Nutrition Status

How relevant is nutrition status?  

Your nutrition needs change with your age, your activity level, your lifestyle and sleep patterns and your genetics.

Your nutrition status is influenced by your diet, your inborn biochemstry, your genetics, your lifestyle, your activity level, your sleep patterns, your access to food, your environment, your socioeconomic status, and your habits.

It’s interesting, we expect people to be different to each
other in a number of ways: their favourite sport, their style of dress, their favourite colour, their favourite movie, their choice of music, their career choices, their dream partner and their dream home among other things.

We expect that some people will have common
interests and may even be very similar in some ways, though we understand that won’t mean they are exactly alike.

We even anticipate that identical twins will have some differences to each other.

We know people have different preferences to foods.

Some people love spaghetti bolognaise, other people love roast dinner, some people love spicy foods, some love seafood, some like marmite and it hurts me to say it, but some people even claim to love McDonalds.

In the same way that people have different preferences,
people also have different needs.

And while it would be really convenient and even tempting to advocate for the idea of a perfect diet that would perfectly meet everyone’s needs… it is highly improbable.

That is why I focus on personalised nutrition.

I like to do two important things with my patients, I like to speak to you about your preferences and I like to run a few
tests that help us to discover exactly where your nutrition needs are based on your current nutrition status, your goals, your lifestyle, your genetics.

We then use this information to create the right
plan for you.

How much difference could nutrition really make, some people wonder?

Let’s look at one tiny example:

Did you know that a vitamin B6 deficiency has been
associated with irritability, depression, short term memory problems and psychosis?

And did you know that this is not surprising because B6 is directly involved in the synthesis of serotonin, dopamine and GABA.

(By the way, Serotonin, dopamine and GABA are neurotransmitters- Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers which allow the transmission of signals from one neuron (nerve) to the next across synapses (gaps between nerves). They are also found at the axon endings (specialised nerve endings) of motor neurons (type of nerves), where they stimulate the muscle fibers. Neurotransmitters play a role in the way we behave, learn, the way we feel, and sleep).   In addition to the production of neurotransmitters, vitamin B6 is involved in more than 80 biochemical reactions in the body. Overall, B6 is important for protein metabolism, growth, and the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems.   Vitamin B6 deficiency can result in a wide variety of physical symptoms that are often vague and difficult to diagnose. These may include nervousness, insomnia, muscle weakness, and difficulty walking.   So vitamin B6 is pretty important.   It is possible to get vitamin B6 from your diet, though some people benefit from supplementing B6 (in the right form for their individual needs), and many people don’t consume enough to meet the daily recommended guidelines.    

But that doesn’t mean I would recommend that everyone starts supplementing vitamin B6 preventatively.

Most people don’t realise there are three different chemical forms of vitamin B6, pyridoxine (PN), pyridoxal (PL or sometimes called PLP), and pyridoxamine (PM), often collectively termed “pyridoxine.” Although they are only subtly different, these differences have direct consequences in the body. The body can make use of the different forms differently and this is dependent on your genetics and your diet.

And of course too much of a good thing is too much, there
can be adverse reactions to excess B6.

This is why I don’t like to make assumptions, and why I like to thoroughly investigate your nutrition needs before making generic recommendations.