I am frequently asked what scientific journals I subscribe to and often by the same practitioners over and over, because they can’t reconcile my answer: “None”. Yet I constantly have my head in the scientific literature, right? The two are not mutually exclusive, it’s just about knowing which free scientific and medical news-feeds are worth their weight in gold! If you really are digging into the itty-bitty detail of things these won’t answer all your questions on all your topics but they do a great job of 1) keeping you up to date with the big headlines in general medicine, or, with the use of alert systems and filters, just the areas of health you’re particularly interested in and 2) offering you a huge highly credible resource database that is easily searchable.
Point 1, Exhibit A 😉 :
Here’s just a few examples from the last month that popped into my inbox from Medscape that got my pulse racing:
Watch the gap! You know I love a good diagnostic test probably (way!) more than the next person but I am slow to come around when there’s suddenly a ‘new-kid-on-the-block’ that every functional testing company wants to offer you. This is how I felt about serum zonulin testing as marker of intestinal permeability too. In spite of Fasano’s important work, identifying this molecule and its role in the reversible opening of tight junctions in the small intestine – I didn’t embrace the test.Why not? Didn’t I love Fasano’s ability to add this piece to the jigsaw that had been missing til now? Well I did. Does that make it an accurate and reliable marker of intestinal permeability in every client with any kind of digestive issue…? Well heck no! That’s not how science works friends and I suspect we may have really jumped the gun a little on this one.(more…)
So you’ve heard part of that BIMA story…now here’s the rest. To be honest, I was pretty surprised to win anything given I’ve spent the last 20 years ‘agitating’, challenging the misinformation and strongholds of the big companies etc. Funnily enough, in my post award ceremony interview, my interviewer dished up the biggest compliment of the evening when he said, “Rachel, we all know you can’t be bought!”
Nutritional & naturopathic medicine is an exciting dynamic field that is growing its evidence base every day but we need to be vigilant about our sources of information, their credibility etc. I know that what motivates me the most to share what I know is the desperate need for independent voices, free from commercial bias that can help us move our medicine forward on solid ground. (more…)
Psssssssssssst….just thought I would share a special moment from a couple of weeks ago when I received the BIMA for Lecturer of the Year.
Thanks to all those practitioners who nominated me for Lecturer, Nutritionist & Researcher of the year! It was really special to be acknowledged in this way for my role in education. I am so grateful to have had the support of so many throughout my career – from my own exceptional teachers, Sue Evans, Assunta Hunter, Gill Stannard, Helen Margulies, Fay Paxton, and most influential of all, Dr. Tini Gruner, right through to all the fabulous practitioners that I have the privilege to mentor (and secretly learn from at the same time 😉 ) (more…)
I keep hearing the name, ‘Molly’: “I think I’ll use ‘Molly’ for this patient” or “A bit of ‘Molly’ might go well with the zinc for their high copper”... a moment of confusion on my behalf, (Molly who?) and then the slightly late…’ooooooooh Molybdenum’. Gotta love a trace mineral that is having it’s heyday…right?…right?
There are often jokes made about how little time medical degrees dedicate to teaching nutrition in general – was it 1 lecture or 3? – but let’s be honest, who among any of us really knows the ins and outs of this transition metal. I reckon we spent maybe 15 mins in my undergraduate on it and that was BC (Before Computers!) so I am guessing that 15mins has expanded about a gooooooogle times and we’ve come to a more comprehensive perspective. What do we need to update on?(more…)
Recently, I posted about my very positive experience of the AIMA NZ conference, prior to that I was gabbing on about the upcoming ACNEM Brain Health conference in Melbourne in May and now I am going for the conference hat trick! I want to revisit a really impacting lecture for me at last year’s Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine (ASLM) conference, delivered by the Emeritus Professor Mark L. Wahlqvist AO, BMedSc, MBBS, MD (Adelaide), MD (Uppsala),on the relationship between ecology and human health.
Why did I find his talk so impacting? Why should every integrative practitioner take the time to watch this?(more…)
Just back from a truly wonderful Australasian Integrative Medical Association (AIMA) conference in NZ. I don’t know what it is about the land of the long white cloud but they seem to produce some of the loveliest, most earnest health practitioners and this conference reflects this, setting itself apart each year as a result of its very organic mix of speakers (general practitioners, naturopaths, nurses, specialists) who are all equally embraced and lauded. To boot we had medical students invited to attend this year and guess what, these 20 or so med students…they stayed for the full weekend much to everyone’s surprise(!), loved it and want more. Really. At the AIMA NZ conference, on the two occasions I have spoken, I feel a sense of coming home…no I don’t mean I am about to move there (too cold!!) but I mean coming home to integrative medicine.(more…)
Duck duck GOOSE!Do you know this game? That’s how I’m feeling with oestrogen – high-high-high-LOW!-of late. Likely similar to your experience, the majority of my female clients battle with oestrogen dominance, therefore I get so used to looking for it, expecting it: the high Cu, the profoundly elevated SHBG, maybe a raised ESR. So much so that sometimes the low ones can catch you out, especially of course when it happens in women way way before menopause.
We’re so resolved to hear bad press about oestrogen and to be armed ready to saturate our patients with broccoli extracts of the highest order – do we remember the clinical features and markers of an oestrogen deficit and know what to do with those women who simply don’t have enough?(more…)
That’s the word on integrative medicine street. I had a sense this was coming, not just a tightening of our terminology but also a challenge of the very concept of ‘adrenal burnout’. Hear me out. (more…)
I just want to scream with joy…and then keep on screaming with utter frustration! Last week I presented the culmination of months of work looking into the extraordinary manifold relationships between thyroid health, fertility, pregnancy & post-partum health for mum and bub.
The findings are breathtaking: whether it’s about being able to put thyroid Abs firmly on the ‘Must Screen’ list for preconception care, given their ability to double-quadruple the rate of early miscarriage or their propensity for triggering post-partum thyroiditis in 50% of women who possess them or being able to state emphatically that maternal low iodine (prior to conception as well as during pregnancy) remains the number one risk for the thyroid’s healthy transition to pregnancy. The evidence is overwhelming that we need to pay very close attention to the thyroid.(more…)
I’ve been digging around in the scientific literature all about appendicitis and I’ve ended up here. Long gone are the days when medicine foolishly considered the appendix without purpose – a dispensable ‘extra’ of the GIT and now, thanks to genetic PCR bacterial identification, gone also is its more recent portrayal as something sinister – a potential harbourer of ‘bad bugs’. The current consensus about this apparently complex little sac is that it constitutes a ‘safe house’ for the microbiota within the GIT, making one of its key roles the healthy recolonisation of the gut following diarrhoeal episodes and even oral antibiotics. Amazingly, antibiotics that can quickly sterilise the rest of the digestive tract, fail to clean out the appendix, due in part to its specialised and exaggerated biofilm as well as its more diverse and environmentally tough species. Wouldn’t you know it, the strange little sac has a critical role in keeping us well?!
Given this radical rethink of the healthy appendix I wondered whether medicine’s understanding of appendicitis and in particular what causes it, had also undergone a revolution. This condition, which was first described over 100 years ago has confounded scientists and clinicians ever since – I love this quote from a 1972 paper in the Medical Journal of Australia (Williams):
“It is interesting and humiliating that a small organ which in man performs no useful function can so frequently give rise to problems which, if not treated, may have fatal complications, and of which we still do not fully know the cause.”(more…)
Yep, I’ve had them…and made them. I often hear practitioners say they cringe when they think back about the patients they saw in the first year because of the vastly greater knowledge they have now. I do too. But my mistakes are more recent than that!
I know more this week than I did last, and that is a good thing…right?! For me and most practitioners, there is acknowledgement that our learning is infinite, ongoing, without end. This is a source of excitement for me, not a negative. The light-bulb moments are deeply satisfying – those moments when I become enlightened about a mistake I’ve been making, or a misunderstanding I have had.(more…)
Make the most of this special offer! If you become a12 month subscriberbefore the end of January (that’s tomorrow!) you receive 10% off ALL individual mentoring sessions in 2017!
And just so you know what we have in store for you as an Update in Under 30 Subscriber this month: Rachel’s kicking off the year with ‘Melatonin – Misunderstandings and Mistakes’ – an amazing clinical update about what we are getting right and wrong with Melatonin. This podcast answers in particular, one of the most common sources of fascination & frustration for clinicians, the reasons behind the Melatonin non-responder. We’ve all encountered patients who have taken Melatonin for sleep problems and reported no benefit, or initially responded and then lost efficacy quickly, or even patients who experienced insomnia after taking. What does this tell you about your patient and what should you do to resolve this and better still, prevent it? Now we know.(more…)
Have you heard what everyone is saying about the “Update in Under 30 Podcasts”? But more importantly, have you heard about “Update in Under 30 Podcasts”… fullstop?! If you’ve somehow missed out on being a subscriber & receiving these monthly gems over the last few years, you MUST read on … These dynamic podcasts will help you keep abreast of the latest must-knows in integrative medicine. Focused on one key issue at a time, Rachel details all the salient points so that you don’t have to trawl through all the primary evidence yourself. In Under 30! Each podcast represents unbiased education that can contribute to your CPE points and is delivered to your inbox every month for under $13 a month… how easy is that!(more…)
Ask me to name a lymphatic herb other than Cleavers and Poke Root and I might struggle (sorry Sue!) but some other things stay with us forever.One of my stayers pops into my head every time I eat a carrot. Every time I make my partner or my kids eat a carrot. Every time I see those kids in shopping trolleys slurping on those awful yoghurt squeeze pouch thingamabobs and I want to ask their parents…does your child have teeth? Well when was the last time they ate a carrot?!. A whole carrot. Yup.
The standout gift I got this year for Christmas without a doubt was my very own copy of Sarah Lantz & Tabitha McIntosh’s, One Bite at a Time – Reduce Toxic Exposure & Eat the World You Want. Every time I walk past it on the table a strange force compels me to run my fingers over the cover, reach for it to pour over some more pages whenever I have moments to myself and show it to everyone who crosses our doorstep. This strange force…I think is called pride. I experienced a tsunami of this at the Australian Naturopathic Summit and now here is another wave.(more…)
Often we assume our patients know at least the basics about health – especially about things soooo seemingly basic…that we fear mentioning them would offend and make us look like someone trying to teach grandma anything! But there are some instances where I’ve found I have simply assumed too much.
I think the issue of what I affectionately call ‘Vag Care’, is right up there as an example.
Soapy water? Female deodorisers, daily panty liners, re-enacting bad movie scenes with soapy suds sex…what the??? It’s been my astonishing discovery that women of all ages, but especially a frightening majority of younger females (<30 yo), in this time of increasingly unreal ideas about sex and sexuality, feel inclined or pressured to adopt these practices in order to erase all trace of natural odour and healthy discharge. The abnormal has become normalised. (more…)
As an add on to my recent blog, I thought you might find this other detail about prolactin levels (PRL) interesting. Several studies including a one published in 2009, have demonstrated a positive correlation between PRL and increased CVD risk in both men and menopausal women. This correlation, which is believed to be the result of PRL’s vasoconstrictive effects, was evident while PRL levels remained well within range!
Women in early menopause with a PRL level just > 170 mIU/L (or 12.6 ng/mL) had 100% sensitivity in predicting a high peripheral blood pressure.
These researchers concluded that “Prolactin may play a role in accelerated arteriosclerosis in early menopause by affecting central/peripheral blood pressure and arterial stiffness.” Similarly an earlier study in men, again found PRL in the slightly upper end of a ‘normal’ range correlated with increased blood pressure and hypertension rates.
So keeping an eye on PRL levels may also be a good inclusion in CVD risk monitoring and again, lowering even slight elevations, could prove highly beneficial according to the study by Sowers et al 1981. Good food for thought perhaps.
It’s Friday…I thought you might need some reading matter for the weekend 🙂
Does your brain feel like it’s going to explode, spilling brain-juice everywhere, when you do 2 weekend conferences in a row? Or is that just me? I have returned to my desk after the Integria Symposium and then the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine conferences with ants in my pants. I can barely sit still. No caffeine required.
Right now I want to talk ASLM because it’s fresh in my mind from the weekend but geez where to start? I was testing the water going to this one. What would a conference about ‘Lifestyle Medicine’ pitched primarily at doctors look like? Would it be a bit light? Would it be token lip service to CAM with no recognition of the need to also make a paradigm shift? Well strap yourselves in guys because what I heard from their outstanding keynote speakers (Mark Wahlqvist, Michael Berk, Bob Brown…yes you heard right..I said Bob Brown!) were some of the most holistic naturopathic teaching points about individual, population and global health that I have heard in a long time. These 3 speakers in particular were mesmerising – to naturopaths (yes there were a smattering of nats there) as well as to GPs, specialists and other attending allied health professionals (more…)
Fresh faced students, new graduates and seasoned practitioners alike, are forever reminding me of the challenge we experience as practitioners when it comes to instigating real change in our patients health related behaviours … the change we KNOW will make a difference to their health and wellbeing. ‘If only they actually listened to us!?!’ has been screamed by the novice and seasoned practitioner alike. With an overwhelming desire to share our wealth of knowledge, the discovery that information ≠ change can lead us to despair at times.
In a recent interview with Dr. Azita Moradi (Consultant Psychiatrist) as part of our Access the Experts webinar series, I was quite surprised (and pleased) to hear that Azita sometimes spends awhole sessionwith a patient discussing the possibility of change, before even touching on the reality of change. Azita’s discussion surrounding the neuroscience of change and the challenges this may pose in the therapeutic relationship was fascinating, and certainly resonated with the practitioners taking part in the webinar. Azita’s interview was full of clinical gems reminding us that just as in other settings, if we give a man a fish he eats today but if we teach a man to fish we feed him for life. Hand and in hand with this, we need to have a strong understanding and appreciation of how to engage clients in making positive changes to their lives, often when it seems most difficult to do, such as in mental health patients.
Knowing how to improve behavioural change in patients generally, is integral to everyday practice, and its value cannot be underestimated.(more…)
Yep, I’ve had them…and made them. I often hear practitioners say they cringe when they think back about the patients they saw in the first year because of the vastly greater knowledge they have now. I do too. But my mistakes are more recent than that!
Often we assume our patients know at least the basics about health – especially about things soooo seemingly basic…that we fear mentioning them would offend and make us look like someone trying to teach grandma anything! But there are some instances where I’ve found I have simply assumed too much.
Does your brain feel like it’s going to explode, spilling brain-juice everywhere, when you do 2 weekend conferences in a row? Or is that just me? I have returned to my desk after the Integria Symposium and then the 