What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm Saturday 9am - 2pm 5:30pm - 6pm

http://www.drliznutrition.com/optimal-retreats-dr-liz

Optimal with Dr Liz, Brisbane (2026)

21/08/2026

Successful wound healing depends on much more than what happens at the wound itself.

Dressings, infection control, pressure management and vascular assessment are essential. But healing also creates significant metabolic and nutritional demands.

Energy, protein and micronutrients all play important roles in tissue repair, immune function and recovery.

So perhaps the more interesting question is no longer simply:

“Does nutrition matter in wound healing?”

We know that it does.

The harder questions are:
🔹 Which patients are most likely to benefit from nutrition intervention?
🔹 How do we identify them early?
🔹 What intervention and dose do they actually need?
🔹 And are we measuring whether they receive it?

These are some of the questions we’ve been exploring in our current research into nutrition and chronic wound healing.

Next week at Wounds Australia 2026 in Adelaide, I’ll be presenting our work on precision nutrition in chronic wound healing and what the current evidence may tell us about identifying patients most likely to benefit.

One of the messages emerging for me is that nutrition shouldn't sit alongside wound care as an optional extra.

It needs to be part of multidisciplinary wound assessment and management, while recognising that one nutritional approach is unlikely to be right for every patient.

Because perhaps the next step in wound nutrition isn't simply doing more nutrition.

It's doing the right nutrition, for the right patient, at the right time.

18/08/2026

Malnutrition remains one of the most common - and most under-recognised - clinical conditions in healthcare.

Despite affecting an estimated 20-50% of hospitalised patients, only a small proportion are formally identified and treated.

The consequences extend well beyond nutritional status.

Malnutrition is associated with:
➡️ longer hospital stays
➡️ increased complications
➡️ higher readmission rates
➡️ greater healthcare costs

The evidence supporting routine nutrition screening and early intervention is already compelling.

The challenge is implementation.

Embedding nutrition into routine clinical pathways is not simply good clinical care. It is increasingly becoming a health system priority with measurable benefits for patients, clinicians, and healthcare services.

13/08/2026

One of the questions that has fascinated me throughout my career is this.

If nutrition is so important for wound healing, why do studies often report different results?

For decades, we've known that adequate energy, protein and key micronutrients are fundamental to tissue repair. Patients who are malnourished consistently experience poorer healing outcomes, longer recovery times and greater complications. Yet when we examine nutrition intervention trials, the findings are often more variable than expected.

Perhaps we're no longer asking whether nutrition "works." Perhaps we're beginning to ask better questions.

Are we identifying the patients most likely to benefit? Are we adequately assessing nutritional status, or relying too heavily on weight and BMI? Are factors such as inflammation, sarcopenia, frailty and body composition influencing outcomes? Are we comparing studies involving very different wound types, patient populations and interventions?

These questions formed the basis of our umbrella review. One message emerged consistently: nutrition is not an optional adjunct to wound care. It is a core component of comprehensive wound management.

The strongest evidence supports the fundamentals — early identification of malnutrition, adequate energy and protein, correction of deficiencies, and individualised assessment.

At the same time, the field is evolving. Precision nutrition, nutritional phenotyping and body composition assessment are helping explain why some patients respond well while others do not. We're moving beyond asking whether nutrition works, towards understanding who benefits most and how to deliver more personalised care.

Looking forward to sharing the latest evidence and hearing perspectives from colleagues at Wounds Australia 2026.

31/07/2026

Among the many challenges associated with lung cancer, cancer cachexia remains one of the most clinically complex.

It is frequently mistaken for malnutrition, yet the underlying biology is fundamentally different.

On World Lung Cancer Day, it's worth highlighting why recognising cachexia early can influence assessment, treatment planning, and multidisciplinary care.

Lung cancer has one of the highest rates of cancer cachexia of any tumour type.

Current evidence, including ASCO guidance and a recent review published in Current Oncology, reinforces that cachexia is not simply malnutrition. Tumour-driven inflammation and metabolic reprogramming mean the body cannot effectively utilise additional calories alone.

Management requires a multimodal approach that may include:
✔️ Individualised nutrition care
✔️ Resistance exercise where appropriate
✔️ Symptom management
✔️ Pharmacological therapies for selected patients

Early recognition is critical.

Treating cachexia as "just weight loss" risks overlooking a distinct disease process with different clinical implications.

Recognising cachexia early changes assessment, treatment planning, clinical expectations, and the conversations we have with patients and families.

It also reinforces why nutrition should be integrated into multidisciplinary cancer care from diagnosis onwards, rather than introduced only after significant weight loss has occurred.

References: ASCO Guidelines; Current Oncology – Cancer Cachexia Review

30/07/2026

Nutrition is especially vulnerable to misinformation. The evidence base is strong in many areas, but genuinely complex in others. Meaningful dietary outcomes often take years, or even decades, to emerge, and nutrition research methodologies have real limitations that create legitimate uncertainty. Unfortunately, that uncertainty is often exploited.

Everyone also eats, which can create a false equivalence between personal experience and scientific evidence that is rarely seen in other areas of medicine.

A well-resourced supplement and wellness industry also has strong incentives to promote claims that consistently exceed what the evidence supports.

The patterns of nutrition misinformation become recognisable once you know what to look for.

⚠️ Single nutrients are demonised or elevated in isolation.
⚠️ Anecdotes are presented as generalisable evidence.
⚠️ Animal or cell-culture studies are extrapolated directly to human dietary recommendations.
⚠️ Conspiracy narratives are used to discredit evidence-based advice before it is even considered.
The clinical consequences are real.

In oncology, patients sometimes delay or decline evidence-based treatment in favour of dietary protocols with no demonstrated clinical benefit.

People living with chronic disease may make dietary changes that worsen metabolic control based on social media advice rather than individual clinical assessment.

Restrictive dietary ideologies can also reinforce disordered eating behaviours in vulnerable individuals.

Evidence-based nutrition communication looks different.

✅ It is transparent about both the strengths and limitations of the evidence.
✅ It uses appropriate scientific language, such as "associated with" rather than "causes" and "suggests" rather than "proves."
✅ It focuses on overall dietary patterns rather than single nutrients or supplements.
✅ It acknowledges individual variation, clinical context and personal preferences.
Importantly, the goal is not to dismiss every nutrition idea that sits outside mainstream guidance.

Nutrition science continues to evolve, and healthy scientific debate is an essential part of that process.

Many of the foundations of nutrition science are remarkably consistent. At the same time, we're continually learning more about individual variation, implementation, and where recommendations need to be personalised.

I'd always be a little cautious of anyone who speaks in absolutes or claims to have the one "correct" answer. Good science is confident where the evidence is strong and appropriately humble where uncertainty remains.

Seek advice from appropriately qualified health professionals, stay curious, and where appropriate, thoughtfully experiment with evidence-based strategies while paying attention to your own health outcomes. The goal isn't to find the perfect diet. It's to find an evidence-informed approach that is effective, practical and sustainable for you.

Patients deserve nothing less.

23/07/2026

“Eating healthy” is often framed as a matter of knowledge and motivation.

Know what to eat. Want it enough. Make better choices.

But nutrition research and clinical practice suggest the reality is far more complex.

Dietary behaviour is shaped by a combination of:

➡️ biology
➡️ psychology
➡️ food environments
➡️ socioeconomic factors
➡️ culture and family context
➡️ health literacy
➡️ access, time, and stress

Food environments matter profoundly.

In many settings, ultra-processed foods are cheaper, more accessible, more heavily marketed, and more convenient than whole-food alternatives. For people managing financial stress, shift work, caregiving responsibilities, chronic illness, or limited food access, nutritional choices are constrained in ways that simplistic public messaging rarely acknowledges.

Biology also plays a role.

Appetite regulation, hormonal signalling, stress physiology, taste preference, reward pathways, and even gut microbiome composition all influence eating behaviour. Ultra-processed foods are often engineered to maximise palatability and override natural satiety signals, which makes moderation more complex than a simple question of willpower.

Psychology matters too.

Stress, fatigue, emotional regulation, past dieting experiences, trauma, and relationships with food all shape how and why people eat. Behaviour change in nutrition is rarely just an information problem.

And food is never purely nutritional.

It is culture, identity, family, celebration, comfort, and connection.

Recognising this complexity is not about removing individual responsibility. It is about understanding that meaningful nutrition support, whether in clinical care, public health, or policy, requires more than simply telling people to “eat better.”

Nutrition sits at the intersection of biology, behaviour, environment, and systems.

This is why meaningful nutrition support, in clinical practice, public health, and policy, requires working across all of these levels, not just the individual one.

20/07/2026

Nutrition in palliative and supportive care requires a fundamental shift in how goals are defined.

In curative and survivorship settings, nutrition care often focuses on optimisation, preservation, and long-term outcomes. In palliative care, the focus shifts toward comfort, quality of life, symptom management, and preserving the meaning and enjoyment of food for as long as possible.

This is not a lesser form of nutrition care. It is a different and equally important one.

Symptom burden significantly shapes the nutritional experience in advanced illness.
⚠️ Anorexia
⚠️ Nausea
⚠️ Dysphagia
⚠️ Taste changes
⚠️ Xerostomia
⚠️ Fatigue

can all affect both the capacity and desire to eat.

Practical nutrition support at this stage is therefore less about achieving nutritional targets and more about reducing burden and supporting comfort.

In practice, this often means:
🔸Small and frequent meals and snacks
🔸Texture modification
🔸Oral care
🔸Favourite foods
🔸Hydration support
🔸Realistic family guidance

often becoming central components of care.

Decisions around nutrition and hydration support are among the most ethically complex conversations in clinical practice. These discussions require careful consideration of the evidence, the clinical context, patient values, family perspectives, and overall goals of care.

Food also carries profound emotional, cultural, and relational meaning.

When appetite declines, families frequently experience distress and may interpret reduced intake as a sign that they are no longer caring adequately for the person they love.

Supporting families through this process - helping them understand alterations in appetite as part of advanced illness rather than a failure of care - is an important and often under-recognised part of palliative nutrition practice.

Dietitians working in supportive and palliative care play a distinct clinical role:

🤝 Supporting patients and families
🗣️ Facilitating goals-of-care conversations
👩‍⚕️ Coordinating with multidisciplinary teams
🕊️ Advocating for comfort, dignity, and patient-centred care

At every stage of cancer care, nutrition matters.

In palliative care, what it means - and what it asks of clinicians - changes most profoundly.

16/07/2026

Nutrition in cancer care is not a single intervention delivered at a single point in time.

It is a clinical priority that evolves across every stage of the cancer journey, from diagnosis through active treatment, recovery, survivorship, and, in some cases, palliative care.

Nutritional needs, risks, and goals shift at each stage. Effective nutrition care must shift with them.

At diagnosis, nutritional status is already one of the strongest predictors of treatment outcomes. During treatment, nutrition becomes central to preserving functional capacity, supporting recovery, and maintaining treatment tolerance. After treatment, the focus often shifts toward rebuilding muscle mass, restoring metabolic health, and addressing the long-term effects of therapy.

In survivorship, nutrition intersects with cardiometabolic health, body composition, quality of life, and recurrence risk. And in palliative care, goals shift again → toward comfort, symptom management, and what matters most to the individual patient.

Across every stage, two things remain consistent:

➡️ nutritional status matters, and nutrition care must remain responsive to where the patient is in their journey.

This is why oncology nutrition is one of the most clinically complex, multidisciplinary, and impactful areas of nutrition science and supportive cancer care.

13/07/2026

Many chronic diseases share common upstream biological drivers.

Cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, several cancers, and aspects of cognitive decline are often discussed as separate conditions. Yet many are linked through overlapping mechanisms, including chronic low-grade inflammation, insulin resistance, adverse body composition, oxidative stress, and metabolic dysfunction.

This is one reason nutrition remains central to prevention science.

Dietary patterns influence:

🔸metabolic health
🔸inflammatory regulation
🔸body composition
🔸gut microbiome composition
🔸long-term disease risk

Importantly, these relationships are pattern-based rather than driven by single nutrients in isolation.

Whole-food dietary patterns rich in vegetables, legumes, whole grains, quality protein, nuts, olive oil, and dietary fibre are consistently associated with more favourable metabolic and inflammatory profiles across populations.

Conversely, highly ultra-processed dietary patterns are associated with increased cardiometabolic risk, poorer metabolic regulation, and less favourable body composition over time.

This is also why prevention strategies tend to converge.

The same broad dietary patterns associated with lower cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk are also associated with lower risk across several cancers and improved long-term health outcomes more broadly.

Body composition is increasingly relevant in this discussion as well.

Low muscle mass and excess visceral adiposity independently influence chronic disease risk, functional decline, and long-term outcomes, particularly across ageing and survivorship settings.

Importantly, prevention is not solely an individual responsibility.

Food environments, socioeconomic factors, healthcare access, health literacy, and policy all shape dietary behaviour and long-term health outcomes at a population level.

Nutrition science, therefore, sits at the intersection of biology, behaviour, public health, and healthcare systems.

As the chronic disease burden continues to rise globally, prevention remains one of the most important and underinvested areas of healthcare.

09/07/2026

Over the past two decades, nutrition science has generated an increasingly sophisticated evidence base.

We now understand far more about how dietary patterns influence metabolic health, immune regulation, body composition, cancer outcomes, the gut microbiome, and long-term disease risk across the lifespan.

The challenge is no longer discovery alone.

Increasingly, it is translation.

Many evidence-based nutrition recommendations still fail to reach patients consistently within real-world healthcare systems. The gap between what research shows and what is routinely implemented in practice remains substantial.

This is where the next phase of nutrition science is likely to focus.

Future models of care will increasingly integrate:

➡️ biomarkers, functional and body composition assessment
➡️ behavioural science to address patient priotities
➡️ digital monitoring and longitudinal data
➡️ more personalised and adaptive nutrition support

Importantly, their value will depend on how effectively they are integrated into scalable, clinically meaningful models of care - not deployed in isolation.

In oncology and chronic disease settings, this may include earlier identification of nutritional risk, more responsive monitoring during treatment and recovery, and more targeted interventions informed by metabolic, behavioural, and functional context.

Behavioural science will also remain central.

Knowing what supports health outcomes and successfully embedding those behaviours into everyday life are fundamentally different challenges.

Ultimately, the greatest gains in healthy aging over the next decade may come less from discovering entirely new nutrition principles and more from implementing what is already known more effectively, consistently, and at scale.

This is where nutrition science, implementation science, and healthcare systems increasingly intersect.

Optimal with Dr Liz

21/08/2026

18/08/2026

13/08/2026

31/07/2026

30/07/2026

23/07/2026

20/07/2026

16/07/2026

13/07/2026

09/07/2026

Address

Opening Hours

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Category

Listing takedown request

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm
Saturday	9am - 2pm
	5:30pm - 6pm