Research

Birth canal bacteria could help C-section babies

Key Message: Birth canal bacteria could restore some of the bacteria lost during c-section births
Action Point: More research is needed however a restoring intervention may be possible for babies that have not passed the birth canal
Researchers have begun to experiment with the concept of collecting birth-canal bacteria and wiping them onto babies (born by C section) as opposed to a normal birth where the effluvia is wiped off.

They are doing this in an effort to explore the theory that altered bacterial populations could help explain why C-section babies tend to have higher chances of asthma, allergies, obesity and other health risks.

Obviously during labour, the baby is rubbing against the mucosa of the birth canal for a long time and bacteria start growing before the baby is even out and continues to grow exponentially. In this study, researchers are trying to determine whether it might help babies delivered by C-section to restore some of the vaginal bacteria that they would have been exposed to if they had gone through the birth canal.
It has been found that vaginal delivery exposes the baby to many more bacteria than C-section babies.
While the research is intriguing and the intervention seems so simple, many questions still remain and much more research is still needed.

There are concerns that this work will encourage women to have C-sections, however Dr Maria Gloria Dominguex-Bello, associate professor in the Human Microbiome Program at the NYU School of Medicine says, “the microbes are just one part of labor and we don’t understand completely the whole process and why it is important.”

Her main concern in this study is to determine the impact of not having a heavily inoculated canal and if this can be restored.

With the initial […]

By |January 3rd, 2016|Children, Fertility, Health & Wellbeing, Hormones, Preconception & Pregnancy, Research|0 Comments
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The Secret to Mindful Eating

Key Message: Mindful eating is eating with intention and attention

Action Point: Start being more aware of your emotions, surroundings and patterns when you eat.
For centuries, mindfulness has been used by Hindus, Buddhists, and other enlightened groups to help lower stress, increase wellbeing, and improve decision making. It’s no surprise, therefore, that those looking to make smart dietary choices bring a similar mindful attitude to their food.

Eating can be an enjoyable experience, but too often it’s done out of boredom, depression, or excitement. This often leads to weight gain, lethargy, and poor overall health.

A mindful approach to eating is one of the surest ways to control what you put in your mouth, especially if you make the eating mistakes mentioned above. Read on to discover what mindful eating is and how it can help you.

What Exactly is Mindful Eating?

In a world where junk food now rules, it’s all too easy to eat for the wrong reasons. Quick food and food laden with salt and sugar may be convenient and may taste good, but it certainly isn’t good for you.

A mindful eater is one who is aware of these everyday-eating predicaments, and tries to do their best to avoid them. Instead of focusing on the benefits of fast food, they instead choose to focus on the positives of good food.

Mindful eating is all about eating with the intention of caring for yourself. While you make every attempt to make food taste as good as possible, you do this while remembering you’re eating for fuel, not solely for pleasure. If you have certain emotions that govern your eating habits – emotions like stress or sadness, for example – the goal is to express these needs in healthy ways, rather […]

By |December 27th, 2015|Health & Wellbeing, Naturopathy, Nutrition, Research|0 Comments
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Coffee Alternatives to Help Get You Going in the Morning

Key Message: There are alternatives to coffee for a healthy start in the morning

Action Point: Try to substitute your morning coffee for water and lemon, beetroot juice, chia seeds or bananas and nut milk
Not a morning person? Can’t start the day without a latte?

While coffee may seem to be your elixir, there are actually plenty of healthy coffee alternatives to get you going in the mornings.

Cold Water and Lemon

If you thought coffee was the simplest morning revitalizer, think again. According to nutritionists, many people respond to cold water and lemon just as well.

Simply pour some ice cold water into a glass and add in half a lemon or lime. You’ll find this extremely simple drink takes you from 0-60 in no time!

Acai Berries and Chia Seeds

When most people wake up in the morning, they’re in a foggy state and pick a cereal without really thinking about it. This usually leads to them picking something sugary, a decision that turns out to be a bad one. Sugar gives you a quick energy boost, but doesn’t last long at all. Afterwards, your body crashes and you’re left feeling more tired than you were before. That’s why eating a breakfast full of complex carbohydrates such as acai berries and chia seeds is a great way to start the day. These food items are gentler on your sugar levels and they’re also full of magnesium and vitamin B.

Rather than drugging your body with caffeine, why not give it some actual fuel it can use to get going?

Bananas and Nut Milk

Some people aren’t big on breakfast. Either they don’t have time for it or they just don’t feel like eating much early on in the morning. That’s not a […]

By |December 20th, 2015|Health & Wellbeing, Hormones, Nutrition, Research|0 Comments
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How Good Bacteria Can Lower Your Stress Levels

Key Message: The type of bacteria in your gut can determine your emotional state

Action Point: Try to introduce some good bacteria sources into your daily diet such as Kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, and probiotic drinks
Lots of things in life can make a person stress. Lack of money. Pressures at work. Lack of healthy gut bacteria.

Wait, what? Lack of healthy gut bacteria?

Yes! According to growing research, the type of bacteria a person has in their gut determines more than just their health. It also determines their emotional state.

What is Healthy Gut Bacteria?

Within the gut there are multiple colonies of bacteria, living, breathing, and reproducing. Some of the bacteria colonies are good for you. They promote health and they promote wellbeing. Some of these colonies, on the other hand, are bad for you. They tax the gut and hamper the body’s ability to ward off infection.

Gut microbiota is incredibly sensitive. Small changes one way or another can have a profound impact on the body. Some of the good strains of bacteria you might have heard of previously include lactobacillus, bifidobacterium, streptococcus, and bacillus.

How Does Gut Bacteria Affect Stress Levels?

For years, the gut has been referred to as the second nervous system.

An intimate connection exists between the gut and the brain, often alluded to as the gut-brain axis. Evidence shows that both can alter the functioning of the other. That’s why, if you ever experience bouts of extreme anxiety, you’ll find your stomach growls and you lose your appetite. It also works in reverse. If you eat too much junk food, you’ll usually find your mood changes significantly and you have brain fog and problems concentrating.

Because bacteria plays such a large role in absorbing nutrients from food, defending against […]

By |December 13th, 2015|Gut health, Health & Wellbeing, Nutrition, Research|0 Comments
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How caffeine affects your body clock

Key Message: Caffeine at night delays the circadian clock

Action Point: Removing coffee from your diet or just having one cup in the morning may help achieve earlier bedtimes and wake time
We all know that drinking caffeinated drinks before bed can disrupt sleep. But for the first time research suggests that your evening double espresso delays the internal circadian clock that tells us when to get ready for sleep and when to prepare to wake up.
A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder and the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England shows that the internal clocks in human cells can be impacted by caffeine intake. According to Professor Kenneth Wright “this is the first study to show that caffeine, the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world, has an influence on the human circadian clock.”1
In the study, they compared what happened to people’s body clocks when they were exposed to caffeine three hours before bedtime to what happened when people were exposed to bright light at nighttime – which is already known to delay the body clock.
Researchers measured saliva levels of melatonin, which is a key hormone involved in regulating the body clock. It showed that drinking caffeine at night delays the body clock by 40 minutes. But it was found that the effect of caffeine is about half of what we see with light. The study showed that bright light alone and bright light combined with caffeine induced circadian phase delays in the test subjects of about 85 minutes and 105 minutes respectively.
The research suggests that not only will caffeine keep you awake longer at night but it could also push you into you into a whole new […]

By |December 6th, 2015|Adrenal Health, Health & Wellbeing, Nutrition, Research|0 Comments
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The Science Behind Snacking

Key Message: There is no evidence that snacking boots metabolism

Action Point: Snack quality is more important than frequency and should take into account the individual’s lifestyle
You may not know it, but “snacking” is a uniquely American tradition – and a recent one at that. In most cultures, people do not snack between main meals. Only in America do the majority of people snack. What’s more, a 2011 report from the US Department of Agriculture found that Americans now snack twice as often as they did in the late 1970s.
The reasons for this are varied. Some people say they eat between meals because they believe this is healthy or will help them control their weight; others report eating because of cravings for sweet or salty foods; while some snack out of simple boredom or to deal with unsettling emotions – so-called “emotional eating.”
There is no doubt the latter two reasons for snacking are unhealthy. But the idea that eating small meals regularly may be healthy – in particular, that it may keep the metabolism “revved up” throughout the day – has become widespread. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown no evidence that eating more often boosts metabolism, and in most cases, the added calories from snacking simply lead to a higher calorie intake over the day and thus an increased chance of becoming overweight.

Studies have shown that the jump in metabolic rate or thermic effect of food is not dependent on meal frequency however there has been some research to show that there is a slight benefit to appetite control when six meals are consumed compared to three and eating less than three meals per day is unfavourable for appetite control.

Both the Evidence Analysis Library of the Academy […]

By |November 29th, 2015|Health & Wellbeing, Mojo, Nutrition, Research, Weight Loss|0 Comments
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My Top 5 Hangover Prevention Tips

With summer fast approaching and the festive season kicking off, most of us will be socializing more than usual. I have already been to two Christmas events in the last week! Increasing social events are often accompanied with a higher than usual alcohol consumption.
I am a huge fan of supporting your liver at this time of year and many of my clients take their trusty liver tonic before hitting the vino. Now I have found a preventative product that is designed specifically to reduce hangovers. Revivol is certified by the TGA and features ingredients that support healthy liver function and reduces fatigue and tiredness.
You take two capsules with your first drink and it acts to replenish the vitamins that are lost during alcohol consumption. Obviously binge drinking is not what I am talking about, a few drinks with friends is what I mean. For more info head to www.revivol.com.au, in the meantime make sure you share my hangover prevention tips with your drinking buddy!

Ensure you hydrate and then rehydrate. The best way to do this is to have plenty of filtered water in the 12 hours preceding your event. Aim for 33ml/kilo of body weight, so for a 60kg woman that is 1.98L and for a 70kg man it’s 2.3L. Post event, rehydrate with some home made electrolytes such as icy poles made with 50% coconut water and 50% fresh juice and a tiny pinch of Himalayan sea salt, which you can make up before hand.
Many of the nasty symptoms of a hangover are related to inflammation and the accumulation of toxins. Aim to eat a diet rich in antioxidants and natural anti-inflammatory foods. These include turmeric, ginger, blueberries, green leafy vegetables, beetroot, kiwi […]

By |November 22nd, 2015|Health & Wellbeing, Nutrition, Research|0 Comments
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Stomach Bacteria Shapes Cardiac Health

Key Message: A healthy gut is essential for a healthy heart

Action Point: Take good care of your gut by eating fermented and probiotic-rich foods and limit intake of added sugars
If you’ve been paying attention over the last few years, you’ve no doubt heard that the balance of bacteria in our gut can influence our digestive health, weight, and even emotional and mental health. Now new research is showing that a healthy gut is essential for another very important reason – it may increase your chances of having a healthy heart.

The new study, from the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, found that the composition of a person’s gut bacteria can explain four percent of the variations seen in people’s HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels, five percent of the differences in people’s body weight, and up to six percent of the variation in people’s triglyceride (blood fat) levels.

But during the study, researchers found no link between gut bacteria and people’s LDL cholesterol or total cholesterol levels, which was surprising given that epidemiological studies have found that lipid levels usually have a high degree of correlation.

However lipid metabolism is very complicated and therefore it will take more research to establish the effect of gut bacteria on specific types of lipids, as well as to understand how diet can alter microbial composition.

According to Jingyuan Fu, an associate professor of genetics at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands and lead author of the new study, said that scientists can probably also call gut bacteria “the heart in the gut”.

While the research is still in its infancy, understanding the link between the gut microbiome and heart health factors could help scientists develop new treatments to prevent heart disease. The […]

By |November 15th, 2015|Gut health, Health & Wellbeing, Naturopathy, Nutrition, Research|0 Comments
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    Is There an Easy Fix to Your Child’s Challenging Behaviour?

Is There an Easy Fix to Your Child’s Challenging Behaviour?

Key Message: Pyrrole disorder is quite common however some doctors don’t know it exists

Action Point: Look for common symptoms and seek treatment before it affects your child’s learning and behaviour
Pyrrole disorder is a genetic blood disorder that results in a dramatic deficiency of zinc and vitamin B6. It is caused by the overproduction of hydroxyhempyrolin (HPL). The HPL binds zinc and B6 preventing their use by the body and causing excretion in the urine and hair.
Up to 10 percent of children have pyrrole, yet some doctors don’t know it exists.  Apparently this number is even higher among those with behavioural disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression.  That means in a typical class of 25 to 30 kids, two or three have it and won’t be learning or behaving well.
Common symptoms include:

an inability to cope with stressors
emotional mood swings
extreme sensitivity to light and sound.

Pyrrole disorder can also cause learning difficulties and auditory processing disorders – the inability to single out the sound you should be listening to. All of these are reasons why this condition is often only diagnosed after a child has a difficult time adjusting to a preschool or kindergarten classroom.
Fortunately, there are signs of pyrrole disorder you can spot before your child has problems in the classroom.

Physical symptoms include:

white spots on the fingernails
pale skin that burns easily
overcrowded teeth
cold hands and feet – even in summer
motion sickness
insomnia
joint pain
fatigue
irritable bowel syndrome

Emotional symptoms include anxiety, a low tolerance for stress, mood swings, depression, and hyperactivity.

The symptoms of pyrrole can be exacerbated by stress and a poor diet. However once it has been identified, it can be easily treated with zinc and B6 supplements

Most children see rapid improvement once they start treatment, although they […]

By |November 8th, 2015|Children, Health & Wellbeing, Naturopathy, Nutrition, Research|0 Comments
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How Sleep Can be Helped With Music

Key Message: Research shows that music can help improve sleep quality

Action Point: Listen to certain types of music before bedtime to help you fall asleep quicker and improve your sleep quality
There’s nothing quite like a good night’s sleep. It paves the way for the day ahead, improving energy levels and mental performance.

Unfortunately, there are many out there who don’t get to enjoy the luxury of having a full eight hours of sleep. These unlucky individuals have to make do with lethargy and a type of sluggishness that they just can’t shake off.

Thankfully though, help may be at hand. Research has shown that music can actually help improve sleep quality and speed up the rate in which somebody dozes off. If you have issues with your slumber, it’s time to grab your iPod and continue reading. You might be about to discover the answer to your woes.
How Music Can Help You Sleep
The British Academy of Sound, a prestigious institution based in Great Britain, has found that certain types of songs can increase the chances of you falling and staying asleep.

Certain songs have the ability to relax the brain, which promotes rest.
What to Look for in a Song?
According to researchers, rhyme and repetition help people cross over into the land of nod. Not only this, but low tones and slow tempos help, too.

If you’re a fan of pulsating techno music, that’s unlikely to do the job, at least according to Lazlo Harmat, a German researcher tasked with understanding how music affects sleep.

Your best bet is to look for a tune that has around 60 beats per minute. If you’re wondering how to figure out a song’s BPM, simply search online, or count the beats in your […]

By |November 1st, 2015|Children, Health & Wellbeing, Infant Sleep, Research|0 Comments
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How to Heal Your Adrenals Naturally

How to Heal Your Adrenals Naturally

Adrenal fatigue is one of the most under diagnosed illnesses in western society. Download a copy of my free ebook to learn about the symptoms and how to heal your Adrenals naturally.

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