Therapist Leaves a Career in Finance to Spread the Word about Healthy Eating

NUTRITIONAL THERAPIST Helen Adams has left behind a successful global career in the financial services sector to follow her passion – helping others to live happy and healthy lives through good nutrition.

The 58 year old has set up Oakmead Clinic after she told her personal story to her hairdresser who remarked she ought to turn her extensive knowledge into a business to help others. 

“I realised that was exactly what I should do,” Helen said and Oakmead Clinic, based in Moss Mead, Chippenham, was created. 

There Helen offers personalised health programmes, health MOTs and a complimentary 30-minute discovery consultation. 

“The truth is I developed my knowledge through necessity, “Helen said. “My son, now 20, was born four weeks’ premature and had digestive issues from birth. It was a constant struggle for him and for us to help him eat and live healthily.

“When he was 11 years old he became very, very sick. After a year of being pushed from pillar to post with no answers or solutions to his problem, we paid to see a consultant and he was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.”

Helen started to explore how she could help her son Tom get better and started to educate herself. For Helen, she felt the medical profession were failing her family and using the phrase ‘it’s complicated’ to deal with her son’s situation. She was told it was a ‘mental’ thing but therapies didn’t work. 

“My research suggested homeopathy and nutrition were the two areas with the most potential to help Tom and also, for me, the most logical. I looked at biochemistry and after trial and error, with Tom eating very little we found one food which helped him more than any other. Red peppers. They have more vitamin C than an orange, they taste sweet and many children don’t see them as vegetables. 

“Discovering this was a turning point. Tom regularly eats red peppers and that one food helped him – and us – to improve his quality of life.”

With her passion ignited Helen went on to become qualified in many nutrition and complementary therapies. Now she’s devoted herself to helping others as she’s helped her own son.

“Now my aim is to change a client’s situation by taking small steps. It might be just looking at breakfast at first or carrying out a series of food intolerance tests to see if there’s an obvious problem.” 

Helen is qualified in functional medicine, has a naturopath nutrition diploma, is a senior associate of the Royal Society of Medicine – a full list of her qualifications are available on her website – www.oakmeadclinic.co.uk