The Natural Skin and Nutrition Clinic

Our August newsletter is now available.

This month, we explain why the dispensary is open from today and share the full seasonal schedule through to March 2027, along with our payment terms for patients pre-ordering multiple months at once. We also look at the phytomedical properties of August's most notable flowers and fruit, including sunflowers, plums, and a closer look at the benefits of blueberries, together with a note on why this is a good month to check vitamin D levels.

Read the full newsletter here: https://us5.campaign-archive.com/?e=15867dce41&u=2c66e176cb28810f72e20acdf&id=8b654ebe79

Natural Skin & Nutrition Clinic | Clinical Nutritionist & Phytomedical Practitioner

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33y3151vydo

Italy was once a model of healthy eating - now it has a child obesity problem The Mediterranean diet was a blueprint for healthy living, yet Italian children are among the most overweight in Europe according to WHO.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stephen-ball-5ab640_here-are-the-top-10-drugs-we-still-pull-straight-share-7485327374813773824-qzXR/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAD1DnUBQcJtAAlXMcaGqqfjqoLELBoOVPE

Here are the top 10 drugs we still pull straight from plants, because the chemistry is too complex or too costly to build from scratch. 1. Cannabidiol (Epidiolex). From the cannabis plant. A… | Stephen Ball | 17 comments Here are the top 10 drugs we still pull straight from plants, because the chemistry is too complex or too costly to build from scratch. 1. Cannabidiol (Epidiolex). From the cannabis plant. A purified botanical extract used for severe childhood epilepsy, and one of the few plant extracts sold as a mo...

🔬 Epstein–Barr Virus and Multiple Sclerosis: The Mechanism Finally Confirmed
New research published in Science Translational Medicine and reported in Nature (15 July 2026) has mapped out, for the first time, how Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) — a herpesvirus carried by around 90% of the global population — can trigger multiple sclerosis (MS) in a susceptible subset of people.
The researchers found that CD4+ T-cell activity was roughly twice as high in people with MS compared with healthy controls, and that depleting this specific T-cell type sharply reduced the immune response to EBV. They also showed why existing anti-CD20 immunotherapies work: by reducing infected B cells, they cut the stimulus driving CD4+ T-cell activation, lowering EBV levels and reducing relapse frequency and disease progression.
A personal note: during my MSc in Drug Discovery at King’s College London, I worked within the pharmaceutical sector on precisely this territory — viral triggers of autoimmune disease, including EBV’s suspected role in MS. It is genuinely fascinating, and rather validating, to see the underlying mechanism only now being confirmed and published in the mainstream scientific literature, many years after these questions were first being asked in the lab.
🔗 Read the full piece: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02204-1

Biologists pinpoint how common virus triggers multiple sclerosis A connection with Epstein–Barr virus has long been suspected, but the underlying mechanism was unclear until now.

14 July — while fireworks light up the Riviera coastline tonight 🎆, just inland the lavender fields of Haute-Provence are at peak harvest. 💜

Swipe to see both: the fireworks marking Bastille Day, and the lavender that’s quietly done far more work than scenery.

Lavandula angustifolia has real pharmacological credentials — standardised extracts (WS 1265) have shown anxiolytic effects in clinical trials, acting via calcium channel modulation in the nervous system rather than the more familiar GABA pathway.

That same calming, anti-inflammatory action is why lavender features in several of our in-house phytomedical creams — soothing reactive, irritated, or barrier-compromised skin the way the oil soothes an overactive nervous system.

Skin and nervous system, calmed by the same molecule. One plant, one harvest week, two systems.

🌿 The hour matters more than you’d think.
Mid-July is peak harvest for many medicinal plants. But herbalists don’t only choose the month — we choose the hour.
Volatile oils are at their highest in the morning, once the dew has dried but before the midday sun burns them off. Gather chamomile or lemon balm at noon and you lose a measurable part of the medicine to the air.
Same plant. Same field. Same day. Different medicine.
This is one of the quiet reasons I ask my suppliers for harvest dates, not just batch numbers. A herb is not a commodity — it is a living thing whose chemistry shifts with the light.
It also explains something patients often ask me: why two products with identical labels can behave so differently. The label tells you the species. It rarely tells you the hour.

🌿 Welcome to the Claudia Louch Skin & Nutrition Clinic.
I’m Claudia Louch — Clinical Nutritionist and Phytomedical Practitioner, working in Functional and Integrative Nutritional Medicine.
For twenty years I have worked at the junction of two subjects most people treat as separate: what you eat, and what your skin is trying to tell you. They were never separate.
Two things you may not know about this clinic:
🌍 We have been purely online since 2018 — long before it became fashionable. Every consultation is by Zoom, Microsoft Teams or telephone, which means I can see you from your own sitting room, your office, or a hotel room halfway around the world. Distance is no longer any obstacle to good care. Consultations are offered in English, German, French and Italian.
🧪 We have our own in-house phytomedical dispensary. I don’t send you to a shelf. I prepare what you need — tinctures, and bespoke topical prescriptions: creams, toners, serums, masks and balms, formulated individually. Every botanical is DNA-sequenced and species-verified, sourced only from UK, EU and Australian suppliers. A plant applied to inflamed skin is every bit as much a medicine as one that is swallowed, and I see no reason to hold it to a lesser standard.
What you’ll find on this channel:
🔹 Evidence-based nutrition and phytomedicine — no hype, no miracle cures
🔹 Skin, gut, hormones and metabolic health
🔹 Seasonal notes on plants, food and the occasional forgotten remedy
🔹 Dispensary news and pre-order deadlines
This is a quiet, one-way feed — no replies, and you will never see the other followers. For anything personal, do email me directly.
📩 [email protected]

Claudia Louch Skin & Nutrition Clinic – WhatsApp channel Follow Claudia Louch Skin & Nutrition Clinic's WhatsApp channel. Claudia GF Louch — BSc Hons, MCPP, MSc (Drug Discovery), MSc Nutr, RNutr
Clinical Nutritionist & Phytomedical Practitioner
Functional & Integrative Nutritional Medicine
Evidence-based skin, gut, hormone and metabolic health — with our own in-house phytomedical dispensary, sourced only from UK, EU and Australian suppliers.
🌍 Purely online since 2018 — Zoom, Teams or telephone, worldwide
🇬🇧🇩🇪🇫🇷🇮🇹 English · German · French · Italian
⚕️ General information only — not individual medical advice
📩 [email protected]. Join 1 follower for the latest updates.

☀️ Claudia Louch: the pill, the plant, and the July sun
Britain’s first weight-loss tablet, Kew’s landmark report — and why diet still comes first.

My July newsletter is out, and it covers rather a lot of ground:
🔹 The oral weight-loss tablet now approved in the UK — what it genuinely does, what it cannot do, and why appetite suppression is a first step rather than a destination
🔹 Kew’s remarkable new State of the World’s Plants and Fungi report — and what its findings mean for anyone who takes herbal medicine seriously
🔹 Why every botanical in my dispensary is DNA-sequenced
🔹 In praise of sunlight — a word for the defence
🔹 What Harvard’s new skin report gets right, and what it leaves out entirely
Plus: dispensary pre-orders are now open. Dispatch begins 3 August; the ordering window closes 4 September.

Read it here 👇
https://mailchi.mp/skinandnutritionclinic.com/claudia-louch-skin-nutrition-clinic-the-pill-the-plant-and-the-july-sun-10144223