Revamped for 2015, the CAM Conference series in collaboration with BANT is breaking new ground in subject matter.
- March 14: BANT annual meeting followed by a special conference on brain health.
- April 11: Nutrigenomics: We will explore Nutrigenomics – in particular the genetic testing services of companies like 23andme – interact with personalised medicine and the “Quantified Self”. Personalised medicine, spearheaded by Dr Jeff Bland and the Personalised Lifestyle Medicine Institute, may be the “new” functional medicine, as our most experienced clinicians move away from protocol-driven practice and towards even more highly individualised health care. Meanwhile, “citizen scientists” worldwide have spawned the Quantified Self movement, where thousands of n=1 experiments are testing the accepted wisdom behind diet,nutritional supplements and CAM therapies.
- May 23: Frequency medicine meets biochemistry: “It’s all energy”. But does this mean the energy molecule ATP, or more subtle forms? This conference will explore the intersection where foods and supplements are enhanced – or compromised – by deliberate and accidental energetic influences.
- September 12: Meeting the microbiome As Prof Rob Knight suggests in this issue, despite everything we know – or think we know – about gut bacteria, research into our microbiota and the genes they carry, the microbiome, is only just beginning. New DNA techniques have enabled scientists to quantify and identify hitherto unknown species of bacteria that inhabit our guts. We will look at the influence of the microbiome on zonulin, leaky gut, reactions to gluten and other proteins.
- November 7: Mind-body nutrition The word gets longer: the current option is “psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology”, as researchers struggle to accept that we are acomplete, indivisible, inter-connecting, intercommunicating system. Practitioners with the right attitude can trigger the healing process from the consultation, itself, before any diet, supplements, bodywork or other modalities are employed.
With more than 185 practitioners and students attending each event, the IHCAN Conferences in collaboration with BANT have established themselves as essential educational events. All this year’s events have been sell-outs, and this month’s CAM Conference on the Gut/Brain Axis was fully booked four months in advance. Leading speakers, question and answer sessions, time for networking, specialist mini-expos and excellent catering have proved an extremely popular formula.
The 2015 series will again lead off with a March event following BANT’s annual meeting. CAM editor Simon Martin, education director for the IHCAN Conferences, says: “CAM and BANT are obviously a winning combination and the CAM Conference team, in collaboration with BANT, have created something special. So it’s great that we have BANT’s backing long-term so we can build on the success and deliver the leading speakers and most up-to-date and effective clinical ideas on a regular basis. The success is founded on the principle of sharinginformation and experiences that can be put to clinical practice the very next day.”
Miguel Toribio-Mateas, chairman of BANT, commented: “By working in collaboration with the IHCAN Conferences we work on events that work in parallel with our goals – to provide Registered Nutritional Therapists with the latest nutritional protocols, which, when put into practical clinical use, grow the UK’s knowledge and understanding of nutrition.”
