I absolutely loved the Herbanista course! ...

This was another extremely useful lecture from The Nutrition Collective, absolutely crammed with information for the Nutritional Therapist to use when helping clients who have a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease. Ms Leader said that in Parkinson’s Disease there are nutritional considerations that can be taken into account in all aspects of cell metabolism. Biochemical laboratory tests can aid therapists to decide what would be most helpful. Specific dietary and nutrient recommendations can now be offered based on scientific evidence to tailor-make individual protocols. Her book entitled: ‘Parkinson’s Disease: Dopamine Metabolism, Applied Biochemistry & Nutrition’ covers this subject. She said that the cellular environment can be regulated up or down. This modulation, can potentially support not only the client’s dopamine, adrenal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and mitochondrial metabolism but also general functional health including non-motor aspects. Potentially this may result in improving feelings of well-being and helping the client to be able cope better within the constraints of the disease. Lucille stressed many times that nutrition practitioners should always work as part of a multidisciplinary team and that collaboration between the Nutritional Therapist and the client’s medical professionals is vitally important. She said that for best and safe practice, establishing medical collaboration prior to the client’s first appointment is essential. She has written a book on this subject entitled: ‘Medical Collaboration for Nutritional Therapists’. Her past experience has included serving as the Nutrition Director of the London Pain Relief and Nutritional Support Clinic which used to function at The Highgate Hospital in London, UK. This clinic, with the inspiring vision of its Medical Director Dr Geoffrey Leader, was an early pioneer of the integrated, team approach to the management of chronic illness, with a special interest in the management of Parkinson’s Disease For more information: You can visit Lucille's website: http://www.lucilleleader.com/ Access her inspiring books on Parksinson's: http://www.denorpress.com/ Email her about mentorship programs for practitioners and tutorials for patients and carers: denorgroup@gmail.com

The course consists of 10 hour (ish!) online sessions with slides. There is opportunity for questions in the chat, and Karen always makes time to go through and answers them. Several bonus sessions are provided, including a webinar with Dr David Watts, laboratory director, whose research is around mineral imbalances, their impact on various health conditions, and the use of HTMA to assess nutritional status and imbalances. Several handouts are provided and there is a Facebook group for participants. The lessons begin with the basics of an HTMA overview and understanding the HTMA ratios, which is what is important in a test result. For example, magnesium levels could be within the acceptable range, but if the ratio of calcium to magnesium is high then this indicates there may be a problem with, for example, blood sugar or vitamin D levels. There is a session on metabolic typing, where it is explained that everyone is either a fast (sympathetic dominant) or slow (parasympathetic dominant) metaboliser (identified by the calcium/phosphorous ratio), and there are common health issues associated with each type. One session is devoted to ‘The First Six’, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, zinc and copper, and experience has shown that balancing the relevant ratios with these six is the foundation of solving problems and moving towards better health. Further sessions look at the other minerals, e.g. phosphorous and selenium, and toxic elements such as mercury and aluminium. Again, it is the ratios with certain minerals that are the focus of the test results, and which nutrients are needed to balance these ratios. The session focussing on the nutrition-endocrine relationship links back to metabolic typing and patterns of mineral retention or excretion and ratios, depending on what that type is. This session also looks at iodine. One session covers children, Covid and vitamin D. Finally, there is a session where Karen takes us through some case studies so we can see the application of what we have learned on real cases. Following requests from participants, Karen developed a bonus session on supplements and presented it at the end of the 10 sessions. Participants are encouraged to work on their own clients’ HTMAs during the course. Each test has 2 reports sent back to the practitioner, one for the client and one for the practitioner. The report is clear and easy to understand and recommends dietary changes and supplements to help bring ratios back into the ideal range. Karen is incredibly knowledgeable and presents this sometimes complex seeming subject in an easily understandable way. Throughout she demonstrates her expertise on nutrient co-factors and the importance of good digestion! Probably like most of you I did learn about HTMA while studying Nutritional Therapy, but this course has demystified the theory behind it and the practicalities of using it. HTMA is a useful and reasonably priced diagnostic tool, and this course has improved my understanding and confidence to use it more in my practice. I would very much recommend this course if you are thinking of using HTMA yourself. Annabel Caulfield

Check out this very interesting article from Viridian.

A 2018 study, published in the Journal of Food Science Technology has compared cow’s milk to almond, soy, rice and coconut milks.