Nutrition for cancer patients

Nutrition for Autoimmune Disease patients

A brief overview: consulting with me 

  • Where: I come to your home if this is possible; alternatively you can see me in my consultation rooms in Upminster; or we can consult via Skype or an altnernative 'life video' programme; many of my patients prefer telephone consultations. 
  • Preparing for the consultation: You will need to have filled in my consultation form - I prefer it if you download & print it out and send me the filled-out copy; if that's not possible please fill in an online version of the form here.
  • Consultations usually last several hours: From experience I can tell you that cancer & autoimmune consultations are not going to be less than 3 hours long. 
  • Full notes provided: You do not need to take notes as I will provide you with a full written recap of what we discussed in consultation. The consultation is a time to understand the basic concepts I teach you, and to ask any questions that come up there and then.
  • Who should be present: Anyone involved in preparing food for the patient should usefully be present for at least the part of the consultation involving nutrition. For children, it is preferable all those involved in parenting / looking after the child(ren) should be present for the entire consultation, unless privacy issues require otherwise.


​What you can expect: A brief summary of areas covered in consultation 


  • Taking a detailed medical history, review of all diagnostic paperwork and test results; review of patient's current condition and of patient's medical treatments and medications 
  • Research: is there any relevant research in the pipeline that might be of use in your condition; any medical trials relevant to your condition for which you might be eligible 
  • Scrutiny of relevant blogs and websites where sufferers of similar condition(s) detail their experience of various therapies, supplements, diets etc. to add to our knowledge of what may be helpful and what does not work
  • Formulation & explanation of recommendations in terms of nutrition / diet and supplement schedule, checking against existing drug schedule and medical history for potential interactions and side effects
  • Detailed meal suggestions to help patient implement recommendations
  • Providing an easy to read, exhaustive "fridge list" grouping all foods even the rarest by category and using a traffic light system: green = eat freely; yellow = limit; red = avoid
  • Providing an easy to read supplement schedule listing which supplements to take when and how (i.e. how many, whether to take on empty stomach or with food, and at what time of day, for how long)
  • Detailed scan of patient's lifestyle and surroundings with regards to exposure to toxins, harmful agents, sources of radiation and looking into any other harmful influences relating to their condition: this is usually VERY helpful to the patient
  • Writing up of a handout covering the above and the following aspects in great detail. Handouts vary in length but usually range from 20 to 60 A4 pages, depending on the condition and complexity of the patient's situation
  • Recommending further tests which the patient might usefully request from their GP or treatment team; referral letters can be written to support you in obtaining these tests. 
  • Detailed explanation of the effects and sources of inflammation, and exhaustive check list of sources of inflammation from within and outside of the body
  • Explanation of the various sources of toxins relevant to your condition and checklist for tracking these down and eliminating them
  • Review of personal care products, body, skin, hair, cosmetics, and other products - which might be harmful in your condition, and suggestions for improvement
  • Review of household cleaning and other products used and which might be detrimental to your condition, suggestions for improvement
  • Review of sources of toxins in food and in food preparation methods, suggestions for improvement as to how to eliminate the most of your toxin exposure
  • Review of sources of endocrine disrupters (hormone mimickers) in your home and suggestions for improvement
  • Review of patient's worklife and workplace, and patient's other lifestyle areas, to check for potential harmful substances in work, hobbies, travel, sparetime activities etc., and recommendations for improvement
  • By the end of my post-consultation work, you will have a complete personal 'bible' of recommendations, usually involving an "implement immediately" phase and a later "maintenance" phase. It includes a section about what to do if you 'fall of the wagon'
  • Suggestions of how to handle everyday life - how to for example implement the eating recommendations when eating out in a restaurant or at friends' homes 
  • Regarding your shopping list - many patients have looked to buy what you will look to buy. At the end of the handout, I share the most popular and inexpensive options for things as diverse as bodycare products, sports equipment, cosmetics, water distillers, etc etc.
  • What Exercise - which exercise might be more indicated or less indicated in a given condition; CAUTION: do not start exercise unless you have checked with your GP and/or treatment team that it is appropriate to do so; do consult a qualified exercise professional to help you avoid injury.
  • resources for mind-body approaches, visualisations; books and articles pointing to their use
  • How to stay in touch with me for the duration of the protocol and thereafter


If you want still more detail


About my work

I understand myself as a holistic practitioner and I take into account ALL the variables available to me which may affect your health and wellbeing, so you will find that my post-consultation handout will include recommendations not just on nutrition but also on many other aspects from your environment & lifestyle. I understand my work as complementary to traditional western (allopathic) medicine, and not as an alternative. I work alongside traditional medicine, and a consultation with me cannot be understood as a replacement for qualified medical advice. I explicitly ask my clients to continue any ongoing medical treatment and to keep to their medical appointments.


What a consultation entails

  • Consultation visit in patient's home, via skype or alternative programmes (facetime etc.), or by
    telephone. Usually I cover every aspect of a patient's condition in a single consultation which may
    ​last several hours
  • Extensive research prior and after the consultation (see next section)
  • Detailed written summary of my recommendations including nutritional, lifestyle, environmental,  
    (a     cancer or autoimmune patient handout will typically be over 40 pages)
  • Simple-to-follow personalised food list based on a traffic light system (red, yellow, green) & easy meal
    planner to enable the patient to hit the ground running when implementing nutritional recommendations
  • Checking recommended supplements against patient's medical protocol for side effects and contraindications 
  • Liaising with patient's medical team and specialists, where required, to clear supplement schedule against 
    ongoing allopathic treatment schedule. Providing research to support recommendations where required
  • Detailed supplementation schedule 
  • ​Supplement sourcing where required


Research

I spend a lot of time researching every patient's specific situation and looking into ways of supporting them/their conditions specifically. I like to see copies of blood tests where available as these again may help shed light on specific patterns of a person's make up,  which organs and systems are under strain.

It is also necessary to investigate all individual supplement / nutrient recommendations for contraindications, interactions, side effects with a patient's existing drug protocol and medical history. 

I also spend time looking into whether there is any new research that throws up new promising avenues. It can take 20 or more years from the time new research shows promise until an accredited medical or alternative therapy becomes available mainstream, which a patient may only then, and only if the funding is approved, hear about from their medical team. And frequently innovative research is preceded by word of mouth online, if we just know where to look. So to catch this information early, patients may benefit from research into innovative approaches, their suitability, availability, etc.

Other important aspects that need to be checked are drug-induced depletions, as even common drugs may result in reduced availability of particular nutrients. One such example is the depletion of CoQ10 (co-enzyme Q10) associated with the cholesterol-lowering drugs of the statin family, and in another good example the common diabetes drug metformin has been found to deplete vitamin B12.

Such depletions can often be of critical relevance to the patient's outcome. In the case of Statins, which are typically prescribed in heart disease, the depleted substrate CoQ10 is actually of great importance for the effective functioning of muscle cells (and the heart is a muscle), to the point wheresupplementation of CoQ10 alongside statin intake may be advisable (as always, do check with a trained health professional before starting any supplement). 

And as to metformin prescribed in pre/diabetes - we know thatuncontrolled blood sugar levels are associated with an elevated risk of cognitive decline and dementia, we also know that vitamin B12 among other vitamins acts as a neuroprotective agent. So patients who take metformin might benefit from B12 supplementation. Unfortunately, the most commonly available form of B12 is also very poorly absorbed by a fairly large portion of the population, whilst another form is much better absorbed; knowing this you might choose to take a specific form of B12 to supplement alongside your metformin medication (do check with a trained health professional beforehand).


About my consultations

I like to visit clients in their own home for consultations, for a number of reasons, including the fact that I prefer to see their home setup with my own eyes. There are many aspects of our modern lives which can impact health but which we can forget to mention during a consultation, simply because to us they seem perfectly safe - aspects as trivial as the landscape in which you live, the type of personal care products & cleaning products you use, your cooking facilities, your bedroom/living room/home office setup, the foodstuff in your cupboards and fridge/freezer - all these and more I am keen to catch a glance of during a home visit. I live in Essex and have worked all over the UK and in various European countries; the advent of online video conferencing facilities such as skype and FaceTime are making travel less of a necessity. 

Consultations typically take between 2-4 hours depending on the complexity of your situation and the detail into which you would like to enter. My very detailed pre-consultation form will provide me with much information, reducing the consultation time itself. Consultations can be scheduled on weekday daytime, weekday evenings, and a number of weekend daytime appointments are also available, these tend to book up a long time ahead. There is no extra charge for weekend consultations. If you think you are likely to need longer, a weekday daytime or a weekend daytime appointment would be a better choice.

Who should be present during the consultation? Where people suffer from a severe chronic or acute illness that is NOT shared by anyone else in their family, the consultation will be about that person only, but it may be advisable for their spouse/partner to be present for at least part of the consultation. For children consulting, at least one (where available, both) parents may need to be present during the entire consultation; age permitting, the child consulting needs to be present for the first part of the consultation then the child can but does not need to be present for the remainder of the consultation.

Skype & telephone consultations follow a similar pattern to face-to-face consultations. Skype permits a number of helpful visual clues from your environment which telephone consultations do not allow, so if you do have the facilities, Skype or a similar video calling service might be preferable.

Family consultations: It is useful to hold a family consultation - i.e. consult with several family members during the same consultation - when several or all of the occupants of a home are affected. When people share one home, they usually share many patterns which influence health, incl. eating patterns. Note that for consultations involving more than one member from the same household, everyone, including children, must have an individual preconsultation form filled in - Not because I like bureaucracy, but to comply with insurance & regulatory requirements. 


Please see the Homepage and my Fees page for details.

Where supplements are provided or the patient requires testing which is booked through me to benefit from my practitioner discounts, these charges are in addition to my consultation fees and must be paid in advance and before any supplements or tests are ordered.


Where to go from here

If you would like to book a consultation, please email me via my contact page to me with details of which days and times would work for you. I will then revert with possible dates for a consultation. My reply will also include a detailed pre-consultation form which you should fill in if possible before the consultation (it will save us time) - you can download a copy of it here. If there is enough time I would like to have this scanned and emailed to me, or a copy posted back to me in the mail, ahead of the consultation.


Which documents I would like to see from consulting patients 

  1. drugs / medications taken (both current medication and those used for periods over 3 months in the past, going back to childhood)
  2. medical history: your own personal medical history in as much detail as you can recall, from birth to present. 
  3. diagnosed medical conditions for your siblings', parents' and both sets of grandparents' medical history. 
  4. Autoimmune and oncology patients: a full & detailed medical history covering every health event, however minor, going back several years prior to diagnosis. If possible I would prefer your medical history to cover your entire life, i.e. going back all the way up to and including birth.
  5. Note of any planned interventions or medical treatments - e.g. any planned operations
  • In addition, for cancer patients:
  1. Diagnostics: Information on diagnosed stage of cancer, type of cells found, how the cancer was diagnosed
  2. Names and dosages of any drugs taken during past and current oncology treatment
  3. Where future treatment cycles are planned, please provide the planned treatment schedules 
  4. Where the patient has undergone or is currently undergoing Chemotherapy: I require the names of the drugs used in your treatment,  the number of courses undergone, as well as details of future planned treatment schedules (what drugs and what the planned future treatment schedule is)
  • Copies of last 2-3 blood tests, please do also provide older tests where available. Copies of bloodwork can be obtained for free or a small charge from your GP at your request. If you prefer your GP can send them to me directly at my address which will be contained in the email confirmation of your appointment.
  • Copies of any documentation relating to current condition(s), such as any documents containing diagnostic information, letters to you from the medical team overseeing your treatment, copies of letters from doctors to specialists etc. You can email these (having scanned them) or you can post photocopies. Please do not send originals unless you have expressly discussed this with me.
  •  The reason for the importance of this is that supplements can affect the metabolism of drugs (make them stronger or weaker); there are also important side effects such as blood thinning to take into account too. These factors have to be checked before a supplement can be given.Once we start our patient-practitioner working relationship, it is extremely important that you notify me of any addition or change to your drug regimen, even if these are "simple" or "everyday" or over the counter drugs, and even if you were told that "they don't interact with anything else" so that I can clear your supplement schedule against any potential interactions with these drugs. Almost every supplement can interact with drugs and these interactions can impact your health and/or treatment in many different ways, for example they can render the cancer treatment less effective, or increase its potency to the point of harm.Please note that any supplement schedule to be taken during active cancer treatment will have to be approved by your oncologist and/or any other medical practitioner/specialist who are overseeing your medical treatment.