A Holistic Pediatrician’s Guide to Healthier Kid’s with Dr. Elisa Song

The single fastest disruptor of our microbiome are antibiotics. Right. But, you know, a lot of people know, especially listening here, that antibiotics are going to kill your good bugs right along with your bad bugs. But there are several medications that have very similar microbiome disrupting effects as antibiotics that a lot of people aren't aware of.

What is the one thing that you see that parents get wrong?

That's a really good question. I, you know, I think one in.

Two kids get diagnosed with chronic disease. What is going on that our children are so sick in America?

Now, fast forward to this day and age. I mean, do you want to take a guess how many teaspoons the average U.S. teenager has today? 34 teaspoons. No. 34 teaspoons.

Yes, 34 teaspoons. How do you. Hi, guys, and welcome back to another episode of biohack It. And today, my guest has come in all the way from the West Coast. We've been trying to coordinate for a while to see each other. Dr. Alyssa Song is a Stanford NYU UCSF. Sorry about that. Trained integrated pediatrician and pediatric functional medicine expert. She's also the mother of two, and she is the author of the book Healthy Kids, Happy Kids. And thank you for coming on the show and thank you for coming to Miami to do the podcast with me.

Yeah. This is only my second time in Miami, so I was kind of excited.

I'm excited to have you. I've been following your work for a while, which is why I reached out to you and then you launched the book. And I was like, I really wanted to get you onto the podcast because I feel that there are not that many incredible holistic pediatricians and functional pediatricians. And so I was, like, looking at your perspective and really talking about how it starts with the child's microbiome was really interesting to me.

Yeah. Well, thank you.

So how did your journey start from kind of going into pediatrics to be like, I want to go and work in the holistic space?

Yeah. You know, my story's a little different than a lot of practitioners who go from conventional to more holistic, integrative, because I did not have a health crisis or a family have a health crisis where conventional medicine couldn't help. Knock on wood. Thankfully, it was really something that I wanted to do from the very beginning. I mean, I always knew I wanted to work with children. I didn't know what that would look like. I kind of had crossed out being a doctor because my mom was a conventional OB GYN. And this is back in, like, you know, the 70s, 80s. I mean, she was busy. And I'm like, that's not really the life I want to have. But I knew I wanted to work with kids, so I thought maybe a lawyer, you know, maybe a civil rights lawyer, maybe a teacher. And as an undergrad, I stumbled across this flyer for it was called the American Holistic Medical Association. And this I'm going to date myself. This was back in the late 1980s. And whatever got me as a junior to drive down and listen, my mind was totally blown. I'd never heard of holistic medicine. I heard from people who were just starting to get known, like Andrew Weil, Deepak Chopra. And I remember calling my mom that night and saying, you know, on the landline, no cell phones back then, and saying, hey, Mom, I think I want to be a naturopathic doctor. And she's like, what's that? And so nobody ever discouraged me. And my mom would have supported whatever I want to do. But at that time, it wasn't as well known. And so I decided I'm going to be a pediatrician, but always have this more natural bent. I didn't know what that meant. But then, same thing. During my residency, I stumbled across another flyer, and this time it was a Food as medicine conference with Dr. Mark Hyman, a very young Dr. Mark Hyman, because this was back in the 1990s, and again, mind blown this idea that food actually impacts our health. I mean, we don't learn that in medical school or residency. And so from there, I knew as a pediatrician, this is the only way I'm going to practice. So I'm fortunate. I've been at this for quite a while.

And then, Alyssa, just looking at all your experience and everything you've kind of learned and researched and practiced in your own clinic and with your patients, I would say, what is the one thing that you see that parents get wrong? Like young parents, first time parents?

That's a really good question. I think nowadays parents, at least the parents listening to this podcast, are so much more aware of about how important food is as medicine. I would say from a more holistic standpoint for your child, one of the things that we, and I'm a mom too, as parents, often don't allow children to experience enough is healthy stress. Right? A lot of us as parents, we don't want our kids to be sick or frustrated or upset and we want to fix things for them. But I would say in this day and age where mental health is at an all time high for children and teens and for adults, we haven't built enough stress tolerance and stress resilience. And that has so many ripple effects, not just on your mind and mental well being, but physiologically on your immune system and your hormones and even your gut microbiome. So I would say as a parent, just really allowing your kids to work through all the feelings and giving them the tools.

I'm so almost like in a good way, I'm like, wow, she said something that has resonated with me so much. So I always tell my husband, I said, you need to give your kids just the right amount. Not the right amount of trauma, I wouldn't call it, but just the right amount of stressors in life. So they're not Molly coddled. So they can actually go out and function in the world because. Because no one's gonna protect them when they're out. Right. They have to be able to fend for themselves and be in difficult situations and learn to have a voice and stand up for themselves. And that's a tool that they need to develop in order to be functioning.

Adults in the world. It absolutely is. And I talk to kids, so even from the moment they're little, I mean, I'm all about educating and empowering kids no matter what stage of development they're at. But as we think about, especially for your elementary, middle school, high schoolers, where they'll come and say, oh my gosh, I'm so stressed. Or parents will say, I'm so stressed. And I let them know, you know, stress, it's not bad or good necessarily. Stress is just your physical response to something that's about to happen. And I point to, I actually have in my book and I draw out for them, it's called the stress performance optimal performance curve. Right. Which is really important to know, like when we're down here on the no stress, no pressure, life is easy, everything's handed to you. That actually leads to depression, apathy, disinterest. That's actually more psychologically stressful than as we get a little more stressed. We've all seen this. A little deadline, a little like a performance coming up. We're on, we're in the zone. I mean, we're getting things done. And we get to this point where we have just the right amount of stress and the perfect amount of performance. Nowadays we're at the problem where we have too much stress. And so really reframing that. And it's the same thing with our immune systems. I mean, we saw this through the pandemic where our kids were so Sheltered from very common viral infections like let's take RSV before the pandemic, by the time kids were 2, some studies noted that up to 100% of kids had RSV and it was only a problem for little babies or maybe the elderly. And, and all of a sudden we came out where kids immune systems had no stress. Right. I had parents saying, oh my gosh, I can't believe it's first year that my kids have never been sick. I'm like, oh, I don't know, it's just like your muscles, you need to keep exercising them. So having this in mind, that as you said, there's a certain amount of psychological, physiologic, immune stress that we want to have. We don't want to bombard our kids. But that is part of, I mean, that's why for me, it's so much about wellness in one point in time, but about resilience. How do you build that foundation so that no matter what happens to your kids, they can bounce right back?

Right. I want to, just because you brought it up and I kind of wrote it down, what is your take on, you know, parents giving their children the COVID 19 vaccine?

Well, you know, through Covid, a lot of parents started following me because I really tried to have a very, just a very rational approach to the vaccines and to the infection. In fact, back in, I mean, it seems like forever ago. Right. It's hard to put yourself back in that time where we really had so much fear and uncertainty. But I Remember February of 2020, this was just as we're starting to hear about this thing happening in China and coming over and I wrote this, I mean, huge long blog post and it was called, it wasn't even called COVID 19 back then. Right. It was SARS COV 2 what, what an integrated pediatrician wants you to know. And I mean it was maybe like an 8,000, 10,000 word blog post within an hour. I mean our website, our website got shut down because there's so many visitors and it's had, I mean, over over a million visitors views. And I really wanted people to understand what's the science behind what's going on with this virus, what we know about our immune systems, what we know about building immune resilience. And then over time we got to know a little bit more about how kids were responding and when things were first coming out. I know for me as a mom, I mean my son was hospitalized with COVID in those early days and it was the scariest thing I've Ever, ever gone through because we had no idea what it was, what was going to happen. Right. But then as we realized that children for the most part had, have much less severe illness than adults and there were ways from a functional medicine standpoint we can build up their immune resilience. I really wanted parents to weigh, you know, whether or not they really needed the vaccine. Right. And it was so tricky back then. I mean I tell you, I have, I had families where I was in tears with them because parents chose not to, you know, have the vaccine especially I was talking about natural immunity from very early on and kids were being ostracized, you know, not allowed to have play dates, not allowed to go inside their friends homes. And you know, and so it was a heartbreaking time. And I'm all about educating given the knowledge that you have never making a decision based on fear, but making a decision that's individualized based on your own family circumstances. It doesn't matter what your neighbors did or what your sister does. It really, it's, I mean your family and your children have a unique history that they bring with them and that's the only thing that matters.

And that's a really important point and I'm so glad it came from somebody like your background because a lot of parents gave into the fear mongering because they didn't have a resource to go to and they were so panicked. Like you said, the data is very, very clear on this. It shows that we build up natural immunity, we build up natural resilience. And so a lot of the kids, I've heard horror stories that some kids who were vaccinated ended up developing other issues or they've developed asthma or some other random thing has come up and because it's an immune response essentially, I.

Mean I've seen what I educated parents about and for kids who are just trying to have that conversation with them. But it's really important to know that whatever complication can occur from an infection, we can also see that from a vaccine. Let's take myocarditis, the heart inflammation that we see. We can see that both from a COVID 19 infection and from COVID 19 vaccination. Especially our young boys, right, our teenagers to our young men are most at risk. So it's not that there's no risk either way. So it's really important that parents have the right to assess that risk for their own kids.

In your book you also talk about, which I loved is about like whole child resilience and guys, I'm holding this up because I really, really think anybody who's starting a family or is about to become a parent or is a parent needs to really read this book. So can we walk through the concept of hold child resilience?

Yeah. And, you know, it's sort of what we were talking about just before, where resilience really means allowing your body to have, at a cellular level, a certain amount of stressors. We know that whether they're psychological stress or physiologic stress, infection stressors, environmental toxins, I mean, we're bombarded every day. And so at a cellular level, your cells have a very adaptive response to contain that threat, resolve it, and then get back to a healthy baseline. Now, what's fascinating is every time your cells go through that process, they actually learn how to manage each additional stressor even better the next time. It's actually a cellular process called hormesis. And it's a beautiful process where we know we have to go through those and then we come out stronger the next time. I mean, there's actually a paper called Cellular Resilience for people who want to read a research paper and the author's note, you know, it doesn't matter whether you fall. What's important is whether you get back up again. I mean, that's a lesson for life, right? And so that's where, again, I wanted parents to really know it's not about shielding your kids from every single thing. Because we have, you know, we don't want to helicopter our kids, we don't want to bubble wrap our kids, right? We don't want to shield them from every single thing. And so I know for me, you know, as I was sort of really going through my journey as an integrative pediatrician and then as a mom, right. In the beginning, I remember my, even my sisters were like, oh, my gosh, you just, you have to just chill out a little bit. Because I would go, you know, to my mom's house and I mean, grandparents love to feed their kids, right? But it's not always the food that you want them want your kids to eat, Right? We know that. Or the birthday parties that start. And then there's like the blue frosted cupcake or the Skittles or the whatever, right? And in the beginning, I mean, I was a helicopter mom. No, you know, Kenzie can't eat this. I'm going to go grocery shopping. And this is her food, you know, And I mean, you just. And so now recognizing that resilience means that your body, your microbiome, your brain Wants to go back to the state that it was in before whatever, you know, stressor came along. It's okay. You build that foundation so that if you go on vacation and, you know, with your grandparents and maybe they buy something that you're not so keen on or maybe they're using, you know, they have. The only thing that they have is, you know, shampoo and lotions, and you're like, no, not on the skin. Right. It's okay. It's okay. That blue frosted cupcake. All right. You know, maybe not ideal, but when Kenzie or Bode have one at a birthday party. I know, right? Their microbiomes are in pretty good shape. They're gonna bounce back. So it's just trusting in the body's ability to heal when you know how to lay those foundations. So I wanted to have parents just really have that foundation and be able to trust, okay, no matter what happens.

And for somebody listening to this, and it's like, check. That really resonates with me. What you're saying is building the microbiome. What are the starting blocks for building that resilient, you know, you know, immune system and children and building their microbiome. Where should parents start?

So that's a great question, because there's different places parents can start. And, you know, it's also different. If your child already has a chronic health concern, we need to look at the microbiome more closely and help heal that microbiome. And there's different processes. I call it the gut reset protocol. But from that foundation, there's really what I wanted parents and children and teenagers to know. This is all very practical, doable, and it can be fun. Right? It's something we want to make a lifestyle, you know, really have your. A microbiome centric way of living. And what I discuss in the book is something called the wheel of whole gut resilience. And when we take a step back even further, why talk about the microbiome? Well, because 70 to 80% of your immune system lies in your gut. And especially for children, when their immune systems are developing, we know that a healthy gut microbiome can reduce the risks of things like allergy, eczema, asthma, adhd, autoimmune diseases. A disrupted gut microbiome can increase that risk. The gut brain connection, children's brains are developing, and it mirrors how their microbiome is developing. So any disruption to the gut microbiome does increase the risk of anxiety or depression or mental health concerns somewhere down the road. So even if your kids don't have gut symptoms, maybe their poops look perfect and they're not constipated. Right. You still want to look at the gut. Now, if we're going all the way, you know, if we can take a moment to look at your child's gut microbiome and say, well, what about now? How do I start? Now, to establish that foundation in this wheel of whole gut resilience, there are five things that we do every single day that if we learn how to do them in a way that creates microbiome magic, every day we build that foundation. So it really comes down to those simple foundations. Now, the first part is what we're putting into our bodies, you know, what we're eating or not eating. So that's nourishing your gut microbiome. And we have microbiome champions like fiber phytonutrients and fermented foods. Just as important to know what to keep out. So I call them microbiome mischief makers. And so those are things like all those dyes and colors, emulsifiers, you know, food additives, glyphosate, which is Roundup, you know, an herbicide in non organic foods. But for some parents, they're like, oh my gosh, but my kids, only five things right now. How am I going to work on that? Well then you can work on the other things because guess what? That mindfulness meditation, engaging your vagus nerve, improving something called heart rate variability that can improve your child's microbiome and independent of diet.

I had no idea.

Right. And so, all right, if food is stressful, I don't. This should not be stressful. Again, this is a way of life. This is not just a one and done, I'm gonna have a healthy meal and that's it. This is. We wanted to, let's wait on the diet just now. Work on improving heart rate variability, which many people listening, I mean, you're tracking your hrv, you know, whether it's with your oura ring or with your apple watch or whatever it is, it is one of the best predictors for children and adults of current and future health. A lot of those things that we can do to improve heart rate variability, they're free, right? Also, when we sleep in a restorative way, when we move our body mindfully and exercise, even how well hydrated we are, those all have really significant impacts on your microbiome, even with exercise. I mean, kids through the pandemic did not move their bodies enough. And exercise can improve your microbiome independent of diet. So I'M not saying go have Skittles and Frosted Flakes every day and just think you can meditate your way out of it. But there's a start. You can start anywhere. And when I think about it as a wheel, no matter where you start, you're gonna move that wheel forward.

I want to ask you, when do you think kids should be even introduced to any form of sugar, even fruit sugars? Because I heard this theory from another functional doctor that I know, and she did this with her kids. She said, when sugar was introduced to society is when our teeth started rotting. And prior to that, if you look at civilization, we had perfect teeth. And so I was wondering, from your aspect, when do you even introduce children to sugar? Even fruit sugars?

Yeah, I mean, I think so. You mean just whole fruits? Right. I do think that fruits should be a part of kids diets, even, you know, early on as you're introducing solids. It's just that fruits are not a replacement for vegetables. I'll have, you know, kids come in and I'll talk about, you know, ask about what they think their fruit and vegetable intake is like. And some kids eat a ton of fruit, but no vegetables. And I let them know, look, in other cultures, fruit is a dessert, right? And fruit is not something that we eat every, you know, all day long. And it's still healthy for you, but it is still a lot of sugar as far as added sugars go. And I do consider fruit juice and added sugar. I don't think there's any role for fruit juice in our kids diets. But, you know, when we look at, you know, overall how much sugar we should be consuming, I mean, I like to tell kids and parents, look, there's no nutritional value to eating added sugar.

Right.

Does it mean we should have no sugar? Well, you know, even back 100 years ago, let's say Americans were eating about two teaspoons of added sugar in a day. You need a little sugar to feed the yeast in your bread, right. If you're gonna have bread that rises. And I mean, there. I mean, think about pastries that were, you know, developed around the world, but they were far few between. Right? So two teaspoons. Now, fast forward to this day and age. I mean, do you want to take a guess how many teaspoons the average U.S. teenager has today? 34 teaspoons. No, 34 teaspoons.

34 teaspoons.

And adults aren't far behind. I mean, the average US adult has maybe about 19 teaspoons. But it comes. And so this Is where I mean, I tell what I from the moment kids are. I mean, I have a lot of kids who are now in high school. So when they're freshmen, I say, look, this is your time to learn the life skills that you're gonna need before you head off to college, right? And so you golden opportunity, whatever you see mom and dad doing that you want to learn and know how to do, you do it well. There's two life skills I think are really important to teach your kids before they head off to wherever they're gonna head off to. One is to learn how to read food labels like a gut hero, to regulate their nervous system, right? Now, these added sugars, they come. If you are not reading every single label, you have no idea. I mean, I've had nutritionists, other doctors who are functionally minded go through my book. I have a daily added sugar inventory. Just to take an average day and just look at the labels and just notice how, how many grams of sugar are you eating or are you feeding your kids on an average day? If you don't look, it can be shocking. And this was, you know, and I, you know, I'm not saying I'm, you know, I'm perfect. I'm going to throw myself under the bus too, because even for me, as a practicing holistic pediatrician, when I was sending my kids off to school with their vanilla Greek yogurt, right, Because I thought, oh, protein probiotics, right? And you know, whole grain, you know, multi seed bread, you know, gluten free with, you know, organic made real strawberry fruit spread and peanut butter, right? That might, might have been like a typical, you know, day, right? And I finally one day looked at the, looked at the labels like I teach people and I was like, oh my gosh, this vanilla Greek yogurt, which I thought had less sugar than the strawberry puree, actually have way more and had something like up to 28 grams of added sugar, which is seven teaspoons of sugar in one serving, right? So here I'm sending my kids off and patting myself on the back, right? And then, you know, the fruit spread, I mean, I mean, we know fruit spread can have more sugar, but I thought, oh, this is going to, this.

Is the best version.

Yeah. It still had a teaspoon per tablespoon and a lot of people lather more on, right? And then the bread I was shocked about because it was, you know, looked like a really clean bread. I hadn't even looked at the grams of added sugar. There was one teaspoon per slice of bread. And so it's these eye opening moments where, you know, no judgment, you don't judge, you just want to know where you're starting from. Right. But you have to know where you're starting from. From.

I'm just still shocked by the 34 teaspoons. I'm just flabbergasted. So this was going to bring me to the next point. Is it 1 in 2 kids get diagnosed with chronic disease? One shape or form of it? Do you think it's a culmination of the sugar, the diet, the environmental toxins, maybe the vaccines, maybe not. Like, what is going on that our children are so sick in America?

Yeah. And it really, sadly, it's not just America, other countries are following suit. And one thing that we're seeing, I mean, I would say at the root cause really is microbiome disruption. And all kids have microbiome disruption for different reasons. So then it's really doing that detective work to figure out, well, what are the biggest microbiome disruptors for this child? Right. We know in our modern world there are many, many different microbiome disruptors. The single fastest disruptor of our microbiome are antibiotics. Right. But a lot of people know, especially listening here, that antibiotics are going to kill your good bugs, right, along with your bad bugs. But there are several medications that have very similar microbiome disrupting effects as antibiotics that a lot of people aren't aware of. So antihistamines, if you have allergies, birth control pills, antidepressants, steroids. So when we have this epidemic of teenage anxiety where one in three teenage girls is seriously thinking about suicide and that girl is on an antidepressant, birth control pills for her pms, doxycycline for her acne. Right, Antibiotics. And we're thinking, why is she getting worse and worse, not better? Maybe she's temporarily better from the SSRI or maybe period cramps are a little bit. But this young adult woman in front of us is not thriving. Right. And so each of those can disrupt the microbiome. And then on top of that, we see the boba tea she's having every day and all of that. So it's just doing that detective work, educating kids to know. When I talk to teenagers, I would say for teenagers, mental health is the number one issue. Right. When they're younger, it's more the eczema, the asthma, the allergies. And then as teenagers, we see autoimmunity on the rise and anxiety on the rise in depression. But when I let Teenagers know and just kind of in a inquisitive way, just letting them know, hey, do you know how, how all those trillions of tiny probiotic organisms in your gut are actually helping your brain and let them know that up to 90% of all the serotonin in their body, which helps you feel good, calm, helps you fall asleep, is made by your gut bugs. If we're not living in a way that nurtures our gut microbiome, our gut microbiome doesn't have a chance to help us and our brain and, and so really kind of framing it that way, the decisions we make in our life, we have this microscopic ba. Booming ecosystem inside our gut. And the same way that we take care of the world around us, we reduce, reuse, recycle all the things to take care of our world's ecosystem because otherwise soon the world is not going to be able to take care of us. The same thing's going on with our gut ecosystem. We need to really think about how are we nurturing and nourishing this ecosystem inside us because its job is to take care of us. So our decisions are not just for us, it's to really take care of those creatures inside of us that are taking care of us.

It's crazy to me to think how easily pediatricians and adult doctors, for adults give out antibiotics like, like candy. I was, Alyssa, on so many antibiotics as a kid, always being given suproxen, obviously given suproxen. And then in my 40s, I'm now having to heal a lot of my health issues because of a broken down microbiome. I have poor mitochondrial health, which is now affecting my fertility.

Yeah.

And we don't realize that. And how easily they just give it out. They're like, just give the kid the antibiotic, not realizing the, the sheer destruction that it causes.

Yeah. I mean, this is, it's such an important issue. And I love that you bring up the mitochondria because even for children, mitochondrial dysfunction can lie at the core of a lot of chronic health concerns. And there's this intimate microbiome, mitochondria crosstalk. So we can't have healthy mitochondria and mitochondria. Why? I mean, for adults, we know mitochondria, it's all about longevity and of course, biohacking, all the things. Well, guess what? Your mitochondria is important for every single cellular function. And if your microbiome isn't healthy, your mitochondria can't be healthy. Now with antibiotics, there's a Couple of different reasons to really be concerned about the current overuse and inappropriate use of antibiotics. From a wider public health perspective. We know that antibiotic resistance now is, is set to become a leading cause of death by 2050, which is really frightening. I mean, antibiotics really are considered and probably are the most important public health invention of the 20th century. I mean, a simple leg, a skin infection could become life threatening, a simple ear infection. And that's something now in the 21st century where, you know, we may be back at the point where we don't have any way to treat these infections. And, you know, the FDA is calling for more antibiotics to be created. Well, that's not the only answer. Right. There's also from an individual, this child in front of me, or, you know, this patient in front of me. We know that the antibiotics can disrupt the microbiome immediately. And some species don't just take months to recover, but can take years to recover unless we know how to restore and recover the microbiome. Unless as a parent or an adult who gets an antibiotic prescription is aware and mindful of the fact that, okay, first of all, let's make sure this antibiotic is absolutely necessary. Right. Because in some studies, up to 70% of antibiotics for kids are unnecessarily prescribed for viral infections. Right. As was probably the case for you as a kid. Right. And so, but if it is absolutely necessary, then take the antibiotic, complete the course and know, all right, let's recover and reset the microbiome so that I don't have months down the road or a year down the road or years down the road, as happened with you. Now we have to do all the mop up. Right. If we can do the mop up sooner, it's easier to recover the microbiome. It's never too late to recover your microbiome. I mean, I know parents who have read the book or kind of think, oh my gosh, my kids had antibiotics when they were like three months old and now they're 13. Is it too late? It's not too late. We still have to get back to the foundations and we can recover. It just might take a little while longer and a little more diligence, but it's possible.

And when people are taking, let's say it's super necessary and somebody's given antibiotics, what should they take in conjunction with taking the antibiotics?

So when I think about, I call it the reset, gut reset. So, so the re in reset really means returning to those five things for microbiome magic. You have to really double down on eating in a microbiome centric way and really having restorative sleep, hydration and all of that. So that's the foundation because I've had kids where we recover the microbiome, but then it starts sliding right back. So getting back to the foundations and then the set S E t so sealing and healing the leaky gut because antibiotics can also trigger leaky gut. Right. And so you may be taking nutrients or focusing on foods that are higher in gut lining supportive nutrients like your omega 3 fatty acids or fatty fish glutamine, you can drink your bone broth. Zinc is very important for any healing of aligning, whether it's your gut lining or your skin skin. And so and I love antioxidants, phytonutrients like quercetin can be really gut healing. So focusing on those and then the E is eliminating gut dysbiosis. So if there's any concern that maybe yeast was kicked up or there's abnormal bacteria that have been stirred up, then we may be also supporting the gut with some antimicrobial herbs at that point. But after antibiotics, it's usually the S gut lining supportive nutrients and then tea is transforming the microbiome. And so that's thinking about pre and pro and even postbiotic supplementation. We want to be more guided in that. I used to say when I was starting out in practice, and I started my practice back in 2004, so it's been almost 21 years now, but I used to recommend that all kids and all adults take probiotics every single day. And that's probably the biggest thing that's changed in my practice. It's not about every single day. It's about targeted and really being a strain specific as possible. So we know that for recovery of the microbiome, restoring the microbiome after antibiotics, there are several strains that can be really important. So trying to look for those during the winter, cold and flu season, there are specific strains that have been found to reduce the rates of colds and flus and fevers and miss days of school. So using those in the winter or with your oral microbiome, there are ones that can help reduce cavities and ear infection risk. So having more knowledge when there's trillions of microscopic organisms in your gut, it doesn't make sense that even 15 would be enough to really get at that diversity. And we also know, just as we, I mean, many people are starting to do more genetic SNP testing to know really have precision medicine, personalized nutrigenomic recommendations. Well, your genes are totally unique to you. Same thing with your microbiome. And I mean, your microbiome is meant to look very different than my microbiome given our, you know, our ethnic backgrounds, our cultural heritage, the foods, we, how we evolved. And so I'm hoping, I mean, one day we will get to the point where we have more precision. You know, probiotic recommendations. Right now we're not quite there yet, but I do want people and parents to understand, even when it comes to your microbiome, there's no one size fits all.

I think it's so amazing that you have this sort of like very tailored approach. So recently I'm doing these fertility treatments and they came up with something and they're like, hey, you need to go on a 10 day course of antibiotics. And my initial instant was like, no, I'm going to call my functional medicine doctor. I'm going to send this over to her because somebody who already has mitochondrial issues, I'm not further willing to drop a bomb on this. And, and I called her and she said, I have herbs that work just as well. You're going to take this course of herbs and it will do the exact same thing without any of the negative side effects. But I'm really fortunate that I have that network and that group of people I can go to. But most people just go to their doctor and some moms are just so overwhelmed or whatever it is. They're like, we're just going to do what the doctor's saying, kind of walk out, not realizing all the side effects. Long term side effects that can come with this.

Yeah, well, and that's why, I mean, that's really why I wrote the book because I know when we get calls from the office, at the office, you know, is there someone like you near me?

Yes.

Can I, can you see me or my child? And you know, as a solo practitioner, I just, I haven't really been able to see new patients for quite a while. And so I'm working to train more pediatric practitioners. And also if you don't have an integrated pediatric practitioner near you, I'd say part four of the book is really the reference guide for parents because in part four that goes through everything you should know about antibiotics. In fact, the chapter is called what every parent or practitioner should know about antibiotics, including six questions to ask your doc before you start antibiotics to make sure it's absolutely necessary and, and then goes through the top 25 conditions that kids face from colds and flus and Earaches to sleep problems. And if you were my patient, I wrote down everything that I would tell a patient. These are the supplements to try, some of the diet and lifestyle options to consider, some homeopathic medicines or acupressure points or essential oils. And I don't wanna leave parents, especially if you're new to this. I didn't want to leave moms and dads, but, you know, it's mostly moms really thinking, I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing. How do I know when I should see my doctor? So in each section I also write, this is when you should call your doctor. This is when antibiotics might be necessary. Right? Because there is a time and a place for antibiotics. It's just that it's much less often than we think.

And what's your take on Tylenol?

So, you know, Tylenol for kids is usually given for fever. Same thing with ibuprofen, right. Emotion or Advil. And when we stand back and think about fever and, you know, this kind of ties into our discussion on building that resilience, right. When kids mount a fever, or adults, for that matter, adult, it's your immune system trying to fight something, right? It's just the same thing as when you get a cut, what happens? It might get a little red, a little pus. It's your immune system sending all of the troops there saying, let's heal up, right? So fever is your body's very natural response to an infection, and it actually helps your body to recover faster from that infection. So in children, there have been studies found that if you give. If you reduce the fever artificially, whether it's with Tylenol or Motrin, it can make your kids sicker for longer. And one study actually looked at how much viral shedding occurred from the nose, and it was increased. So now you're keeping them sicker for longer and you're making them more contagious, which is the last thing we want, right? We have to remember, I mean, this is again, this is, I think, also more for parents to have that stress tolerance because, I mean, nobody likes to watch their kids being sick. It's hard. You want your kids to be perky and happy, but there's a very normal. It's called sickness behavior. And we see it in animals of all kinds. We see it in humans. When we're sick, we become grumpy. We want to be left alone. We're couch potatoes. We don't really want to eat or drink that much. That is your body Saying, I'm going to preserve all of my energy just to get well. And so when I have parents calling me and saying, oh, I gave them some Tylenol, now they're the normal self, they're jumping on the trampoline, I'm like, no, I don't want them acting like their normal self. I want them to be a couch potato while they're sick. Right? So Tylenol in particular also depletes our master antioxidant called glutathione. And we need glutathione thione also to recover more quickly from infections. In fact, part of my protocols when kids are sick, especially if they're, you know, with COVID 19 or if they have a major illness, is to have them take extra glutathione or take an Epsom salt bath, right? So we don't want to deplete our glutathione. Ibuprofen is interesting, too, because I used to say, well, I would prefer that you use ibuprofen over Tylenol. And then I read a study showing that ibuprofen can disrupt your microbiome as much as antibiotics. And so it's not that we never, ever want to use them. When would I give a fever reducer? Well, first of all, I would try homeopathy first. Or acupressure points or essential oils, because those natural remedies don't suppress the fever. They're not squashing the fever, reducing the natural inflammation that's going on. They're helping to support your body in doing what it wants to do and recover faster. So there are some homeopathic medicines that can work awesome for fever. There's an acupressure point that I just have parents. This large intestine four that you just massage, you can put some lavender essential oil on there. You know, so a lot of. Really, there's herbal teas you can drink to help with fevers. And then if your kids are so miserable with their fever that they're not able to sleep or they're not able to drink, that's when I would consider something like Tylenol or ibuprofen, because we need them to stay hydrated. And sleep is restorative, right? Sleep is healing. Now, is it to bring the fever down to, quote, normal? No, you don't have to bring it down to normal. Just comfortable enough. A big question I get from parents is, well, what about febrile seizures? And they can be really scary. And I write a lot about it in the book because I want to reassure parents. But there's been some large reviews of studies that have found that alternating Tylenol or Motrin around the clock just to keep the temperature down, does not prevent febrile seizures in children, except if they've already had a febrile seizure during that particular illness. And so the main thing is, you know, use your homeopathy, use your herbs, use your essential oils. There's so much we can do. If you use Tylenol, I would consider giving a little extra glutathione or taking an Epsom salt bath just to replenish and replace that glutathione that's lost. If you're giving ibuprofen, then supporting the gut microbiome is going to be really.

Important because we're talking about things like, and we just kind of briefly brought up the FDA and how they want to bring more antibiotics in the market. One of the big things that's all over the news and kind of everywhere right now is the appointment of Bobby Kennedy in the Secretary of Health and Human Services and him wanting to take a deeper look at childhood vaccines. And for anybody listening, no, he's not an anti vaxxer. He just wants more research on the matter. Right, from your perspective, you know, being a pediatrician, you've been, you know, how to practice for so many years. What do you advise parents? Because this is becoming a really big hot topic. I have a lot of friends who are pregnant right now who are saying shit like, I thought I knew it and now I don't know what to do. Should I give vaccines? Should I not give vaccines? What should I give? What should I not give? So I think the next four years we're gonna learn so much. But so far for you, you see, you know, little patients all the time. What are you advising parents? What to take, what not to take, what is essential and what is not essential.

It's just like everything else. I so firmly believe, A, that it's a parent's right to decide what they're going to do for their children. Right. Because it is parents who are going to have to deal with any adverse reactions. Right. And B, that it has to be individualized. And it's an unfortunate, it's been an unfortunate time where if you even just question the status quo, the CDC guidelines for the kids vaccine schedule, that you are considered anti vaxxer. Now, we are, I'm hoping, approaching a different time where we can have rational discussions and rational inquiry and really good, you know, scientific research on, you know, let's take A look at what infections kids are actually at risk for and how do we. And also what adverse reactions are at risk for. That is unique for every child. Child. In fact, there's a whole field of vaccinomics and adversomics, which. Vaccinomics is the study of genetic SNPs and how to optimize vaccine response. Right. And we know that there are certain. And you know, if you're, if you are going to give a vaccine, we want it to be effective. Right. We want it to mount an immune response. And we know things like sleeping the night before, exercising, eating more fruits and vegetables, all optimize vaccine response, having a healthy microbiome. So that's a study of vaccinomics. There's another field called adversomics which doesn't get enough attention. Way less attention than vaccinomics. But adversomics is a look at specific genetic SNPs that you or your child might carry and what risks you have for adverse vaccine reactions. This is a very important field, right? Because even though adverse vaccine reactions may be, quote, rare, the very serious ones, they happen. And you don't want your child to be that child. Now, we're not quite there yet, but we have. I mean, I present this to my practitioners. There are certain SNPs that have been identified that, you know, for instance, with the MMR and varicella vaccines, can increase the risk for febrile seizures. We know that there are certain vaccine SNPs that may be associated with lesser ability to, you know, clear out and, you know, detoxify from the aluminum that is in some vaccines. So it's not that I'm saying never to any of them, but really be more guided now with parents. I mean, that is one of the reasons why a lot of parents will come to me is to have that guided. Now, what I typically like to do for children is to give one vaccine at a time if they're going to get vaccines, because then you know exactly if there's a reaction, what the reaction is to. Right. The DTAP in particular, in my experience, can cause more reactions in terms of increasing the risk for atopy, eczema, developing, or even seizures. Now, the DTAP is different than the DTP that was used decades ago, which caused even more problems. But we know these problems exist for some. So to blanketly say, oh, you know, these vaccines are safe and effective for all, it's simply not true. Right. But there are some kids who find, for instance, I have kiddos who are diagnosed with, let's say cancer or some autoimmune phenomena where they really are. The next step is an immunosuppressant medication. Despite everything that we're trying. And those kids are going to be at very serious risk if they were to contract chickenpox. Let's say each scenario is a little different. Each scenario has to be played out now when. And in California, unfortunately, parents don't have the choice if they want to go to school, regular school, not homeschool. Right. And so, you know, I will work with parents to try to do one at a time, space them out, given the restrictions we have, and also support kids. I support kids with methylation support, mitochondrial support, glutathione and antioxidant detoxification support. There are supports that we can put in place so that we can, you know, really help mitigate a lot of the potential problems.

And is this phenomena? I don't know. That's why I'm asking of vaccine shedding. Is this a real thing? Because I heard this term come around the last few years of vaccine shedding. So some people were like, well, if so and so's child gets this vaccine, then they may shed on my child.

I mean, so that came out, really came about, the discussion was really around the COVID 19 mRNA vaccines. And I have to be honest, I mean, this may. Folks may not necessarily like me saying this, but I don't know how real a phenomenon that is. Right. But we do know with live vaccines, okay, like measles, mumps, rubella and varicella, you are receiving a very weakened but still live virus from the vaccine. In the times we no longer give the live polio vaccine, the oral polio vaccine, but that was a live vaccine. Now it's the inactive inactivated polio vaccine that's given. With those live virus vaccines, there is a risk of being contagious, mostly to immunocompromised people. It's such a weak virus. But I have had kids who have received the MMR and the next week all of a sudden develop a measles rash. Right. We know that can happen. It doesn't happen often, but it can happen.

Right.

And even with varicella, so that if your child or you are receiving the MMR or the varicella vaccine, if you have someone in the household that's immunocompromised, let's say, you know, your mother is going through chemotherapy, then for that time it's not recommended to be exposed to that vaccine recipient. Right.

And I was also gonna ask you on that note, we're also seeing a rise in an increase in a lot of childhood cancers. And that's kind of been going up and up. So from a pediatrician's lens and seeing this like rapid increase, where are you correlating or where in your opinion in your practice? You're like, well, these are the things, Is it methylation, is it the broken microbiome and is it overexposure to environmental toxins? Like, what can that be linked to? Because I think diabetes, we understand sugar increase, right? Where like we understand that one. But the cancer thing is taking people a little bit off guard because it's such an increase in different types of childhood cancers.

I would say it's cancers and autoimmunity, right? Because for me, I'm seeing an alarming rise in autoimmunity and Hashimoto's in young kids, right? And so I still think it really leads back to the microbiome. Now, environmental toxins play a big role. But what's fascinating is we have this category of environmental toxins called endocrine disruptors, right? Endocrine disrupting chemicals or EDPs. Well, when we step back and think, well, how are these endocrine disrupting chemicals causing problems? Like what is a mechanism by which they're wreaking havoc? One of the first mechanisms is disrupting the microbiome. So when they disrupt the microbiome, our microbiome is responsible for detoxifying our unhealthy estrogen levels, for communicating with our hormone producing glands. Right? And so even still, the way that these forever chemicals and things, phthalates and parabens and all of that really wreak their havoc is first by destroying the microbiome. And so I do think, you know, and when it comes to the microbiome, we know how important, as we just spoke about mitochondrial health, when our mitochondria become disrupted, that can increase our risk of not being able to really clear out cancer cells. Have these cancer cells appropriately go through programmed cell death. And then also with mitochondrial dysfunction, we do see an increase in immune disorders and autoimmunity. And so I still think it comes down to the microbiome.

It's crazy to think that we have advanced so much with modern medicine, but the basics we've completely forgotten about. And we're living in this modern world where our biology has not evolved. Even though everything around us is evolving, evolved in our inner biology is still like, you know, you have these 5G towers, we're getting EMFs from everywhere. You know, our circadian rhythm is so broken. But yet parents are like, well, I don't understand why my child is sick. But, like, it's like they forget to go back to the basics.

Yeah, I love that you say that because it really, a lot of, in our day and age where, I mean, we have advanced so much and there are so many amazing. Even from. So from a connection, conventional medicine standpoint. Yes. We've evolved so much in the technologies that we have, the diagnostic tools and medications. From a functional medicine perspective, look at all the gadgets that we have. Right. And yet we really need to get back to those foundations. It is those foundations that for a lot of people, it can almost seem, well, that's too simple. Right. Simple is not always easy, and simple is what can make the most profound effects. So, I mean, I, you know, I know a lot of, you know, kids now, teenagers. Teenagers are so savvy now, and I have two teenagers right now, and they're listening to podcasts and they're doing all the things and, and they're coming to me and asking me really smart questions, right? About creatine or how much protein they should take. Take, or, you know, my son wants a whoop. And, you know, amazing. And, and yet they're not giving up their candy habit or prioritizing getting sleep and getting eight to nine hours of sleep at night. And so, you know, let them know, I, I can tell you supplements to take that would be safe and maybe support your goal of becoming a better athlete or support your goal of having clean, clearer skin. But bottom line, you don't go back to the basics. It's a big uphill battle. Right, Right.

And is it also true that, you know, you and your partner can switch microbiomes because you're interacting all the time and stuff? So one person is really healthy and working on themselves and the other person's just drinking a lot of Diet Coke and their microbiome is getting weakened. Is that true that there can be this microbiome almost exchange between. Between partners or siblings?

Yeah, I mean, we definitely share our microbiomes. Right. And so when you test, I mean, I've tested many siblings and many parent kid combinations, and very often the disruptive microbes are kind of consistent throughout. And so, yes, it's a family affair.

Right. Everyone's gotta clean up, you know, And I ask that because when we started, when I started my fertility journey, I told my husband, you have to fully get on board. You have to do this with me. Because we live in the same house where, you know, living in the same environment, and it Took me a minute to even educate him on, like, we have to remove all plastic containers, all of this stuff, like clean out the house because, you know, the plastic consumption. I think we're consuming a credit card worth of plastic a week. That's what the new research is showing and the dysregulation that that's having. So I think it's about the whole family has to live and breathe same mindset, at least behind those closed doors.

That's right.

In order to have a healthy child.

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you too, the research behind, you know, we know there's so much research on the mama's microbiome, gut microbiome, vaginal microbiome, and healthy pregnancies, healthy babies. But there's increasing research on the paternal microbiome and how important that is. In fact, paternal. The dad's microbiome before conceiving can really affect the pregnancy outcomes. Early pregnancy, I mean, early delivery, preeclampsia, even, you know, in utero and postnatal weight gain. So it's not that, you know, dads are kind of, that's it, they wipe their hands clean. I mean, we're finding more and more how, how important that paternal microbiome is to epigenetically modify the sperm that then creates this baby. So absolutely, it's both.

And then is it true also that the baby inherits a lot of its microbiome from the mom because you're carrying the child as well. So there's a lot of that interaction and connection and stuff. So you taking care of yourself is.

Extra important, is really important. I mean, it's interesting, there's, there is some controversy as to whether or not there is a lot of microbial transfer through the placenta, but certainly your gut microbiome and vaginal microbiome and the way the mode of delivery of your baby really influences from the very beginning how your baby's microbiome is going to be shaped. Now, we also know for moms, the state of your mental health, your psychological health has profound effects too, on pregnancy outcomes and, you know, even epigenetics. Right. I mean, there was one. When we look at, I mean, there's been a couple of different kind of disasters where we know epigenetically those babies have been programmed in utero because of the trauma that mothers experience to have later health, increased risk for later health problems, heart disease, metabolic disease. However, those mothers who had a, even if they had the same objective stress, if subjectively they felt like the stress wasn't as bad you know, whatever silver lining you could see, whatever positive outlook you could have that protected the baby from those epigenetic changes. So this is, we're supporting, you know, our mothers from the moment, you know, even preconception, but even while they're pregnant, to really support that, the psychological health of the baby, of the mom, because that's going to ensure that we have healthier and happier babies.

That's why they, they say that when you do, you know, sometimes mistakes happen, but when you are actively trying to conceive to have really good dialogue, harmony at home and have that good balance, you know, roles are a little bit more defined because that will create a space of safety and security for the woman, really important, which allows life to kind of come through.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just so excited I got to sit down with you because I followed your work for so long and you know, I. The book came out and I was just so excited and to have somebody like you come and educate and the fact that you're educating so many incredible other pediatricians to learn, looking at treatment, treating young adults and little, little humans, as I call them in this way is super unique. So thank you, Dr. Alyssa Song, for coming on and sitting down with me and taking out the time to do the podcast.

Oh, thanks for having me.

I appreciate it. And for anybody listening, I'm actually trying to convince Dr. Alyssa Song to come down to Miami and do an in person event as well. So we're going to talk about that later. And if you're listening to the podcast, please save, save, share, download. You're sharing. Building this community with me means so much to me because that's how we get the word out about all these incredible practitioners and the amazing work that they're doing. So thank you so much.

Thank you.