Rachel's Blogs
Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking?
🍌 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking, B1?' 🍌'I think I am, B2! It's time to separate the B12 from the B*S#!' Ok, if you're reading this and you're not from around here you have reasonable grounds to conclude I'm the one who's gone 🍌 but if you...
The ‘Perfect’ TSH?
Have you been told somewhere by someone that the 'perfect' TSH is 1.5 mIU/L? This is a wonderful, terrible & wonderfully terrible example of 'magical numbers medicine'. As a push-back against the published reference ranges we're given, that are so wide you could...
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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...
By popular demand
Many of you have been asking if we could make my presentations available for download instead of on CD. You can now do both! The Rachel Arthur Nutrition (RAN) store on the website now has downloadable audio and CD-audio sections where you can buy my presentations. You...
Visit our facebook page
We have finally taken the step into the brave new world of social media with the Rachel Arthur Nutrition facebook page. The first step is to reflect the posts that we add to this site and our newsletter. We will let you guide us as to what you would like to see us do...
No change in 25(OH) D levels in spite of supplementation?
Scenario: Patient presents with low baseline 25(OH)D levels, let’s say 40 nmol/L and you prescribe a high dose (e.g. 5000IU/day) bioavailable vitamin D supplement and retest in 3 months but the 25(OH)D levels haven’t improved…what do you do now? Sound familiar? It...
Have you checked the children?
Over the last year, I’ve seen paediatric patients with various presentations (alopecia, behavioural issues etc.) whose thyroid results have seemed out of whack e.g. TSH values in the 3s and 4s. I noticed as well that each pathology company provided a slightly altered...
Looking into Dis-ease in Women
This week, care of Health Masters, I am delivering the first part of a 3 part webinar called ‘Clinical Case Analyses in Women with Anxiety’. I originally wanted to call this brand new seminar series Dis-ease. The idea was in response to the large number of female...
The Canary in the Mine – Assessing Androgens in Men
Often I find practitioners are a bit mystified by the male hormonal milieu and their skills at interpreting androgen results are patchy compared with their confidence in female hormone investigation. Yet, just like in females, understanding the sex hormones is a...
Call for mandatory labelling for trans fats in Australian food products
Professor Andrew Sinclair, a leading Australian nutrition scientist from Deakin University, has warned that some snack foods on Australian supermarket shelves contain high levels of trans fats acids (TFAs) and is calling for mandatory labelling of TFAs in processed...
Communities need for happiness can amplify negative moods
Societies promotion of happiness and happiness campaigns puts expectations on people of how they should feel. Expectations of happiness may be making sad people feel worse. Psychologist, Brock Bastian from the University of Queensland and colleagues, have...
Honey for a night-time cough
Upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) are a normal part of childhood that often disturb sleep, parents and children alike, but a simple dose of honey may just be the remedy needed. A recent study published in Pediatrics (Aug 6 2012) has confirmed that honey is...
Numb feet reveal deeper woes
Mid-40 female presents with acute onset pain in both feet and hands. Questioning reveals that she has experienced episodic numbness in her feet over the past 2 years. Patient suspects gout but blood urate levels are normal and patient’s diet and lifestyle not...
Identifying & Addressing the Marked Stress Response in Drug Withdrawal
A current patient is a 20+ year old male who is trying to recover from a heroin addiction. Having been on the methadone program for the last 7 months and only having ‘used’ once or twice during this time, he is doing well. He has managed to get down to just 25mg/d of...
Coeliac disease presents as behavioural problems
Recently I started seeing an 8 year old girl diagnosed with ODD and ADHD as well as impaired IQ at 6yo. Notable features include: She has variable bowel and bladder control - often coming home from school with wet pants and a Bristol type 1 stool in her underwear. ...