Dr Damien Downing MBBS, MRSB practises Ecological Medicine (also called Functional Medicine). This is a systems approach to health – understanding how things influence one another within a whole. Allergy (or Immune Dysfunction), the identification and treatment of damaged or disordered immunity, which can cause loss of resistance to abnormal cells and to infections, as well as food intolerances, chemical sensitivities, inhalant allergies and other immune problems. He uses elimination diets, allergen avoidance, environmental clean-up, and desensitisation to address these problems.

Dr Downing qualified from Medicine at Guys Hospital and set up a private practice in nutritional and environmental medicine in the UK. He was a co-founder of the British Society for Nutritional Medicine, and is the current president of its successor, the British Society for Ecological Medicine. He co-founded the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine, and is its editor-in-chief. He is the medical director of the Alliance for Natural Health, He serves on the Editorial Board of the Orthomolecular News Service.

Dr Downing is partner with Dr Nicola Hembry in technique for the early detection of the changes that can lead to breast cancer. Mammovision uses a thermographic camera to take heat images of the breast and analyse them by computer to identify alterations in metabolism.

Dr Downing always advises people to use nutritional and complementary approaches alongside conventional treatments, unless there is a good reason why not. In ecological medicine the best therapy is always multiple, and he advises that patients should be prepared to use anything that works, and to stack up several percentage effects to get a worthwhile result.

If you have a diagnosis of cancer, Dr Downing offers nutritional and metabolic support which may include specific nutrients at high doses, including:

• Vitamin C orally and sometimes intravenously
• Phospholipid therapy orally and intravenously
• Amino acids orally in high doses
• Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2, Chondroitin
• B vitamins and coenzyme Q10 (with care in regard to folic acid)
• Zinc and minerals (care needed to avoid risk of adverse effects)

Dr Downing has special interests in:

• Vitamin D
• All effects of light on health
• Lipid therapy
• Environmental pollution
• Detoxification
• Mycotoxins
• Immune modulation

Lack of sunlight and vitamin D deficiency: Vitamin D from sunlight is the missing link in many currrent epidemic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. In the UK most people are deficient in vitamin D most of the time.

Environmental toxicity: Part of the causation of many cancers.

Nutrition: Levels of vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids in food are declining, and at the same time we all need more of them to protect us against pollution, stress and infections. Dr Downing uses a number of laboratories in several countries to assess nutritional levels and needs, and corrects these with supplementation by oral, intravenous, intramuscular and transdermal routes.

Useful read: Nutritional support in cancer

Genomics: The assessment of individual chemical abilities and variations to determine strengths and weaknesses in your ability to process food, detoxify chemicals, deal with stress and resist diseases such as cancer, allergies and heart disease.

Books by Dr Damien Downing:

• Daylight Robbery; The importance of sunlight to health (1988)
• The Vitamin Cure for Allergies (2010)
• The Vitamin Cure for Digestive Disorders (2014)

• Nutrition
• Intravenous nutrition and mega-vitamin therapy
• Detoxification
• Environmental Pollution
• Microimmunotherapy
• Allergy & desensitisation
• Lipid therapy
• Phospholipid Exchange Therapy
• Photobiomodulation  (Light therapy)
• Ozone therapy
• Vagal stimulation
• Genomic assessment

For a description of ecological medicine, visit here