The microbiome may be the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Oh my goodness this was a marvellous summit (just finished) which I plugged on my website and on twitter.

Back in 2010 when I studied Nutritional medicine the information I gleaned was that basically an imbalance in the gut was at the basis of all health and disease. But we were still unclear how this worked. Now we know!

The trillions of gut bacteria outnumber you by 10 to1!. And genetically speaking they outnumber your genes by 100 to 1.. Now we know why a human being can operate with about the same number of genes as an earthworm!. I kid you not. An earthworm has around 20,000 and we have around 24,000. This I called the human genome paradox and it seems the answer is in the genes of all the bacteria inside us.

Now, get this. If they are out of balance, and lacking in diversity (due to toxicity, stress, poor food choices, etc) you can never be healthy in mind or body. We are witnessing an epidemic of chronic disease right now that modern medicine struggles to deal with. It seems that because they have only just begun to realise the importance they aren't really tackling the right thing. For instance did you know that most of your neurotransmitters are not made in your brain but by the bacteria in your gut. So they could offer the solution to mental ill-health like depression and anxiety too.

This webinar over 10 days covered everything about the microbiome; what it is (an intricate ecosystem of bacteria, fungi and viruses in your gut), its importance, and how to optimise it. one of the subjects they were talking about was fermenting vegetables - a subject I'm very passionate about as it's something we can all do from home. I hope to start in the next few weeks and will be updating you with my progress.

Happy New Year - findng joy through understanding Human Needs Psychology

Happy New Year to you all.
Spending a quiet day on the sofa nursing a cold taking the opportunity to rest. Now, having a cold on the first day  of 2016 seems a bit unfortunate as I pride myself on keeping well - especially as I am in the business of helping others with their health issues! But I realise of course that I must rest and restore myself by not rushing around today but keeping warm, taking Echinacea (a powerful immune stimulus), and loosening my grip on my need to do something.

I have long struggled with this issue and I know that a lot of my clients do also - the need to be a Human Doing - where we get our self worth from our achievements in the external world - the 'doings' rather than making changes internally. Indeed if you want to achieve lasting change in your life (and New Year is a good time to commit to that - whether it be weight loss, a better relationship or a more satisfying work life for instance) then you need to look at what your current behaviours are doing for you in terms of satisfying the basic human needs.  Anthony Robbins and Chloe Madanes talk of the 6 Human Needs:

 

You can see that the most basic ones are lower down the triangle. I would maybe disagree with some of the terminology; I would call certainty safety for instance. We all need to feel safe and free from pain. Uncertainty I would call 'variety' and this one has led me to end relationships so is very key for me. Significance I have already talked about and led me to the work I now do I think. But some of these things are in competition with eachother - we cannot always have love and connection when we feel unsafe,  and certainty and uncertainty are in precarious balance usually. If we get our significance from our job or relationship and then we lose it, this can lead to much suffering until we find a way to generate this for ourselves again. For growth to occur we need to all these pillars in place in the right proportions for us. You see that it is a hierarchy (much like Maslow's triangle).

 

But most of us have never examined what our behaviours give us in these terms. For instance, does over-eating give us certainty? In many ways it does. Better than the difficulties of relating to others, as it is a reliable way of seeing comfort - even if it damages us in the process... When we see that what we are really seeking is to feel joy in our lives, but it is our behaviour based on an unconscious belief that is driving us, we can choose to do something differently. Our self-worth comes from our unspoken beliefs about ourselves - and mine was certainly unhealthy and led me to overwork  and ultimately illness.

 

So, today, I thank my illness for the insight it gave me and the will do it differently now . I will rest and restore today. Wishing you all the best for 2016.

 

p.s for more information about this work see the RobbinsMadanes website and also my other blogs on the theories of the Human Givens Institute which uses the Maslow hierarchy and has developed them.

Healthy writing

Another week and already much change. When I last wrote i was finishing up writing my essays for my Nutritional Medicine course. All really interesting but the style of essays I am having to write is SO technical and narrow that you kinda lose sight of the overall picture. I can tell you in detail what influences the diapedesis (moving through) of monocytes (a type of white blood cell) through the endothelial cells of a the vasculature (blood vessels - note the complex language of the scientific/medical community which helps to elevate practitioners above everyone else and obscure the facts). And, as part of the medical/scientific community I am taking part in that but I am also trying to distil that down so that I understand it too. What is evident to me is that it's relatively easy to write that stuff without really understanding it. That takes much more time. That's one of the reason's I decided to start a blog, so I could use this as a forum to dissemininate some of the information I'm gleaning as part of my studies.

For instance, I've just finished writing a piece on inflammation and heart disease. Did you know that inflammation is THE biggest cause of heart disease and that cholesterol is there to help and is not the villain it has been portrayed. Blood cholesterol is actually more like the ambulance that goes to the site of injury to repair the damage. What is causing injury to blood vessels is still open to debate but damaged (trans) fats and high releasing carbohydrates such as the ubiquitious fructose corn syrup are being mooted. That this does not sit well with the food and pharmaceutical industry is why you haven't heard it yet. It cuts into their profit margins too much.

Mm, so much to write, so little time. I would love to enlighten you on ways to cut your risk of cancer, detoxification from household chemicals, and many other things but time is against me. I now have a new role in a new company that a friend of mine has set up. I am their scientific research director and writing some of the content for the web-based holistic health intervention. Can't say too much as we're not launched yet but suffice to say it is taking up a chunk of my time. Current subject is Optimum Nutrition. Most of you will have heard of the term but perhaps don't understand it. I hope to enlighten you in future blogs. It's not about your 5-day though that would help. It's looking at food as medicine and maximising your intake of the good stuff - which may include supplements and superfoods. Something I wouldn't have believed necessary til I did the research. What I found out shocked me. I thought eating a 'healthy' diet would just mean eating a few more fruit and veg. Problem is they are full of chemicals and tragically devoid of nutrients unless organically grown. Maybe that explains why the few carrots I grew last year tasted totally unlike the ones I buy from the supermarket. Quality is everything. Food has become agribusiness, medicine the pharmaceutical industry. We are far, far from enjoying optimum health.

Take care and will update soon

Tricia