Lee Keegan Naturopath

19/05/2026

White chestnut is by far the most commonly chosen Bach flower remedy in my clinic, it’s the best remedy for switching off your over-thinking brain 🩷🌿

How is your mental health? Do you ever notice how your thoughts and your emotions become entangled by over-thinking?

As it is Mental Health Awareness Week, take a look at the Bach Flowers and identify which of the 38 are best suited to your own situation. With the right match, you will find a gentle means of support in restoring your peace of mind.

For example, here in the UK the glorious White Chestnut is in bloom. Dr Bach described this remedy in The Twelve Healers as:

"For those who cannot prevent thoughts, ideas, arguments which they do not desire from entering their minds. Usually at such times when the interest of the moment is not strong enough to keep the mind full.
Thoughts which worry and will remain, or if for a time thrown out, will return. They seem to circle round and round and cause mental torture.
The presence of such unpleasant thoughts drives out peace and interferes with being able to think only of the work or pleasure of the day."

If, for example you are mentally replaying every interaction arising out of a stressful situation, or had a disagreement that remains unresolved, this would indicate White Chestnut. Whereas Vervain can have a busy mind from having too many projects to deal with at the same time, or Impatiens overactive thoughts fuelled by their frustration at others, or Cherry Plum feeling like they are losing control of their thoughts.

A way to distinguish the remedies is to note the group headings that Dr Bach assigned to different flowers. White Chestnut is in the group for 'Insufficient Interest in Present Circumstances'. So if your thoughts preoccupy you, and you're unable to focus on the here and now, reach for White Chestnut. (Other remedies in that group are Clematis, Honeysuckle, Wild Rose, Olive, Mustard and Chestnut Bud - each with distinctive qualities).

While on my daily walk, I saw these two White Chestnut trees touching (like both sides of the brain) with the pathway between them. To me, it felt like a perfect metaphor to reclaim the path to clarity and peace. It does exist... 🌺

How has White Chestnut helped you?🌺

19/05/2026

🌿💗

Hippocrates, the "father of medicine," had it right. He believed that "nature itself is the best physician" (or vis medicatrix naturae). 🌳

Herbal medicine is the oldest system of healing shaped by generations of observation, experience and connection with the natural world.

A tradition that continues to inform modern practice.

19/05/2026

💛🌿

Mainstream science is beginning to arrive at a conclusion long held by natural therapists and integrative clinicians: complex chronic diseases cannot be solved by targeting a single pathway. Now, in a striking shift, leading Chinese scientists are explicitly calling for a complete rethink of Alzheimer disease treatment, moving beyond reductionist models toward a systems-level understanding of the disorder.

Alzheimer disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder marked by memory loss, cognitive decline, and behavioural disruption that ultimately erodes independence and quality of life. Despite major investment and recent small advances, including amyloid-targeting drugs like lecanemab and donanemab, the core problem remains unsolved: these therapies may slow aspects of pathology, but they do not reverse cognitive decline or restore normal brain function. The reason is increasingly clear: AD is not driven by a single mechanism.

In a major review led by Professor Yan-Jiang Wang, AD is reframed as a “multifactorial architecture” involving amyloid-beta accumulation, tau pathology, genetic susceptibility (including APOE ε4), and the biology of ageing itself—mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence and DNA damage. Crucially, their review highlights that the disease also extends beyond the brain. Systemic drivers such as insulin resistance, hypertension, and gut microbiome disturbances are now flagged as active participants in disease progression, not just background noise.

The implication is profound: AD must be treated as a network disorder. The authors urgently call for integrated, multi-target strategies, combining therapies across pathways, guided by early biomarkers like plasma pTau217 and enabled by advanced models such as human brain organoids. This is a decisive break from the “one drug, one target” paradigm. The proposed shift also reframes prevention, highlighting that modifying systemic drivers early, long before cognitive symptoms emerge, may be the most powerful lever we have to delay or even avoid disease onset. If successful, it will redefine AD not as a condition waiting for the elusive silver bullet, but as one requiring coordinated, system-wide intervention to stabilise and restore function. Sounds like Functional Herbal Therapy to me.

For more information see:
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-call-for-a-complete-rethink-of-alzheimers-treatment/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41627667/

18/05/2026

In case you haven’t already guessed, one of my favourite herbs is gotu kola (Centella asiatica). This unassuming w**d is a quiet testament to the profound power sometimes concealed within humble origins. Gotu kola bridges traditional wisdom and modern validation, demonstrating clinically proven capacities to restore microcirculatory integrity, enhance collagen architecture and regeneration, and refine connective tissue function. My next two posts reveal how this herb’s therapeutic potential has just been taken to an entirely new level, underpinned by some truly remarkable clinical findings.

Atherosclerotic plaques are fatty build-ups in our artery walls. But more than that, they can be thought of as chronic wounds in the arterial lining, driving the entire cascade of arterial disease, from impaired flow through to heart attacks and strokes. They differ not just in size, but in structure and composition and this strongly influences their risk profile. Using high-resolution ultrasound (including grey-scale imaging), clinicians can assess plaque volume, shape, density and uniformity. On this imaging, denser, more fibrous plaques appear brighter or “white” (echogenic) and tend to be more stable. Softer, lipid-rich plaques appear darker or “black” (echolucent) and are more prone to rupture, thrombosis and embolisation, leading to hard cardiovascular events. This difference is reflected in the underlying biology. Unstable plaque is typically richer in lipids, inflammatory cells, and fragile microvessels, while more stable plaque contains more collagen and organised structure. Rather than viewing plaques as simple obstructions to blood flow, this new understanding treats them as dynamic biological lesions, where vulnerability depends on multiple interacting factors.

A small presurgical study in 40 patients with advanced carotid plaques scheduled for carotid endarterectomy (a surgical procedure to remove atherosclerotic plaque from the carotid artery) compared six months of pine bark extract (150 mg/day) plus gotu kola extract (450 mg/day) against standard care. When the plaques were removed and examined, the differences were striking and consistent across multiple risk features. For example, calcification was present in 32% of treated plaques vs 100% of controls (7/22 vs 18/18), lipid-rich atheroma in 36% vs 89% (8/22 vs 16/18), and inflammatory cell infiltration in 35% vs 100% (7/20 vs 18/18). Markers of vascular instability were also reduced: VCAM-1 (36% vs 72%), ICAM-1 (32% vs 89%), intraplaque thrombosis (23% vs 67%), and haemorrhage (45% vs 78%). Even features linked to plaque fragility, such as neovessel formation and inflammation around thin-walled vessels, were roughly halved in the treatment group. Alongside this, plaque growth over the 6 months was +1.5% vs +4.8% in controls, indicating a meaningful slowing of progression.

Taken together, the gotu kola and pine bark therapy delivered a broad, system-wide shift in plaque phenotype. Specifically, the herbal intervention appears to move plaques away from a “vulnerable” state (lipid-rich, inflamed, angiogenic, thrombosis-prone) toward more stable, organised, and less reactive structures. Moreover, this clinical effect spans multiple biological domains simultaneously: inflammation, endothelial activation, microvascular instability, thrombosis and structural composition. In other words, rather than just shrinking plaques, the herbal combination seems to beneficially change what the plaque is made of and how it behaves.

This discovery has the potential to reframe the discussion around cardiovascular risk. Much of conventional thinking still emphasises plaque burden and lipid levels, but this study highlights that impacting plaque quality—its biology and stability—may be just as important. From a clinical perspective, it raises the possibility that interventions (especially phytotherapy) that act across multiple pathways could meaningfully reduce cardiovascular risk, not by dramatically reducing plaque size and development, but by making plaque less likely to rupture, thrombose and cause events. While the study is small and not outcome-driven, the magnitude and consistency of these morphological changes are intriguing, and they support a more rational true risk-based approach to cardiovascular intervention.

For more information see: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36789998/

29/04/2026

A simple hair sample can show us so much information. Done through Interclinical Laboratories, the HTMA test is a valuable tool to show heavy metals, mineral, and trace element levels.

24/04/2026

Happy ANZAC day 🌹🌹🌹

24/04/2026

Did you know that homeopathy has been around for 230 years? If it was just “placebo” I don’t think it would still be a popular natural remedy choice, do you?

24/04/2026

Back in stock!

24/04/2026

One of my favourite simple, and economical food as medicine ideas, which is often added to my clients regime; 🥣🌿
flaxseed meal is a great source of soluble and insoluble fibre, phytoestrogens, lignins, 2 tablespoons per day keep your bowel regular and happy. Plus numerous other benefits I’ve listed below, and also prostate cancer preventative ☺️

15/04/2026

Good morning beautiful clients and customers. I am having a family day today, so will not be in the clinic today. I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. I will be back in the clinic tomorrow Thursday from 10.30 until 4pm. Have a gorgeous day! 🌞🌻