21/03/2026
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3 women, 3 cancers, 3 completely different stories, but 1 approach that looks at all of it.
My name is Helen Perks and I’m a Registered Nutritional Therapist with a BSc in Nutritional Medicine, Functional and Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner, trained by the Institute for Functional Medicine, and I specialise in cancer nutrition. I’ve been in clinical practice for over 13 years and I trained in a Systems Approach to Cancer under one of the world’s leading integrative oncologists. I have 100% success rate with GP and consultant letters requesting tests and referrals.
I wanted to share what I actually do, because most people, understandably, have no idea.
This is not about telling cancer patients what to eat, it’s about asking why the cancer developed in the body it did. What was happening in that person’s life, health history, environment, gut, hormones and immune system, and what we can do to change that terrain alongside their oncology treatment.
Let me show you what that looks like in practice, with 3 cases, fully anonymised.
👩 Woman 1. Stage 4 ER+ Breast Cancer.
When I look at a case like this, I’m not just thinking about food. I’m thinking about oestrogen metabolism, specifically, how is her body processing and eliminating oestrogen? Is it going down the protective 2-OH pathway, or the damaging 4-OH pathway? Is her gut microbiome reactivating oestrogen and recirculating it back into her bloodstream?
Her risk factors include elevated 4-OH oestrogen metabolites, high beta-glucuronidase activity in the gut, xenoestrogen exposure from plastics and personal care products, and the impact of enforced menopause from her treatment on her sleep, bone density and metabolic health.
She is also on medications with very specific drug interactions, which means every supplement I consider has to be screened against her treatment protocol before I recommend it. Nothing is guesswork, everything is evidence-based.
Her RESPECT® prescription, the personalised plan I create for every client using my trademarked health and wellbeing model, covers her eating habits, sleep hygiene, physical movement, her internal and external environment, her gut microbiome community and targeted testing and supplementation.
It looks completely different to the plans of the other 2 women below, because she is a completely different person.
👩 Woman 2. A**l Cancer. Post-treatment.
Her risk factors are different entirely. She tested positive for HPV-16, the highest risk strain, but the question I ask is not just whether she has HPV, it is why her immune system was unable to clear it before it progressed to cancer.
When I look at her wider picture, a significant part of the answer lies in her stress load. This woman carries an enormous amount of personal and family responsibility. The cumulative weight of that, sustained over many years, has kept her cortisol levels chronically elevated.
This matters clinically, not just personally, because chronically elevated cortisol directly suppresses NK cells, the natural killer cells whose job it is to identify and destroy HPV-infected cells before they become cancerous. When cortisol is high month after month, year after year, that immune surveillance is quietly and steadily undermined.
Her RESPECT® prescription has to work within the reality of her life. It has to be budget-conscious, time-realistic and tailored to someone who is rebuilding her immune system while carrying significant family responsibilities. Her supplement protocol is completely different to Woman number 1 because her cancer, her treatment history and her medications are completely different.
There is no one-size-fits-all, there never has been.
👩 Woman 3 . A rare form of Hodgkin Lymphoma.
When I heard this woman’s history, a clear pattern emerged.
From childhood, this young woman had experienced a repeated inability to mount a proper immune defence. A succession of different infections over the years, including glandular fever, caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, alongside a number of other infections across different systems. Each one a sign that her immune surveillance was struggling, and then, lymphoma.
The risk factors here are a pattern of her immune system struggling, which had been present for years before the diagnosis. Her immune system had never been able to keep these infections fully suppressed, and the lymphoma may have been the result of that cumulative vulnerability.
What struck me particularly was that despite this history, her Vitamin D had never been tested. Vitamin D is not just a vitamin, it is a steroid hormone with receptors in every immune cell in the body. It directly regulates NK cell function, the very cells she needed to keep infections under control and support the immune system that preceded her diagnosis. A deficiency could have been quietly suppressing her immune system for years.
Her RESPECT® prescription would look completely different again. Her plan has to fit her life, her social world, her anxiety around upcoming scans, her budget, and the very specific post-treatment window she is in, where she needs immune modulation, not stimulation.
This is what functional medicine applied to cancer looks like.
It’s not alternative, it’s not instead of conventional treatment, it’s evidence-based, integrative and always alongside the oncology team.
It asks the questions that busy oncology appointments do not always have time for. It looks at the whole person, their history, their environment, their lifestyle, their test results, their medications and their life.
It also creates a plan that is completely personal, because cancer is not a one-size-fits-all diagnosis, and nutrition and lifestyle support should not be either.
My RESPECT® model, gives every client a framework that addresses all 7 areas of their health. For each of these 3 women, every single pillar of that framework looks different, because they are different people, have different cancers, at different stages, on different treatments, living completely different lives.
That is the point, that is the work.
If you or someone you love is going through cancer and would like to understand how this approach might help, I offer a free 20-minute discovery call. No obligation at all, just a conversation.
Feel free to DM me or go to my website to book a call:
www.helenperks.com
I work with clients online across the UK and internationally.
Helen Perks BSc
The Cancer Nutritionist
BSc Nutritional Medicine | Registered Nutritional Therapist
mBANT | rCNHC | Functional & Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner
AFMCP Graduate | Systems Approach to Cancer (SATC)
📩 info@helenperks.com
🌐 www.helenperks.com
🍲Nourishing Soups by The Cancer Nutritionist
RESPECT® Your Future by Nourishing Today
