Some links on this page are affiliate links — I earn a small commission if you purchase through them at no extra cost to you. All recommendations are genuine personal endorsements. I never recommend anything I haven't used or read myself.
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Podcasts Worth Your Time
These are the voices I return to. Some are mainstream, some are genuinely outside the box. My annotation tells you what I actually think — including where I don't fully agree but find the thinking useful anyway.
Clinical & Functional Health
The Drive
Peter Attia MD
The gold standard for long-form clinical thinking on longevity, metabolic health, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Attia interviews scientists and clinicians properly — full papers, full context, genuine intellectual rigour.
CAVEAT — Heavy on research, sometimes skews toward high-income intervention. Strongest on metabolic health, cancer biology, and exercise science.
Found My Fitness
Rhonda Patrick PhD
Exceptional for highlighting new research on micronutrients, sauna, cold exposure, omega-3, and brain health. Patrick does the primary literature justice in a way most health podcasters don't.
CAVEAT — Some content leans more generic than I'd like for individual problem-solving. Particularly strong on nutrition biochemistry. Watch for rodent research extrapolated to humans — context matters.
Huberman Lab
Andrew Huberman PhD
The most accessible entry point to neuroscience-backed health protocols available. Morning light, cold exposure, breathwork, sleep — the basics done well with proper mechanistic explanation.
CAVEAT — Massive audience means content is necessarily broad. Use as an introduction to topics rather than a clinical reference. Some protocols oversimplified for individual variation.
Feel Better, Live More
Rangan Chatterjee MD
The most accessible UK-based functional medicine voice in mainstream media. Good entry-level content for clients beginning their health journey. Warm, practical, and approachable without sacrificing clinical integrity.
CAVEAT — Pitched at a general audience rather than practitioners. Best for introducing clients to functional thinking before they work with you.
Critical Thinking & Challenging Orthodoxy
The Fat Emperor
Ivor Cummins
Meticulous analysis of cardiovascular risk, insulin resistance, and the flaws in conventional lipid hypothesis thinking. Cummins does the primary literature on metabolic disease better than most medical journalists. His work on the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio as a metabolic risk marker is outstanding.
CAVEAT — Can be combative in tone. Strongest on metabolic cardiovascular risk. Ignore the occasional tangents and focus on the data analysis.
Mind & Matter
Nick Jikomes PhD
A neuroscientist with a Harvard PhD and a BS in molecular genetics interviewing the scientists doing the actual research — not commentators on the research. Covers nutrition, metabolism, hormones, circadian biology, and neuroscience with genuine scientific depth. Recent episodes on gut health, IBS, soybean oil, and circadian fat metabolism are directly relevant to functional medicine clinical practice.
CAVEAT — Requires scientific literacy. This isn't an entry-level listen — it's a practitioner resource. Exactly what the beyond mainstream label was designed for.
Not On The Beeb
Mark Playne
The stories and voices that mainstream media doesn't cover — health, science, technology, and culture from outside the consensus narrative. Mark asks the questions that commissioned journalism doesn't. Genuinely independent, often genuinely important.
CAVEAT — Deliberately counter-consensus. Requires your own critical filter. That's the point.
Substacks Worth Paying For
John Dee's Almanac
John Dee — Former G7 UK Government Scientist & NHS Applied Statistician
Applied statistics applied to public health data — properly. Dee is a former senior government scientist who brings genuine quantitative rigour to questions that are usually handled with headline numbers and no methodology. His ongoing series on influenza transmission and mortality data is a masterclass in how to actually read epidemiological evidence. Rare in that it changes your mind by showing you the maths rather than telling you the conclusion.
CAVEAT — Requires comfort with statistical concepts. The work is dense. Worth the effort if you want to understand how public health data is — and isn't — produced.
Mind & Matter
Nick Jikomes PhD — Harvard Neuroscience · UW-Madison Molecular Genetics
The written companion to the podcast — deeper dives into the same neuroscience, metabolism, and nutrition territory. Jikomes prioritises primary literature over commentary, and his weekly reading lists alone are worth the subscription. His principle: consulting primary rather than secondary sources, independent rather than institutional voices. If you encounter an uncomfortable truth or the evidence suggests an unfashionable idea may be valid, follow the evidence. That's a scientific standard most health media fails.
CAVEAT — Paid subscription for full access. Worth it. Free content gives you a strong sense of whether the depth is for you.
Mind, Meaning & the Wider Picture
Making Sense
Sam Harris
Philosophy, neuroscience, ethics, artificial intelligence, and consciousness. Harris interviews seriously across disciplines — scientists, philosophers, former intelligence officers, and public health experts. For the practitioner who reads beyond clinical literature.
CAVEAT — Politically opinionated in ways not everyone will share. The science and philosophy episodes are the strongest. Judge each episode on its own merits.
The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim Ferriss
World-class performers from sport, business, science, and the arts deconstructed through the same lens — morning routines, mental models, decision-making under pressure, and systems for sustainable high performance. More relevant to clinical practice than it appears.
CAVEAT — Variable quality depending on guest. Skip the business-only episodes. The best ones — Naval Ravikant, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Matthew Walker — are outstanding.
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Apps & Tracking Tools
These are the digital tools I recommend to clients for monitoring, tracking, and self-investigation. All have genuine clinical rationale — not wellness theatre.
Sleep & HRV Tracking
iOS & Android · Hardware required
Oura Ring
HRV · Sleep staging · Readiness score · Temperature
The most clinically informative wearable I'm aware of for HPA axis monitoring. The readiness score — combining HRV, resting heart rate, sleep quality, and temperature deviation — is a daily objective measure of nervous system recovery. Particularly valuable for clients in HPA depletion protocols where subjective reporting is unreliable.
iOS & Android · Polar H10 strap recommended
Elite HRV
Morning HRV · Baseline tracking · Training readiness
Free app, pairs with a Polar H10 chest strap for accurate HRV measurement. The 2-3 minute morning reading protocol is the gold standard for tracking autonomic nervous system status over time. Lower cost than Oura if you already have the Polar strap from the resources page.
Nutrition & Tracking
iOS, Android & Web — Free tier available
Cronometer
Micronutrient tracking · Amino acids · Mineral status
The only food logging app I recommend because it's the only one that tracks micronutrients properly — not just calories and macros, but magnesium, zinc, B vitamins, amino acid profiles. Three days of Cronometer data tells me more about a client's nutritional status than most supplement questionnaires.
iOS & Android
MyNetDiary
Blood sugar logging · CGM integration · Meal tracking
Particularly useful for clients tracking blood sugar patterns alongside a glucose monitor. Clean interface, good CGM integration for those using continuous monitoring, and the ability to log symptoms alongside readings — which is where the clinical picture actually emerges.
Mindfulness & Mental Health
iOS & Android · Subscription
Waking Up
Meditation · Philosophy · Neuroscience of mind
Sam Harris's meditation app. More intellectually serious than Calm or Headspace — it's grounded in the neuroscience and philosophy of consciousness rather than generic wellness messaging. If you're going to meditate, understand why it works. Particularly good for clients who are drawn to the science but resistant to the spiritual framing of other apps.
iOS & Android — Female clients
Clue
Cycle tracking · Symptom correlation · Hormonal patterns
The most clinically useful period and cycle tracking app available. The ability to log symptoms, mood, energy, digestion, and sleep quality against cycle phase creates a longitudinal dataset that I find invaluable in DUTCH Plus interpretation. Patterns that appear random in isolation become predictable when mapped against the cycle.
iOS & Android
Breathwrk
Guided breathing · Box breathing · HRV breathing
Guided breathing protocols with a timer — coherence breathing at 5.5 breaths per minute, box breathing, 4-7-8, and others. Use alongside the OxiPro BP1 from the resources page for a measurable biofeedback loop. Takes the guesswork out of breathing practice for clients who can't self-regulate the pace reliably.
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Further Reading
Books that don't fit neatly into the clinical categories on the main resources page — broader thinking on technology, society, health systems, and the future. These are the books currently shaking feathers, starting conversations, and asking the questions that need asking.
AI & I
An examination of what artificial intelligence is doing to human thought, creativity, and autonomy — and what it means for medicine, health, and the practitioner-patient relationship. Getting traction for the right reasons. Thought-provoking and timely in ways that sanitised mainstream tech commentary isn't. Detective Health is built with AI, not on it — this book explains why that distinction matters.
The Great Cholesterol Con
Kendrick's original challenge to the lipid hypothesis. Read alongside The Clot Thickens (in the main resources section) to understand why the cholesterol conversation in medicine has been so badly distorted — and what the actual cardiovascular risk markers are.
Bad Science
Required reading for anyone who wants to critically evaluate health research. Goldacre's forensic dismantling of bad epidemiology, media health reporting, and pharmaceutical research bias is as relevant as ever. You don't have to agree with his politics to appreciate the scientific method he applies.
Dopamine Nation
The neuroscience of addiction, reward, and the pleasure-pain balance in an age of overconsumption. Clinically relevant for understanding compulsive eating, screen addiction, and the motivational deficits that present in so many clients with HPA dysfunction. Unexpectedly compassionate and practically useful.
Breath
The popular science companion to Patrick McKeown's Oxygen Advantage. Nestor's investigation into breathing anthropology, the devolution of the human airway, and the evidence for nasal breathing is compelling and accessible. Give this to clients who resist the idea that breathing technique matters clinically. It changes minds.
The Body Keeps the Score
The definitive text on how trauma is stored in the body and affects physiology, immunity, and chronic health patterns. Essential for understanding why some clients don't respond to physical interventions alone — the nervous system history matters as much as the biochemistry. One of the most clinically important books I've read.