Rachel's Blogs
It’s True
I've a confession to make, I took the batteries out of our smoke detector in our kitchen. Why? You know why. Because it went off all the time, with what I like to call, friendly fires...you know, heating oil for poppadoms, a rush of steam upwards from a hot pot on...
Where Could Should Would All the Iron Go?
I love a good iron question. It makes me emit a sound like Jack Sparrow might, when faced with something pleasingly piratey 🏴☠️ Lucky because I am asked SO MANY GOOD ONES, SO OFTEN!! Being one of the earliest minerals discovered to be...
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Getting to know Billy Rubin!
I often say that if my surname was Rubin I wouldn’t be able to resist calling my son Billy. I am sure the joke would be lost on 90% of people & certainly on my poor child who might never forgive me but never on me – I get a giggle every time 🙂 Recently, I’ve...
Something on my MINDD
I briefly mentioned in a previous post Dr. Robyn Cosford’s inspiring opening speech at this year’s MINDD conference. A key point she made was the growing gap between what’s regarded as normal and what is actually healthy. Having worked in general practice for...
P5P V Pyridoxine supplements – when and why?
I’ve been curious about the push towards using so-called ‘active forms’ of B vitamins over the last 10 years in nutritional medicine – particularly with regard to B6 (pyridoxal-5-phosphate) and B2 (riboflavin 5’-phospate aka FMN) in light of substantial research...
MINDD moments 2014
I was honoured to speak at the MINDD conference again this year. MINDD is an organisation that really sets itself apart by providing incredible hands on support for parents, carers and practitioners in the area of integrative mental health management and one of the...
Picking up Parasites?
Many of you would now be aware of the shift from culture (stool MCS) to gene-based stool testing (stool PCR) which has now become available under Medicare subsidy. While this has been an exciting development that promised greater accuracy for the detection of...
Jacka & Jerome – Naturopathic trailblazers
A few years ago I heard Felice Jacka, Associate Professor (Deakin University), speak about her research linking mental health to certain Western dietary patterns and possibly many of you have already heard me rave about her work. This year I had the pleasure of...
An Iodine Revolution?
Also presenting at the Science of Nutrition in Medicine Conference this year was Professor Eastman who is a world-renowned Australian endocrinologist with a primary interest in global iodine deficiency. He is also Deputy Chairman elect of the International Council for...
Fenech on Folate
A key speaker every year at the Science of Nutrition in Medicine Conference is Professor Michael Fenech, who is a research group leader at the CSIRO. He’s internationally regarded as an expert in understanding the relationship between DNA damage and nutrition. If...
Highlights from Science of Nutrition in Medicine Conference 2014
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...
Dear Doctor …
As most of you know, I’m a big fan of establishing good communication with the other practitioners (GPs, psychologists, osteopaths, specialists etc.) also caring for my patients and what began as occasional letters that I found exasperatingly difficult & time...
Gluten-Intolerance-Intolerance
In the Byron shire we have a fabulous local comedian called Mandy Nolan who makes a lot of fun of the health and food fads that regularly sweep this area and one of her favourite catch-cries is “I’m gluten intolerant-intolerant, if I meet another person who tells me...
Young White Men & Missed Mental Health Diagnoses
We’ve all heard about the higher incidence of mood disorders (depression, anxiety etc.) in women and chances are we’ve all seen this reflected in the dominance of female clients who present seeking help but what’s this really telling us? Many of us are aware that men...
Hold the Date
2014 is well and truly zipping along & we wanted to let you know Rachel is lined up for some great seminars and webinars this year. Here are the next few off the rank so you can join us in anticipation and set aside the dates: Biomedica N-Acetyl-Cysteine Webinar...
The Problem with Fish Oils in Mental Health
About a decade ago there was a lot of excitement about using fish oils in the management of mental health, so much so even the American Psychiatric Association developed recommendations suggesting that people with mood, impulse control & psychotic disorders should...
The Selenium Mercury Relationship
Do you still eat & recommend fish as part of a healthy diet? I do. Of course these recommendations have now become species-specific and include other key criteria such as ‘wild not farmed’ and ‘local not imported’ in response to increasing concerns about...
What a difference a Doctor makes!
Be warned…whinge ahead! One of the things I’m asked most often by naturopaths is about my experiences & interactions with doctors regarding shared care of patients. The question typically arises because they’ve been on the receiving end of less than ideal...
Keep an eye out for high prolactin
Seeing female patients with anxiety/depression, irregular menstrual cycles and perhaps marked PMS? How about male clients with decreased libido, low measurable testosterone and perhaps even impotence or infertility? All of these signs and symptoms could actually be...
Why aren’t they doing what I told them to?
Our patients are faced by more health & nutrition messages via multiple mediums than ever before yet escalating rates of obesity & lifestyle related disease highlight the failure of these. It would seem behavioural psychologists are right when they assert that...
Rachel’s range of zinc related material
As Rachel says in this month's From My Desk to Yours, "I had to do it sooner or later, we have to talk about Zinc." Rachel has been talking about Zinc for years. Here are some of the items you might like to catch up on to brush up your background on this important...
What’s a little Zinc between friends?
Ok – I’m excited!! A recent meta-analysis of seventeen epidemiological studies (n=1,643 depressed individuals and 804 controls) investigating zinc levels and depression found that depressed individuals had lower plasma/serum zinc levels than non –depressed people...
PPIs and broadening adverse events
The last two decades have seen the introduction and rapid rise in popularity of the proton pump inhibitors (PPI) for GORD & gastric ulcers. While clinical trials prior to their approval and release didn’t reveal much in terms of adverse reactions, being not...