What are the opening hours?

Monday 10am - 4pm Tuesday 10am - 4pm Thursday 10am - 4pm Friday 10am - 4pm

Tanya Borowski Nutrition & Functional Medicine, The Candlemakers, West Street, Lewes (2026)

21/04/2026

A mushroom antioxidant that may ease period pain and it works differently to ibuprofen 🍄

New research on L-ergothioneine (EGT) - a compound found in mushrooms and fermented foods - found that 120mg daily across three menstrual cycles reduced pain scores from 4.8 to 2.3 in women with primary dysmenorrhoea. No side effects. No change in placebo group.

What's interesting here isn't just the result, it's the mechanism. EGT doesn't appear to work by blocking prostaglandins (as NSAIDs do). Instead, the evidence points to a localised antioxidant effect - neutralising free radicals directly within uterine tissue, before the inflammatory cascade is even triggered - how amazing is mother nature!

This is foundational nutritional support, not acute pain relief. And the body has a dedicated transporter for EGT, suggesting this compound matters physiologically.

Clinical caveats to hold: It’s a small pilot study, young women, primary dysmenorrhoea only. We cannot extrapolate to endometriosis or secondary causes. Larger trials are underway. But for practitioners working with women who are tired of being told to just take ibuprofen - this is a research thread worth following.

And while we're on the subject, let’s not forget — ginger🫚 Multiple RCTs show it reduces dysmenorrhoea pain comparably to ibuprofen, via prostaglandin and leukotriene inhibition. It's been evidence-supported for years. EGT and ginger likely work on complementary pathways = one upstream, one downstream. Worth holding both🎓

Swipe for the study breakdown 👉

17/04/2026

This is a day I genuinely don't believe exists anywhere else for practitioners working in women's health. A masterclass that breaks the clinical loops we're all stuck in. That cuts through reductive narratives and expensive testing panels that add little to clinical decision-making. That addresses the exhaustion so many of you feel when trying to support women with complex presentations.

For those who don’t know - Dr Peta Wright is an integrative gynaecologist and one of Australia's leading voices in whole-person pelvic pain care. This will be Peta's only UK masterclass in 2026, and spaces are strictly limited.

Ready to check out our clinical kit bags? Full details will be released next week but if you want first access when early bird tickets go live, click the link in bio and I'll make sure you're the first to know.

Tanya x

15/04/2026

Hormones don't travel in the blood in their free form, they're transported to their receptors by binding proteins, like little 🚕.

Both progesterone and cortisol share the same carrier protein 🚕 Corticosteroid Binding Globulin (CBG). CBG has a finite binding capacity (aka the taxi can only carry 4 passengers), and here's where it gets clinically important: cortisol is the dominant binder- pushing progesterone to the kerb.

When cortisol is chronically elevated - through HPA axis dysregulation, chronic stress, weight gain, poor sleep, metabolic derangement, or pathogen burden - it outcompetes progesterone for available CBG binding sites, leaving progesterone unbound, rapidly cleared by the liver, and functionally depleted at tissue level.

This creates a clinically underappreciated seesaw:
↑ Cortisol → ↓ Effective progesterone availability

Even if a woman is producing adequate progesterone (or receiving it exogenously via hormone therapy) chronically high cortisol means less progesterone is actually bioavailable at tissue level. The progesterone is being outbid at the binding site.
This mechanism explains so many presentations we frequently encounter: PMS, anovulation, PCOS, failed HRT, poor sleep, brain fog, immune dysregulation. The full symptom cluster we often attribute to "low progesterone" may actually be driven by a cortisol burden that's quietly stealing the show.

This is especially important in perimenopause. If you or your client isn't seemingly "tolerating" progesterone, or HRT isn't delivering the symptom resolution you'd expect - think about what could be driving cortisol up and tipping the CBG seesaw.

Swipe through the slides for the full breakdown >>

08/04/2026

One of my favourite salads is a Nicoise - but I always tend add in my own twist …
Not a fan of the anchovy 🐟 so add capers instead for that umami flavour , some micro greens, asparagus , brocolli (obviously 🤣) and always use burford brown eggs (I mean look at those deep golden yolks) and dressed with my favourite highest polyphenol content olive oil
What’s your favourite salad “mash-up”(Is that the correct terminology 🤣😉)?

07/04/2026

I came across a study in the Journal of Women & Aging "What are friends for? The impact of friendship on communicative efficiency & cortisol response during collaborative problem solving" & honestly, it didn't surprise me one bit.

Women talking with their female friends show measurably lower cortisol levels during stressful tasks. Physiologically measurable. It sits within the 'tend-and-befriend' response — the idea that women have evolved a distinct stress pathway that moves toward connection rather than fight-or-flight.

The people I reach for in times of stress, uncertainty & equally in moments of joy, are my girlfriends. What never stops amazing me is how new friendships seem to find you at exactly the moment you need them.

Perimenopause was, for me, a time of real internal reckoning. Conflicting emotions. Shaken self-belief. When I look back now, I can see so clearly that it was my friendships (the ones that let me talk, laugh, & sob without explanation or judgement) that held the thread. That helped me move through that chapter & step into the menopause years with a firmer sense of who I am.

I see this same instinct alive in the next generation. Through my daughter's world, I've watched just how much young women hold each other up. Friends since primary school, now scattered across cities & continents, yet talking every single day. No life decision goes unfiltered through that group 😂 This is tend-and-befriend in real time.

What moves me most is how my professional world & my friendship world have quietly, beautifully overlapped. So many of the women I've come to know through working in women's health have become some of my closest friends. Creating the Women's Health Mastery community has broadened that network further still, watching practitioners connect, support one another, & grow together is an honour I don't take lightly.

What I also loved about this research: older women (62–79) were actually more conversationally flexible with strangers than younger women: able to adapt, attune, meet people where they were. As if decades of friendship had sharpened something essential in them.

Lived experience as biological advantage. I'll take that ❤️

02/04/2026

Every year I run one in-person masterclass day retreat... and this year, I'm truly beside myself with what's coming 🙂

The Women's Health Practicum on 8th July, at Rockwater, Hove

This is a day I genuinely don't believe exists anywhere else for practitioners in this space. Here's a peek at this truly special day…

Part One → The clinical depth you've been missing.
How to actually read hormonal patterns across the lifespan. How to build a testing strategy that genuinely serves your clients — not one that simply drains their bank accounts with unnecessary testing. Where NHS pathology outperforms functional alternatives, and where it doesn't. Chronic pelvic pain — endo, adenomyosis, central sensitisation — held with the clinical nuance it deserves.

And leading that session… 🥁🥁

Integrative gynaecologist, adolescent and fertility specialist Dr Peta Wright — author of Healing Pelvic Pain, a book about transforming the lived experience of period pain and pelvic trauma, and someone many of you met at our recent live Q&A.

Part Two → The part no other education in this space offers.
How equipped are we "truly" to hold the space our most complex clients need? Peta and I are opening our own kit bags. The tools, practices and frameworks we actually use. Not the polished version for a presentation - the honest transparent version. How we look after ourselves first, and how that translates into what we bring to our clients.

And to make sure this lands as something genuinely actionable [not just inspiring] we'll be working through your real submitted cases together. The kind that bring the ah-ha moments you can take straight back into your practice.

Yoga overlooking the sea. Guided breathwork. A plant-based lunch. And time to connect with your tribe.

Save the date, my friends! Bookings open after Easter and there are only 45 seats available 🙌

Get in touch if you want to get the details first before general release x

01/04/2026

Why we are more vulnerable to iron deficiency & anemia at latestage perimenopause & menopause?

Swipe to understand >>>

Reason 1 - Losing Progesterone causes heavier a bleeding & flooding
Reason 2 - Declining oestrogen changes the rules of iron regulation
Reason 3 - Perimenopause is an inflammatory phase of life & Inflammation locks iron in the vault

31/03/2026

Think of serum ferritin like a vault in a bank: holding all your hard earnt £££ (iron) safely inside. When we test for ferritin, most people assume that's exactly what we're measuring: the contents of that vault.

But - we're not measuring the vault at all. We're measuring the shadow it casts.

Because ferritin actually is an intracellular storage protein. It lives inside hepatocytes(liver cells) and macrophages, not in the bloodstream. What a blood test picks up is the tiny amount that leaks out. That leak tells you something about what's happening inside those cells but it is not the iron itself.

Usually……Until inflammation enters the picture.

Because IL-6 (the cytokine at the heart of every chronic inflammatory state) drives ferritin synthesis through a completely separate pathway. Nothing to do with how much iron is actually stored.

Which means a ferritin of 70 in a woman with IBD or RA for example is not the same as a ferritin of 70 in a woman with no inflammation. Same number. Completely different clinical meaning.

Swipe through for the full breakdown and to understand why ferritin is a shadow and not the actual vault in the bank holding all the ££££!

25/03/2026

Yesterday we talked about why the second half of the menstrual cycle creates a window of vulnerability for BV and thrush.

Today we're looking at how different contraceptive methods may be amplifying that vulnerability. Or indeed protecting against it.

This is one of the most under-discussed conversations in women's health, and the research is only just catching up.

Here's what we now know from a landmark 2025 randomised study of 162 women (I know, it’s not huge — but it’s a study on women! ) plus a growing body of evidence across contraceptive methods:

The combined pill? Actually one of the most protective options for your vaginal microbiome — the oestrogen component keeps glycogen up, Lactobacilli fed, and pH low.

The copper IUD? Within just 3 months, the majority of women with a healthy microbiome at baseline had shifted away from it — with measurable increases in pro-inflammatory cytokines.

The LNG implant (Nexplanon)? A genuinely surprising positive story. Women were actively shifting toward protective Lactobacillus-dominant profiles.

👉 The progestin-only pill? Honestly, we don't have enough data yet.

Swipe for the full breakdown (method by method, with references).

If you're a practitioner, this belongs in your intake process. Contraceptive history isn't background noise - it's active biology.

If you're a woman who's been told recurring BV or thrush is just "one of those things" - it frankly isn't. There are patterns here, and there are tools in our kit bag to draw upon.

24/03/2026

If you, a client or loved one regularly suffer with BV or thrush in the second half of your cycle - this is why ⬇️

The vaginal microbiome doesn't remain static across the menstrual cycle . It shifts as our s*x hormone levels naturally fluctuate, thus creating a very specific window of vulnerability.

Here's what's happening...

Oestrogen is your vaginal microbiome's best friend. It stimulates glycogen production in the vaginal lining — and glycogen is the food source that keeps your protective Lactobacilli thriving. More Lactobacilli = more lactic acid = a low, acidic pH that pathogens simply can't tolerate.

But in the luteal phase (approx day 15–28), progesterone takes over. And progesterone suppresses glycogen. Lactobacilli numbers fall, pH creeps up, and the environment shifts — creating a window where BV and thrush can gain a foothold.

There's another piece of this puzzle that most people have never heard of: lactoferrin. It's one of the most powerful antimicrobial proteins in the body, secreted by your cervicovaginal glands in direct response to oestrogen. It works by starving pathogens of iron (which they need to replicate) and physically disrupting bacterial cell walls. As oestrogen dips in the late luteal phase, lactoferrin follows it down, and that protective layer quietly disappears.

This isn't bad luck. It's biology. And once you understand it, you can work with it.

Swipe through for the full breakdown, including the research behind the lactoferrin connection.

📌 Save this if you or someone you know struggles with recurring vaginal infections.

Tomorrow we uncover how different contraceptive methods affect the vaginal microbiome 👀 - some may surprise you!

19/03/2026

We’re now almost three months into Women's Health Mastery 2026 programme and I'm so impressed by the commitment this group is demonstrating.

We're not even at the halfway point and the depth of learning happening is fabulous. Let me give you a glimpse into what we've covered since January:

🧱The Foundation: We kicked off with The Mapping System Blueprint - teaching my exact framework for case evaluation, mindmapping complex cases, and building the clinical toolkit that transforms scattered information into clear, actionable treatment plans.

🩸Module 1 - Mastering Pathology: We’re now in the depths of mastering foundational biochemistry. We've gone deep - and I mean DEEP - into a Comprehensive blood chemistry interpretation across 6 intensive sessions:
➡️ Acid-base balance & electrolytes
➡️ Calcium regulation, parathyroid, and osteoporosis
➡️ Liver, gallbladder & bile acid malabsorption
➡️ Immunology foundations with the incredible Robyn Puglia (a mammoth 3-hour session that was absolute gold)
➡️ Cardiometabolic health - lipids, cardiovascular risk, glucose & metabolics in women's health

PLUS, there has been even more collaboration and learning through:
📖 4 drop-in clinic sessions reviewing real cases and clinic management
🙋‍♀️Our wonderful private Facebook community with over 136 questions answered individually

This week we're diving into Cardiometabolic Health Part 2 - Glucose & Metabolics in Women's Health, and there's SO much more coming.

This is the level of commitment it takes to truly master women's health. Going beyond surface-level CPD and weekend courses. It’s trusting deep, transformative education that fundamentally changes how you practice. It’s not easy but I’m so proud of how well this cohort is leaning into the experience.

Tanya x

Tanya Borowski Nutrition & Functional Medicine

21/04/2026

17/04/2026

15/04/2026

08/04/2026

07/04/2026

02/04/2026

01/04/2026

31/03/2026

25/03/2026

24/03/2026

19/03/2026

Address

Opening Hours

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Monday	10am - 4pm
Tuesday	10am - 4pm
Thursday	10am - 4pm
Friday	10am - 4pm