The snack size one: brain retraining for chronic illness, seed oils update, breakfast trifle and more…Enjoy x
Hi everyone, happy warm Thursday! I hope you are keeping cool. Remember: frozen berries and frozen juice or coconut water lollies/bottle of cold water in the fridge. Wet the back of your neck and wrists regularly to keep blood temperatures down. I am glued to my desk fan, which is small, but surprisingly effective and quiet. Like this one.
Meantime, thank you for those of you who got in touch to say you really liked the new herbals and essential oils sections on the shop. It takes a lot of work to find the really good stuff in amongst the ‘good-looking but not very effective’ products out there, so it makes me smile when you like what I’m doing. More to come – just working on base ingredient suppliers and choosing supplement suppliers for you – which is a BIIIIG job!
Newsletter Follow-Ups
Following up on a note I put about PCBs here:
Subscriber K asked what you do about them then? Good question. You have to make sure you can detox them effectively – that your hepatic detox is working well, stop exposure obvs and take protective measures like ensuring enough glutathione. Check my detox factsheet here to start with.
Pizzorno is doing a lot of work on it and I really rate him. This interview, for example. But I also have his seminal book on the subject. The Toxin Solution. In fact, I think I have every book he has ever written or co-authored!
More on the seed oils debate
Following up on the seed oils article from last issue, I see Dr Bruce Hoffman has waded in on it – another clinician I really rate. Happily, he said almost the same as me (taking a bow). He finds more people with omega 6 issues than Omega 3 now, which chimes with my clinical experience. In summary:
Omega-6s are not the problem. Damaged, processed fats are. When you integrate fats properly, they restore what chronic illness and modern diets have stripped away: membrane intelligence, mitochondrial stability, and immune resilience.
This is the architecture of biological coherence. And it begins with restoring lipid intelligence.
I can’t find a way to link here to his email on the subject – join his newsletter if you want to read it. I will give you some of the guidelines he gave though:
1.Choose Oils with Integrity
Use cold-pressed, unrefined oils from whole food sources: Pumpkin seed, blackcurrant, borage, sunflower (non-hybridized), hemp, and evening primrose.
Avoid: Anything bleached, deodorized, solvent-extracted, or heat-processed.
2.Eat Fats in Their Whole Food Form
Raw nuts and seeds
Pasture-raised egg yolks
Organic poultry skin
Small amounts of organ meats (a clean source of AA)
3.Supplement with Precision, Not Hype [I’ve added links here to help, Ed]
For omega-6s, I use BodyBio Balance Oil, formulated to reflect the natural 4:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio found in healthy cell membranes.
For GLA, I use BodyBio Evening Primrose Oil to support prostaglandin balance and immune signaling.
[Ed: If in doubt, go for a balanced supplement as I said in the last issue.]
4. Skip the Capsules & Eat the Fish
For Omega-3s, I don’t generally recommend fish oil supplements. Instead, I recommend wild-caught sardines, anchovies, and salmon, 5-6 times per week.
For sensitive patients, especially those with MCAS, avoid tinned, smoked, or pickled fish due to histamine load. Caviar is an excellent option: clean, stable, and rich in both EPA and DHA, with added neuroprotective benefits. [Ed. Caviar – interesting, that’s a new one on me – also not in my price range!]
5. Test, Don’t Guess
I measure fatty acid levels, assess dietary intake, and correct imbalances gradually. I don’t just use simple omega-3 indexes, but detailed lipidomics… For sensitive patients, such as those with MCAS, mold illness, or methylation issues, we introduce omega-6s slowly and in clean forms, often stabilizing them before introducing omega-3s. [Ed- Again, interesting, I shall have to look into why that might be.]
Of course, I then went off to check I have good fatty acid testing on the shop – I have (of course – it’s honestly a full time job keeping up with this ever-evolving field of medicine!). I list the Genova red blood cell one because RBC is the most accurate and reflects levels over time, not what you just ate. Plasma tests recent ingestion, red blood cell tests several months’ status.
In fact, whilst I was on the Nutrient Tests page, I took the time to update it to reflect the best tests available for us, so do have a peek. Checking your magnesium, vitamin D, fatty acid, toxic metals etc is really not as easy as you’d think!
Subscriber Question: Brain Programmes – which is best?
Subscriber V asked this the other day. This will take a LOT of research and I’m currently down a massive rabbit hole assessing some of the new contenders available!
What is a brain programme you ask?
Well, it is based on the theory that many chronic illnesses – especially the syndromes like ME, MCAS, fibromyalgia, food and chemical sensitivity, Long Covid, anxiety and depression, migraine – are caused or exacerbated by brains and nervous systems that are not working as well as they should, possibly because of a trigger (like trauma, childhood neglect, major stress, a virus, infection, exposure to something like a chemical or mould etc).
The nervous system becomes ‘dysregulated’, the cell danger response in cells becomes stuck in an inflammatory stage and the amygdala becomes hyper and switched on too high so you respond to stressors etc in a much worse way than others might. The brain programmes are all about teaching you how to re-regulate the nervous system, unstick the cell danger response and turn the amygdala switch down, changing thought patterns with neuroplasticity techniques; basically calming the whole system down. Things like my MCAS are made MUCH worse by a nervous system that has gone ‘offline’ if you like. You can read more about it on my Trauma-triggered illness/ACE disorders and Central Sensitivity Syndrome factsheets.
It became such a big, fascinating and REALLY important subject the more I found out about it, I ended up writing about brain retraining programmes and what I had to do to get better in the Healing Plan because the ones available didn’t really help me at the time. I thought they were great on certain aspects, but I added a lot of other techniques to them, and they made me crash as I clearly wasn’t ready for that level of work.
Happily, things seem to have moved on since then and ones like Gupta (use code PUREHEALTH to get a discount) and DNRS have been updated to include things like somatics and re-regulation, but there are also some new, more comprehensive programmes that look good on a first peek.
Trying to compare them though is not easy – as I discovered last time! – as you have to sign up and pay before you really get to see what’s in them. That said, one of the programmes has accepted me on some practitioner training, which is very generous of them, so I’m off doing that currently. It will help me by doing it – my neuro inflammation and nervous system dysregulation is massively up since perfume gate – a sign I need to go back and do some brain and nervous system work. I always think I’m on top of it, take my eye off the ball and, wham, it gets me again. This time, though, I recognise the clues! Wish me luck!
Polyflu Tabs
It’s that time of year again when I would usually ask for orders for your homeopathic flu tabs. However, as I explained last year, these will no longer be available due to a change in Belgian regulations where they are made. So, I thought I’d remind you about the GunaComplex n1 alternative in case, which you can buy direct.
It doesn’t work in the same way as Poly flu, which was manufactured every year to include homeopathic forms of the most recent flu strains, but it works as an immune support to prevent flu infection.
Pillules are sucrose so suitable for TGFs and dairy intolerants.
From Guna:
“Prevention: 1 dose a week for at least 6 weeks starting from September to October. It offers an excellent protection against influenzal and para-influenzal viruses.
Treatment: start during the first 12-24 hours from the onset of the pathology, to treat the symptoms of cold and flu: 1 dose every 6-8 hours till remission of the acute phase.”
Video how to take it here.
And finally…got on really well with my silk mask, thank you for asking. Light and works effectively enough for me, so I’m no longer waking up at 4am and lying there with my eyes burning from the sunlight – despite TWO blackout blinds on the FOUR (yes, four!) bedroom windows!
I got distracted after starting my last fiction book and am now reading this about re-regulation of the nervous system – from the Crappy Childhood Fairy. I think I only downloaded it because I love that name so much! I’ll let you know if I think it’s any good; bit repetitive so far, but then I realise that is part of the actual neuroplasticity treatment.
Foodwise, I’m still inventing meals. Here’s my Breakfast Trifle! A lighter alternative to my weekend ‘porridge’ that I shared a few issues ago. I make a flax and almond high protein banana loaf, chop up a slice and pop it in the bottom of the bowl. Then, I layer it up with coconut yogurt, nuts, seeds, fruit and a sprinkle of coconut and flaxseeds. Is yummy and keeps me full til lunchtime, which is no mean feat, honestly. I used eggs in this loaf – not sure eggs like me that much again yet – so I don’t have it very often and next time I may just see if more flaxseed will hold it together. Any ideas or tips welcome.
OK, that’s it for this issue, peeps. Please ❤️ and restack/share/tell me if you liked it – it makes me feel valued and loved, which is a bit sad, admittedly, but true x
Meantime, don’t forget to catch up on my more frequent little Notes here, use the search icon to find what you need and have a lovely browse through the archive here.
Practicals: If buying supplements mentioned in this article through Natural Dispensary, please use Micki Rose during registration when prompted. If using Amrita, use this code to register for access to advanced products, no need to do it again then: 4Y2AE7. Any questions, feel free to contact me and see Support options here. Tests are here.
July 2025