THE CURIOUS MINDS CLUB 
We're in the grip of a podcast plague. I'm serious - everyone has one. Have you checked the children?! Not to ensure they're safe in bed but to be certain they're not broadcasting from there 🙃😆 And podcasts have now gone AV! We're able to watch people speak!! It's...
What unites you as a family? For me, my kids & their partners, it's humour & the more absurd & unexpected the better. Know the type? You spend most of the show asking yourself, 'Is this the show?!' Confused as to whether you should laugh because you're...
Never done a MasterCourse in Diagnostics with me? Is that because you're scared of... a) investing that...
Have you had a book that is so compelling & transporting you can't put it down? In the last year or so I've rewritten my own little book of sorts, on thyroid physiology and results interpretation and during that process I came across a paper that referred to...
I can barely bring myself to write the word given how overused it has been of late 🤐🙄😯😕🙃 But I gotta say something! If we have found ourselves currently in a place where every second (or indeed single!) patient has a 'histamine issue' then I am afraid that it is we,...
The case of a slim 41YOF under very high stress due to marriage separation & the care of 2 young kids was presented in mentoring this month. Her a.m. Cortisol was 710 nmol/L - Rachel asked the group to identify 3 results in her routine labs that are consistent...
I am just back from the NHAA Symposium - all informationed-up and raring to share!! LOL I learned some great stuff about Black Pepper and that made me think about a case from mentoring last month🤓 One of the presentations was from Jason Hawrelak during which we 'went...
What level of Serum Ferritin represents 'empty'? As in complete depletion of iron stores? Is it any value below the minimum of the reference range? e.g. < 30 mcg/L Or does the bottom of the reference range allow for a buffer and 'empty' is substantially lower than...
Practitioner: I haven't yet done the MasterCourse II in Thyroid & Adrenal Diagnostics but I want to better understand the HPA of that patient we discussed with significant sleep disorders. Waking blood? Saliva? Urine? Which one? Rachel: Well, you've heard me say...
Just as optimal integration of lab results into our patient work-ups makes 'the invisible visible' we thought we might make visible some of the everyday Q & A that we engage in with wonderful practitioners who are fast becoming Diagnostic Divas & Divos....
Just as optimal integration of lab results into our patient work-ups makes 'the invisible visible' we thought we might make visible some of the everyday Q & A that we engage in with wonderful practitioners who are fast becoming Diagnostic Divas & Divos....
There's a bit of a backstory - play along at home if you want - by ticking off the steps in this journey we have travelled together! 😂 14 years ago I was first asked to contribute to ACNEM’s thyroid training module 9 years ago I put together a little...
Just as optimal integration of lab results into our patient work-ups makes 'the invisible visible' we thought we might make visible some of the everyday Q & A that we engage in with wonderful practitioners who are fast becoming Diagnostic Divas & Divos....
Ever met a set of thyroid results you didn't like? Because you couldn't work them out? Because they defied your expectations, & therefore your understanding, of how they should look in this patient given their weight, nutrition, meds, diagnoses? Yeah - me too. In...
Did you know that your thyroid expresses more ACE 2 receptors than your lungs? So while there is nothing new about the potential for a virus (or indeed even a vaccine against a virus) to impact thyroid form and function, the particular predilection this recent virus...
If I wrote down these 2 elements on a MindMap: Thyroid dysfunction and Adiposity, how would you connect them? Would you reflexively draw an arrow from the former to the latter to flag that the thyroid underpins the weight management issues? My arrow would be the...
Over the years I've observed an increase in the incidence of practitioner paralysis. This occurs typically & understandably in the face of fearmongering. A good example is in the area of so-called 'methylation medicine' where we've been lead to believe that...
You know the saying, 'If I had a dollar...', well there's so many ways I could finish that sentence, especially in relation to the most common questions I'm asked by praccies on a weekly basis and 'Can my patient on antidepressant 'X' take SAMe?', would be in the top...
Recently a very experienced practitioner who uses SAMe frequently and successfully in her patients and also delivers education said to me, "I don't know what I am doing wrong - practitioners still come back to me with cases where they're throwing 8 different products...
This is not about body shaming nor body positivity. I understand the crudeness of the body mass index, as a measure of (un)healthy weight - let alone (un)healthy muscle mass, so I don't use this as a stand-alone assessment of weight, nor rigidly adhere to the...
My lord I can go on, I know. And for weeks now I've really been banging 🥁🥁 The 1st drum was me making us all salivate & suffer through my month-long Mediterranean feast The 2nd, my ongoing incurable fixation on the 'Power of the Ps' - Protein & Potassium, not...
Ok look away now if you've already heard too much from me about Greece. I understand. For the rest of you, still prepared to tough-out the travel tales, we've been discussing my recent thrill at eating something very similar to the Mediterranean diet - often touted as...
Notice a bit of a theme? Me too. Ok, so 50 is a landmark year, for lots of great reasons & they are all staring me right in my (increasingly wrinkled) face. But just at the edges of my now newly bespectacled visual field, I catch a glimpse of that stealth threat...