12/09/2018
Interview the Expert – Andrea Bayles
Andrea Bayles
Registered Nutritional Therapist
mBANT, mIFM, mCNHC
1. Andrea, please can you explain to everybody the difference between a Nutritional Therapist and a Functional Medicine Practitioner?
The professional body of which I am a member – BANT – states that Nutritional Therapy is “The application of nutrition science in the promotion of health, peak performance and individual care.”
Nutritional Therapy practitioners use a wide range of tools to assess and identify potential nutritional imbalances and understand how these may contribute to an individual’s symptoms and health concerns. This approach allows them to work with individuals to address nutritional balance and help support the body towards maintaining health. Nutritional therapy is recognised as a complementary medicine and is relevant for individuals with chronic conditions, as well as those looking for support to enhance their health and wellbeing.
A Functional Medicine Practitioner is a clinical practitioner who has undergone in depth training with the Institute of Functional Medicine. There is a difference between practitioners who have studied ‘Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice’ training course and those who have studied extensively and have earned the title of Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner. A certified Practitioner has undergone extensive training in order to qualify through the Institute of Functional Medicine to gain Practitioner status and there are many certified practitioners in the USA. However, the training is not yet readily available in the UK and therefore many health practitioners and Nutritional Therapists have trained to implement functional nutrition in clinical practice. This provides patients with access to a system that can assess nutrition status and offer a personalised nutrition approach to nutritional therapies that will address the factors contributing to the chronic disease.
2. As a woman of a certain age, I have hit the menopause. We all get affected very differently but in your opinion what are some helpful steps one can take to ease some of the most difficult symptoms to handle?
There are basic pillars to good health and adopting these can alter the way in which many women handle their menopause symptoms:
– Clean diet and Mediterranean diet approach possibly starting with an elimination diet to help clear out any unnecessary toxins
– 8 hours sleep a night of undisturbed quality sleep
– Stress management tools to switch off, shut down and reboot
– Reducing alcohol and caffeine intake to a more moderate level is this is an areas that needs addressing
– Finding support – whether that is friends, family, your health practitioner or an online forum of women suffering similar problems – its good to talk
– Looking at ways in which you can support certain symptoms – there are some great herbs for hot flushes, and some specific nutritional supplements for helping with stress and sleep
Understanding about HRT and the natural approach – this we will expand upon in a separate podcast.
3. I have heard the expression recently that one can be a Fat Burner or a Carb/Sugar Burner. Please can you explain what this means and how we can find out which one we are?
If you are hungry every few hours? If you get tired and grumpy. If you miss your mid-morning snack? Do you put on weight easily, and have trouble taking it off? Then you’re a sugar burner, not a fat burner.
What’s the difference?
If you’re a sugar burner, you primarily use glucose as your fuel. That’s because you’re eating a high-carbohydrate diet, and this means you’re dumping tons of sugar into your body. (Remember that all carbs—even those “healthy” whole grains—turn into sugar in your body).
So what’s the problem with being a sugar burner?
All that sugar causes wild blood sugar swings. Your blood glucose soars when you eat, and then plummets as your body over-compensates with insulin. So you go from a sugar “high” to a sugar “crash” within hours. As a result, you need to graze all day long or you’ll feel weak, exhausted, and moody. Even worse, when you’re a sugar burner, you send your hormones and your body’s response to them out of balance. As a result, you pile on the kilos around your belly and you increase your risk of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. It is no surprise to me that all of these problems are now reaching an epidemic after years of misguided advice to cut out fat and load up on carbs.
Life as a fat burner
In this case, your body uses fat as fuel most of the time. That’s because you’re eating a diet that’s low in carbs, so your body’s cells aren’t constantly swamped in sugar. Your body burns the small amount of carbs you get from your veggies and small amounts of fruit, and then it dives into your fat stores for the rest of the energy you need.
One great analogy I often use with my clients is that burning sugar is like building a fire with nothing but kindling. It’ll burn hot and fast, but you’ll need to keep stoking it constantly. But use a tiny bit of kindling to set a big log on fire—the equivalent of what happens when you eat a low-carb diet—and you’ll be warm and comfy for hours. Its all about the quality of the fuel you put inside your body.
What’s more, being a fat burner doesn’t just eliminate your need to eat every few hours; it’s also much better for your long-term health. When you become a fat burner, your hormones (and we are talking about insulin too) and your body’s response to them become optimal, and your metabolism sings.
What’s the result of all this? Your blood sugar stays stable. You aren’t moody at mid-morning and half-dead by mid-afternoon. You melt off fat like mad and you lower your risk for metabolic syndrome and diabetes.
In short, if you want to lose weight, have boundless energy, and avoid becoming a statistic in the epidemics of obesity and diabetes, you need to switch from burning sugar to burning fat.
4. Many people suffer from a restless night and some resort to night time eating. What is behind this?
Night-time eating has been linked to obesity, depression and people who have trouble sleeping.
Night-time eating may be the result of overly restricted daytime food intake, leading to ravenous hunger at night.
It may also be caused by habit or boredom.
However, night-time eating has also been linked to some eating disorders, including binge eating disorder and night eating syndrome. These two disorders are characterised by different eating patterns and behaviours, but can have the same negative effects on your health. In both, people use food to curb emotions such as sadness, anger or frustration and they often eat even when they are not hungry.
Binge eaters also tend to eat very large amounts of food in one sitting and feel out of control while they are eating. This will impact on blood sugar levels and can cause night time waking due to the rapid drop in sugars during the night.
On the other hand, people with night-time eating syndrome tend to graze throughout the evening and wake up during the night to eat, consuming more than 25% of their daily calories at night. To overcome these desires it is important to address the psychological behaviours that are causing the eating in the first place.
5. A lot of people seem to suffer with flaky, breaking, soft nails. Can you list some of the things to check to understand what’s causing this and/or remedy this?
Nails are made from protein – known as keratin, it’s the same protein found in hair. They are made up of different layers which when they split, flake or break is when these layers peel. Often this can cause them to become weakened or appear to be thinner.
It can take up to 6 months for a fingernail to grow to its full length which can mean that damaged nails or peeling, flaking nails can be related to something that happened much earlier.
So, often basic daily chores can weaken the nail – even washing up without protection can damage the nails but one of the most common causes these days is cosmetic application of acrylic nails and gel nail varnishes which can have damaging effects.
However, if those do not apply to you and you are still suffering with damaged nails, then it may be due to an internal deficiency, especially of iron.
However, it is important to get iron levels checked before supplementing as iron supplements can cause a deficiency of zinc. Biotin is an important nutrient to support the strength of your nail and can be taken daily to rebuild the nails and prevent flaking.
If you see white flecks on the nail bed then this is most linked to zinc deficiency (calcium too but be careful taking calcium supplements in isolation).
6. New terms coming into the public’s consciousness are epigenetics and nutrigenomics. Can you explain where these terms came from and what they mean please?
This is an exciting area of nutritional medicine and preventative medicine. One which I am involved in and have been interested in for some time as I can see the huge benefits to be gained from being proactive in your approach to health and wellbeing. Lets have a look at the difference between the two terms.
EPIGENETICS
Our genetics and our environment work together to affect gene expression.
The science of epigenetics says that your fate is not written in stone even if you have genetic predispositions. Certain environments and circumstances in life can cause genes to be silenced (turned off) or expressed (turned on) over time. This means that genes can be activated and deactivated by signals from your environment including stress, nutrition, toxicity exposure, exercise and sleep.
You can’t change your genes but you can influence the gene expression, the process where information from a gene’s DNA sequence is translated into a substance, like a protein, that is used in the cell’s structure or function. This means two genetically identical twins can experience different symptoms and health conditions due to their different environments.
NUTRIGENOMICS
Nutrigenomics is the study of how foods affect our genes and how genetic variants can affect the way a person responds to nutrients. Below are examples of how nutrition can affect gene expression.
The Twins Study
Identical twins who have the same genes. If one twin has schizophrenia, the odds of the other twin having schizophrenia is 50%, the same goes for cancer risk; the odds are not 100% which is what you would expect if they are 100% genetically the same.
The only difference would be what they were exposed to in their different environments including their food choices.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjq5eEslJhw
The Queen Bee Study
A ‘worker bee’ and ‘Queen bee’ have the same genes but the Queen bee becomes larger and lives longer due to the Royal Jelly she is fed. Her phenotype is changed by diet but her genes stay the same.
So by way of example – Methylation of DNA has a profound effect on how our genes are expressed and ultimately on cellular, tissue and the whole body function. Methylation is the addition of a methyl group (CH3) to another chemical, or DNA that alters its function or expression. It takes place over a billion times a second in the body and can be likened to functioning cogs and wheels which need to glide smoothly. A properly functioning methylation pathway means a person will have a better chance in eliminating toxins and heavy metals, which can reduce risk for numerous health issues. Methylation also helps depression, inflammation and the regulation of neurotransmitters and hormones. If you know how your Methylation genes are expressing (using symptom analysis and health analysis) you are better equipped to make changes to your gene expression through diet, nutrition and lifestyle changes.
7. Can you talk a little about the breadth of diagnostic tests available today that maybe useful in discovering our susceptibilities as we age?
This is a great question and one which encompasses the meaning of Functional Medicine.
When you visit your Doctor and he carries out some blood work, he/she is looking for an already established disease process usually. In many cases, most people don’t have a fully established disease …yet. They are merely beginning to express symptoms of a disease that cause them to visit the Doctor in the first place.
If these blood results are out of the recommended reference ranges – then action will be taken. But the Functional Medicine approach is ‘why wait until the damage has been done’ – as this is when a Doctor will normally intervene once the disease or condition has happened.
Functional medicine lab testing aims to prevent disease before it happens by assessing patterns of imbalance that without intervention will end up becoming chronic disease. It is an entirely different approach to the orthodox medical route which is reactive rather than proactive to health and disease prevention.
These are the tests that I routinely use to evaluate my clients:-
Comprehensive Stool Analysis Assessing gut function is a pillar of all function health programs. The test looks for markers of inflammation and malabsorption making it an essential test for those with IBS, inflammatory bowel disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune issues and weight problems.
Micronutrient Testing Nutritional deficiencies are often at the root of many chronic diseases and symptoms such as mood disorders, depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, fibromyalgia, and fatigue, diabetes, and heart disease. It can also be used to optimise health and fitness for athletes.
Adrenal Stress Profile This test is a measure of an individual’s response to stress. It is also an important tool for pointing to adrenal imbalances that may be impacting a patient’s health in the forms of fatigue, mood disorders and autoimmune disease.
Organic Acid Testing Provides a view into the body’s cellular metabolic processes and the efficiency of metabolic function. Organic acids are metabolic intermediates that are produced in pathways of central energy production, detoxification, neurotransmitter breakdown or intestinal microbial activity.
Comprehensive Hormone Testing For both women and men throughout all stages of life, these tests will help to evaluate the balance of hormone levels in the body to help direct use appropriate support of supplements, bio-identical hormone therapy, and lifestyle recommendations.
Advanced Celiac Profile Celiac disease is an immune mediated response to gluten in wheat and other grains that affects not only the gastrointestinal tract but may be related to other body symptoms. Standard Celiac screening only picks up patients with full blown celiac disease and tissue damage but often miss many patients with gluten sensitivity causing other symptoms.
Advanced Cardio-metabolic Testing Traditional cholesterol testing is not adequate to assess an individual’s true risk factor for heart disease. Advanced cardio-metabolic testing can reveal these risk factors and direct preventive care.
Heavy Metal/Essential Element Testing We live in a very toxic world where we encounter chemical and toxins on a daily basis. Evidence suggests that chronic toxic element exposure can adversely affect energy levels, reproductive function, cancer risk of all kinds, neurological development and function, respiratory, cardiac, liver, and immune functions, cognitive and emotional health and degenerative conditions.
Food Sensitivity Testing This test measures levels of IgG antibodies specific to anywhere from 30-200 foods causing patient reactions. IgG antibodies are associated with “non-allergic” or “delayed” food reactions that can worsen or contribute to many health conditions. It may also indicate the presence of leaky gut syndrome and other digestive issues.
So the theory behind the approach is why wait for a disease process when we can use functional testing to establish current patterns, trends and anomalies in our health.
HUSH HUSH CLUB MEMBERS CAN BENEFIT FROM AN AMAZING OFFER ANDREA HAS PUT TOGETHER FOR US. JOIN THE MEMBERS CLUB HERE……….
