What is Nutritional Medicine?

Nutrition is as old as humanity, and food is the original medicine.  Ancient peoples relied on traditional knowledge passed down through the generations, combined with a lot of trial and error, to help them work out which foods helped to treat which conditions. In the modern era, we have the benefit of science to help us understand how nutrients and food components are used in the body, so that we can use them to treat a wide range of conditions in a precise way. Nutritional medicine uses these food-based compounds to help your body heal itself. Here’s how.

Nutritional Medicine is About Body Chemistry

Nutritional medicine is the art and science of balancing body chemistry.

It is based on the knowledge that all of our bodily functions are controlled by finely tuned chemical reactions.

These chemical reactions happen every second as we:

• breathe;
• speak;
• think;
• digest;
• process information and react to it; and
• do everything else.

Each one of these reactions involves many different chemical molecules – molecules which must be made correctly, in the correct amounts, so that the body can do what it needs to do.

What are these molecules made of? Things we get from food, water and air. That’s it.

The body can’t make the molecules it needs, if the ingredients aren’t there!

Our body can only work if it has the right amount of the basic building blocks to form the right molecules with. These ‘basic building blocks’ include elements that we are supposed to obtain through our food, water and air. That means we’re talking about things like:

• vitamins;
• minerals;
• proteins;
• fats;
• oxygen; and
• helpful microbes.

Nutritional Medicine is Personalised – Everyone is Different

Some people have higher needs than normal for particular building blocks, and therefore aren’t getting enough.  Some people have lower than normal supply of these building blocks.

This can happen for a number of reasons.  It could be because of genetic mutations, extra stress, toxins in the environment, poor diet, poor digestion and absorption or faster excretion.

So …. if your building blocks are out of balance:

• your body can’t make the molecules it needs, so:
  • the chemical reactions can’t proceed properly, so
    • your body and brain can’t do what they should, so
      • you feel sick. Or tired. Or unreasonably angry/anxious/depressed.

In short – you’re not well.

So as you can see, getting these building blocks working properly is pretty important if you want to feel well.

There are no diseases that are not affected by these issues – not one.

How can Nutritional Medicine Help?

Nutritional medicine aims to find out where a person has higher needs, or lower supply, of the body’s building blocks.  Once identified, nutritional medicine looks to rebalance the building blocks as needed.

Sometimes we can tell what is needed based on symptoms alone.

Other times, we may need to conduct tests to figure out what’s going on.  That might include analysing:

• blood;
• hair;
• urine; or
• saliva,

for genetics or vitamin levels, amongst other things.

Testing can be helpful, but is never forced on anyone.

Nutritional Medicine is Holistic (we look at the whole person)

Nutritional Medicine addresses biochemistry, but we approach this by taking the whole person into consideration. It’s not all about tests and tablets.

Very often, simple lifestyle and dietary changes can make a world of difference to a person’s health.

So while we are balancing biochemistry, we do this in a holistic way by considering how your whole life affects your biochemistry and therefore your health.  That might include a look at:

1. who you live with;
2. how you feel;
3. when you eat;
4. even your spiritual practices.

When you see a nutritional medicine practitioner, we will treat you as a whole human being – not as a test result.

Your prescription will reflect this as we will make dietary and lifestyle recommendations, along with supplements if necessary.