!

Maybe my parents really were just being kind when they said, ‘Everyone sent their kids to elocution lessons back then, it wasn’t because we thought you specifically needed help” 🤣😂

Both taurine & glycine have a claim-to-fame as amino acids that effectively calm an over-revving brain, via their net inhibitory actions within the CNS.  They achieve this via different means and while in some circumstances, one, either or both will is the result of differences in the regulation of their BBB transfer, pharmacokinetics, as well as add-on benefits or detractors, unique to each.  Learn how to use both of these powerful and affordable mood-modulators, to their fullest, and be more able to know ‘which one when’, by listening to this latest narrative review.

The latest Update in Under 30 has landed!!!

You can purchase Take A Fresh Look: Taurine & Glycine in the CNS here.
If you are an Update in Under 30 Subscriber, you will find it waiting for you in your online account.
You can become an Update in Under 30 Subscriber to access this episode and the entire library of Update in Under 30 audios and resources here.