“My mother’s illness changed everything”: How cancer, curiosity and a search for answers led Victoria Marshall from Soho’s creative industries to nutritional therapy and longevity. She tells Natalie Li. 

Victoria didn’t set out to become a nutritional therapist. In her twenties, she was deep in the creative industries, with an arts degree in film studies and video production and a fast-paced job in Soho’s post-production world.  

“I went straight into Soho… but I realised very quickly that it wasn’t what I wanted to do,” she admits. “I spent a long time not really knowing what I wanted to do but knowing I didn’t want to commit to something that I knew wasn’t it.” 

The path to Victoria’s true calling emerged from a personal crisis. “The turning point for me was in my late 20s when my mum was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer,” she recounts, and then that kind of just changed everything.”  

This pivotal moment propelled her into an intense period of research, delving into the causes of cancer, nutritional support for recovery, and preventative strategies. Her mother, fortunately, is now doing well over 10 years later despite complications post-surgery. 

During her mother’s treatment, she recalls being shocked at conventional dietary advice. “They gave her highly processed sugary drinks to help her gain weight,” she says. “I just thought, no, she’s just had cancer, that’s not happening.” 

The ION experience

Instead, she sought out a more holistic, functional approach. That’s when she discovered the Institute for Optimum Nutrition (ION), whose philosophy felt instinctively aligned. “I wanted to find out more and felt I needed to learn but only with a course that had functional medicine at its core,” she explains. “What ION was offering felt like what I’d already been doing with my mum.” 

That ability to go at my own pace, consolidate my learning, it made all the difference

Victoria studied towards her diploma part-time (the equivalent of the now BSc (Hons) in Nutritional Therapy), balancing her training with full-time administrative work in A&E. “ION was really flexible,” she recalls. “I even took a year out. That ability to go at my own pace, consolidate my learning, it made all the difference.” 

She says that it’s not always possible to always feel motivated to do something all the time, and that this is where discipline comes in. “Discipline makes you happy and is important,” she says. “It’s like going to the gym, you don’t always want to, motivation can sometimes wane, but consistency and discipline will likely make you feel better longer term.” 

The camaraderie of her cohort helped. “If I were on my own without hearing other people also stressing out or panicking, I’d have thought I was losing it,” she laughs. “We had group chats and solidarity. It was vital.” 

The comprehensive training she asserts, does prepare you exceptionally well for working, for doing the job. The training clinic, where theory met real life application, was eye-opening. “It’s super nerve wracking; it was the first time we saw real people with real problems.” 

Her foresight in joining the Harpal Clinic, a longevity and functional medicine clinic which helps people to optimise their health, two years before graduating, paid off. She started in a patient care administrative role but immersed herself in the medical environment. “Even as patient care staff, you’re constantly having conversations about medicine, health recommendations and testing, what the doctor’s looking for. It’s all key learning.” 

Clinic to career

Once qualified, she hit the ground running. “It was straight into the deep end, seeing complex patients, working alongside doctors, and diving into the longevity side of nutrition, which was still quite new then.” 

It quickly became her professional focus, and she is now the Community Manager & Longevity Nutritional Therapist at the clinic. “Longevity nutrition is really important,” she says. “Because by the time most of us are symptomatic, something larger is often already going on.” 

Longevity testing often reveals hidden issues. “People can come in with no gut symptoms, but when we look at gut barrier function or immune responses, we’ll begin to spot things – candida, elevated zonulin. And when we make changes right away, she will often hear, “I didn’t realise I could feel this good.” 

But she’s clear-eyed about accessibility. “Private medicine can be expensive. Our goal with this was to make our Longevity Nutrition service an accessible support tool, coming in under £200 so people could start doing something, without spending very large amounts to begin looking at preventative nutrition.” 

Policy and prevention

Outside the clinic, Victoria attends health events at the House of Commons and House of Lords, contributing to policy discussions and inquiry reports on nutrition and preventative care. “It can be slow for change to happen,” she admits. “But it matters. Recently public healthcare has been focusing more on prevention; it sits at the forefront of their most recent strategy. As a longevity clinic, we are very happy to see this.” 

She’s also a strong believer in making nutrition human, not aspirational. “I live by an 80/20 rule,” she says. “We see orthorexia, which is when people are obsessed with being ‘healthy.’ But you don’t have to be perfect. The body has built-in systems to recover; we want to be sustainable and realistic.” 

That idea of balance is foundational. She points to blue zones, places where people live longest like Japan and Greece. “They’re not obsessing. They may drink a little wine every day. It’s not about perfection, it’s about what you do most of the time.” 

One area she finds particularly exciting is DNA testing. “Our DNA doesn’t change, and so it can act as quite a useful personalised blueprint for people.” she explains. “There are some people that can have upregulated longevity associated genes (e.g., SIRT 1, FOXO3) – lucky them! But at the same time, they may have issues with fat metabolism or an APOE (Alzheimer’s risk) subtype, and so, based on DNA data, we can shift their focus to where optimisation and prevention is most warranted. We know now that we can up and down regulate gene expression with lifestyle strategies such as fasting, functional foods, supplements, as well as prescriptions – whatever their body may need support with the most.” 

She stays on top of emerging science through research journals, PubMed, and careful use of social media. “ION taught us how to analyse research very well. I didn’t love statistics then, but now I use it constantly to evaluate what’s meaningful.”  

She also prefers listening to a wide range of opinions, from voices such as Dr. Peter Attia or Dr. Aseem Malhotra, as well as the Harpal Clinic’s robust longevity doctor team. She also sees the value of Instagram as “micro-learning, if it’s from the right sources.” 

Life passion

Her current project is refining the longevity nutrition service she has built. “It’s innovative and I am excited to see how it develops,” she smiles. “We’re constantly tweaking it, language, delivery, so it resonates well with people. “The service can be applicable to such a wide range of people with various health concerns. They may have borderline metabolic issues they want to be proactive about, or are concerned about family history, or even just interested in longevity testing – it’s applicable to pretty much anyone that wants to be proactive about their health.” 

She’s also chasing personal goals, in and out of the clinic. “Muscle is the organ of longevity,” she says. “I focus on building lean muscle, not weight loss. I don’t weigh myself.” 

She credits creatine – a substance found naturally in muscle cells to help muscles produce energy during heavy lifting or high intensity exercise, not just for strength gains, but also its promising links to cognitive performance.  And she’s all-in on VO₂ max, the maximum volume of oxygen your body can use during exercise, as a marker: “VO₂ max and grip strength are two of the most robust indicators we have for longevity and healthy ageing.” 

Asked where she wants to go next, she’s clear: see more patients, deepen her policy involvement, and get stronger, sharper, inside and out. 

“I want to keep making nutrition accessible to those that want to be proactive and help people feel better before they realise they need to.”