Where do you feel it in the body? In this episode of What Is Health, Oliver Barnett is joined by Kate Marion, a former homeopath who now teaches awakening as embodied consciousness, a way of working that brings together the somatic, the psychological and the spiritual.

Kate shares her story of growing up in a deeply traumatic household and deciding at just six years old that she would be the one to break the cycle. She describes how homeopathy changed her family’s life, how her work evolved over two decades, and why real healing means bringing awareness back down into the body, not just rising above it.

Oliver opens up about a pattern he has seen in nearly every chronic illness patient across his career: early attachment wounds, years of coping, then a stressor such as a virus, burnout, a breakup or a bereavement, after which “the wheels fall off.” Together they explore why the place where symptoms show up in the body so often mirrors where emotion has been held since childhood, and why lasting recovery often depends on integrating what happened early in life.

The conversation then turns to parenting: why so many parents are “hurt children trying to parent children,” how to repair in the moment when you get it wrong, the balance between freedom and limits, the impact of screens and social media on kids, and why children need support to become who they are rather than who we want them to be.

In this episode:

• Kate’s journey from a traumatic childhood to homeopathy and embodied spiritual work
• The trauma–chronic illness pattern Oliver sees in his patients, and the “freeze state”
• How unexpressed impulses get trapped in the body, and what helps release them
• Somatic experiencing, Internal Family Systems and Compassionate Inquiry
• Breaking generational patterns and the power of apologising to your children
• Permissive vs. disciplinarian parenting, limits, play and the outdoors
• Screens, social media and growing up too fast

If you’re in need of support, find the London Clinic of Nutrition at londonclinicofnutrition.co.uk.

Women’s health is finally getting the attention it deserves, but there’s still a long way to go. Perimenopause can begin years before periods change, and many women are told they’re “fine” while struggling with anxiety, poor sleep and symptoms that don’t fit a neat diagnosis.

In this episode of What Is Health, Oliver Barnett is joined by two guests with a special interest in women’s hormones: Dr Anu, who runs London Bioidentical Hormones and is co-author of an upcoming book, Nutrition, Hormones and Mental Health, and Daisy, a nutritional therapist at the London Clinic of Nutrition who specialises in immunity, women’s hormones and complex health conditions.

In this episode:

• How women’s health has changed, from “all women do is cry and bleed” to growing attention on research and advocacy
• Why perimenopause is so often missed, and why early signs can include anxiety and insomnia rather than irregular periods
• The “midlife squeeze”: career, young children, ageing parents and unpaid workload, and what that does to stress and hormones
• Why later motherhood is normal, and why the term “geriatric pregnancy” needs to go
• Why mainstream care can be a one-size-fits-all approach, and why testing and individualised support matter
• Bioidentical, body-identical and synthetic hormones explained, and why the labels confuse so many women
• Endometriosis: the roles of gut health, inflammation, immune function and estrogen metabolism, plus the idea of looking after “the house that houses the hormones”
• Acute vs chronic stress, why “cortisol is bad” is too simple, and how to think about it
• Wellness data vs medical-grade data: how far to trust wearables and HRV scores, and when something like a glucose monitor may help
• Why healthspan matters just as much as lifespan

The views shared are those of the speakers, based on their clinical experience, and are not a substitute for medical advice. Please speak to your GP or a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to hormone therapy or supplements.

The London Clinic of Nutrition has supported thousands of people to get to the root cause of their health concerns. If you’re in need of support, find the team at londonclinicofnutrition.co.uk.

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Morning stacks, gadgets, pendants and the next “must-have” protocol. Is any of it really functional medicine?

In this episode of What Is Health, Oliver Barnett is joined by two experienced functional medicine practitioners, Steve Grant and Paul Burgess, to ask where functional medicine is today and how it has drifted from what it was meant to be. With decades of clinical experience between them, they talk candidly about what they see in practice.

In this episode:

• What functional medicine originally was: a process for working with a person, not a qualification or a product
• Why so much of what’s marketed as functional medicine online is a watered-down version
• How social media and influencers spread advice that has been repeated from person to person, often far from the original research
• What to look for in a supplement: ingredients, doses and whether the evidence is for the product or just the individual nutrients
• Why people look for “the pill for the ill” and keep moving to the next protocol when the last one didn’t work
• Why health is rarely down to one factor, and how physical, emotional and social influences all play a part
• How practitioners build trust with people who have already seen many others without results
• The pros and pitfalls of using AI for health advice, including why the quality of what you put in matters, and why they believe it works best as a tool for professionals
• Why they feel the conventional healthcare system wasn’t designed around keeping people well

The views shared are those of the speakers, based on their clinical experience, and are not a substitute for medical advice.

The London Clinic of Nutrition has supported thousands of people to get to the root cause of their health concerns. If you’re in need of support, find the team at londonclinicofnutrition.co.uk.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode.