The fine art of balance

With the increased pace of life and relentless demands that most of us face daily, we are required to become consummate jugglers to maintain any semblance of work/life balance. But what of our health and the delicate balance within? Our endocrine system is like a finely tuned orchestra. It produces pure symphony when in balance as Nature intended, but a discordant, deranged cacophony when not. Returning to balance is about fine tuning and ‘speaking’ to the body in a language it understands. As you’ll read in this week’s feature, it’s still not a language that many conventional NHS doctors in the UK ‘speak’ or have time to learn.

This week we bring you a special ANH-Intl feature arising from Rob Verkerk PhD’s interview with trailblazing integrative medicine doctor, Dr Alison Grimston. Despite being an interview, Dr Grimston tells a good tale. So good, that we’ve given this week’s eAlert over to her, divided into two parts for your reading ease. She weaves an enlightening story through her own personal journey to healing, the multiple challenges faced by NHS doctors in the UK, the reasons why patients are unlikely to find the help they need on the NHS for disordered endocrine problems and importantly, the difference between bioidentical and synthetic hormone replacement therapy. If you caught the extremely one-sided, questionably biased programme entitled “HRT Mis-Selling” on BBC Radio 4 last month, you’ll be especially interested to read part two of our feature.

Hormonal balance is a subject close to my heart having had my entire thyroid gland removed nearly 30 years ago following Graves’ Disease. The result was years of painful lessons in the intricacies of endocrine balance and how few doctors had any knowledge or understanding of how to address it post surgery. Thirty years on the response to endocrine disorders from conventional medicine has hardly changed, but that doesn’t mean that there is no help available or that becoming whole, healthy and vital again is an impossibility. I’m living testament to that having used natural approaches to restore and maintain my own inner endocrine symphony, despite the loss of the ‘master controller’ gland. Dr Grimston has a unique insight into health and wellness and we hope you enjoy reading what she has to say.

As always, we leave you with our quick-read news bites.

In lyrical health, naturally

 

Meleni Aldridge

Executive Coordinator