Nutmegs Natural Medicine Clinic

19/11/2025

This article is being highlighted just as we come into blueberry season. I love how eating a nutritious diet keeps being proven to be one of the best ways to improve health.

Could the answer to the current allergy epidemic in our children be as simple as feeding them blueberries? A rigorously run infant RCT suggests that adding blueberries as one of the first solids may nudge immune balance in an anti-allergic direction and help allergy-type symptoms settle during the first year—while also shifting the gut microbiome in potentially favourable ways.

The first year of life is a critical window for establishing immune competence and preventing allergic diseases. Dietary exposures during this period can influence the induction of immune tolerance, epigenetic programming, and gut microbial succession.

In a double blind, randomised, placebo-controlled feeding trial in Denver, USA, exclusively breast-fed infants (n=61, start age 5–6 months) received freeze-dried blueberry powder (10 g/day) or an isocaloric, colour/flavour-matched placebo until 12 months of age.

The blueberry group started out with more respiratory/allergy-like symptoms at baseline yet showed a greater resolution over time vs placebo (trajectory p=0.05). Immune biomarkers: IL-13 (pro-allergic/Th2 response) fell significantly with blueberries (p=0.035); IL-10 (anti-inflammatory/regulatory) trended up (p=0.052). However, the changes in these cytokines could not directly explain symptom changes. However, specific gut microbiome changes at 12 months correlated with the cytokine changes, hinting at gut-immune crosstalk.

In a companion paper in the same cohort, blueberry introduction altered gut microbiota composition/diversity (trends toward higher alpha diversity; increases in short-chain fatty acid-associated genera such as Subdoligranulum/Butyricicoccus and reductions in potentially unfavourable organisms such as Escherichia/Streptococcus).

The findings align with broader evidence showing that diverse, fibre- and polyphenol-rich complementary diets plus early allergen introduction help shape the gut-immune axis toward tolerance.

For more information see: https://bit.ly/4i7mr2M
and
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40944184/

18/10/2025

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17/08/2025

24/07/2025

This Saturday I will be speaking at the PHA event about a naturopathic approach to stress, anxiety and depression, alongside Grant who was a mental health nurse. Grant will talk more about the allopathic approach.

13/07/2025

Have you noticed a difference in your wellbeing when you have primarily loving thoughts? Dr David Hawkins believed this was what he saw in his paitents. I love that this helps to give us more power for our own health. I’d love to know your experience.

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06/05/2025

This will be a great intro to Shadow yoga. Highly recommended.

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06/05/2025

Cone along to the monthly PHA meeting and meet local practitioners. There will also be a workshop held each month. This month is an intro to first aid.

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14/02/2025

Yes, chocolate is good for your gut! ♥️

Cocoa is a prebiotic-like food, which means it nurtures beneficial bacteria like Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus.

I like to add a heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder to smoothies, organic soy milk with a little honey and lactulose, or mixed into my soaked oats.

Check out this review article if you’d like to learn more about the benefits of cocoa: Cocoa Polyphenols and Gut Microbiota Interplay: Bioavailability, Prebiotic Effect, and Impact on Human Health [PMID: 32605083]

14/02/2025

Some good news about chocolate!

Yes, chocolate is good for your gut! ♥️

Cocoa is a prebiotic-like food, which means it nurtures beneficial bacteria like Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus.

I like to add a heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder to smoothies, organic soy milk with a little honey and lactulose, or mixed into my soaked oats.

Check out this review article if you’d like to learn more about the benefits of cocoa: Cocoa Polyphenols and Gut Microbiota Interplay: Bioavailability, Prebiotic Effect, and Impact on Human Health [PMID: 32605083]

20/12/2024

Here is some fabulous insight into how to improve the microbiome. I regularly say to my clients to eat more plants. And that they are unlikely to eat too many plants. At this time of year in New Zealand we have such a wonderful array of delicious plant foods to choose from but know also you can include spices and tea and all the different varieties of a plant that you consume. Perhaps you’d like to make this a challenge over the summer to increase the variety of plants you consume each week!

When patients are looking to improve their diversity or boost beneficial bacteria, we help them get to 40 plant foods a week.

Although it sounds scary, most folks find it a lot easier than they may have thought. And it’s fun!

If you want to try this out, you should begin by jotting down all the plant foods you eat each week. Include fruit, veggies, grains, beans, nuts, seeds, tea, coffee, herbs, and spices. Frozen and canned plant foods count too.

Make sure to include different varieties of the same food. For example—green apples and red apples count separately. As do red onions and yellow onions, purple rice and brown rice, etc.

You may only get in 15 or 20 plant foods a week. Whatever your baseline, you will slowly increase the amount of plant foods you eat. Add new spices and herbs to your dinner, and try out purple rice or sweet potatoes. Add some pumpkin seeds and almonds to your salad.

Pretty soon, you will be at 40 a week!

Let us know if you try this and if you find it achievable.

29/11/2024

Renowned clinical psychologist Professor Julia Rucklidge has spent decades researching the relationship between diet and mental health. Once a sceptic, she has consistently found vitamins and minerals can improve mental health outcomes through controlled trials.