Charmaine Shepherd

10/08/2021

Do you find that you know what you need to do to improve your health, but find making the changes difficult? A Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach (FMCHC) provides a unique combination of wellness expertise, nurturing support, goal setting, and accountability to help you make and sustain real lifestyle changes—no matter how big, small, or difficult those changes are.
Read more to find out what people are saying about Joanna, our health coach.

Engaging with a health coach can really empowers us all, by giving us the skills, knowledge, and confidence to become more active in managing personal well-being and overall health.

10/08/2021

SIBO or Small Intestinal Bowel Overgrowth is commonly seen in our practice and can wreak havoc throughout the body including skin and arthritic problems. Antibiotics are often offered but the recurrance rate is great if not treated by looking at the underlying reasons why it has developed.

Nutrition interventions that reduce the fermentation of carbohydrates in the gut can help restore a healthy balance among gut bacteria. Of the many choices for treating small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), which food plans work best for restoring balance in the gut microbiome?

10/08/2021

Periodontitis is a risk factor for not only coronary heart disease but also Alzheimer's disease. Find out here why we tend to ask about oral health when our patients present with any inflammatory condition.

Oral exams can reveal signs and symptoms of more than 90% of systemic diseases. However, in spite of these associations, some researchers feel there is a lack of awareness in the healthcare community on their possible importance. What do Functional Medicine practitioners look for within the oral cav...

20/07/2021

A new study on vitamin D and opioid addiction offers a window of hope for the millions of people worldwide suffering from opioid use disorder.

30/06/2021

Vaginal odour worrying you? Read on...

Contra to marketing strategies and perpetuated myths your va**na and v***a doesn't have to smell like flowers. Everyone can smell different and different times of the month and life stages might reveal new odours that are still considered perfectly normal.

Just like any other part of your body that can get hot and sweaty and has microbial inhabitants the vulvova**nal area can generate an odour. Sometimes this just means you need a wash (..just like underarms). Other times odour can indicate that inside the va**na a bacteria has taken up dominance.

Both beneficial and not so beneficial microbes can impact odour. Usually the production of metabolites by bacteria called biogenic amines are responsible for the smell.Clinically I always ask what it smells like- often a really hard question...how do you describe smell.

Not every odour is BV. Below is a rough guide but of course specific microbes and individual smell perception may mean what you notice is slightly different.

Fishy odour associated with the anaerobic microbes of Bacterial Vaginosis (lots of stigma surrounding this one- can be very subtle or very strong depending on the microbe and the imbalance). Watery/gushy grey/white discharge.

Rotten Odour associated with aerobic vaginitis. This odour is often wrongly labelled BV but the microbes and symptoms are different. More inflammation, redness and often a coloured discharge (yellow or green).

Sweet/yeasty associated with fungal imbalance like Vulvova**nal Candidiasis (Candida). Inflammation and itch is high and there is a white often cheesy chunky discharge.

Musky discharge. This one is often subtle and can be associated with the changes of menopause or estrogen decline. Can be new normal or be associated with symptoms like wet discharge and discomfort.

Ammonia smell can indicate quite specific microbes like Ureaplasma or a urinary incontinence issue often co-existing with a atrophy/estrogen lows.

There are also subtleties to these smells that microbiome sampling is starting to connect. Grassy, buttery, acidic but generally the ones above are common.
**naldysbiosis **nalhealth

27/06/2021

The oral microbiome and fertility. A very interesting read.

This article focuses on the intimate relationship between the oral microbiome and fertility and how optimisation of oral health is a tool that we can harness to help us to ...

27/06/2021

Our oral microbiome plays such an important role in the prevention or development of many diseases. Many of you will be aware of the link between oral microbes and heart disease and cognitive decline but did you know that even prostate disease can be contributed to our oral microbes?

Nowadays, human microbiome research is rapidly growing and emerging evidence has witnessed the critical role that oral microbiome plays in the process of human health and disease. Oral microbial dysb...

16/06/2021

There's a lot of confusion about ketogenic diets and a lot of really dangerous advice out there. However, a ketoflex approach brings so many great benefits which we see in the blood tests that we use to track our patients. It's not for everyone, but in the right conditions, can be a game-changer for health.

The “state of ketosis,” achieved by adhering to a ketogenic diet, has been shown to exert a protective action against neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and more.

09/06/2021

One of the fundamental things we emphasize in our cognitive clinic. Nutrition is key to maintaining optimal brain health.

Nutrition is a key modulator of cognitive health. This is especially true for patients with a family history or increased genetic risk for neurodegeneration.

07/06/2021

Gut microbiome testing can be very valuable for people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. This is a great article explaining the connection between the microbes that inhabit us and health.

Studies in C. elegans also showed that some bacteria produce compounds that counteract the effects of the "bad" bacteria.

05/06/2021

"Gut Microbiome Linked to Breast Microbiome and Breast Cancer"
People are often surprised when we recommend gut microbiome testing for a varietyif health conditions. However, so many health processes that involve inflammation or immune responses are dependent on the health of our gut ecosystems!

Diet, including fish oil supplements, have been shown to alter the breast microbiome and breast cancer tumors.