Dr. M's Women and Children First Podcast

Upcoming Podcast and Current Book Review. For all parents who love the content of this newsletter, I have a book for you to enjoy. It is a comprehensive look at parenting a child in modern times through the struggles of food, technology, stress and life in general. My good friend Elisa Song is a Stanford, NYU and UCSF trained pediatrician and lover of children. In her recently published book, Heal...

Section I Literature Review 1) Long Covid in children - the symptoms are getting more clarity in who has what . From JAMA: 898 school-age children (751 with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and 147 without) and 4469 adolescents (3109 infected and 1360 uninfected) were included in the analysis. The time between infection and symptom analysis was 1.5 years. In models adjusted for sex and race and ethni...

Children are and always will be a marker of a society’s quality and focus on their health. When we look at the landscape of childhood health trajectories, we see a declination in quality and an inclination toward diseases of immune dysregulation and underlying chronic unchecked inflammation. What is the genesis point, or where is ground zero? For me, that answer is the newly understood ecosystem c...

David L. Katz, MD, MPH is a specialist in Preventive Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine, with particular expertise in nutrition. He earned his BA at Dartmouth College (1984); his MD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1988); and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health (1993). He completed sequential residency training and board certification in Internal Medicine (1991) and Pr...

Literature Review 1) Does oral health affect your life if you are sick and in intensive care? According to a new study in JAMA, the answer is yes. From the study: 10,742 patients - "toothbrushing was associated with significantly lower risk for Hospital Acquired Pneumonia and ICU mortality. Reduction in pneumonia incidence was significant for patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation but...

This week I sit down with Dr. Elisa Song to discuss her new book, Healthy Kids, Happy Kids. Dr. Song is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in political Science. She then attended New York University for her medical degree and finally a stop at the University of California San Francisco for pediatric residency training. In her own words, Dr. Song is a holistic pediatrician. She founded...

Sleep Part IV Continuing the sleep education from a few weeks ago. Sleep is a most special event that we all need to continue to focus heavily on in order to live a healthy and long life. It may be the single most important event that we do daily. Here are a few more quick hits on sleep from the Matthew Walker's Book and other publications. 1) Aim for a minimum of 7 hours nightly to maintain adequ...

Sleep Part III Finally, the other elephant in the room related to sleep is STRESS. Stress alters the function of the hormone cortisol and can significantly alter night sleep function. There are three major chemicals that affect sleep: cortisol, adenosine and melatonin. In normal conditions, adenosine rises during the day making you sleepy, cortisol hits its low point at night and melatonin rises a...

This weeks guest is Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe. Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe is a researcher and a thinker with persistence. Throughout history, these are the human qualities that lead people to develop amazing products and lead projects for the world to benefit from. Her story is one of discovery, passion and caring. Dr. Cutcliffe holds a Ph. D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins Univer...

Epigenetics and Pregnancy Epigenetics is the study of environmental signals and their effects on our genes. Our genes are not altered so much as they are read and used differently based on the environmental inputs. Epigenetic effects are critical during the pregnancy period as the environmental signals can alter an offspring’s outcome both in good and bad ways. Making sure that we control for bett...

Sleep Part II Let us pause here! So far we now know that humans at all ages will suffer from memory dysfunction and brain sewage cleanup problems leading to inflammation and damage long term. What ages are most at risk? They are likely mirrored by other physiologic events that are at risk based on age. Teenagers, infants and toddlers are rapidly growing creatures requiring more macro/micronutrient...

Kenneth R. Pelletier, MD, PhD is a Clinical Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine; Department of Family and Community Medicine, and Department of Psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine (UCSF) in San Francisco. He is Director of the Corporate Health Improvement Program (CHIP) which is a collaborative research program between CHIP and 15 of the Fortune 500 corporations...

Sleep Update for 2024 Sleep has always been a necessary function of everyday life for all mammals. From an evolutionary perspective this cannot be a mistake as during the period of sleep you are vulnerable to predation. Therefore, there has to be a really good reason for mammals to sleep for extended hours. What is that reason? Why are toddlers and frankly all of us more cranky when we do not slee...

Klotho Part II Last week we discussed Klotho as a protein that has pleotrophic effects in the body as it relates to cellular aging. This week let us focus specifically on the brain. What are the effects of klotho as it relates to cognition and function over time? Klotho has neuroprotective effects based on studies that show that better cognitive performance in translational models over time occur...

Jeff Kessler, FACHE Allergy Choices This week I sit down with Jeff Kessler to discuss allergies and sublingual immune therapy. Jeff Kessler is a business leader and a thought leader in the allergy therapy space. His relevant backstory goes back to 1999 when he had the fortunate opportunity to work on a project to select and implement an Electronic Medical Record system for the Allergy Associates o...

Klotho Part I Ok, it is time for a potential log step shift in the human understanding of neurological decline with age starting from birth. Enter the peptide, (C)Klotho, named after the greek goddess of fate who spins the thread of life for all. The Klotho protein was discovered by researchers looking at mice that aged faster than the general mouse population. These mice were noted to have a shor...

Sleep Restriction and Immune Health It has long been known that sleep is a truth teller of mood. The poorer the sleep quality, the poorer the emotional response. Every parent knows this with a child short on sleep. What are the cellular effects? From an abstract looking at catch up sleep and human inflammation we find the following: "Despite its prevalence in modern society, little is known about...

Reading Part II Let us follow up on last weeks newsletter on reading as a cultural advantage and a human need in truth. What do we know about the neuroscience of reading dysfunction or weakened ability to achieve the goal of reading proficiency? What is the frequency of concern? Depending on the study, 5-10% of children have reading issues like dyslexia. This has profound lifelong consequences if...

Reading If you want to spend any amount of time with your child beyond hugs, feeding and basic life duties, I would recommend reading above all else. I find it hard to believe that this is the first article that I have written on reading. I pondered that for a minute and concluded that this, in effect, was me taking this information for granted. That ends today. When I reflect on my journey on the...

This week I sit down with Philip Bugaiski to discuss ocular tracking, reading difficulties and vision therapy. Dr. Bugaiski was born in New York and first developed an interest in optometry as a result of childhood vision challenges, requiring vision therapy. He studied science as an undergraduate at the Penn State University graduating with honors. He was awarded one of six national scholarships...

Stress and a Woman's Ability to Conceive - The Healthy Mind Is Key. How was it meant to be?  Humans were designed to be excellent at handling acute stress while chronic stress on the other hand was never expected to be part of our day to day existence. We run from the tiger and survive the event or we die. That being said, chronic mental stress is the greatest disruptor of human balance and health...

Demographic Deception This week I sit down with Dustin Whitney to discuss population growth and its relevance to everyday life. Dustin is an author, an entrepreneur and a man looking at the world through a different lens. He recently published book the Demographic Deception which outlines the reality that the global population is contracting as opposed to the rapidly expansion that has been espous...

What are the main preventable etiologies for childhood death under the age of five years? According to the data compile by UNICEF, we see the following for the world: 1) Prematurity 18% 2) Pneumonia 14% 3) Birth Asphyxia 12% 4) Malaria 9% 5) Diarrhea 9% 6) Congenital anomolies 8% 7) Injuries 5% 8) Blood infections/sepsis 3% 9) Tuberculosis 3% 10) all others From a global perspective, we are on the...

Excess Weight Gain, Obesity and Immune Related Diseases in 2 cases I want to share a few recent case experiences that shed light on the patient provider experience in the context of a collaborative clinic model based on prevention and the patient first mentality. In the struggle against the US based disease onslaught that is excess weight gain, longevity with the patient remains the greatest winne...

This week I sit down with Dr. Blaine Leeds to discuss oral health, sleep apnea, bedwetting and more. Dr. Leeds is a leader in the dental field. He speaks nationally on tele-dentistry, oral health and dental treatments for sleep disordered breathing and sleep apnea. He is a graduate of Arkansas Tech with a Bachelors degree in Chemistry before attending the University of Tennessee School of Dentistr...