Have you wondered whether you should be avoiding lectins? Some consumer health sites caution about the potential negative effects of these natural food compounds, but (as often is the case) there is more to understand. In this article, you’ll learn about 5 potential benefits of lectins and how to decide whether you should be including…
Digestive complaints are common and can significantly impact quality of life. Not only that but they can also often be dismissed by conventional medical thinking or swept into the bucket of irritable bowel syndrome without much relief offered. In functional medicine, restoring gut health and balance is right at the core of what we do.…
I deeply appreciate this important topic brought to us by Dr. Michelle Barrow as she answers questions put to her by our Nutrition Programs Director, Romilly Hodges. This exchange was prompted by Dr. Barrow’s recent peer-reviewed publication – Transforming Personalized Nutrition Practice – a worthwhile read which came across Romilly’s desk earlier this year. After all, personalized nutrition is a core component of the Functional Medicine toolkit. As a profession (of both functional medicine and personalized nutrition practitioners), we need take steps to bridge the gap between currently-accepted evidence models and what is actually needed to support our practice. We need to ask the hard questions; and take the steps to build a better model. It’s something I have proposed before, and I am absolutely delighted to continue to champion. – DrKF
A huge part of our immune resilience comes down to the inputs we give our immune system – the food we eat and the lifestyle choices we make. These choices can either help build a strong and balanced defense system or it can weaken those defenses, encouraging them to flop, misfire or overshoot. If you’re…
Reviewed by Romilly Hodges (October 2020) Leaky gut is often written and talked about as a black and white concept: Either you have it or you don’t. And if you have it, you’ll want to ‘heal’ it. While this is true to some extent – after all, health begins in the gut, and we know…
As you know, here at drkarafitzgerald.com we like to push the boundaries of what we know, and sometimes this means being a little contrarian. In this blog, our Nutrition Director, Romilly Hodges CNS takes us on a tour of some of the emerging research on Th17 prompted by a new paper in the journal Cell, that postulated a reduction in Bifidobacteria may mediate some of the benefits of a ketogenic diet for epilepsy by reducing Th17.
Diet has a strong influence on a woman’s cycle. In our clinic, we have successfully used dietary and lifestyle strategies to help individuals with painful, heavy, periods and other types of menstrual and hormonal concerns.
For many of us, our psychological health is being challenged by this unprecedented pandemic. Even as this coronavirus’ death toll is lower than history reports of other pandemic, this is still a completely new experience for all of us, especially with the constant media coverage that was never present to this degree in previous disease…
Several recent scientific publications indicate that smokers are more likely to be admitted to ICU with COVID-19.
Find your favorite lockdown-compatible exercise!