Being a parent certainly has its challenges, none more so the caring for sick child. Nursing your sick child through the night, trying to soothe his cough, or bring down her fever, and dealing with the mood swings are all part of life as a primary caregiver.
“A wide-ranging health appraisal questionnaire, followed by non-invasive assessments will provide all the material necessary to recognise your child’s health issues at the causative level.”
Beneath the surface and symptoms, there is much more happening in your child’s body. The foundation of illness is not simply the bacteria or virus, there are other variables involved. These can determine whether your child will be vulnerable to illness, colds and influenza.
“Allergies, frequent infections, digestive disturbances, learning difficulties, ADHD, and Autistic Spectrum Disorder are all health issues for children that can be moderated with the right care.”
Strengthening your child’s vitality, immunity and overall health is certainly achievable. The best method is to be responsible for providing a healthy environment, from the first day you bring your newborn home.
For the body to produce sufficient healing efforts, the immune system has to be robust and operating at its peak. Influences that lead to a declining immune system include, stress, poor nutrition, unhealthy emotional and mental state, and excessive toxins.
For more information on Children’s Health, please contact us today on 03 88200010
How Your Diet Affects Your Hormones
Hormones are little messengers in your body that carry chemicals from one place to another. Almost every bodily process is helped by hormones including your immune system, metabolism, menstrual cycle and reproduction. It’s important to have a healthy hormone balance so that your body can perform these tasks properly – so if your hormones are out of whack, it’s important that we set them on the right path. One thing that can affect your hormones is your diet. Eating a well-balanced diet is essential to achieving hormonal health, and today we’ll look at how diet affects your hormones – and who to contact to improve hormonal balance.
Oestrogen
Choosing the right diet can affect your oestrogen levels. As we all know, oestrogen levels can fluctuate rapidly. This can lead to hot flashes, mood swings and even night sweats – not ideal bodily experiences, really. One way to maintain appropriate oestrogen levels is to eat foods that are rich in phytoestrogens such as soy and flaxseed.
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone that your body produces when you eat carbohydrates. It’s then stored in your body and used for energy – unless your body resists the insulin, in which case this can lead to pre-diabetes or diabetes. Eating a balanced diet that doesn’t include an excess of carbs is important in maintaining insulin levels.
Cortisol
Cortisol is part of your body’s fight or flight response; your adrenal glands secrete cortisol when stressed. While having cortisol is vital to your body, too much will increase stress and anxiety, blood pressure and visceral fat. Controlling your diet is one way to keep on top of your cortisol levels. Caffeine and alcohol have been shown to mildly increase cortisol production in the body, so cutting down on coffee and wine are two good ways to achieve healthy cortisol levels.
Leptin and ghrelin
These hormones are partly responsible for your metabolism. Leptin, also known as the ‘satiety hormone’, is released from fat cells which help to control appetite and tell your brain when you are full. Ghrelin is the hormone that’s responsible for triggering your appetite. A great way to keep on top of these hunger hormones is to add things like salmon and avocado to your diet. These foods promote satiety and stabilise your appetite.
If you want to know more about how diet can affect your hormone levels, it’s a great idea to get in touch with an expert naturopath like Luke Clarke. As a practitioner of functional medicine and naturopathy, Luke Clarke applies both principles to view the body and works alongside you to provide top class health advice. Get in touch with Luke Clarke for a free 10-minute consultation today.
Natural Remedies That Can Help Your Mood & Stress
Improving our mood and reducing our stress is something that every person wants to do. Nobody likes being in a bad mood or feeling stressed, so it’s only natural for us to want to find different ways to control these feelings. For thousands of years, natural remedies have been used to both boost one’s mood and alleviate one’s stress. There are several natural remedies which a naturopath may recommend to help these feelings and, in this post, we’ll explain a few of them.
Saffron
Saffron is known for being delicious when used in rice and for being jam-packed with antioxidants. In recent years, saffron has also been shown to boost serotonin levels – one of the key mood-boosting neurotransmitters in the brain. This has led researchers to believe that saffron could be a key way of naturally treating depression and other mental health issues.
Vitamin D
You’ve heard of ‘winter depression’ when people in cold climates, who have limited exposure to sunlight during winter months, experience feelings of gloominess. This can be scientifically explained partly by a lack of Vitamin D. Everybody feels better in the sunshine – but moreover, studies have shown that Vitamin D supplements are an effective way of boosting mood and reducing stress.
Rhodiola
A naturopath can tell you all about the mood benefits that come with rhodiola. Rhodiola is a herb that, studies have shown, have a variety of health benefits including mood-boosting. It works by preventing the overworking of your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, which is an intricate system that helps to regulate your body’s stress response.
Zinc
Zinc has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities, but it’s also been shown to be an effective mood booster. For example, zinc deficiency is strongly linked to an increased risk of depression and it’s a vital compound in order for the brain to function properly.
St John’s Wort
Another natural herb that has, for a long time, been used as a stress-reducer is St John’s Wort. It’s shown promise in treating people with mild symptoms of depression and can be used alongside other medications.
Magnesium
Magnesium is another mineral that can be used to help with mood and stress. Low levels of magnesium are common in people with signs of depression and using magnesium supplements are a great natural way to reduce depressive symptoms.
As you can see, there are a range of natural remedies that you can use to help with mood and stress. If you’re after expert advice on which natural remedies are best suited to you, get in touch with the team at Luke Clarke. As a naturopath and practitioner of functional medicine, Luke Clarke works alongside you to improve your health in a holistic and non-invasive way. Contact Luke Clarke for a 10-minute free consultation today.
Understanding FODMAP and Your Health
If you suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), it’s something that you’ve always been wanting to fix. You’ve probably tried a heap of different things, seen a bunch of different doctors and been on a number of diets. If you haven’t looked into understanding FODMAP and how this food group relates to your health, then you’ve come to the right place.
Today, we’ll take a look at what FODMAP means and why basing your diet around a low FODMAP intake may help you to improve your gut health and start living the way you’ve wanted to forever.
What does FODMAP mean?
FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. These are short-chain carbohydrates which your small intestine has trouble digesting. Some people experience a range of gut distress after eating them, including diarrhoea, constipation, stomach cramps, bloating and flatulence.
How does it work?
The low-FODMAP diet is a temporary eating plan. It’s super restrictive and eliminates many foods which we’ll take a look at soon. A low-FODMAP diet is a discovery process to determine which foods aggravate your digestion and which foods don’t.
The low-FODMAP diet consists of three steps:
- Stop eating high-FODMAP foods and replace them with low-FODMAP foods
- Then, introduce them back into your diet and note which ones give you gut problems
- Once you’ve identified the problematic foods, you can cut them out or limit them in your diet
Which foods are we talking about?
This is the part that you’ll probably want to know about the most: which foods you have to cut out of your diet. Well, let’s get it over with…
Foods to cut out:
- dairy milk, yoghurt and ice cream
- wheat-based foods like cereal and bread
- some fruits such as apples, pears and peaches
- beans and lentils
- some vegetables such as asparagus, onions and garlic
Foods to replace them with:
- eggs and meat
- some cheeses such as camembert, feta and brie
- grains like rice and quinoa
- almond milk
- veggies like potatoes, zucchini and tomato
- fruits such as grapes, oranges, blueberries and pineapple
For a full list of FODMAP foods, consult your naturopath.
Who should try a low-FODMAP diet?
If you’ve been experiencing IBS or SIBO, then a low-FODMAP diet could be the answer for you. It has found to reduce symptoms in up to 86% of people, making it a very worthwhile effort to improve your gut health and alleviate digestive issues.
Want to know more about a low-FODMAP diet? Luke Clarke is a functional medicine practitioner and naturopath in Melbourne who has treated and advised many people like you who suffer from digestive issues. Combining science and naturopathic philosophies, Luke Clarke cares about your health and works alongside you to improve it. Contact Luke Clarke for a 10-minute free consultation today.
What Can I Expect from a Naturopath Appointment?
If you’ve never been to a naturopath before, you may be a little puzzled about what they actually do. Naturopaths have been around forever and, recently, more and more people are turning towards naturopathy with hopes to aid their health. In this post, we’ll run through what naturopaths do for your health and what to expect from a naturopath appointment.
What do naturopaths do?
Naturopathy is a holistic approach to looking at individual health, focussing on preventative medicine and existing health conditions. Naturopaths look at your body as a whole and treat it accordingly, rather than looking at symptoms only. They use a mixture of scientific and traditional evidence to support your health. This involves herbal medicine, nutritional supplements, dietary and lifestyle advice and homeopathy.
Core values of naturopathy
Naturopathy is based on a few different core values, which you should expect to observe in practice when it comes to your first naturopath appointment.
- The healing power of nature
This philosophy follows the thought that using natural therapies to treat illness is the least invasive way possible.
- First, do no harm
The job of any healer is to promote health, not hinder it. No treatment will cause harm to an individual.
- Treat the cause, not the symptoms
One of the big principles of naturopathy, and one you should expect to see in a naturopathy appointment, is the treating of causes rather than symptoms. Naturopaths work hard to identify what’s causing your problem as a way to permanently control, monitor and fix it. Treating the symptoms is seen as a less effective, more temporary solution to health problems.
- Treat the whole person
Naturopaths don’t just focus on one part of the body; they view the body as one harmonious symphony, each part working together to create the perfect tune. Naturopaths will ask lots of questions about your diet and lifestyle in order to find out as much about your body as they can. This helps to gain a well-rounded perspective of you as a person.
- Education
Promoting education is a huge part of naturopathy and you’ll find that you will learn a lot about your health in a naturopathy appointment. Rather than being told to take medication, you’ll be given a detailed explanation for why a certain course of action is being taken.
- Prevention
As the adage goes, prevention is better than the cure. Preventing illness is a primary objective for naturopaths.
Want to learn more about what to expect in a naturopathy appointment? Get in touch with functional medicine practitioner and naturopath Luke Clarke. Using scientific and traditional evidence to look at your health, Luke Clarke works alongside you to create balance in all areas of your life, in a natural way. Contact Luke Clarke for a 10-minute free consultation today.
What Your Cravings May Mean – Nutrient Deficiencies
We’ve all experienced it. It doesn’t matter where you are or what time of the day it is. Out of nowhere, your body is trying to tell you something. You hear your stomach’s little voice saying “Cheese toastieeeee”, “Chocolaaaate” or “More coffeeee”. That little voice has an ever-tightening grip on us and, more often than not, we give in to the voice – also known as cravings. So, we all know what cravings feel like – but what could they actually be trying to tell us about our bodies? They may be pointing towards a nutrient deficiency. Let’s take a look at some of the research behind the link between cravings and nutrient deficiencies.
Different sorts of cravings related to different deficiencies
More and more research is beginning to show a link between food cravings and nutrient deficiencies. While the opinion has traditionally been that cravings stem from what the mind desires, a shift in perception is slowly occurring in that cravings may stem from what the body requires. Chocolate cravings, for example, may actually reveal a magnesium deficiency and hankerings for meat and cheese could point towards low levels of iron or calcium.
Salty cravings
Salty cravings are something that most people will experience. And how can we be blamed? The sizzle of something salty on your tongue like a cured meat or a roasted potato is a very powerful force: one that’s difficult to resist! If we follow the train of thought that cravings represent nutrient deficiencies, then a craving for salty food could mean your body is lacking in sodium or has low blood sodium levels.
Cheese cravings
Cheese. It’s approachable, textured beautifully and simply delicious. Cheese cravings are one of the most commonly reported cravings. It’s not unusual for us to keep a stash of our favourite cheese and a box of our favourite crackers to go with it when we inevitably get that cheeky craving for cheese. Cheese is a big source of calcium and what your body could be telling you is that you’ve got low calcium levels.
On the other hand…
It can be hard to tell whether your body craves foods due to nutrient deficiency or due to a range of other factors which could also be the case. If you want to know more about explaining your cravings, it’s a good idea to get in touch with an expert naturopath like Luke Clarke.
Luke Clarke is one of Melbourne’s leading practitioners of functional medicine and naturopathy. Combining the principles of both philosophies, Luke and the team are dedicated to providing you with expert health advice and making you the healthiest possible version of yourself. Get in touch with Luke Clarke today and book in for a free 10-minute consultation.