Areas of Interest

My main areas of interest are: gut health, autoimmunity, fertility and supporting those that need to follow gluten free diets.  Establishing good digestion and gut health is pretty foundational for a Nutritional Therapist but not many people realise gut health can be an underlying issue with many autoimmune conditions, and not just those affecting the gut like Crohn’s, IBD and Coeliac Disease.

There are many things that can make a person’t gut lining hyper-permeable, where semi or undigested proteins are leaking through, or the byproducts of bacteria. These things will be deemed foreign by the immune system – and therefore antigenic – and can become a factor in developing some autoimmune condition in those genetically susceptible.

Of course the gut lining is meant to be permeable, how else would we absorb the nutrients and energy from our food! But the gut should behave more like a fine cheese cloth, only allowing the smallest, fully digested nutrients through. A hyper-permeable gut is behaving more like a colander, allowing larger undigested proteins and bacterial/viral products through, which will trigger immune reactions.  So to improve the integrity of the gut lining, anyone with an autoimmune condition can benefit from adopting a gluten free diet, because the gliadin proteins in gluten have been robustly shown in research to make the gut lining more ‘leaky’.  There are other issues that can impact the integrity of the intestines, and completion of the health & nutrition questionnaire can help identify these.

Autoimmunity can occasionally affect both testicular and ovarian tissue.  So when a couple seek help after a diagnosis of ‘unexplained infertility’, with perhaps assisted conception being discussed, we will also support their journey by looking at diet, lifestyle issues, and perhaps investigate the possibility of autoimmunity.

Do get in contact, the support and assistance of a registered Nutritional Therapist with Functional Medicine training can make the difference in many chronic lifestyle related health conditions.

Autoimmunity

We know there are more than 80 autoimmune diseases and the antibodies relating to these conditions are often being made by the immune system as early as 10 years before the condition is diagnosed. The well known ones are type 1 diabetes, Coeliac disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis, but many are rare and tricky to diagnose. Treatment typically involves managing the individual’s immune system which has gone awry, in mistakenly attacking the organ or tissue in question as if it’s a foreign pathogen.

What causes an autoimmune reaction has remained a mystery – until recently, when scientists pieced together the three components that invariably underlie the autoimmune dysfunction:

  • a genetic susceptibility
  • a bacterial/viral infection
  • a hyper-permeable intestine
Autoimmunity

Gluten Intolerance

Eliminating wheat and gluten may seem another fussy fad-diet to those blissfully free of symptoms, but the bloating, gut discomfort and brain-fog symptoms experienced by some people is very real, whether diagnosed with Coeliac Disease or just gluten intolerant.

Gluten Intolerance

Pre-conceptual Nutrition

Diet and nutritional status are recognized as one of the major environmental factors influencing both male/female fertility and the ability to conceive, yet few GPs investigate this and many couples find themselves directed towards expensive IVF treatment, when the problem may be metabolic, nutritional deficits, blood glucose, oxidative stress or inflammatory.

Pre-conceptual Nutrition

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