IMMUNE SYSTEM HELP

 Immunity is key to our wellbeing and general health. Everyone knows how debilitating it can be when you get one illness after another. What people do not realise, is that by the time you start to notice symptoms is your immune system has already become overwhelmed and you are officially losing the battle. The attitude of 'do nothing and see how you feel later' usually gives the bacteria or virus more of a grip on your body. The time to act is as soon as you come into contact with someone who is already sick or at the very first signs that you are becoming unwell. As some conditions come on so quickly, delaying by a day could add a week to recovery. We have been specialising in getting people right again for many years, and in the process developed a few of our own immune  

boosting products that are exceptional in their performance. These products encompass both herbal and low dose medicines that can be used to treat illness and also be used as a preventative. With our products, most people get over minor illnesses in a day or so, while others use our products to stay well and avoid the seasonal influenza – after all who WANTS to get sick? For most, a few drops of our preventer at the first sign of illness will see them symptom free the next day. In combination with our herbal products, we also utilise Nutritional medicine to enhance the immune response. There is no point taking all the herbal remedies in the world if you don’t have adequate nutrition for the immune system to mount a response. If you have seen your GP and been prescribed antibiotics, it is also essential to help rebuild your gut flora. It has been reported that it could take up to 12 months to replete the damage that has been done. Our Naturopath Clinic can help you reach your goals. Feeling Great Naturally – It’s What We Do.

 DIGESTION PROBLEMS

In keeping with being the allergy capital of the world, we also seem to have more than our fair share of people with food sensitivities and IBS. The first question – what is IBS? Well IBS is simply a ‘diagnosis via exclusion’, in other words, it is known what it is NOT, but not much more. It's a combination of symptoms that is recognised, but no one really knows what the real problem is. Our approach is to start at the start of the digestive tract and then move down. Firstly, we need to make sure there is sufficient stomach acid to be able to digest the food. One complementary doctor declared that they thought about 90% of acid lowering medication prescriptions were unnecessary and that the patient actually needed 

MORE stomach acid, as the signs of low acid are the same as for high acid. Over the years, I can honestly say, I can only recall 1 patient who truly had too much stomach acid, the rest did not.

ALLERGIES

If we keep doing the same thing we will end up with the same result. Australia has been called the allergy capital of the world, and this is not a title to be envious of. It seems every second person has an allergy to something, and it impacts on daily life. Sadly, the answer from most doctors is a steroid based product. Expensive steroid creams for skin issues, inhaled steroids to help with asthma or oral steroids in the form of prednisone, but so many people find that this only gives minimal relief from the allergy symptoms and over time becomes less and less effective. THE LONGER YOU WAIT TO ADDRESS THE CAUSE, THE WORSE THE CONDITION GETS. Did you know that a sensitivity can give the same symptoms as an allergy, but what is going on inside the body is a very different process?

 Testing for sensitivities is not something the average GP will do. Now you can be allergic or sensitive to anything – it does not have to be bad for you or toxic. This is where it can get very confusing and difficult to find out just what bothers you. Another issue people find is that broad statements like ‘you are allergic to dairy’ can be very misleading. The question in this example is really what exactly is dairy? We assume that this means cow’s milk based products. We see many people sensitive to milk, but not to yoghurt, butter or cream – so a test that individually tests each of these components is essential – and this is exactly the type of test we use. This way you get to build a diet based on foods you should eat. nilabdopain How does your allergy/sensitivity present itself? The most obvious for some is digestive upset with bloating, gas, noisy digestion, diarrhoea and even fatigue after a meal are all signs that you have eaten something your digestive system does not enjoy. This also means you are not going to get the full nutritional benefit from that meal. This often leads to low energy and for some, even sleepiness and the desire for a nap. If you experience any of these symptoms you need to act soon to find out exactly what is causing the problem. The longer you leave it, the longer the list of foods that cause you issues will be. allergyitchyskin1 Other people can get skin flares, hives, rashes and eczema. These skin flares can take anything from a couple of minutes to a couple of days to appear, making it difficult to identify just what the offending food or item might be. These flares on the skin can last for days and all it takes is exposure to the offending item twice a week to keep some degree of redness and inflammation and itchy occurring. Just think, this is what your insides look like with food allergies/sensitivities. The unfortunate others could find that sensitivities causes asthma. Asthma can be life threatening in extreme cases and a reliance on puffers for relief is not the answer. We offer a comprehensive test and can support with herbs and nutrients to reduce that allergic load. Contact us to make an appointment to get an honest opinion on what can be done to help you to ease that daily misery. Our Naturopath Clinic can help you reach your goals. Feeling Great Naturally – It’s What We Do. Products we have that can assist with this condition are Ultra Flora Restora, Zinc C Forte, Adalase.

THYROID ISSUES | THYROID HEALTH & MALFUNCTION

 Thyroid health is an area of growing concern, with the number of people needing support growing rapidly. One figure I read claimed 1 in 8 females have an issue – whether they are aware or not is another question. Drugs such as Thyroxine/Eutroxsig do not address the underlying reason for the thyroid getting out of balance. These drugs are nothing more than a synthetic version of the hormone/nutrient T4, which do not address why the thyroid gland is not producing correct amounts of thyroid hormones. In November 2016 an article was published in the medical news stating that Thyroxine was the most prescribed drug in the US and that ‘overuse is rife'. The most common reason for thyroid malfunction is lack of Iodine in the diet. Many women will tell you, their thyroid started to 

misbehave after having children and this is because Iodine is heavily utilised by the growing foetus. Breast milk also has 40 times the concentration of Iodine than is circulating in the bloodstream. As there is next to no Iodine in Australian soils, it is impossible to consume adequate levels unless you eat seaweed every day. The recent visit by one of the world’s foremost authorities on thyroid health showed just how much Iodine is required by different parts of the body on a daily basis and how the RDI is way too low. When very few even meet the RDI of Iodine, we easily see where problems start. Another key nutrient is selenium. The enzyme that converts T4 into the active hormone T3 needs selenium to function, and unfortunately selenium is also extremely low in our soils. So just like Iodine, trying to get adequate amounts of selenium from diet alone is difficult. The third mineral that we tend to be low in is zinc. Much of Australia’s agricultural areas have zinc poor soil, so anything grown there will also be low in zinc. As zinc is used in at least 200 reactions in our body, it is another nutrient that we commonly see people low in. Vitamin B2 can also help boost thyroid function. B2 is the vitamin that gives you the fluorescent urine. When the RDI is 1.4mg and the dose needed for some people with thyroid issues is 200mg, you can see where diet alone or regular supplements will not get you there. Finally, antibodies can be the cause. Elevated anti bodies is where you have an auto-immune response and the body attacks itself. First action is to find what why the body is attacking itself. Often it is due to another autoimmune condition elsewhere in the body, that launches an attack on the thyroid as well. Regular treatment for elevated anti bodies tends to use T4 therapy only (Thyroxine/Eutroxig ), but totally ignores the reason for the dysfunction, creating lifelong dependency on the drug. There are, however some natural products that can address elevated antibodies and early reports have shown a reduction in antibodies within the first couple of months. Products we have that can assist with this condition are Ammodine and SFM xcell.

MTHFR POLYMORPHISM

The buzz term running through many Naturopaths is MTHFR. Many consider it to be the cause of everything from acne to bad breath. Whilst not quite true, correct functioning of this enzyme is essential. There are many names for the vitamin known as B9, and because folic acid is very different to Folinic acid, I will use the term B9 for the active vitamin and specific names where required. While there are many body functions that require vitamin B9 to perform correctly, having the MTHFR polymorphism is not the same thing to all people. It really depends on what position the genetic abnormality occurs. The 2 positions anyone is paying attention to are 677 and 1298. It also depends on whether you got a bit of defective genetic code from 1 or both parents – the terms 

 heterozygous or homozygous. Taking all these criteria into account determine the degree of reduced function of the MTHFR enzyme – from 10% to 70%. Latest information is indicating about 45% of the population have the C677T polymorphism. So why is it suddenly a big deal? Modern life is why this genetic abnormality now matters. In days not so long ago, diets were much higher in raw leafy foods – or foliage to use the botanical term. Getting B9 from this source bypasses the MTHFR enzyme. In our modern world, food is heavily processed and subsequently fortified with vitamins to make up for has been lost in the manufacturing process. The folic acid used in the fortification process can cause a lot of issues in anyone with the MTHFR abnormality, the exact impact depends on which gene position is affected and how much folic acid is consumed. There is also a trend to not consume much in the way of raw green leafy vegetables. The best many do is some lettuce on a burger! B9 is also essential for cellular repair and correct nervous functioning. You may not be aware of it, but we are undergoing a lot of repair work every second of every day. We replace the lining of our digestive tract about every 7 days and our skin about every 21 days – just as part of normal function, and every single new cell that is made needs B9. Put that into the modern world where our unhealthy lifestyle has an increased need for tissue repair and stress from all sides and we start to see the perfect storm for MTHFR problems – reduced intake of an essential vitamin coupled with an increased need. Putting it all together, we need to be aware if you carry the genetic abnormality as it can have profound impacts on numerous health conditions and the effects of various drugs and supplements. *This is an extremely brief overview of the MTHFR enzyme and polymorphism and should in no way be considered comprehensive. Impacts vary from individual to individual and will be discussed in a clinical setting. Products we have that can assist with this condition are BioEnhanced methyl B, Hydrozyme.

PYRROLES

 Not all that long ago no one had heard of pyrroles, and mood disorders like anxiety, depression, bipolar, ADD/ADHD were chalked up to ‘chemical imbalances in the brain’. In an effort to treat, drugs like Zoloft, Effexor, Aropax, Valium, Temaze were prescribed to the point that at least 1 in 20 were on some kind of prescribed mind altering psychotropic drug. Over the last 5 years, the term ‘chemical imbalance’ has been widely dropped and it has been generally accepted that this is not what is going on in those challenged by mood disorders, but the level of anti-psychotic medications has not declined - despite the obvious lack of knowledge in how they work in the human brain. Where pyrroles come into the picture is the nutritional approach to supporting mood issues. 

 There are a few key nutrients that are essential for healthy nerve function – magnesium, zinc, vit C, B6, B1, B2 and others - but the production of pyrroles stops a couple of key nutrients from getting to the nerve cell by binding onto the nutrient and making it unavailable – essentially one part of your body is robbing another part. The more this process occurs, the more starved the entire nervous system is and the more severe the symptoms. It is known that stress increases the production of pyrroles and this is the exact time you need to have all of those nutrients available to you. So what we begin to see is a clinical worsening of symptoms. One of those nutrients bound up by the pyrroles is zinc. In it’s simplest explanation – we need zinc and there is not a lot of zinc in our soils, therefore not much in our food. We need zinc for good mood, immunity, taste and smell, tissue repair, growth, digestion and more – so it is certainly a nutrient in demand. As we get stressed, and pyrroles bind up zinc, our digestion goes off, repair of the gut lining suffers, our immune system declines, we get an imbalance of zinc and copper and viola – low mood, poor behaviour and feeling rotten in general. Treatment at this stage is by using the right nutritional supplements. Generally it takes 3 to 6 months to see the benefits of nutritional therapy, it could be quicker or longer – there is no way of knowing just how well each individual will respond. As levels of nutrients improve, we find what the most appropriate maintenance dosage is. At this time, the only treatment for elevated pyrroles is life-long supplementation. We have seen some spectacular improvements in mood and demeanor just by understanding how to use these key nutrients and where they are essential for correct mood. Products we have that can assist with this condition are Zinc C Forte and Highly Absorbable magnesium.