What an absolute pleasure to attend this conference this weekend just gone, where the presenters were researchers, most of them internationally acclaimed in their respective area and to find what they had to say SO clinically relevant and to find the presenters SO unafraid of bucking the norm (be that the NHMRC dietary guidelines, folate fortification, the use of broad TSH reference ranges, the refusal by many medicos to use urinary iodine testing of individual patients etc. etc.).
Then to boot – to be able to ask them questions! Want to know about N-acetyl cysteine? – How about asking Dr. Michael Berk the Australian researcher who ran the first human studies in psychiatry and is the most prolific research of NAC yourself?!
I’d attended the inaugural conference some years ago in Sydney and, while there were less attendees this time around on the Gold Coast (must be our horrible weather! 
), I thought the format and quality was just as good. While I certainly saw some familiar faces – I would have loved to see more – I think we’ve got to make the most of these independent sources of information, because, while we can get some great ideas and tips from company seminars – there will always ultimately be a barrow to push and some bias. I found this to be true, most disappointingly even at last year’s NHAA conference where so many of the main speakers ultimately had a vested interest and a product to sell the audience. Given that’s supposed to be independent that was even more appalling I thought. The Science of Nutrition in Medicine Conference is of course not free of all sponsorship but I didn’t see any bias permeate into the presentations from this. So major congrats to the organisers of this one (ACNEM, CSIRO & NSA), mark it on your calendar for next year as a probable must-see and over the next few weeks I’m going to bring you some of the key highlights from what I heard – that might just change the way you practice! Very inspiring 🙂