John Arts Abundant Living www.johnarts.co.nz

I previously mentioned that the highlight of the nutritional medicine clinic I recently attended in Sydney was the seamless way various health disciplines worked together.

At the college we had nutritional medicine therapists, naturopaths and other therapists.

My discipline is nutritional medicine; where we use diet, nutritional supplements and lifestyle measures to correct underlying disease processes. In many cases we work closely with the client's medical doctor, as most will have seen their GP about the problem.

The Sydney college has a clinic where clients have a free one-hour consultation plus follow-up. This was followed by an hour of discussion among practitioners as to create the treatment plan and follow-up. We would write up the client's details on a whiteboard then set about identifying their problems and recommended treatments. We often referred clients to their GPs for various tests and for diagnosis and treatment. There was no ‘us' and ‘them'. It was just a group of practitioners who were committed to helping the clients improve their health.

Our first step was to gather as much data as possible. This included discussing the main problem and then checking major body systems for other problems or clues. Once we have this information we firstly address diet. Because so many diseases have an inflammatory component, we look to stabilise blood sugar and remove inflammatory foods, especially many vegetable oils and processed foods.

We then constructed an eating plan suitable for the person's situation, firstly assessing macro-nutrients – water, protein, fats and carbohydrates. The next step was to evaluate micro-nutrients – the minerals (major and trace), the vitamins and then the antioxidants and other foods high in biologically active phytonutrients.

In most cases we added nutritional supplements to ensure optimum levels of minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and other compounds. To this was usually added specific nutrients at therapeutic doses to influence underlying disease processes. For example, much unwanted inflammation comes from local immune cells over-producing inflammatory chemicals such as prostaglandins and cytokines. Anti-inflammatory nutrients reduce these, allowing the inflamed tissue to return back to normal.

If you are unwell, don't leave the problem until next year. Deal with it now. Get some good advice and you may be surprised at the results. Give me a call if you need help. To join my weekly newsletter go to www.johnarts.co.nz and visit www.abundant.co.nz

John Arts is the founder of Abundant Health. To contact John, phone (local) 578 9051 or 0800 423 559.