Dr. Simone Peters

Dr Simone Peters is a psychophysiologist who combines private practice with a research appointment with the Gastroenterology Department Alfred Health, Monash University. 

In 2010, Dr Peters completed her Bachelor of Psychology / Psychophysiology from Swinburne University before undertaking her PhD with Monash University. Dr Peters was the recipient of both public and private grants which enabled her PhD completion investigating the role of gluten on symptoms in patients with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity. She was the first person to develop the methodology for the wide-scale isolation of gliadin – the protein responsible for causing the immune mediated enteropathy in patients with coeliac disease. 

Dr Peters has a keen interest into the role of brain-gut therapies in patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders. She is the only academic to examine the efficacy of gut-directed hypnotherapy as a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome in Australia and her data have shown it to be of equal efficacy to that of the low FODMAP diet, the first line dietary therapy applied in routine practice. 

Dr Peters was the first gut-directed hypnotherapist to be employed in the public health care system in Australia and formed the gut-directed hypnotherapy program at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. She has also worked tirelessly to make gut-directed hypnotherapy available for wide-scale use through the development of evidence-based digital therapeutic, Nerva. The Nerva program is delivered through a mobile app and is partnered with GI OnDemand and the American College of Gastroenterology.

Dr Peters has published her work nationally and internationally and has multiple first- author publications in peer-reviewed gastroenterology journals. She is an invited speaker at annual international gastroenterology meetings. Dr Peters is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Mindset Health and the Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA).

Dr Peters is the proud founder and Managing Director of the Mind + Gut Clinic, a multi-disciplinary gastroenterology clinic in Melbourne, Australia. She sees adolescents and adults at the Mind + Gut Clinic in St Kilda East and Armadale, Victoria.

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