These last few days, during a gap between modules on my MSc, I’ve been enjoying updating my knowledge about the latest advances in cancer treatments. Our understanding of the way cancer behaves is changing and evolving, and with it our ability to influence its growth and behaviour. I’ve been closely following this field for a couple of decades and feel genuinely excited about the things I’m reading and learning. Continue reading
Or why bank holiday Monday might be the worst day to sunbathe ever.
I know! It’s another cloudy bank holiday in the UK, but if it were full-on sun we’d be stripping off, baring lily white legs and shoulders, and wondering if it will shine long enough to be worth getting the sun cream out. Is it a factor 15 or factor 30 day? Gone are the days of coconut oil and tin foil! Continue reading
In attempting to explain the importance of gut flora, I often ask people to imagine themselves as an outside-in planet.
Your digestive tract is densely populated with micro-organisms in a similar way to humans on the face of the earth, though the scale is somewhat different. While there are billions of humans on Planet Earth, there are trillions of bugs inside you – about ten times as many critters as you have cells, all eking out a living on you and from you. And, if you play your cards right, they have plenty to give you in return.
If you are positively prune-like at the end of Dry January then I hope you feel justifiably proud of yourself. Maybe you’ve seen some health benefits too? I’ve heard people say they sleep better, feel more alert, less depressed and can see improvements in their skin and digestion. It’s a great start to the year.
But what next? Continue reading
I have always been mad about biology. From the moment in Lower Remove classroom when I opened my first Biology text book under the watchful eye of Sister Prudence (who instructed us not to look, yet, at page 24 where all the books naturally fell open) I was hooked. Continue reading
It’s three years this month since I wrote The Dissident Diet, based on my own experience of losing three stone, and a pilot study carried out with 16 people who needed to do the same. At the time it was ground-breaking, and more than a little brave, for a professional nutritionist to recommend a ketogenic diet when so many people in nutrition and medicine felt it was dangerous. Continue reading
When I discovered that ‘healthy whole grain carbohydrates’ were causing my worrying weight problem I felt like I’d stumbled across the Holy Grail. That was back in 2012 when I published The Dissident Diet. I wrote it as a healthier version of the ketogenic/Atkins diet with an emphasis on losing weight. Continue reading
I’m sharing this excellent article from Vicky Unwin’s site. With one in two of us in the UK facing cancer this may be something to factor into your election decision making.
Facing up to the statistics around your cancer diagnosis can be difficult, and a lot of people would rather not know. I don’t blame you. No one wants to hear that sort of news, especially when it’s unlikely to be correct.
As a nutritional therapist, I always find it hard to swallow when clients come back from the oncologist having been told that there’s no point changing their diet. Even if we accept that diet is not going to cure cancer, it can make you feel much better and be of great help in dealing with side effects. Continue reading
On Friday, I got some great news: I’m officially recognised as being a trusted and trustable UK Health Professional. Continue reading
I wonder if you watched Panorama this week? It was a gently uplifting programme which explained some exciting new human cancer experiments which are yielding some impressive results. Continue reading
As I prepare for the first ‘Get Comfortable with Cancer’ workshop, I’m aware of a huge bubble of potential. The day already exists In my imagination and there’s a lot of work to do to translate that vision and excitement into the uplifting and inspiring day I want it to be. As well as making your more comfortable, I’d like to think that you will end the day with more confidence, and with more knowledge.
This is such a great explanation of such an exciting understanding of the way cancer works, and the potential for containing it by paying attention to our health, that I’m simply going to repost the link so you can read it in situ.
http://healthinsightuk.org/2015/01/21/cancer-and-genes-have-we-got-it-badly-wrong/
This week saw the publication of a ground-breaking editorial piece in the BMJ by the one and only Ben Goldacre of Bad Science fame. Continue reading
As I was writing the previous post, I triggered a memory. To be accurate, it was more of a feeling.
I sensed all over again the confusion and frustration Continue reading
Here’s what I notice… across a growing number of clients…
Patients who ask the oncology team if diet can make a difference invariably get the answer no.
Patients who tell the oncology team that they are trying to help themselves with diet often get told to be very careful, or to stop.
In 1971, president Richard Nixon declared war on cancer when he signed the National Cancer Act. At the time the scientific community was confident that we were no more than a decade away from a cure; their confidence based on a new understanding of DNA and the observation that cancer tumour cells all seemed to contain significant DNA, or gene, mutations. Continue reading
“We now have good evidence… If you overfeed somebody with fat you don’t increase their cancer risk at all. If you overfeed them with carbohydrates then you dramatically increase their cancer risk. And protein is half way in between”
We could hardly have got it more wrong. All these years you’ve been depriving yourself of butter on your bread when it’s the bread you should have been worrying about!
Twenty thirteen was the year when the volume of opinion in favour of low carbs for health (not just weight loss) was impossible to silence, and when the evidence started to stack up.
There’s no doubt that cancer is enjoying the 21st Century. It’s attracting lots of PR and managing to reach many more people than it used to.
There’s a groundswell of opinion claiming benefits for metformin way beyond its accepted use for Type 2 Diabetes. All sorts of medical conditions appear to be benefiting from administration of this drug: obesity, PCOS, cancer, glycosylation, heart disease and even ageing. Continue reading
Those of you who have been following my progress over the past year will know that I’ve been following a diet that I knitted together after years of struggle. Many of you have tried it yourselves with amazing results. To date I’ve lost 36 pounds in 13 months. Continue reading
Although it might sound semantic, it’s a critical difference. Your weight problem is not the result of overeating, it’s a problem with your storage mechanism. Continue reading
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