Dr Downing practices Ecological Medicine (sometimes called Functional Medicine). This is a systems approach to health - understanding how things influence one another within a whole.
Ecological medicine considers the interactions between individuals and the environment, and their health consequences.
- INPUTS: nutritional, environmental and lifestyle factors impact on the individual
- PROCESSING: our individual immune and biochemical systems determine the way we handle inputs and that determines our health
- OUTPUTS: each individual’s actions impact on the global environment, upon which we all depend
What we do
Using medical history, physical examination and specialised laboratory investigations, we assess your nutritional status, toxic exposures, metabolic and immune function, and plan treatment of the problems identified.
Our standard of care is therefore not based on diagnosis. For example in epilepsy your GP or consultant would prescribe anticonvulsant therapy; we would seek to identify and correct the causes, in nutrition, toxicity and metabolic disorder. Treatment usually comprises diets, nutritional supplements and detoxification procedures, administered both by mouth and by injection.
We will never tell you to stop a treatment prescribed by another doctor
If this needed to be considered we would explain why and advise you to discuss it with the prescribing doctor.
Recent events, including Covid and increasing pressure on the NHS, have caused many people to feel lost in the gaps between different specialists or departments. This can be helped by someone taking a comprehensive overview of your case, including both standard medical treatments and ecological aspects. A consultation with us can be an opportunity to do this. Indeed, how could we be integrative without taking all aspects into consideration?
Articles
Open letter to Lancet Editor about COVID
March, 2020
Vitamin C and COVID-19 Coronavirus
There is only one existing treatment for the new coronavirus: vitamin C.
What is EPD?
Over the past 30 years we have been living through an epidemic of allergies and autoimmune diseases (and cancers). Our genes cannot have changed enough to account for this; the one thing that could explain all three and which has changed dramatically is our environment; levels of environmental pollution only go up, never down.
Fat is My Friend
Throughout 2017 I kept saying "This looks like the year that the whole fat-cholesterol-heart disease hypothesis falls apart." Well for once it looks like I was right. Today (I write on Jan 1st 2018) the annual review from Diabetes.co.uk carries 3 game-changing headlines from the past year:
Healing the Gut
When healing the gut there is an old principle to remember, known as Denis Healey’s First Rule of Holes; “When you find you’re in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging”.
Investigations
The following tests are the ones that we most commonly order:
MCS and EHS
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is typically triggered by a single exposure to a high, toxic level of a single chemical, following which the subject experiences symptoms on re-exposure to very low levels of that chemical alone.
Nutritional support in cancer
I am not a cancer specialist, and I cannot replace your oncologist and/or surgeon. Nor do I have the training or qualifications to tell them what to do. What I can offer you if you have a diagnosis of cancer is best described as adjunctive nutritional and metabolic support.
Radioactive Fallout
Can Nutritional Supplements Help?
The Fukushima nuclear accident has already been described as "the largest accidental release of radiation we have ever seen" [1], and it's not over yet.
Treatments
The main principles of our treatment are to Detoxify, Nourish, and Desensitise. Most people need all 3 of these.
Should I have the Covid vaccine?
Short answer: I can’t tell you what to do, and nor can the prescribing doctor, but if you do, take lots of vitamin C, and if you don’t, still take vitamin C.
Please note
We offer care for a wide range of chronic problems. We do not offer acute medical services, nor primary care, and we do not carry out any surgical procedures. We are not able to care for persons detained under the Mental Health Act, nor for children under 2 years of age.
We do accept people with physical or sensory impairments, those with learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorders and those with dementia.
The clinic can accommodate wheelchairs, but some advance notice really does help.
For further details see our Statement of Purpose - a formalised document required by the CQC. It hasn’t changed in 10 years and I see no reason to change it now.