Nutritional Therapy
Your body is a mass of chemical reactions occurring continuously. Everything that makes up your body has been created because it is a self-healing entity. Day and night the body is renewing and rebuilding itself in steps that we call biochemical pathways. If these pathways are disturbed or disrupted, the ability for the body to self-heal is thwarted which leads to disease.
Nutritional therapy is the prescribing of corrective nutrients and co-factors required to restore these affected biochemical pathways. We use the highest quality practitioner-only products with no excipients to support the body’s natural biochemical pathways and bring them back to optimal levels. Essentially, we are putting back into your body what it requires for correct functioning.
An example of a disrupted biochemical pathway – Serotonin and Melatonin
Melatonin is the neurotransmitter responsible for sleep. It is produced in the following way: The amino acid L-trytophan is converted into 5-hydroxytryptophan which is then converted to 5- hydroxytryptamine (which is serotonin, the neurotransmitter responsible for us feeling happy).
When night-time comes, serotonin is converted into melatonin, the neurotransmitter that makes you sleep. When morning time comes the melatonin is then converted back into serotonin for happy daily living. For all of this to happen, the right co-factors are needed to aid the enzyme that catalyses these reactions that make these conversions occur.
The co-factors needed for this pathway are B1, B3, B6, Zinc, calcium, magnesium, folate, iron and SAMe. Deficiencies of these nutrients will stop the conversions happening at the rate they should and can affect your ability to feel happy (low serotonin) or to sleep (low melatonin).
How Nutritional Therapy helps this cycle
Nutritional therapy is used to support the biochemical pathways in the body that are failing to produce the necessary amounts of particular end products required for the body to function correctly. For example, in this case low serotonin can lead to depression. If you have low serotonin you will have low melatonin which can lead to insomnia (although it is not usually this simple).
It is essential to have a good understanding of the body’s biochemical pathways and necessary co-factors to work out which ones need support to bring the body back into balance.
We’re aware that generally most people don’t like to take too many supplements and our motto is “the least number of supplements for the most amount of action”. We’re conscious of your budget and we will take care to save you money where possible.