HOST: Welcome to Confidence to Thrive, the podcast helping growing practitioners and healthcare entrepreneurs navigate the challenges and risks of regulation whilst building brands that matter. Every episode, Christopher Cloke Browne tackles a different issue facing healthcare practitioners or entrepreneurs, or interviews a guest who is working on the leading edge of private healthcare, building something that matters in their sector or profession.
Today's episode has a little bit of a Radio 4 documentary feel to it as Owlicity directors Christopher Cloke Browne and Roger Houston report directly from the Integrative Personalised Medicine Congress 2026 at the QEII Centre in London. Christopher and Roger share their thoughts and insights on what has changed over the last four years they've been attending, and why this year is notable for several important milestones, not least the attendance from the chief medical officer.
Christopher and Roger are walking around the Congress sharing their thoughts, so there may be some occasional background chatter or noise. Let's join Christopher and Roger at the QEII Centre.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: There we go. Shall we go under?
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. And see what we can see.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: This is the Integrated Personalised Medicine Congress 2026 in the QEII Centre in London. And—
ROGER HOUSTON: So what we were saying, this place is a third bigger than last year.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah, we've got this whole new room that we're talking in.
ROGER HOUSTON: And it's got a real buzz about it.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes. Yeah, it feels like it's going to come of age. It feels like it's not in the margins and the shadows, does it?
ROGER HOUSTON: No. It feels like everybody's—
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: But it's still a broad church. You've got sort of fungus growers on one end.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. We've got medication, supplement, health supplements. Yeah, if we have a look over here, we've got a little bit of mushrooms, fungi. Yeah. And then we've got, right next door, a diagnostic service.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes. Lab testing. There's lots of compounding labs here.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. And then we've got medication alley down there.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Oh, yes. Yeah, and there's probably all sorts of things down there.
ROGER HOUSTON: There's a pill for everything down there. Shall we go and have a look?
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Let's go and see. Let's go have a quick look. Shall we go and see what we can see? Oh, there's a fan for the heat as well. It's suitably warm. You know, you have to keep warm.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. But, oh, yeah. So there you are. Oh, my word. Yeah, a pill and a potion in this particular—
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: There's medicine, medicine with a fan. Oh, and an apple a day to keep the doctor away, no doubt. Yeah. But interestingly, we're told there are probably more GPs here than ever before.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. Yeah, so that's really getting a foothold within the profession, isn't it?
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes. Yeah, I think that's the real thing. That's probably the piece that really gives it the sense that it's coming of age and becoming more mainstream.
ROGER HOUSTON: So every prospect is that the next time you visit your GP for a consultation, functional medicine may be part of the conversation. I think a lot of GPs are starting to at least think about some of the approaches taken here.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. I think a lot of GPs have always quite liked it, but been more cautious about whether they should integrate it into their work. So the other huge aspect to this are the lectures and workshops. This year, for the first time ever that I'm aware of, the chief medical officer has done a session.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yes.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: So if you know—if that's not recognition at the very highest level.
ROGER HOUSTON: Good to know. And I think there was quite a hot debate on what people thought about his contribution—
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.
ROGER HOUSTON: as to how supportive or otherwise the chief medical officer was or wasn't about the whole approach taken here.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. But as you say, the most exciting thing is that he was here in the first place.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we've got a smattering, or more than a smattering, of international speakers that we've not had before.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes. So again, there's a whole gaggle of them over from America.
ROGER HOUSTON: And even so, a lot of American speakers, but even people who've dropped by—
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Our own standards tend to be Americans, a number of them here. Yeah. So I think we were saying there were, what, 3,000 people across three days?
ROGER HOUSTON: That's what I was told was the registered attendance.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes. And they were expecting above and beyond that.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. Some walk-ins and so on. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, so here we are, more supplements, labs. Oh, yeah, Doctor's Data. Spin the wheel.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Obviously a big nutritional component, as you'd expect. It's really interesting. So this whole thing's been shifting my views on nutrition and nutritionists.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. And interestingly, oh, here, just quickly, this I think is the mushroom stand, who were our next-door neighbours a couple of years ago.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. So impressive display of fungi. Yeah. But yeah, I ended up on the train home last night sitting next to somebody who trained as a nutritionist and then as a functional practitioner, yeah, who hadn't attended this IPM. She'd been in London for completely different reasons.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: But had actually been to the first IPM we came to in 2022.
ROGER HOUSTON: Right.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: So was very familiar with it. But just talking to her as a trained nutritionist, what I've really observed is this level of biochemistry, the knowledge of biochemistry, is utterly phenomenal in this community. And nutritionists are no different. And I was asking her if she thought—you know, she'd learned a lot of biochemistry because she started training in 2014. She'd done something completely different before that.
ROGER HOUSTON: Right.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: It was a classic story of her having got interest in health and wellbeing from her own experiences. Yeah, yeah. And so she'd been, what's that, 10, 12 years. There's Nordic Labs here. Yeah. She said that just through her nutritionist training, which is degree level, a two-year degree, she'd picked up a lot of that sort of biochemical knowledge.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So this is—
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: So, yeah, so nutrition isn't just about the major food groups and eating more broccoli and trying to have a mix of veg anymore.
ROGER HOUSTON: No. Those nutritionist degrees are really quite serious things. Yeah. Yeah. It's a no, it's taken on a whole new professional guise. It's not foraging for fungi in the woods and a bit of alchemy. It's a proper scientific approach, isn't it? Yeah. And it's scientific rather than medical, which is quite interesting as well, because that's possibly causing a few issues with the regulators and the regulations set up for doctors and medicine.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. But in some ways, the people with the better technical knowledge are non-doctors. They're the nutritionists, they're the biochemists, they're the—
ROGER HOUSTON: So they're quite a broad professional group, whereas traditionally you would go to see a physician.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes.
ROGER HOUSTON: It's a much broader church now, isn't it? And certainly what we see as our longevity and wellness approach—
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. And certainly our best practitioners, our best clients, are the clinics with multiple practitioners of all sorts. So they've got physiotherapists, they've got psychiatrists, psychologists—
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: nutritionists, dieticians. Now, these guys, again, I was always interested in the European School of Lifestyle Oncology. Yeah. So again, the alternative approaches to cancer are really quite predominant at this conference. And you were saying, Roger, today there's quite a large session on that in the talks.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. Today is for the oncologists and the psychologists and psychiatrists. Tomorrow will be for the acute and long-term illness, neurological people. So, I thought I saw somewhere there 37 different books, all of which can be signed for you here.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Okay. So, yeah, if nothing else, just the amount of literature being produced is quite phenomenal, isn't it? Yeah. And I guess we've also noticed just in terms of all these sort of break tables, the last few years we've been here, these were all during the sort of talk sessions—all of these would have been absolutely empty.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah, no, there's definitely a lot more networking and general discussion going on than there used to be.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: A lot more networking, yes. Yeah. So we've been able to plot this over the last three years in terms of being here as an exhibitor. We came our very first year and didn't exhibit anybody, so we've seen it grow, I guess, over four years to where we are now.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yes, yes. And I think that's—we've said there's increasing science behind it. I saw the first year was in the other room, the far room with the fungi half, which was relatively unscientific, whereas now the whole show sees the technical level really increase.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes. Yeah. And just in the practitioners, we took a photo earlier just over by the British College of Functional Medicine, where we have many friends. But there was a group of our clients sort of getting together and just chatting. And you could see just the sort of knowledge and skill in that little group was quite phenomenal.
ROGER HOUSTON: No, absolutely. And they're starting to produce some amazing stuff. We were chatting about how many cases of Alzheimer's have been completely reversed, cured. Yeah. And a lady here, an 82-year-old lady, came to see us at our Owlicity stand here. Yeah. And she was saying she was one of the first patients to do that and has just walked across to America to raise awareness.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. But one of our clients was telling us that there's now been thousands of people who've all had this progress goal reversed. So a quick mention—so that's us. A quick mention to our neighbours. This is gluten-free, and it's been quite lively, hasn't it? We've had a very lively time on your amazing food here.
ROGER HOUSTON: We've been, yeah, parked next to the sweet shop, which has been great. But also very tempting. And a quick view to our Herbal Reality, who have been our neighbours for the last couple of years. We've got Human First here. So they're doing clinical research. But see now over here, every year it's much smaller. The first year we were here, these guys who do sourdough baking—Yeah, the Sourdough School. They had a massive display. They had, God, more bread than you can imagine. It looked really good, and it was very tasty as well. They were handing it out like crazy.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: But then—I'm excited, yeah.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. Oh. It looks like they've got less this year. But, yeah, so, do you, are you interested in all this health and wellbeing? Is there anything? I spoke to this lady—
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Okay.
ROGER HOUSTON: that was about menopause. Okay. Yes. Dryness in your mouth. Okay. Very eye-opening subject. Okay, yeah. So that was really helpful. Yeah. I got a leaflet from them. Okay. But yeah, the gluten-free bread, it's something that we'd probably love to discover more. Okay. Well, yeah, go and—see, oh, wow, they've got toppings and everything. This is quite a setup. Actually, this definitely seems to be the place to eat in Westminster at the moment, doesn't it?
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Oh, yes. I think that's the only one that is, you know, having something healthy to try. Yeah. Do you want to dip in and grab some?
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah, absolutely. Huh? Smells great. Smell great. It's salt and—oh, yeah. I might just dip it in the garlic oil.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah, go for it. Olive oil. Garlic oil.
ROGER HOUSTON: Can I try?
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Please go ahead, yeah. It's brilliant. Yeah? You should try as well. I'll come back and hopefully, I think, yeah, maybe they'll get more shipped in or something. Oh, it's really good. Brilliant. So yeah, so that generally is a thing. We've got our friends at the British College of Functional Medicine over here. Hi, Dr. Mayon, who maybe know. So I'll say hello to Dr. Mayon in a bit.
ROGER HOUSTON: So this is Saturday afternoon, the afternoon of the last day, isn't it?
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: It is, yeah. For commenting, seems to be a fairly different crowd. And so it is complex cases. Complex case management. Yeah. We're looking at the brochure. Yeah. Let's have a quick look and see what's going on. Quite a few talks. So we think a lot of the really serious people are probably in the talks rather than here.
ROGER HOUSTON: Not to say the people here aren't serious, but I suspect there are some people who are really here for the talks. Yeah. And a bit of a changeover. Feels overall a bit quieter. There's always a debate as to whether they should run Saturday, but they decided to, and it seems to have worked.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: It seems to still be busier than it has been in previous years. So today's got a flavour of the long-term management of chronic cases, as opposed to managing, I guess, more immediate trauma. Yeah. Again, quite a high-profile American influence on the day from the speakers.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. It's very much still American-dominated, this, isn't it?
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. This whole area. But it's interesting to see how rapidly it seems to be growing now here in the UK. Yeah. And I guess we're hearing that the other major centres in Europe are Denmark, Sweden, Germany, UK and Ireland. And then the Middle East, the UAE is a big centre, which we've seen.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yeah. But yeah, it's interesting to see. Good mix. Business still going well. Yeah. Virtual reality is still a bit of a draw, and our sweetie store next door is definitely popular.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah, there's a small crisis over there. They're running out of chocolate, I think, over there.
ROGER HOUSTON: Yes, yes. A small crisis. That's definitely a crisis in your world, Richard.
CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Exactly, yeah. So there we go. Yeah.
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This podcast was brought to you by Owlicity Insurance Advisors, who support your business ambitions. Owlicity advises practitioners, owners, and entrepreneurs of healthcare practices on mitigating risks so your business can thrive. Learn more about how Owlicity can support you by finding the link in the show notes or visiting owlicity.co.uk.
