EnviroHealth Conference: Introducing the Planet-Brain Axis

You've heard about the gut-brain axis. What about the planet-brain axis?

Functional medicine has spent a decade building the case for the gut as an upstream driver of chronic disease. EnviroHealth 2026 makes the case for going one step further, treating the environment itself, from planetary ecology to the buildings we live in, as a clinical variable with the same weight. Join us at this year’s conference, as we step beyond functional medicine, to explore how the environment shapes the brain and human biology, and what the planet-brain axis could reveal about chronic illness.

Your patients' brain fog, fatigue, and mood symptoms don't start in the brain… 

Environmental degradation, indoor air and building exposure, and psychosocial mismatch are converging as upstream drivers of chronic inflammation, neuroinflammation, and treatment-resistant clinical presentations, yet most clinical training stops at the gut-brain axis and rarely goes further upstream.

EnviroHealth 2026 brings together leading voices in environmental and integrative medicine, Dr Leo Pruimboom (PhD), Dr Rob Verkerk (PhD), and Louise Carder, to map that full chain: from planetary-scale ecological change, to the buildings we live and work in, to the nervous system and brain.

During the day, you'll learn a new clinical framework for assessing environmental and ecological load in your patients, practical assessment tools (including for CIRS and mould-related illness), and an evidence base for treating the environment as a root-cause variable, not background context.

This is a working day for practitioners, not a lecture series — leave with answers to questions that you may have been asking for years. 

The Venue and Lunch

EnviroHealth 2026 takes place at 15Hatfields, a sustainable events venue on London's South Bank, with lunch and refreshments provided. There's a lot you can get from a screen, but the conversations that happen between sessions, the questions you get to ask speakers directly, and the ideas that spark from being in a room with practitioners who think the way you do — that's harder to replicate online. If this content matters to your practice, we'd love for you to experience it in person.

The Event Recording

Attendees of the event, both in person and online, will be entitled to receive a copy of the event recording. The event recording will not be available to non-ticket holders.

Info: 

"The Planetary Environment as a Clinical Variable: Why Ecological Exposure Belongs in Your Intake"

Dr Rob Verkerk (PhD) traces the pathway from planetary-scale environmental degradation, toxin load, collapsing food systems, ecological imbalance, to the chronic disease patterns showing up in clinic. A framework for treating environmental exposure not as background context, but as a measurable, upstream driver of patient presentations.

Focus: Translating planetary-level ecological change into biological stress load you can assess and address in practice.

Info: "Evolutionary Mismatch and the Nervous System: A Clinical Model for Chronic Inflammation"

Dr Leo Pruimboom (PhD) applies psychoneuroimmunology to the gap between the environment our physiology evolved for and the one we actually live in, showing how mismatches in behaviour, social structure, and nervous system regulation become measurable drivers of chronic low-grade inflammation. A practical lens for reading "stress" not as a vague label, but as a specific, trackable biological process behind treatment-resistant presentations.

Focus: Identifying behavioural and psychosocial mismatch as a modifiable inflammatory driver in chronic disease.

To be resumed after lunch.

Info: Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

Info: "Evolutionary Mismatch and the Nervous System: A Clinical Model for Chronic Inflammation"

Dr Leo Pruimboom (PhD) applies psychoneuroimmunology to the gap between the environment our physiology evolved for and the one we actually live in, showing how mismatches in behaviour, social structure, and nervous system regulation become measurable drivers of chronic low-grade inflammation. A practical lens for reading "stress" not as a vague label, but as a specific, trackable biological process behind treatment-resistant presentations.

Focus: Identifying behavioural and psychosocial mismatch as a modifiable inflammatory driver in chronic disease.

Info: "The Built Environment as a Root Cause: Indoor Air, Mould, and CIRS in Clinical Practice"

Louise Carder examines how indoor air quality, mould exposure, humidity, and VOCs, the ecology inside the buildings your patients live and work in, translate into measurable biological and behavioural effects, including Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). A practical, assessment-ready framework for identifying building-related biotoxin exposure as a root cause hiding in plain sight.

Focus: Environmental biotoxins, mould, and CIRS as a clinically actionable endpoint of environmental mismatch, with tools for assessment and intervention.

Info: Attendance for online attendees will end here. There is nothing like being in the room where it happens.

Info: Includes audience Q&A

Info: High-level networking and direct access to speak with key speakers, event sponsors, and industry experts.

Event venue & nearby stays

15Hatfields, Chadwick Court, London, United Kingdom

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.

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