208. Whole Family Wellness: Helping Our Kids Thrive with Dr. Elisa Song #WellnessWednesdays

I want to take a break from the podcast right now and I want to give you a gift and I want to do that to thank you for being a listener. I put my heart and soul into this podcast. I love interviewing Today's experts, researchers, M.D. psychologists, sleep trainers, you name it. I just, I hope you feel inspired to take care of yourselves and your families. And I just want to thank you for, for being a listener and hanging out with me. So the code podcast10 is going to give you a one time $10 off code@kellylevesque.com your next order of protein powder.

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In the old days, my approach might have been considered alternative, and I really do not think this is an alternative. This is the way we must practice medicine for our children. The future of pediatrics is going to lie in personalized medicine. It's going to lie in really taking the individualized approach because we have this unique child in front of us with all of their genetic susceptibilities.

Dr. Eliza Song is an integrative pediatrician, pediatric functional medicine expert, and a MOP trauma. In her integrative pediatric practice, Whole Family Wellness, she's helped thousands of kids get to the root cause of their health concerns. And she's helped their parents understand how to help their children thrive, mind, body and spirit. By integrating conventional pediatrics with functional medicine, homeopathy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and essential oils. Dr. Song created healthy Kids, Happy Kids as an online holistic pediatric resource to help practitioners and parents bridge the gap between conventional and integrative pediatrics with an evidence based pediatrician backed approach. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome Dr. Eliza Song to the show.

All right, Dr. Song, I have been.

Waiting for this podcast interview and thank.

You so much for being available. I know you have a busy pediatric practice. It's an integrative and functional approach. I love everything that you put out online and I just. You're a beacon of light and hope and you educate, which I really appreciate. So I'm so happy to have you here today.

Oh, thanks, Kelly. I'm so excited and I'm honored that you said that because really, it's about education, but it's also about hope. And I mean, you and I are moms, right? We don't just want a flood of information thrown at us. We want to know, okay, what are the action steps that actually will lead to a positive outcome? Right? We need to have hope and actionable items and doable items to, to really help our kids be healthy and thrive. So I'm honored to be here.

Yeah, I mean, none of us as Moms want to feel hopeless, we want to feel productive, and we want to know that what we're doing is making a positive impact. And I mean, honestly, that's why I host this podcast, just to get the information out there to people of all ages. And a lot of it does parallel my own life. I have two young kids, preschool age. They're bringing home the colds. We go to the well checks. We're doing the thing. So from your approach, what is the difference between, say, a traditional pediatric practice and what you do in a functional pediatric practice or your integrative approach?

Yeah, and I love that you said functional and integrative approach, because in the old days, my approach might have been considered alternative. And I really do not think this is an alternative. This is the way we must practice medicine for our children. The future of pediatrics is going to lie in personalized medicine. It's going to lie in really taking the individualized approach, because we have this unique child in front of us with all of their genetic susceptibilities. And we know from a functional medicine standpoint how your child's genes, your genes, I'm an identical twin. And even our genes that are the same interact differently with the environment we're faced with, whether that's the food we're eating or the thoughts we're having, or the infections we're exposed to. So how do we then build up that genetic resilience so that our kids are not facing what is looking like an unacceptable. Well, it's not even looking like it is an unacceptable epidemic of chronic pediatric disease. I mean, the statistics are really mind blowing that now over one in two kids has some sort of a chronic diagnosis. And this was 2005. What is that, 17 years ago? We're heading on two decades where the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that predicted that for the first time in history, our children were expected to have a shorter lifespan than us, their parents. That should have been a wake up call almost 20 years ago. And the reason is because of this increase of surge in what are called lifestyle related diseases or non communicable diseases, where the World Health Organization is now saying 7 in 10 people worldwide are dying from NCDs, non communicable diseases. These are not infectious. Obesity, diabetes, cancers, heart disease, all of these things that through the pandemic we've seen are the number one risk factors too, for serious COVID infection and mortality. And so we need to wake up. This is not the future we want for our kids. We need to really look at how are we going to help our kids thrive and that relief, the way I practice is I do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Right. I totally recognize that there is a time and a place for antibiotics, let's say. Right. However, we know that antibiotics can cause a lot of mischief and unintended adverse consequences to our kids gut microbiomes and to the developing gut brain connection, developing gut immune system connection. So how do we take that and with a functional medicine understanding, know that that one random antibiotic, especially if they're infants, could lead to an increased risk for allergic diseases, could lead to an increased risk for mental health disorders, even just that one round. So we take that, we use necessary antibiotics, but then we know, all right, the resulting gut dysbiosis to the microbiome, the resulting leaky gut, that can happen. How do we mop that up so that we get the benefits of the antibiotics while still thriving and maintaining an optimal gut microbiome? Integrative can mean a lot of different things. I integrate functional medicine, but I also do homeopathy and acupuncture in the office and herbal medicine and mindfulness, mind body medicine. So this is truly. If I could not practice this way for whatever reason, I would no longer be a physician. I would do something else. I've always wanted to open up a restaurant, so maybe that would be my next calling.

Well, that makes sense because food is medicine.

That's right, us.

So let's unpack what you just said because I'd love to go down this rabbit hole of antibiotics a little bit further. As a child of the 80s who had small eustachian tubes and swam all the time and had chronic ear infections and sinusitis all the time, I became allergic to every single antibiotic over time. Cephalosporins Z packs down to the fact that I was being given like levofloxacin at certain points in high school and became allergic to those. So I have been in my practice and through all of my journey learned like how much that may have dysregulated my own immune system and my own health. And I really, really try to be diligent about not asking for antibiotics when there's an issue. From your standpoint, when are antibiotic antibiotics the right call and when? And how long should a parent wait to see if symptoms resolve with their child for a cold or a virus?

Yeah. Such a great question. And this is one of the main reasons why families come to me is to really have that opinion from an MD pediatrician to know Are these antibiotics truly necessary right now? What would happen if we held off on the antibiotics for a little bit longer? Are there alternatives that are just as effective from the natural world? I use homeopathy and herbal medicine and acupuncture with amazing effects that might not have the same disruption to the gut microbiome. So these are all questions in partnership with your pediatrician. You as a mom should feel completely comfortable asking. This is all about having that dialogue and being a team to really support this child in front of you, who for me is my patient. And so let's take ear infections. I mean, you said small eustachian tubes, ear aches are the number one reason for visit to the doctor's office. Right. And we know that 40% are going to be viral. Antibiotics do zero for viruses.

Right.

So we need to remember that another 40%, probably bacterial. But even among bacterial infections, many are going to resolve on their own if you take a kind of a wait for watching approach. And then another 10 to 20% are going to be mixed. There can even be fungus, yeast in the picture. And so the American Academy of Pediatrics, this is years ago now, did recommend for healthy young kids taking that waitful watching approach just to see can we get by after a day or two, even with this earache, without needing to use the antibiotics. Now, in the meantime, you're waiting and watching your mom, your kids crying, they're in pain, right? What do you do? And this is where we have actually evidence based tools to help support our kids during the pandemic. Evidence based has been thrown around. Right?

Right.

Let's just take a step back and take a look at what does evidence based really mean. You know, when the term evidence based medicine came out decades ago, I was in medical school, we were talking, what is evidence based medicine? Right. Evidence based medicine as it was initially and truly intended with, is taking the current literature that we have, right? Looking at the science, looking at the research, with the clinical experience of the practitioner and doing the best for that patient in front of you. Evidence based means taking the best of the art and the science of medicine. And we've kind of forgotten that. Where's the evidence? Right? And that's really important to know. But there is evidence. In fact, there's an herbal compound, a combination of garlic and St John's wort and Mulane in an oil that was found in one study to be more effective in reducing pain and resolving the ear infection than amoxicillin. Right.

Wow.

Even then we don't use these anymore. But there were topical anesthetic ear drops called Oralgan that I remember prescribing in residency. So more effective. And you're using it in the ear, so you're not going to have those systemic effects of an antibiotic in your bloodstream and you're not going to disrupt the gut microbiome. We also have homeopathy. Now I've had kids where this one child, I'll never forget it, you remember, you know, these amazing stories. And this one little kid, I was wrapping up with a patient. Luckily it was the last patient before the lunch break. A patient comes in and I just hear scream, screaming and crying and wailing in the waiting room. And you know, as a solo practitioner, I don't do drop in visits like that. But I went out, I'm like, what's going on? And as this little kid, he was about 8 years old, he's holding your, screaming, crying. And I said, look honey, I have about five minutes left. Okay, let's just sit tight. And I ran and I got my homeopathic belladonna, which is great for fevers and pain and intense throbbing. So I said, look, take this dose. If I'm more than five minutes, take it again and then I'll be right out. Took the dose, I'm in the other room finishing up with the patient. All of a sudden it's quiet in the waiting room. I mean literally like, you know, five minutes later. And I come on out and he's sitting there, he's still holding his ear, right? And I walk in and I said, and I bring him in, I said, are you feeling better? How's your ear feel? He's like, well, it still hurts a little. This so much better, right?

That's amazing.

Amazing, right? And so, you know, we have also these amazing tools from it from an integrative standpoint. And then, you know, what do I do? I'll write the prescription for the antibiotic and say, look, we're going to try these natural approaches. If these are how I help parents gauge when they might need antibiotics. If things are just continue to get worse and worse and worse over the next couple of days or your child's fever lasts more than about four or five days. With viruses, we expect fevers to resolve within about three to five days. Or you just have this mama gut feeling that your kid's getting sicker, then start the antibiotic. In the meantime, let's use our natural medicines or homeopathy, teach parents some acupressure points to use. And see, I used to write a prescription for ear infection, antibiotics every single day, probably multiple times a day. When I was in urgent care, I felt like a prescription mill never feels good. Since I've started my integrated pediatric practice, I can probably count now. This is now 2004 again. I'm dating myself almost 20 years ago. I can count probably on the fingers of both hands the times I've had to write a prescription for antibiotics for ear infection. Wow. So this is amazing. And parents trust that when I'm prescribing the antibiotics, let's say for skin infection or for a pneumonia, oh, Dr. Song's recommending it. It must really be needed. Right?

Right.

But I don't just stop there, right? We don't want to stop there. We want to say, look, we know that antibiotics are the biggest disruptor to the gut microbiome.

So let's take these antibiotics. But how are we going to mop up? And just. Your listeners are so savvy. But you know, the reason why we worry about systemic antibiotics is because antibiotics kill bacteria, but they don't distinguish between the bad bacteria, let's say, causing your pneumonia, or the really good beneficial probiotic in your gut. They just kind of wipe out everything. And so when we take an antibiotic, we want to make sure we're getting all of those good, healthy gut bugs right back in. So this is the time to load up on your fermented foods, make sure you just double down on your gut microbiome nourishing diet with fiber and phytonutrients, take a probiotic supplement, and then we make sure that our gut lining has the resources it needs to stay intact and not go on to develop the, quote, leakiness or increased intestinal permeability that can pave the way for future chronic diseases. So making sure you're getting in all of your good sources of if you eat animal proteins, yes. If you're plant based, and making sure you're getting in your legumes and your nuts and your seeds so that we get those amazing sources of zinc and glutamine to keep your gut lining as healthy as possible. And that way then we don't hold our breath worrying about the downstream problems associated with the antibiotic use. We say, look, it was needed at the time, let's do some mop up. And then we move on with the fresh, clean, healthy gut microbiome.

I love it. I love these alternatives. And just hearing from you that in 20 years you can count on two hands the number of times you've written a prescription for an ear infection. Really says something because it is the number one thing that's recommended by most physicians and pediatricians when you take your child in with an ear infection. And it is quick and it's an easy fix for them, but it is ultimately causing long term damage for your child that we can work on, like you said. But I'm curious, when you talk about the garlic and John's Wort ear drops and the belladonna and the probiotics that you recommend, are these things that people can source from the Internet from Whole Foods? I think that's kind of a barrier to entry for people as they feel like. Even though you don't want it to be called alternative medicine, people listening might be like, that feels alternative. Like, where would I even buy that?

How can I get that?

Do you have brands that you love and trust? Do you have ones that you recommend?

Yeah, I love talking about the nitty gritty. Right. Because we need the how to. And you know, when I lecture in front of physicians, I can't tell any brands.

Right.

Because that's again, but here I can. And so, yes, all of these you could find at Whole Foods. I caution parents from buying a ton of supplements on Amazon just because you don't know how those supplements were stored or sometimes expiration dates can be a little bit crossed off. And I mean, there are some manufacturers that have their own Amazon supplement store. Then I trust, like one of my favorite supplement companies is Designs for Health and they have their own Amazon store front. And so I trust that everything that you get sent from the Designs for Health store is going to be high quality, stored, well, appropriate expiration date, as opposed to, let's say buying from Judy's health store down the street, who has an Amazon storefront and also selling the very same designs for health products. I would caution against doing that. Now, the garlic ear drops, there is an herbal company called Herb Farm, P H A R M Herb Farm. And they have a garlic ear oil that is the exact same combination of ingredients as was used in the study.

Great.

So that's a great.

We'll link that in the show notes.

Yep, yep. Yeah. So they're terrific. The homeopathy, you know, Boiron in the little blue tubes. And often I have a little blue tube on my desk, but I don't. But those little blue tubes that you see at Whole Foods, and that's what homeopathy is. Some people, when they're entering into this integrative world, will mistakenly call anything integrative or holistic homeopathy, but homeopathy is its own system of medicine, really. Centuries of experience with some really good studies, especially with kids. Those you can easily find at Whole Foods and also even CVS actually has a whole row of homeopathic medicines as well. So those are pretty easy to find find. As far as probiotics, that's a huge kind of can of worms, right? Because you can't really open a paper nowadays. Well, who opens the paper nowadays? You can't go through your newsfeed nowadays without seeing something about the gut microbiome or seeing an ad pop up about this or that probiotic. And there are many, many to choose from. When I look for a probiotic, what I look for is we have to remember there are 70 to 100 trillion.

Gut microbes in our belly. Many, many, many different kinds of species. Right? I mean, countless. I mean, we're just at the tip of the iceberg in identifying these. So when you look for a probiotic, especially if you're trying to replenish your gut microbiome after antibiotics, you don't want just one strain. That doesn't make sense. Right? You know, let's say there's been a forest fire and the forest has been leveled out with the fire. Are you just going to plant one kind of plant or tree in that forest fire? I mean, remember the whole vast ecology that was dependent on all the different kinds of flora and fauna in that forest. Same thing with your gut. It's not just one kind of bacteria that you want to get in. And so what I look for is a probiotic that has many different strains in it. If Your baby's under 2, about 2 years of age, the infant, the neonatal gut microbiome is a little bit different than the adult type microbiome. Your baby's gut microbiome takes an adult like pattern after about two or three years of age. So if all of the people in your family, the little people and the big people, are over two or three years of age, you can all take the same probiotic, right? They don't need a specific baby or kid probiotic now. And in fact, a lot of the kid probiotics are actually the adult probiotic just with the kid label on it. Right. But look for one with multiple, many different strains. The brands that I use, you know, Claire Labs, K L A I R E, they've been around for a very, very long time. Very high quality probiotics. They have powders and chewables and capsules. You know, I have to say I've had good luck. You Know when I do stool tests for my kids and we talk about poop all the time. So my patients are well versed in poop and what it looks like and what what it should be like. So when I've done stool analyses before and after probiotic supplementation, I've actually had kids do really well on the jarrow probiotics that are really easy to find at Whole Foods. Right? Yeah. And even the nature's is it the nature's way probiotics that are also very good, but I tend to use the ones that are a little bit higher potent. So I'll use clear labs designs for health has good probiotics. I really like this one probiotic called Orthobiotic that comes in a capsule and a powder. It's by Ortho Molecular Products and I'll tell you why. I mean there's many, many different reasons, but it has a lot of different strains. But it also has one particular beneficial yeast strain called Saccharomyces boulardii that's really good for supporting the immune system in your gut. Also really good for antibiotic induced diarrhea. Right. So it kind of plays double duty there or triple duty actually because it also can prevent pathologic yeast infections from cropping up. There's a reason why a lot of women when they take antibiotics, all of a sudden their vaginal yeast flares because yeast is a normal part of our gut microbiome. But antibiotics don't kill the yeast. So imagine you've killed all of the bacteria in your gut. Now the yeast are having their heyday, right. They're like, woohoo, I have all this room to grow, right. So then the yeast take over and then they also take over in your vagina which has its own microbiome. And all of a sudden we have a yeast infection. So the orthobiotic is great and it also does not have to be refrigerated. Many do. But this one is shelf stable at room temperature, which is why it's a great one to travel with as we start opening up our lives during the pandemic and increasing our travels.

Definitely so many great call us and thank you for sharing brands. I know people probably have pads of paper and pens out like I do and just taking notes. We'll put everything in the show notes. But we know our gut health is everything. And so having a round of antibiotics and wiping out all of our beneficial bacteria and trying to recover from that and then also knowing our young children have quote unquote leaky gut until a certain age. Just so critical that we're being diligent around making the choice or not absolutely to have antibiotics.

All right, let's geek out for a little bit because rarely am I ever excited about a powdered superfood being added to my Fab Four smoothie. But as of January 2022, an amazing paper was published in JAMA and this is a study on humans and it was showing the effect of urolithin a supplement in meditation on muscle endurance. And here's the kicker. Mitochondrial health in older adults. And here's what you should know. As you age, you're going to have an increase in mitochondrial dysfunction and mitochondria is what produces energy. And so I'm so thankful that Timeline Nutrition exists. They are a Swiss based life science company. They're the global leader in urolithin A research and their products are NSF certified. So they have made this first postbiotic available to all of us. And clinical studies have shown that 500mg of urolithin a alone significantly increases muscle strength and endurance with no other change in lifestyle. Like, that's all you have to do is add urolithin A to your next Fab four smoothie. It's super easy to mix in. They have this amazing pink berry powder, so it's one of those things that I'm adding every day. Now Timeline Nutrition is offering 10 off your first order of Mito Pure. So you can go to timelinenutrition.com forward/kelly or use the code Kelly to get 10 off. That's T-I M E L I N E N u T R I T-I-O-N.com Kelly K E L L Y and I would recommend their starter pack as a way to check out the three formats. They have a berry powder, protein powder with berries and soft gels. If you don't do smoothies, you still want to get the benefits of urolithin A for mitochondrial health.

This is how you do it.

So now let's jump into gut health because your expertise lies in immunity for kids, wellness for kids, and that all starts in the gut. You mentioned using fermented foods, fiber, phytochemicals, like, I'm sure, berries and polyphenols and all of that good stuff, animal proteins, things high in zinc and glutamine. So when you think about or when you're working with a patient, how do you understand where their gut health is? Like, what kind of testing do you normally do? And then what kind of recommendations do you make with the parents to really work on their child's gut health and thus their immunity?

I'm so glad you started off by saying how intimately connected the gut and the immune system are. As your baby's gut microbiome is developing from the moment they're born, your gut is communicating with your immune system. In fact, 70% of our immune systems lie in our gut. You know how parents and kids think about, you know, when you open your mouth, say, ah, and you see their little tonsils in the back of their throat. Your gut has tonsil like patches lining your entire intestinal tract. And these patches, yeah, they're called Peyer's patches or gut associated lymphoid tissue. They are communicating with the inside of your intestine and directly with your blood's immune system. They're that interface. And what's fascinating is they're the first contact, right. The tonsil like patches in your intestines. First contact with most of the outside world. Right. If you think about, we're one hollow tube. So it's not just what we eat, it's what we're swallowing, the microbes that are passing through us. And so our patches, these Peyer's patches, will sample what's going on in our intestine. And let's say we have a virus or bacteria that is trying to invade our gut immune system, will tell our blood immune system, hey, start reacting. This is faux. We don't like that. Right. On the other hand, let's say you're eating some berries, let's say, and those come down and get well digested, and they're kind of interacting with our gut's immune system. And, and our gut says, oh, that's friends, we're going to let that in. And we're not going to have an immune reaction. Now what happens, though, if you start eating the same foods over and over and over again? And we're in a rush, rush, rush, so we're not chewing, we're not slowing down. Those food particles are not as well digested. So then you have maybe larger proteins like the gluten protein found in wheat and other grains, or let's say the casein protein from dairy. And let's think, right? Dairy, wheat are the two most common foods that most kids will eat all the time. And so then your intestines are bombarded with those foods. They are inflammatory by themselves. And your immune system says, wait a second, I was okay with this food. Now I'm not so okay with it. This is Kind of looking like a foe. And in the worst case scenario, your immune system starts to attack, but confuses that gluten protein for a protein in your thyroid or an antigen in your joint, and all of a sudden now the attack is on you and we develop autoimmunity. So that's why we want that variety in, so that our immune system doesn't ever get sensitized to any particular food. And so when we talk about how do we support our gut microbiome to support our immunity and talk to parents, I talk to parents and kids, right? It's got to be with the kids. I mean, even as toddlers, even if you're thinking, oh, they're not going to understand, they sure can understand, right? Because they're going to understand how we talk about it as well. So I don't ever like to say a food is bad for you or food's really good for you because we don't want to have that emotional setup with food. What I talk to kids about is, wow, there's some food that are so strong for your body, so strong for your mind, and then I get to get a sense of what is important for that child, right? For a lot of teenagers, it's their skin, guaranteed. I can connect your gut microbiome to your skin health, right? Or your hair, right? For some kids, it's being a super fast athlete, you know, running on the soccer field. Or for other kids, it's being able to play their violin with ease and being able to be on stage. And so all of those, because of the gut, brain, gut immune system connection, we can tie back. You know, what if we ate foods that were really strong for your gut microbiome, those awesome bugs in your belly, you will be able to run faster, think more clearly, get along better with your friends, like all the things that are really important for them. So that way then kids start to have more ownership of, wow, okay, I have more gut bugs in and on me than I have human me cells. So, yes, I want me to be happy, but that means taking care of the other me that's in my gut, right? So that way we take a little less battle out of it for parents. And it's not just about parents saying, oh my gosh, you ate that sugary blue thing. Like, what did you do? And I've been there, right? I've definitely said that to my son. Like, what? What did you just do? Choose to eat, right? But now let's step back. It's all about resilience. That one time isn't going to destroy your gut microbiome. As long as we are mindful of making strong choices for our gut microbiome most of the time.

Definitely. Can you talk a little bit about how eating a certain way or living a certain way can support our kids immune system on the heels of COVID and we were talking before the podcast started. There's a flu here and a flu shot there and there's a lot of things to be, quote, unquote, scared about or I don't want to say, quote, unquote. I mean, it was scary. Like we didn't know what was going on with the pandemic. We didn't have data. Can you talk a little bit about what the data is looking like now and how you're, what conversations you're having with the parents in your practice?

Yeah, absolutely. This is such an important topic because as we head into time is so distorted since the pandemic. So this is our third fall winter of the pandemic. Right.

Can't even believe it.

Yeah. And I will tell you, the conversation we're having now is very, very different than the conversation we might have been having two winters ago because we know so much more. And Omicron and its subvariants have completely changed the conversation. We know now that breakthrough infections, if you had the vaccine or reinfections, if you've already had Covid and maybe are unvaccinated, they're very common. Right. We all know our neighbors or our friends or ourselves who have had Covid by this point. It's hard to find someone who is a Covid virgin at this point. Right, Right. So we know that now. We do know. The evidence does point to the fact that having been doubly vaccinated for our at risk elderly population or those with chronic illnesses does seem to reduce the risk of serious Covid and dying from COVID Right. There's not very clear evidence that additional boosters make too much of a difference, especially if you're not in a high risk group. We also know that having had the infection is also very good protection against serious illness and dying from your next COVID infection. So again, Omicron has changed the conversation because two years ago, natural immunity, I was discussing it, right. And theoretically that it makes sense that natural immunity would provide good immune protection. But that was not on the table at all at the higher federal level. And now it is, now it's acknowledged. Okay. If you have immunity from vaccination or natural prior infection, they both are very good protection. So we now at this point have to stop and breathe and think, where are we now with Omicron, especially for our children, Right? And I mean, you know, and many people who have followed me through the pandemic know that my son, you know, we all got Covid back in March of 2020, right after we went into lockdown. And if you put yourself back in that place in time, which is so hard to do because we were in a state of worldwide panic, I mean that fear, that was just this heaviness over us that we couldn't escape. And my son was hospitalized with COVID and had all the signs of heading towards multi system inflammatory syndrome in children. What we MIS C, which was not even described back in March of 2020. We didn't even know what that could be until Spring ish, May of 2020 when there is this Kawasaki like illness. After Covid, we know so much more. But that moment in time, that moment when I said goodbye to my husband and my daughter at the emergency room door, bringing my son in, I never ever want any parent to go through. I remember just thinking, saying goodbye to Kenzie and Peter and in my head I didn't even want to go there, but I was just thinking, oh my gosh, I have no idea what's going to happen when we step inside. I didn't know if I was going to be able to stay with Bodie because they were separating people at that time. And the worst thought was I didn't know who was going to be leaving the hospital at the end of our stay. Right. I just, I mean, and I just think for me, life happens in a way that it is meant to. And I truly believe that I was meant to have gone through that so that I could bring my integrative functional medicine knowledge and my knowledge as a mom and as a pediatrician to parents so we can stay calm, we can have healthy respect for this infection, but not live in perpetual year. And now, two and a half years later, almost three years later, we know kids are doing very, very well with COVID 50 to maybe 90% of kids with COVID and studies are asymptomatic, right? Yes, we hear about MIS C, but that is still exceedingly rare. And even the vast majority of kids with MIS C are surviving and recovering completely. Long Covid is scary, but even so for children, much lower risk than for adults. So the question now is, as we're heading into this fall, where it's not just Covid, but there's the flu and all these other germs that kind of Lay dormant. What can we do to build our immune resilience so our kids, no matter what happens, they recover quickly and completely. And this is where as parents, we need to step back. I've had parents say, gosh, it was so great during the pandemic because my kids never got sick sick.

They never came in contact with anything.

That came to their immune system strong. So, you know, you just said it. They never came into contact with anything that taught our immune system to be strong. We need to take those hits at a measurable rate with a foundation of immune strength so that our immune system can learn how to do it better the next day time. We need that training and our immune systems have lost that training. In fact, the hepatitis that has been affecting these young, young children through the pandemic, some leading to liver transplants and occasion very rare, but some deaths, was really scary to hear. And now the leading theory is that these two viruses, this adenovirus 41 and human herpes 6 virus, which is the virus that causes roseola, two very, very common, should be completely benign illnesses in young children, came together with these young 0 to 5 year old kids who didn't have any exposures to other adenoviruses or to other common childhood viruses. So that then when they were exposed to these very common, usually benign viruses, in addition to this one parvovirus that seems like it's associated with completely unequipped and headed into this fulminant, hepatitis. One of the researchers that identified these three different viruses notes that it was likely due to this lack of immune system training that our children had during the pandemic. It's like the ultimate experiment in the hygiene hypothesis where we know being too, too clean increases our kids risks of developing asthma and eczema and autoimmunity later on. So now we have to step back and realize, hey, it's okay if your child gets a sniffle now, it's okay if they get a tummy bug, it's okay if they have a sore throat, as long as we know how to support them through it. And when we support them through it and they recover quickly and completely, like we just said, your immune system develops that memory. That's what we were talking offline before hormesis, this cellular memory of how to do it better the next time. And this is when we think about this theme of resilience really has kind of woven through the pandemic. Same thing with mental health. If your children live in a bubble, you know, we're bubble wrapping them, protecting them from every sadness or fear or worry their vagus nerve and their minds don't get training. So then when the big stress happens, the only thing they've learned is how to avoid that stressor. And avoidance has been linked with increased risks of chronic illnesses and increased inflammation. So now's the time, let's see, how do we move forward with building immune resilience? And as you said, it starts with the gut, right? Eating our gut, all of the gut microbiome, nourishing foods, fiber, legumes, whole grain, the colorful fruits and vegetables to get all the phytonutrients in that support our gut and our genes, right? And those fermented food. And then we have to also think about not just what's nourishing our gut microbiome, but what are the insidious things that are harming our kids gut microbiome. And it's really in our ultra processed world we see these studies just came out that ultra processed foods have been linked with a significantly increased risk of Alzheimer's and dementia later on in life. And what are these ultra processed foods? I mean your listeners are well aware it's not just a matter of not eating out of a package because I'm not going to lie, I throw in a bag of popcorn into my kids bags, we'll throw in bars. But you have to be a very savvy label reader so that you are choosing foods that are minimally processed, still have whole food ingredients that are not ultra processed. Because in the ultra processing what we see is all of these food additives, right? What I call these microbiome mischief makers and food additives, one of the fastest growing industries in the world, food emulsifiers, food dies. All those added FDA approved food additives directly cause gut dysbiosis and directly cause leaky gut. So we have to be aware of that. And I'm not saying again, never eat out of a package because your kids are going to at some point revolt against that. So teach them how to make healthier lateral swaps, these simple shifts. So my son and his friends, they love Takis, so I always give that as an example, right? Those red dye number 40 rolled tortilla chips.

Yeah.

So I'm like, I shudder when I look at the package. So you know what I'll tell my son Bodhi, I'll say look, you can have the Takis, but we're going to choose the ones from Trader Joe's that don't have the artificial dye that are the same rolled up. You know, you get the same crunch and they don't have all of these other additives that are going to hurt your gut bugs and make it so that you're not going to be as fast on the soccer field this weekend or you're not going to sleep as well. Remember, all those worries you get at night, they're going to be amplified. And so we talk about how do we make those lateral swaps, those shifts. That's really important, too, because your kids, at some point, you have preschoolers. I never thought I would get to the point where my kids were going downtown on their own with their friends, right? And buying food on their own. So it's important. Even when your kids are little, you. You say, oh, look, we're gonna. You go down the grocery aisle, they're gonna pick out the colorful unicorn with the rainbow stripe thing, right? That's what they're gonna. Their eyes gonna go through. So you say, hey, look. Well, let's take a look at these ingredients, right? I know it says made with natural fruit flavors in the front, right? But let's look at the back.

Oh, wow. Do you see this? You know, FD, you know, this blue lake number six. And this red dye 40. Did that sound natural to you? And just kind of even as their toddlers introduce them to this idea, not in a more curious way, like, let's take a look, right? So that they understand the ins and outs of the deceptive packaging that's going on. I think if kids learn how to read labels, you in a gut friendly way, that probably will make the biggest shift in your child's life, right? Because, I mean, that could be that one powerful thing that they take with them when they're off to college or when they're living on their own in a tiny little apartment with roommates, trying to buy food for their house. I mean, so many things we can teach our kids.

I'm so thankful for you for bringing that up. Because it's such a tough, touchy subject online and in my space and having young kids, I want to expose them. I want to educate them. I don't want to have to say no to things. Obviously, we want. Want to bubble wrap and snowplow and helicopter all at the same time. Because we love our kids and we're like, you think saying yes, it feels like love, but sometimes saying no is love. And empowering them to make those choices and saying like, yeah, if you decide to grab yourself the Taki when you're out with your friends and have those. The red dye number 40, okay, great. But the ones that we're keeping in the house are these ones from Trader Joe's. And having those alternatives, having those swaps, super important. And when you think about their immunity and their mental health and how integrated is with their gut health, then you're protecting them. And I always tell Bash, like, my job is to keep. To make you feel loved and to keep you healthy. And Chris always says, my job is to keep you safe because he's the hammer when it comes to, like, unsafe, unsafe boy things in our house. But. But it's hard being a parent. It's really hard navigating social situations, navigating grocery runs like I do. I am thankful I do take my boys to, like, a farm stand and they don't have processed foods there. And I tell them, you grab your basket, you pick the things, pick the colors, pick the. We talk about sizes. And I love teaching through food. It makes me feel really empowered in the kitchen to help them learn about it. I hope that, like, when they go to college, they know how to make themselves full meals and shop for themselves. And. But when you get into the processed food realm and you see the implications for the gut microbiome, whether it's gums, emulsifiers, dyes, oils, sugars, I mean, it all impacts.

Right.

And so.

I guess my question to you is, at what point. I mean, it sounds like you let your son have the taki. But point. Are you not saying making concessions, but are you saying, like, this is your choice? At what age are you.

Allowing your child to make choices for themselves? And how do you have that conversation when you're in social situations and you don't want your child to have something or didn't when they were younger?

Yeah. So, you know, I. I would say start the conversation young. Right. I mean, I totally remember I was at an airport. We were stuck at the Denver airport trying to get home. Peter and Kenzie had taken the flight before, and Bodie and I stayed. And so, you know, we're sitting there and we're hungry and we're looking for snacks to. Bodie picked up a package of gummy bears, and he said, mom, look, it's healthy. It's gluten free.

Yeah.

I mean. And I said that was a great teachable moment. Right. So funny. But you talk to your kids. Like I said, do it with an air of curiosity, not judgment.

And shame.

And shame, for sure, sure. But when you talk about strong foods, from the moment they're sitting at the table eating solids when they're like six months old, I mean, that. That you cultivate that love of foods that are so good for us and that self love that I'm making these choices because I love my body and I love my brain, and I want my brain and my body to stay strong and healthy. And then, you know, once they start going on play dates that you're not at, or, you know, drop off birthday parties, right. Or going downtown, like my kids are doing now, you want to have a conversation with them before they go. Right. I mean, being prepared helps you to make so many better choices. I mean, it's just like they say, don't go grocery shopping when you're starving. Right. You have a plan and you have your list. Right. So when my kids go off downtown, like they're probably going to do tomorrow because it's a minimum day, Right. We say, all right, well, let's talk about, you know, let's take a look at the past few days. How were we on the strong food scale? Right. You know, do you think we could have upped it? Like, were there some areas? Oh, yeah. Remember, over the weekend, we did go out for, you know, an ice cream treat at night. Right. So, you know, when you go out with your friends, let's think about balancing it out. We did have the sugary thing the day before. Let's choose something that is really great, but not the sugary thing. Right. And so then we plan out and they tell me, okay, maybe I'll choose the burrito bowl. And, yeah, I won't have the boba tea today. I'll get a sparkling water. So we just map it out to. It's rehearsed in their mind and, you know, they have that dialogue with me, and then eventually they'll have the dialogue with themselves. Themselves, Right. Or, you know, if they decide, I really, really want to get that boba tea. Let's see, you know, can we get the boba tea that maybe has a, you know, a little bit lower sugar and they know how to read the grams of sugar and you know, how to moderate that. And so let's think about if you have that. Now, we are planning to have a barbecue at our house on, over the weekend. So let's see. What kind of choices do you want to make? Because you're, you know, Caroline said she was going to bring over your favorite lemon bars. You know, so we, we talk about that. And so if we, if we choose that, then let's make sure that we load up with food that are going to really keep our body strong and our gut strong. So make sure we're going to have an extra serving of delicious, you know, kale salad tonight, or, you know, we're going to have extra blueberries tomorrow at breakfast. And, you know, it's all about balance now. With the caveat, for kids who are sick with a chronic illness, when they come to me, let's say they have an autoimmune illness, or, you know, let's say we're working on their ADHD or their anxiety, or they have autism, or that is when it is time to really buckle down and be really clean. Because we're trying to heal. When you're trying to heal, we want to make sure we give our gut and our brain, our immune system, the best chance possible to recover and thrive and become resilient. So that's when I would say we really want to keep those out. For the most part, though, we want to really try to think about life in terms of a 90, 10, 80, 20 rule so that we're allowing ourselves some moments where, you know, we can have that thing that maybe is not as strong for us, but 80, 90% of the time, we are building a life of resilience. We're using food as medicine, we're using lifestyle as medicine, we're using mindfulness as medicine so that we can recover really quickly. It's not going to make a dent. Right. Because I have some parents. As you learn. Right. And really, as you learn how disruptive to the gut microbiome these inflammatory foods can be and the impact that that can have on your gut brain connection, your child's gut immune system connection, it's really easy to swing all of a sudden. Oh, my gosh. Never know. We're not ever going to touch that. Right. And I've flung through that, too. Right, Right. But we also have to remember sometimes the fear of eating a particular food can be more inflammatory than actually just eating it and moving on and making healthier choices after. Right, Right. So, I mean, I don't completely let go, but I know, all right, if I don't allow this and also teach them how to make healthy choices around that less healthy choice, my kids aren't going to be able to be independent and make the choices that I want them to make when they're on their own as adults. Yeah.

You're modeling that.

Right.

Right in front of them. And that is the best way to show them and teach them how to do it. Before we wrap up today, I would love to touch on autoimmunity that you're seeing in children and what are some signs and symptoms When a child comes to you or a parent's concern that, like, maybe there's a deeper, bigger issue, what diagnostic tests and blood tests are you running? And then what kind of autoimmunities, autoimmune diseases are you most commonly seeing in your practice?

Yeah. Okay, so let's dive in with also the nitty gritty on, like, if you're listening as a parent, what labs might you go back to your pediatrician and say, hey, could we run these? Because some of these are labs that you can order at Quest or LabCorp, very conventional labs. Other tests are going to be labs that really you would need to work with a functional medicine practitioner to order. But when I have a child in front of me who comes in with immune issues and autoimmunity, we can have autoimmune reactivity and autoimmune markers for decades before we have an autoimmune disease. Okay. There was a study that tracked something called ANA antinuclear antigen, a very non specific autoimmune blood marker in different age groups. And the age group with the fastest ride in the percentage of people with a positive ANA were our teenagers. Right. And so, you know, now when I do blood work on children, I will check an ANA because ANA doesn't mean you have an autoimmune disease yet, but it's a little red flag that your immune system is starting to not like itself. So what do we do now to prevent autoimmune disease from happening? So these are opportunities. We don't want to look at these labs and have a. What's the right word?

Like a knee jerk reaction that, oh my goodness, the sky is falling.

Chicken Little? Absolutely, yes. I mean, these are opportunities. Right? And just because you have a strong family history of autoimmunity does not mean that you are destined to have an autoimmune illness or your child is destined to have an autoimmune illness even if they have a positive ANA we also know that COVID 19 infection is linked with increased autoimmune markers. Again, not to say that you're going to develop an autoimmune disease, but with MIS C, there's been some autoimmune markers that are found. There's concern that there is molecular mimicry. What does that mean? That a part of an antigen, something that your immune system responds to, an antigen on the SARS CoV2 virus, looks like a part, you know, an antigen on our cells. And so when that happens, when you make an antibody against that particular part of the COVID virus, your Immune system can get confused and start attacking a similar protein on your own cells. Now, let's look at the COVID Sorry.

Is that just happening with a COVID 19 infection or also with vaccination?

Great question. I was just going to mention there's a study by Dr. Aristo Vojani and Datis Tarazian, two studies looking at molecular memory phenomena, and they look specifically at the SARS CoV2 spike protein. And the spike protein. Protein looks very similar to cells on our mitochondria. Right? Our energy powerhouses, our cellular energy powerhouses, also to certain antigens on our pancreas, also to certain gut antigens. Okay. Even to certain brain antigens. That's a spike protein. Now, you get the spike protein from infection or vaccination. So they caution that regardless of whether you've had the infection or the vaccination, this is a potential that could happen. Theoretical. They're not saying it's definitely going to, but theoretically, we might see an increase in autoimmunity that attacks our mitochondria, our brain cells, our gut cells, our pancreas, possibly from both infection and vaccination. So how do we mitigate, reduce that potential autoimmune reactivity? So that doesn't happen. Right. And when you think about what's happening after infection, what is long Covid? Long Covid, very similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia. What do we see there? We see our mitochondria taking a hit. You know, we don't have the cellular energy, which then points to. Which then leads to actual fatigue, poor endurance, pain. We have our brain fog. You know, brain can be attacked. We have gut lining. We know leaky gut is associated with this phenomena called endotoxemia, where these LPS lipopolysaccharides get absorbed through a leaky gut lining and increase our risk for sepsis, cytokine storm, psychiatric problems, autoimmunity. And when that happens with COVID it increases your risk for sepsis. So we know that's happening. Right. We also know long Covid, though. There is an article in, I think it was Science magazine. It just touched my heart, and it was very eye opening. There was a whole branch at the NIH investigating and trying to help patients who develop long Covid after the vaccine because they were being ignored and shunned and saying, well, that's not real. And they ultimately, sadly, had to close the clinic down because there were too many people that they couldn't serve. So we need to have this healthy understanding that whatever happened from the infection could theoretically happen from the vaccine. We're triggering a similar immune response response. So we know that's not heresy, that's not anti science, that actually is what can happen. And we know also with the myocarditis, the heart inflammation that was noted after the MRNA Moderna and Pfizer vaccine in young men, yes, it's very rare, it's rare after the infection, it's rare after the vaccine, thankfully. Right. But this very large study that looked at different age groups found that for the vast majority of age groups, myocarditis after infection was higher, a little higher than after the vaccine. However, for our young males, it was flipped. Okay. The rate of myocarditis after vaccination and boosters was higher for young men, teenagers to men in their 30s, than after the infection. Now, myocarditis is not the only outcome that we need to look at, but this also is something that has to be part of the conversation. Again, when we think about personalized medicine, at some point we are going to be in a place with precision medicine where we can use our omics, right, our genomic profile, to know there's a field called vaxogenomics. How do we make vaccines that are more effective for certain populations? Based on your genomics, it might be that this little 10 year old girl actually needs a higher dose than like a 240 pound, 20 year old. There's also a field of adversomic which is equally important because we want to know not just who and how much is this particular vaccine effective for, but for whom is this vaccine possibly more risky for and how do we mitigate that? So these fields, they're happening right now, Nutrigenomics, how do we harness the power of nutrition individually? Right? Because for someone a load of broccoli might be awesome for them, but another person, based on their genomics, we may need to cut back a little bit on that. Broccoli and sulfur containing vegetables. So all of that to say it's coming, it's not there yet, but we need to understand these and look at. All right, we can't throw all of our eggs, you know, into one basket and say vaccinations are going to cure everything, because clearly they're not. They absolutely can reduce the risk for some. But for most of us who are already healthy and young and maybe eating a balanced diet, what can we do to mitigate our risks even further? You know, again, that all comes down to really looking at the food as medicine, looking at lifestyle. We've exercised. We didn't talk about exercise. But an article just came out that found that daily exercise reduced your risk of serious Covid. Now, how much exercise? Not a lot. 20 minutes of moderate exercise a day or about 10 minutes of high intensity exercise. Right. You could do that, go for a walk after dinner on the block with your kids. Right. 20 minutes right there. And that significantly reduces your risk of COVID They found that in cultures that eat fermented foods, there could be a lower risk, too. Phytonutrient index and vitamin D levels. I could talk about vitamin D forever, but in terms of parents wanting to know, all right, my kids aren't eating a rainbow just yet. What else can we do? I mean, there are certain supplements that I think can be very helpful. And vitamin D is number one. Right. As we head into the winter, you could get your vitamin D levels optimized. So that was a long tangent to say, what lab work do I order? Okay, wait.

I mean, I think I really want to just address this because coming off of what we're saying here, which is almost three years, two and a half years of fear and anxiety and stress and watching people, families, go through devastation throughout the beginning of COVID and not knowing much about it, especially like I have to address you and your son, Bodie, going to the hospital that day can. It's gut wrenching and heartbreaking for me to think about you going through that.

It's just. You can't put it into words almost. And so when you think about that and now looking at two years after all of that had happened and that the research is coming out, that we've had the vaccine out for a long time, that we're seeing, and we know now things that were marketed to us, that it would prevent contraction, which it doesn't do, that it would prevent transmission, which it doesn't do. That. Promises that were sort of made for all of us like that, yes, you can protect your neighbors and your friends and your grandparents. And we know that that hasn't ever been the case, unfortunately. And then there are ways that we can support preventing long Covid that a lot of people and young children have already contracted Covid and have a certain level of natural immunity, that making a family, making a decision as a family, I think is important. And looking at like exactly what you said, how can we get our kids physically active? How can we get them having polyphenols? How can we get them having fermented foods? There's so much we can do. Supplementing with vitamin D to support their immunity and their resilience to what is now something that we'll probably deal with forever.

Yeah, I mean, 1,000%. Right. It's all about building resilience because there's always going to be the next thing. Right. There's monkeypox, there's the twindemic. That never happened the past couple of years, but now the media saying we might be headed toward that. So we just have to have a healthy respect for what's going on in the world, but not a fear. If we understand the tools that can empower ourselves and our children to know that we can be resilient, then we can get through anything. Right. It's like building grit for your immune system. It's the same thing. You want your kids to have emotional grit. Well, they don't get grit without overcoming challenges. We've gone through so many different ups and downs during this pandemic. Fear has been the theme that's really the most inflammatory for all of us. And in fact, this one study just came out last week as we're talking right now in the interview that found that psychological distress before getting infected, before perceived anxiety, depression. Gosh, what were the other measures? I'll look through loneliness. Okay. Loneliness, Fear and worry of COVID Okay. Before getting infected led to a significantly increased risk of developing long Covid.

So we just now have to be in a different place where we're not in this state of fear, this constant fight or flight that is so inflammatory. So immune suppression, depressing. And walk away with the message of we know a lot more than we did two and a half years ago. Right. When we went into lock in a school shut down back in March of 2020. We are in a very different place. So moving out of that fear, that fight or flight, moving back into. Let's go. That resilience, including vagus nerve resilience. That is how we're going to overcome anything new that comes our way.

It's so key. And your message of hope and empowerment, I mean, that has to move us forward. We have to focus on how to thrive. And I've really made a shift during the pandemic. Prevention is great. We need preventive medicine. Prevention isn't going to necessarily help you thrive. So we have to move from a prevention mindset where we're focused on the disease or the thing that we're trying to prevent, to a thriving mindset. And we hold in our minds the picture of ourselves, our children, in their most healthy, happy, vibrant state. That's where we always want to move towards. You have to create in your Mind the picture of health that you want to be and you want your children to be, not the picture of illness that you're afraid of and trying to run away from. So that's where moving away from a prevention mindset to a thriving mindset is where we must go for the future of our kids health.

Well, I think we have to wrap it at that in respect of your time and we will throw your labs into the show notes, the ones that you love the most. But that is, that's a mic drop for me right there. Dr. Song. I mean it truly. In my day to day, I get to a place where I'm like, oh, I'm worried they're going to get that cold. At preschool I saw that kid and it's not everywhere. And you just kind of get in this mode of how do I keep them from not getting sick? And instead it's like, how do I.

Help them be well?

How do they thrive? How are our kids the most resilient they can be?

And yeah. Wow.

Powerful stuff. Dr. Song, I can't thank you enough. This was really an amazing interview and your patients are so lucky. So thank you for sharing your brilliance with all of us and sharing your time in the middle of your busy day. So I appreciate you.

Oh, thank you so much.

Where can people follow along? Where can they learn more and how can you help? Continue to help.

The best place is to follow me on my newsletter, my healthy kids happy kids.com website. I have articles there with my newsletter. I'll send information out like being on amazing podcasts like this and sending out more information and also Instagram and Facebook. My Instagram is healthykidshappykids. So that's where I post even more than my article, some of my musings or the latest article that I found in my interpretation.

Yeah, no, I love following along with you. It's really, it keeps me motivated and I love all the new science you share. So thank you so much, so, so much for being here and for all of your time.

That was my honor. Thank you Kelly.

Thank you for listening to Be well by Kelly.

Please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at be well by kelly.com and follow me on Instagram. You wellbykelly.

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