The Natural Path

Reflexology abroad?

Have you had a treatment whilst abroad, especially in Asia? You can get a treatment on almost every street corner and it’s so cheap!

Then, you return home and want to keep it up but it’s way more expensive!

Here’s why….

🌷therapist training is expensive
🌷cost of living is different
🌷therapist insurance is expensive
🌷therapists have to keep up to date with cpd (continuing professional development) which is expensive
🌷renting premises is expensive
🌷hygiene is expensive (washing linen / towels for every client - tumble-drying in winter etc)

So, when you get a professional Reflexology treatment in the UK we:-

🌷are qualified (a regulated qualification)
🌷are insured
🌷apply strict hygiene procedures
🌷keep client notes (takes up extra time)
🌷are a member of a professional association
🌷look at clients holistically
🌷have anatomy & physiology knowledge
🌷take pride in helping you achieve your wellbeing goals

Most therapists care deeply about their clients and also their profession so you will be in good hands, especially if your therapist is a member of Association of Reflexologists.

Let the wellbeing continue once you return home!

Massage at the Natural Path

The massage experience you’ll get from me:-

🌷a visual scan once you’re on the table to check for:-

🌿imbalances in muscular tone and posture
🌿differences in colour
🌿any moles, skin lesions to be concerned about (I have knowledge of when to refer to GP for check)

🌷A thorough warm up to (eh…) warm up the tissue - this is also when I assess your muscles, feeling for:-

🌿different textures
🌿different temperatures
🌿different levels of bony landmarks

🌷working deeper using advanced techniques to:-

🌿 realign muscle fibres
🌿release long held tension
🌿improve range of motion
🌿looser muscles = easier joints
🌿a time to ‘just let go’

I don’t care about matching underwear, hairy legs (or other body parts!) or dirty hair (you’ll get oil in it anyway so come expecting that!)

I want you to let me know - too hard, too soft, too annoying? Just let me know! It’s your hour, your time, and we need to work together to your best achieve your desired outcome.

I’m highly qualified in bodywork, a tutor, an assessor and a course creator so your body will be in safe hands with me.

I’m at Natural Path, Little Waltham regularly

So, contact me on 07757 303775 (text/Whatsapp) to arrange a time for your reboot.

Rebalance restore revive

It’ll probably be the best £45 you will spend this year!

Let peace return

I’m dipping in and out of The Practice of Healing
by Chris Bharnes.

It has lots of little gems like this one.

And what if……?

What if reflexology gives you the space for peace to return? Wouldn’t that just be magical?

You’ll never know if you don’t try!

Book your ‘space for peace to return’! I have appointments available tomorrow at The Natural Path, Little Waltham.

Rebalance restore revive

Find your peace

07757 303775

Top up your wellbeing

I’m at the Natural Path, Little Waltham on Saturday 25th July with appointments available:

11.30am - 12.30pm
And
1.00 pm - 2.00pm

For either
💫 Remarkable Reflexology
❤️ A wonderful treatment for the feet (but working the whole body through reflex points on the feet)

Or

💫 Marvellous Massage
❤️ address those aches and pains you have accumulated and walk out feeling renewed

Investment: £45

07757 303775 to book

Need a re-set?

Im at Natural Path Saturday 18th with one appointment left at 1.00pm.

Whether it’s marvellous massage:-

💫gentle, lymphatic drainage to get your river flowing and boost your overall health

Or

💫deeper, remedial work - resetting your posture, working on muscle imbalances

Or

Remarkable reflexology:-

💫a treatment bespoke to you whether that’s to support your body through conception and pregnancy or to offer a nurturing, safe treatment during your cancer journey or to ease anxiety or stress

07757 303775 bookings and enquiries

I had a client who, through his work, (decades bent over a work bench) had kyphosis (upper body rounded forward).

He was surprised when I asked if he had digestive discomfort and reflux - well the food pipe is angled forward allowing stomach contents to escape upwards (and the cardiac sphincter to not work properly).

See, knowledge is power! And the graphic below shows why your posture is so strong important.

Spend hours slumped over a computer? Could you spend 1 hour helping yourself put it right?

(Obviously an hour’s massage will not ‘fix’ the problem but may make you more receptive to suggestions that you can take to help - such as water break, specific exercises, desk breaks etc)

Benefits of Melatonin in Cancer Treatment.
There is a molecule your body produces every single night.

Not during the day. Not continuously. Produced specifically timed to darkness by the pineal gland in response to the absence of light. A molecule so evolutionarily ancient it is found in algae, in plants, in fungi, in bacteria in virtually every living organism that has ever needed to orient itself to the rotating earth.

Melatonin. The primary signal of darkness.

Most people know it as a sleep supplement.

Almost nobody including most oncologists knows it as one of the most extensively studied anti-cancer molecules in the scientific literature.

The research spans four decades. Thousands of laboratory studies. Consistent animal data. And — most remarkably — a body of human clinical trials showing that melatonin supplementation produces measurable improvements in cancer survival, tumour response rates, and quality of life in patients with advanced cancer.

These trials were published in peer-reviewed oncology journals. They have not been refuted. They have not been retracted.

They have been almost entirely ignored.

Not because the evidence is weak. But because melatonin cannot be patented. A supplement costing a few pence per dose cannot generate the commercial infrastructure that forces oncological mainstream adoption.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐈𝐒
Melatonin is synthesised from tryptophan through a four-step pathway — tryptophan 5-HTP → serotonin → N-acetylserotonin → melatonin with the rate-limiting enzyme AANAT exquisitely sensitive to light; darkness switches production on, light switches it off.

The modern world is a melatonin suppression machine. LED streetlights, smartphone screens, overhead lighting in the evening — all suppress melatonin through the same mechanism: blue-spectrum light (~480nm) activating retinal melanopsin receptors that signal the pineal gland to stop.

The circadian melatonin profile in a healthy person:

Begins rising approximately 2 hours before sleep
Peaks between 2–4am at 100–200 pg/mL
Falls as dawn approaches; virtually undetectable during the day

What suppresses the peak:

Age — a 70-year-old produces 20–30% of the melatonin of a 20-year-old
LED screens and overhead lighting in the evening
Beta-blockers — one of the most prescribed cardiovascular drug classes; directly block the sympathetic signals to the pineal gland
Alcohol — suppresses melatonin production
Chronic cortisol elevation from stress
NSAIDs in some cases

Important discovery: the pineal gland is not the only source. The gut produces melatonin in quantities that may exceed pineal production. Immune cells — including natural killer cells and macrophages — produce and respond to melatonin. Mitochondria appear to be a primary site of local melatonin synthesis. This means that restoring melatonin through supplementation may be relevant even in people whose pineal production appears adequate.

𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐑 — 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐌𝐒
Melatonin interacts with cancer biology through more simultaneous mechanisms than virtually any other single molecule studied in oncology.

Anti-proliferative — slowing cancer cell division

Arrests cancer cells at the G1/S and G2/M cell cycle transitions through upregulation of CDK inhibitors p21 and p27
In breast cancer specifically — acts as a triple anti-oestrogenic agent: downregulates oestrogen receptor ERα, inhibits aromatase (the enzyme converting androgens to oestrogen in tumour tissue), and inhibits sulphatase (converting inactive to active oestrogen); a mechanistic profile that overlaps with tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors through distinct complementary pathways
Reduces EGF receptor, IGF-1 receptor, and HER2 signalling — the growth factor pathways driving cancer cell proliferation across multiple tumour types
Modulates androgen receptor activity in prostate cancer

Pro-apoptotic — inducing cancer cell death

→ Activates the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway; reduces Bcl-2, increases Bax, promotes cytochrome c release and caspase activation
Upregulates death receptor expression (FAS, TRAIL receptors) on cancer cell surfaces
Selective for cancer cells — induces apoptosis in cancer cells while protecting normal cells; a selectivity that reflects differences in antioxidant capacity, receptor expression, and mitochondrial status between cancer and normal tissue
One reason melatonin reduces treatment toxicity to normal tissue while enhancing effectiveness against tumour cells

Anti-angiogenic — starving the tumour of its blood supply

Tumours cannot grow beyond 2mm without establishing a blood supply; melatonin inhibits this through multiple mechanisms
Reduces VEGF expression in tumour cells and tumour-associated macrophages
Inhibits HIF-1α — the transcription factor driving VEGF production under tumour hypoxia
Directly inhibits endothelial cell proliferation and migration

Anti-metastatic — reducing cancer spread

Metastasis causes the majority of cancer deaths. Melatonin addresses it through multiple simultaneous mechanisms:

Preserves E-cadherin — the adhesion molecule that prevents cancer cells from acquiring the motile, invasive phenotype required for metastasis
Reduces vimentin and N-cadherin — mesenchymal markers of invasiveness
Inhibits MMP-2, MMP-9, and other matrix metalloproteinases ,the enzymes cancer cells use to degrade the extracellular matrix and invade surrounding tissue
Modulates β1-integrin expression — reducing cancer cell adhesion to metastatic target organs
Stabilises the actin cytoskeleton through calmodulin binding — reducing cellular motility

Immune activation — restoring the body's cancer surveillance

Directly enhances NK cell cytotoxicity — the immune system's primary cancer surveillance mechanism; melatonin receptor expression on NK cells allows direct activation
Promotes Th1 anti-tumour T cell responses and CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity
Stimulates IL-2, IL-12, and IFN-γ production — the cytokines that activate adaptive anti-tumour immunity
Polarises tumour-associated macrophages toward M1 (anti-tumour) rather than M2 (pro-tumour) phenotype
Most anti-tumour immune functions peak during the night — during the circadian window of high melatonin; light at night suppresses precisely this nocturnal cancer surveillance window

Antioxidant and DNA protection

Melatonin and its metabolites (AFMK, AMK) are among the most potent endogenous antioxidants characterised; each molecule potentially scavenges multiple reactive oxygen and nitrogen species through its cascading metabolism
Concentrates in mitochondria at levels exceeding plasma concentrations — directly protecting the primary cellular source of oxidative damage
Activates Nrf2 — upregulating SOD, catalase, GPx, and glutathione reductase
Stimulates DNA base excision repair and nucleotide excision repair — protecting genomic integrity

Epigenetic activity

Influences DNA methylation of cancer-relevant gene promoters can restore expression of silenced tumour suppressor genes
Inhibits HDAC activity — the same class of targets as pharmaceutical HDAC inhibitor cancer drugs
Regulates cancer-relevant microRNAs

Chemotherapy and radiation sensitisation — the most clinically important mechanism

Primes cancer cells for apoptosis while protecting normal cells, the differential sensitisation that explains melatonin's simultaneous toxicity-reducing and response-improving effects in clinical trials
Arrests cancer cells at cell cycle phases where they are most vulnerable to specific chemotherapy agents
Reduces P-glycoprotein expression in cancer cells the drug efflux pump that causes multidrug resistance
Enhances radiation-induced cancer cell killing while simultaneously providing radioprotection to normal tissue through antioxidant mechanisms

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 — 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒, 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐑
The laboratory mechanisms are compelling. The population evidence makes them clinically urgent.

In 2007 — the IARC classified shift work involving circadian disruption as a probable human carcinogen (Group 2A) — placing light at night in the same carcinogenic category as glyphosate and many chemical compounds

Multiple large prospective cohort studies document 30–60% elevated breast cancer risk in long-term female shift workers consistent with the aromatase-inhibiting and oestrogen-receptor-modulating effects of melatonin being absent during nights worked under artificial light

Satellite light-at-night studies: an Israeli population study found 37% higher breast cancer rates in communities with the highest outdoor light-at-night exposure versus the lowest

The blind women evidence is among the most compelling: completely blind women (receiving no photic input to suppress melatonin regardless of environmental light) have significantly lower breast cancer rates than sighted women; partially visually impaired women have intermediate rates; a dose-response relationship between visual light sensitivity and breast cancer risk that is as direct as epidemiology can produce

Prostate cancer: equivalent shift work and light-at-night associations; higher urinary melatonin metabolite excretion prospectively associated with significantly lower prostate cancer risk

Cancer progression: breast cancer patients with disrupted circadian cortisol rhythms have significantly worse survival outcomes; melatonin production levels are inversely associated with breast cancer staging and prognosis

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄
This is the section that oncology has been collectively avoiding.

Paolo Lissoni's Italian clinical trial programme:

Paolo Lissoni — oncologist at San Gerardo Hospital in Monza — conducted a systematic programme of randomised trials through the 1990s and 2000s, published in peer-reviewed oncology journals including Lancet, British Journal of Cancer, and European Journal of Cancer.

All trials used 20mg melatonin orally in the evening alongside conventional treatment.

Key findings:

Metastatic NSCLC (1992, British Journal of Cancer): melatonin plus cisplatin-based chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone — one-year survival 43% vs 19%; significantly higher tumour response rate; significantly less thrombocytopenia, neurotoxicity, and weight loss in the melatonin group

Metastatic solid tumours ineligible for chemotherapy (1994, European Journal of Cancer): melatonin plus supportive care versus supportive care alone — one-year survival 36% vs 12%; threefold improvement in the sickest patients receiving no other active treatment

Metastatic colorectal cancer (2002): one-year survival 27% vs 9%; significant improvement in disease stabilisation

Multiple tumour types (2003): melatonin plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone — objective response rate 42% vs 23%; one-year survival 43% vs 27%; significantly less myelosuppression, neurotoxicity, fatigue, and cachexia across the board

The 2012 meta-analysis — the most important synthesis:

Mills, Wu, Seely, and Guyatt published in the Journal of Pineal Research a systematic review of all randomised controlled trials of melatonin in solid tumour cancer patients.

21 randomised trials
1,369 total patients
Cancer types: NSCLC, breast, colorectal, gastric, hepatocellular carcinoma, brain metastases, and multiple others
→ Melatonin dose: 10–20mgs daily (most trials: 20mg)

Primary finding — mortality:

Relative risk of death at one year: 0.66 (95% CI 0.59–0.73)
34% relative reduction in one-year mortality
Consistent across all 21 trials — not a single trial showed harm
Low heterogeneity unusually consistent results across diverse cancer types and settings
Number needed to treat: approximately 5, meaning 1 in every 5 patients who would otherwise have died at one year survived with melatonin

Chemotherapy toxicity reduction:

Thrombocytopenia: relative risk 0.20 — 80% reduction
Peripheral neuropathy: relative risk 0.29 — 71% reduction
Severe fatigue: relative risk 0.49 — 51% reduction
Cachexia and leucopenia: both significantly reduced
Tumour response rates: significantly improved

The authors called for further large-scale rigorous trials.

Those trials have not been conducted.

Not because the evidence is insufficient. Because melatonin cannot be patented.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 — 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒
Before discussing supplementation — the most fundamental intervention is not a pill.

It is darkness.

What suppresses melatonin at night:

Blue-spectrum LED overhead lighting in the evening
Smartphone, tablet, and computer screens in the 2 hours before sleep
Street lighting entering the bedroom (blackout curtains are one of the most underrated cancer prevention investments)
Night light exposures during sleep, even briefly getting up to a lit bathroom
Beta-blocker medications independently suppress pineal melatonin regardless of light

Practical restoration:

Blackout curtains in the bedroom — complete darkness during sleep
Blue-light-blocking glasses beginning 2 hours before bed
Switch to warm-toned bulbs (2700K or below) for evening household lighting
Screens off or on night mode in the 2 hours before sleep
Morning daylight exposure anchoring the circadian clock at its other end

𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 — 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐃𝐄
The dose distinction is critical and almost universally misunderstood:

Sleep dose: 0.5–3mg — a physiological dose signalling the circadian clock; appropriate for sleep support

Cancer-relevant dose: 10–20 mgs— the pharmacological dose used across all clinical trials; most commonly 20mg; this is 10–40 times the sleep dose; achieves the direct anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic, and immune-activating effects through both receptor-mediated and receptor-independent mechanisms

A patient taking 1mg at night for sleep is not receiving the dose studied in the Lissoni trials.

Safety of high-dose melatonin:

No significant safety signals across 25+ years of clinical trials using 20 mgs daily for 1–2 years
Primary side effects: morning grogginess (resolves with dose timing adjustment), vivid dreams
Theoretical concern in active autoimmune conditions discuss with physician
Warfarin: some case reports of interaction — monitor if anticoagulated

Forms:

Immediate-release: peaks within 1–2 hours; used in all clinical trials
Sustained-release: more prolonged overnight exposure; some practitioners combine both forms for cancer applications

Timing: evening, approximately 1-2 hours before habitual sleep time consistent with the body's natural melatonin onset and with all clinical trial protocols

Who benefits most from supplementation:

Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiation based on direct clinical trial evidence
For those in remission for recurrence prevention through ongoing anti-proliferative and immune-modulating effects
People at elevated cancer risk, family history, insulin resistance, obesity, chronic inflammation, shift work history
Anyone on beta-blockers whose endogenous melatonin is independently suppressed
Older adults whose natural melatonin production has declined dramatically

Disclosure to oncologist is essential, particularly regarding immunotherapy interactions, which have not been specifically studied and warrant oncological discussion.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐁𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒
Melatonin + Vitamin D3: complementary NK cell activation and aromatase inhibition; both deficient in the majority of cancer patients. Pair D3 with K2.

Melatonin + Omega-3 EPA/DHA: omega-3 reduces PGE2-driven tumour microenvironment immunosuppression; melatonin restores the circadian immune surveillance that PGE2 impairs; directly complementary mechanisms

Melatonin + EGCG (green tea extract): both inhibit NF-κB, both suppress angiogenesis, both have epigenetic tumour suppressor-restoring activity; synergistic across multiple pathways

Melatonin + Mistletoe: the Lissoni group specifically studied this combination; complementary NK cell activation through distinct mechanisms

Melatonin + Fasting (FMD): the most powerful integrative oncology combination; fasting removes the metabolic fuel and growth signals cancer cells require; melatonin activates the immune surveillance that destroys them; differential stress resistance protection of normal cells during treatment

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐇
Every night in a properly dark room the pineal gland produces a molecule that surveys the body for cancer cells, activates NK cells to destroy them, inhibits the aromatase feeding hormone-sensitive cancer, arrests cancer cell division, primes cancer cells for apoptosis, inhibits tumour angiogenesis, restrains metastatic machinery, and protects normal cell DNA from the mutations that initiate malignancy.

This has been happening every night for as long as human beings have slept in darkness.

The modern world, LED streetlights, glowing screens, always-on environments, shift work schedules, beta-blocker prescriptions is dismantling this system at unprecedented scale.

The IARC classified shift work as a probable carcinogen in 2007. The epidemiological evidence connecting light at night to breast and prostate cancer is among the most consistent in environmental epidemiology. The molecular evidence fills thousands of peer-reviewed papers across four decades. The clinical trial evidence — 21 randomised trials, 1,369 patients, 34% reduction in one-year mortality — is sitting in the Journal of Pineal Research, cited thousands of times, ignored in oncological practice.

Not because it is wrong.

Because melatonin costs a few pence per day. Because it cannot be patented. Because no pharmaceutical company will fund the Phase III trial that would make it impossible to ignore.

The cancer patient sitting in the chemotherapy suite receiving a drug costing £10,000 per cycle is not routinely offered the 20mg of melatonin that might reduce their treatment toxicity by 70%, increase their tumour response rate, and improve their one-year survival by 34%.

Not because the evidence does not exist but because the evidence exists outside the commercial infrastructure that determines what oncology adopts.

Darkness is not passive.
It is when the body does some of its most important work.

Restore the darkness. Support the melatonin. Let the ancient biology do what it has always been trying to do.
Available at The Natural Path
Call Tonia 07825912001

I will be at Natural Path Saturday 30th May and have 1 appointment left - 12.00 noon.

Start June off balanced and revived with either a reflexology treatment

- treating the whole body through the feet or a

- massage treatment targeting those pesky niggles before they turn into pain

Or even boosting your lymphatic fluid with a manual lymphatic drainage massage.

DM to book

MA Holistic Therapies A truly bespoke holistic treatment service tailored to suit your personal requirements. Choose from massage (Swedish through to Sports), Indian Head Massage, Reflexology, Mian Dui, Mian Shenti, Reiki or any combination of the above

Morning routine

Just get out there!

This Wednesday 6th May I’ll be at Natural Path.

Appointments
12.00pm and 3.00pm

If you’re feeling overwhelm or could just do with some time out DM me to book

Reflexology and massage available