I incorporate the fundamentals of functional medicine into my Nutritional Therapy practice. Functional medicine seeks to identify and address the root causes of disease, and views the body as one integrated system, not a collection of independent organs divided up by medical specialities. This is the main difference between a Nutritional Therapist and a Dietician; we look at the whole person, not just the disease. One of the underpinning principles of Nutritional Therapy is that it is more important to know what patient has the disease than to know what disease the patient has.

Nutritional Therapists often work with clients who have chronic health problems that conventional medicine sometimes finds difficult to treat. These include allergies, digestive and bowel disorders, hormonal imbalances, fatigue, depression or stress, auto-immune conditions, migraine and skin disorders. Increasingly, parents with an overweight child and/or a child with learning and behavioural difficulties may seek to support their child with nutritional therapy.

Nutritional Therapy also recognises that we are all individuals with unique biochemistry, and that one size does not fit all when it comes to nutritional requirements. You may have wondered why one person can eat as much as they like and never gain weight when another just has to sniff a bar of chocolate and put on 2lbs? (That's me by the way!) Likewise, how can one person smoke all their life and live into their 80's when another lives a healthy lifestyle and dies from lung cancer age 50? It's all about genetic, epigenetic and environmental individuality.

Nutritional therapy uses the food we eat to rebalance disordered physiology enabling the body to heal itself. This may mean eating less of one type of food, or more of another, usually a bit of both. Occasionally biochemical tests are necessary to identify or confirm the root cause of a problem. I use several scientifically endorsed laboratories for this purpose and can carry out many tests ranging from Food Intolerance tests to Stool Analysis. With your consent I will work with your GP or specialist and keep them informed of your treatment plan. I believe that the medical profession and complementary practitioners should work together for the benefit of our patients.

In addition to dietary and nutritional advice, recommendations may include guidance on methods to support digestion, absorption, detoxification and elimination, and also the avoidance of ingestion or inhalation of allergens or toxins. Good health should be a positive vitality, not merely an absence of disease, that's what Nutritional therapy aims to achieve.