Your Child’s Health Starts in the Gut | Dr. Elisa Song

About this Episode

Your child’s health starts in the gut. The immune system and brain are taking cues from the same place every day. On this episode of The Brainy Moms Podcast, Dr. Amy and Sandy sit down with integrative pediatrician Dr. Elisa Song, a leading voice in pediatric functional medicine, to map out what the gut microbiome actually is and why it matters even when your kid’s poop looks “normal.” If your family is dealing with eczema, allergies, frequent illness, anxiety, sleep issues, attention struggles, or big mood swings, this conversation connects the dots with clear science and practical next steps.

We dig into the research linking early microbiome disruption especially from antibiotics and antacid medications to higher risks of allergic disease and later mental health concerns. Dr. Song explains how microbes help train immune tolerance, support the gut-brain axis, and even produce key compounds like short-chain fatty acids and neurotransmitters tied to calm, sleep, motivation, and focus. We also name the common disruptors parents run into: ultra-processed food additives like emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners, certain medications, environmental chemicals, and chronic stress.

Then we get real about what to do. Dr. Song shares a framework for rebuilding: start with foundational nutrients, feed beneficial bacteria with fiber and plant diversity, use fermented foods, and consider probiotics strategically after antibiotics. We also talk about how to help teens change without power struggles by teaching label reading, explaining the “why,” and tying food choices to goals they care about like skin, sports, sleep, and stress.

If this helped you, subscribe to Brainy Moms Podcast, share the episode with a parent friend, and leave a review so more families can find it. What’s one food swap your family could try this week?

About Dr. Elisa Song

Dr. Elisa Song is an integrative pediatrician, a mom of 2, and leading authority in pediatric functional medicine and the child’s microbiome. She is on a mission to revolutionize the future of children’s health. Dr. Song is the national bestselling author of Healthy Kids, Happy Kids: An Integrative Pediatrician’s Guide to Whole Child Resilience and the visionary founder of Healthy Kids Happy Kids, the go-to resource for families and practitioners seeking trusted, evidence-based, root-cause solutions for children. Healthy Kids Happy Kids offers educational resources, practitioner trainings, and supplements to support children’s developing bodies, brains, and immune systems. Dr. Song is the Chief Medical Officer of Tiny Health, leading the way in gold-standard microbiome testing for kids and adults. Dr. Song is chair of A4M’s pediatric education and has lectured around the world at leading integrative and functional medicine conferences and premier parenting events. She has also been featured in hundreds of top podcasts and media outlets, now including The Brainy Moms Podcast. Find her at https://healthykidshappykids.com/ and on Instagram @healthykids_happykids.

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Welcome And Free Newsletter
Dr. Amy Moore 0:00
Hi, Smart Moms and Dads. Welcome to this episode of the Brainy Moms Podcast brought to you today by Learning RX Brain Training Centers. I’m Dr. Amy Moore here with my co-host, Sandy Zamalis. And before we introduce our guest today, we just wanna want to remind you that we have a free monthly newsletter. And in that newsletter, we just share additional resources for all of the different topics in parenting that we cover on our show. And so you can go to the BradyMoms.com, sign up for it. It’s absolutely free, and you’ll be in the

Meet Dr. Elisa Song
Dr. Amy Moore 0:31
know. And now our conversation today is with Dr. Elisa Song. Let me tell you a little bit about her in case you don’t know her yet. Dr. Song is an integrative pediatrician, a mom of two, and a leading authority in pediatric functional medicine and the child’s microbiome. She is on a mission to revolutionize the future of children’s health. Dr. Song is a national best-selling author of Healthy Kids, Happy Kids, an integrative pediatrician’s guide to whole child resilience. And she’s also the visionary founder of Healthy Kids Happy Kids, the go-to resource for families and practitioners seeking trusted, evidence-based, root-cause solutions for children. Healthy Kids Happy Kids offers educational resources, practitioner trainings, and supplements to support children’s developing bodies, brains, and immune systems. So Dr. Song is here today to talk about nutrition. She’s going to talk about the critical importance of the gut microbiome in keeping our kids healthy. We are so excited to have this conversation with you. Welcome, Dr. Song.

Sandy Zamalis 1:37
Oh, well, thank you for having me. I’m excited. This is such a timely conversation. I know I know many of our listeners, but even myself, have been kind of in this gut microbiome fringe since I think probably the late 90s, early 2000s, at least in my family. So I’m really excited about this topic in general and just want to dive

Her Path To Functional Pediatrics
Sandy Zamalis 2:00
in. Dr. Song, tell our listeners your history here. How did you get into this space? Why did it become such an important place for you to be and really help families figure out the gut microbiome connection with health?

Dr. Elisa Song 2:16
You know, I’ve always actually, since I opened up my practice in 2004, it was as an integrative and functional medicine practice. I mean, back then, the word integrative really wasn’t even around, you know, 20 plus years ago was alternative medicine, right? But um I was so passionate about practicing in this way. And that really started, I mean, back in college when I was just randomly walking down the street and saw this flyer for the uh conference, American Holistic Medical Association. This was back in the late 80s. And I had no idea what that meant, but I went and my mind was totally blown. I’m like, wow, this is there, they were talking about a concept called food as medicine. And so this idea stuck with me. And all the way through medical school and residency, this was really the way I wanted to practice. I didn’t know what it was called, though. I didn’t know how to do that because all I saw in conventional pediatrics training was, you know, seeing 30, 40 patients a day in a primary care or urgent care office or being in the hospital, neither of which I wanted to do. And so then after residency, again, I stumbled upon this conference, and it was called the Food is Medicine Conference in Berkeley. Um, and and that’s when, again, mind-blown, heard from a very young Mark Hyman. This is back in 2002, and that’s when that term functional medicine was introduced to me. And I just dived in, like, this is how I want to do it. And it wasn’t just functional medicine, it was how do I learn all the different ways that I can help to serve families, which is why now my practice is devoted to nutrition, functional medicine. Um, I do homeopathy, acupuncture, use essential oils and herbal medicine, also integrating with conventional medicine, because we know there’s a time and a place for conventional medicine. Uh and there are also many unintended consequences of conventional medicine. So I think marrying the two is really um where I’ve landed as the best way that I can provide care for kids.

Dr. Amy Moore 4:33
Um I love that you um mentioned Mark Hyman. You know, we were doing some research on multidisciplinary approach to um brain health. And so I loved how he said, you know, a broken brain is a broken brain. And so it’s just, all right, what are we gonna do now? And nutrition has always been a part of that component of brain health. But you focus on nutrition as the road to overall health, right? And as a pediatrician, you talk about the importance of nutrition for whole child health and this idea of whole child child resilience. Talk a little

What Whole-Child Resilience Means
Dr. Amy Moore 5:14
bit about what that is and how we get there.

Dr. Elisa Song 5:17
Well, when you think about what resilience means for kids, um, it really does not mean that they never get sick. And it doesn’t mean that they never get stressed. It means that they have the tools that we give them the tools to manage stressors, which can be infections, it can be psychological stress, it can be toxic insults, um, it can be um physiologic injury. And so we give them the tools so that they can overcome this stress. And then what happens is there’s a term called hormesis. It means that when you overcome a stress, you come at the other end stronger and even more resilient on the other end. And so that was that’s always been my goal. How do we think about raising resilient kids from the inside out? And that does stem lead back to their gut microbiome. Their gut microbiome really holds that key for offering resilience to their brain and their immune systems and their developing hormones and metabolic systems. And for babies in particular, we have this golden opportunity if we can intervene at that time to optimize their gut microbiomes to shape their developing immune systems and their developing nervous systems. Now, it’s never too late. And I have teenagers right now, and and you know, there’s so much plasticity and there’s so much that kids that we have in our power to optimize kids’ microbiomes and their gut brain connections and gut immune system connections at any age. I will say though, if you have a younger child, I mean, that is uh the younger, the easier, right? Um and so uh so I always want to start young. In fact, I would love to start even before parents conceive would be my ideal, right? You know, to get your future baby’s microbiome on track. But how do we know this?

Early Antibiotics And Allergy Risk
Dr. Elisa Song 7:14
How do we know that the gut microbiome is so foundational to children’s health? Well, we can see it from research that looks at disruption to the gut microbiome. So there are a couple of studies that really opened my eyes, and I thought, oh my gosh, like why, why do why why does not every parent and practitioner, OBGYN, family practice doc, um, pediatrician know this? So one large study, it was um from 2016, looked at almost 800,000 children. It was a military study that looked at records, and what they were looking at were infants who received either antibiotics or antiacid medications in that first six months of life. And what they found were those infants who received these medications were significantly at higher risk, sometimes double the risk of developing virtually any single allergic disease by the time they were four. And so though that included eczema, asthma, hives, hay fever, anaphylactic food allergies, all of which are on the rise. When I was in residency and I finished my residency at UCSF in 2000, I don’t think I ever wrote a prescription for an EpiPen, right? I mean, anaphylactic food allergies were so uncommon, or at least we thought they were uncommon. And now, fast forward, it’s 25 plus years. One in 13 kids has life-threatening anaphylactic food allergies. I mean, things have shifted dramatically. And this study and the researchers noted that that shift in the microbiome disruption due to antibiotics or anti acid medications, which have direct harmful impacts on the microbiome, shifted the way that those babies’ immune systems developed and learned to tolerate their environment.

Microbiome And Mental Health Links
Dr. Elisa Song 9:09
Another study looking at the mental health aspect, because when we have little kids, it’s mostly a concern about their immune systems, right? They’re getting sick all the time or their skin is a little itchy, um, eczema patches. But once they enter elementary and middle school, it’s the it’s the brain piece, the behavior piece, you know, attention and focus and anxiety that becomes a bigger problem after they’ve gotten all of their preschool kindergarten illnesses out of the way. And this another study, a large study looked at one million birth pairs in Finland, found that antibiotics early on in life significantly increased the risk of developing a mental health concern by the time they were older kids and teenagers, including attention concerns, sleep problems, behavior problems, anxiety. And the risk was the highest when those antibiotics were received at under six months of age. Again, showing the intimate relationship between how our microbiome develops in those early stages and how our immune system and nervous systems get laid down. Now, um, as I mentioned before, it’s never too late, you know, to shift your gut microbiome. And I know some parents listening are gonna be like, oh my gosh, but my baby did get antibiotics that little. And I I just want to share with everybody, my babies did get antibiotics when they were that little. I mean, my daughter, when she was two weeks old, she had just had this mild jaundice that wasn’t going away. And she ended up having a urinary tract infection, completely shocked because she was otherwise feeding and growing fine, right? But a urinary tract infection, a bacterial one at that young an age could become very serious quickly. So we started her on antibiotics. My son, when he was about a month of age, we were at a family wedding and strep went around and he babies don’t develop strep throat. But what happened to him? He developed, he ruptured his eardrum and had basically pus coming out of his ear. And again, four or five weeks of age, a strep infection could become very, very serious. So we did start him on antibiotics. Now I was fortunate enough to know, all right, let’s let’s um support their microbiome. There’s in retrospect, I think we all do this as parents. Uh there’s so much more I know now that I wish I knew back then, right? Even even as I was already a holistic pediatrician. Um, and so that’s just to say we we start where we’re at, now we have the knowledge, and then that whatever happened in the past just helps us tell the story of how your child’s health came to be where it is today. And now we know to look at their gut microbiome. Because if your child has eczema or hay fever or they have ADHD, but their poops look perfect and they don’t have tummy aches, you wouldn’t necessarily know to look at their gut microbiome unless you knew the research. And so now we have this understanding. And that’s why I want every pediatrician, every, every practitioner, whether you’re a therapist or a psychologist, who whoever is working with families and kids to have this knowledge so that they can inform parents and educate parents to say, look, even if it’s not, there aren’t any obvious quote gut symptoms, any brain or mental health symptom, any immune symptom, that is a gut symptom. And so we want to start with the gut always.

What The Gut Microbiome Does
Dr. Amy Moore 12:35
Yeah. Can you actually give some foundational information about what the m gut microbiome is and what its role is and what and how that can you just talk a little bit about the biology there?

Dr. Elisa Song 12:50
Yeah. So the gut microbiome is an ecosystem. A lot of people use the word microbiome and microbiota kind of interchangeably and think that the microbiome is just, you know, the trillions of organisms, microorganisms that live in your gut. That’s a a part of it. But your microbiome is really that ecosystem in your gut that maintains the environment where these trillions of organisms live. Now, we would like those trillions of microorganisms to be friendly ones, to be ones that serve us. And we evolved with our microbiome, and we can’t survive without our microbiome. In fact, there are um, you know, quote, germ-free mice in studies where their microbiomes have been wiped out, and those mice are not healthy. I mean, they develop chronic diseases and metabolic problems very early in life. So we rely on these microbiota to provide benefit to us. Now, what do they do for us? So, you know, the beneficial flora, we’ll call them, you know, the probiotics in our gut. When we eat the foods that they need, and in my book I call them microbiome champions, when we feed them the fiber, the phytonutrients, and we eat fermented foods that that our probiotics can then munch on, right, they will eat those. And some another broad term would be called prebiotics, right? Those probiotics eat those prebiotics, ferment them, and create what are called postbiotics. And that’s where the magic really happens because these postbiotics are compounds that help our cells and us stay healthy. So there are things like vitamins, like vitamin B12 and folate and vitamin K are all produced by healthy microbiota. Short-chain fatty acids like butyrate and some, and butyrate is becoming a lot more well-known because there are a lot of butyrate supplements out there that help support immune health and brain health and gut health. Even neurotransmitters, our gut microbes produce neurotransmitters like serotonin, which helps us feel calm and relaxed and helps us fall asleep. Um, our gut microbiota even produce dopamine, which helps us stay focused and on task and stay motivated. Um, and GABA, which is another really calming amino acid, and also acetylcholine, which helps our brain’s brain cells kind of connect and function and process. And that relies on having healthy gut microbes, right? That’s that’s the key. Um, a healthy gut microbial balance will produce all of these compounds for us. And when we’re babies, those compounds in a very specific um category of beneficial bacteria called bifidobacteria help to train our immune system, help to tell, help to distinguish what’s friend or foe, and literally helps our immune system decide, oh, that peanut, that’s okay, I can handle it. Or, oh, no, that peanut’s a foe. I’m gonna create an anaphylactic allergic reaction to it. So we want that healthy immune talk between our microbes and our immune system. In fact, you know, 80, at least 80% of our immune cells lie in our gut, and that crosstalk between those immune cells and our gut microbes are what um uh what keep our immune system in a in a balanced calm state or in a in a reactive state.

unknown 16:32
Yeah.

Sandy Zamalis 16:33
Um you mentioned antibiotics will like wipe those things out or cr cause distress. Are there other things that can cause that disbalance in the gut?

Microbiome Disruptors Beyond Antibiotics
Dr. Elisa Song 16:45
Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, and and you know, I’ve had I’ve had a question which is not um which is not necessarily obvious to everyone, but you know, why do antibiotics disrupt your gut microbiome? Well, when we take antibiotics for, let’s say, a pneumonia or you know, a sinus infection or an ear infection, we’re hoping that it kills the bad bugs, right? The bad bacteria that are causing those infections. Um, just as an aside, it um, you know, many, many, in fact, probably the majority of ear infections, even bacterial ones, will resolve even without antibiotics, which is why it’s very important to appropriately use antibiotics. Now, antibiotics, yes, we want them to kill the bad, bad guys, right? But antibiotics aren’t specific. They don’t really care what they kill. They’re kind of you know going in and killing whatever’s in their way. And so they can also kill the good microbes right along with the bad ones. And in some cases, antibiotics will preferentially um uh keep the bad bacteria and kill the good bacteria, which is why sometimes we’ll see what are called C. diff infections, where you know, C. diff is a pathogenic bacteria that is allowed to overgrow because that antibiotic didn’t kill it, but it it did kill all of the good lactobacilli and the bifidobacteria. Um, and so there’s an imbalance, something called gut dysbiosis, right? So antibiotics are truly one of the most immediate acute disruptors of the gut microbiome, which is why that study in infants looked at antibiotic exposure. But that that um immune study also looked at antacid medications. Why antacid medications? You know, this is these are medications like Xantac or um, you know, PepsiD. They change the pH of your gut. And our gut microbes like to live at a very specific pH. So when that balance is disrupted, it can disrupt the gut microbes that live in our in our intestines, our small and large intestines. But there are so many factors in our modern world that disrupt our gut microbiome. Um and and in in the book I call them microbiome mischief makers, and they’re they’re ubiquitous. I mean, they are everywhere. Our world right now is not friendly to our microbiome. So we just have to recognize this, not with fear, but with the knowledge that, all right, I cannot avoid every single microbiome disruptor. However, understanding how important the microbiome is to all of the organ systems in my child’s body, I’m gonna do whatever I can to create a resilient gut microbiome. But what are these other factors? I mean, let’s let’s talk about some. In terms of medications, it’s not just antibiotics and antacid medications. Antihistamines, steroids, SSRI, antidepressant medications, birth control pills have all been found to disrupt the gut microbiome as much as antibiotics. So we even want to use those judiciously and know how to support our kids and our teenagers who, I’m not saying don’t take these medications, but understand when they’re really necessary, are there natural options that can be just as supported that aren’t going to disrupt your gut microbiome? And if they are necessary, support your child’s microbiome even more. And then beyond food, um, well, the, I mean, beyond antibiotics, there’s medications, there’s food. So we know that these ultra-processed food additives like emulsifiers can directly cause gut dysbiosis, can directly trigger something called leaky gut. And that on your food label, it’s not going to say emulsifiers. So it’s really important to teach your kids and yourself how to be very, very savvy food label readers, which is, I mean, I devote a whole chapter to that because it’s one of the most important life skills that you can teach your kids. But look on the label for xanthangum, carragenin, mono and diglycerides, carboxymethylcellulose, which could my kids, I mean, they’re teenagers now, could they rattle those off, you know, off the top of their head? No. But they know when they look at the label, oh, if it says mono and dye something, all right, I’m gonna put that back, right? So just, you know, teaching them by sight, what do you want to put back on the shelf? Um, and then let’s talk about um endocrine disrupting chemicals, right? Our forever chemicals, our parabens, um, our phthalates, um, um uh, you know, PFAS. So um these endocrine disrupting chemicals, they don’t just disrupt hormones. I mean, that’s a big fallacy. When you look at the research, you can see it affects, it can affect kids’ IQs and brain development. It can affect their metabolic health and increase the risk for insulin resistance and diabetes. So, why is that? There’s one article that actually calls for changing the name of these hormone, quote, hormone disruptors from endocrine disrupting chemicals to microbiome disrupting chemicals because they directly impact the microbiome. And that could explain why these hormone disruptors have negative impacts on so much more beyond hormone disruptors. And then there’s psychological stress. Which, you know, it’s it’s a part of life, but too much psychological stress, sort of sort of unmanageable psychological stress, can also trigger leaky gut. And so all of these, and now we’re thinking, oh my gosh, well, the world is just against our gut microbiome, right? Well, that’s where we have that foundation. We can actually look to see how resilient is your gut microbiome. Are you feeding and nurturing and nourishing your gut microbiome every day so that even if your child gets an antibiotic, even if they’re exposed to that inevitable endocrine disrupting chemical at school in, you know, with the cleaner cleaning solutions or whatever it is,

Practical Food Swaps And Label Skills
Dr. Elisa Song 22:44
their microbiome can bounce right back. And this is really important for us as parents too, because we don’t want as adults, you know, to have have health problems either from a disrupted gut microbiome. What about seed oils? So, you know, seed oils are interesting because there are, you know, for instance, with um with some of the seed oils, there’s not any direct evidence that I’ve seen for disruption to the gut microbiome, but in the sense that some of them can contribute to inflammation, I mean, inflammation will disrupt the gut lining, which will then impact what microbes are are going to want to live there. Um I do think though, you know, for like if you organic expeller pressed, you know, cold-pressed seed oils may not be as harmful as many think. So it’s more that, you know, when we’re buying um, you know, a bag of potato chips that uses canola oil and none of it’s organic and um and it’s using highly refined, more inflammatory canola oil, or um that that’s not necessarily going to be as beneficial.

Dr. Amy Moore 23:51
So a potato chip with avocado oil or beef tallow would be Yeah, or olive oil.

Dr. Elisa Song 23:59
I’m a huge fan of olive oil, right? Again, cold pressed, you know, expeller pressed um organic extra virgin olive oil. Um many benefits. In fact, olive oil may even act as a prebiotic. I mean, that’s where you know the Mediterranean diet has I mean, we you know, research keeps coming back time and again to the benefits of a Mediterranean-like diet, you know, high-in, you know, um uh olive oil and um seafood and you know, nuts and seeds and um legumes and whole grains, and so really kind of and of course vegetable heavy. Um, but yeah, beef tallow, olive oil, avocado oil, and and those you can find at the grocery store, right? I mean, we can find boulder chips very easily, you know, at the at the grocery store. So um, so I love that you mentioned that because it’s not just a matter of saying, no, you can’t have those talkies or those lace potato chips, right? I’m just calling some out, right? But but it’s also about teaching your kids, well, what are the options? Because if they’re if they’re going out to lunch with their friends, which my kids are now, they’re 14 and 16, um, and all of their friends are eating, you know, a bag of talkies, and and they know that, first of all, that I don’t I don’t want them to have that, but that’s less important than I want them to also understand that it’s not serving their goals of clearer skin, right? Doing well in class, um, you know, being as uh as you know athletic in the s on the soccer field, right? It’s not helping them reach their goals. But what are they gonna do? Just sit with their friends and not eat anything while their friends are eating? No, but they know to go and pick out the boulder chips, or they’ll get, you know, some Siete Fuego chips. Or I mean, if they’re at Trader Joe’s, there’s uh the the Trader Joel’s Joe’s, you know, uh rolled corn tortilla chips are a little better, right? I mean, it’s better than than all the other stuff that’s in the in the Takis.

Sandy Zamalis 25:59
I remember when uh my kids were little, like we used to joke that you know you’re a mom when all you do is, you know, dissect and you know, investigate your child’s poop. Like you’re trying to figure out like that’s like the common conversation you’ve shifted. Yeah. Um so thinking about that from that perspective, because I think um it’s like what you’re saying, like some we know some of this stuff now, but it is still a not common knowledge like we would want it to be. Um, and certainly there’s not a lot of um, what I would say, post-care of, you know, handling infections and now, okay, now we’ve got to make sure your gut gets back online and get you taken care of that way. What are some helpful things we can share with parents about maybe some of that post-care?

Testing And Rebuilding After Dysbiosis
Sandy Zamalis 26:49
You know, yes, you have to take an antibiotic or something’s happening, or you’re noticing some signs of some gut dysbiosis and that I mean that ranges too, but still things aren’t aren’t what you would consider normal or should be normal for your child. How what steps should you take to kind of get them back on the path to health? And how long does that take in general? Is that something that maybe takes, you know, a couple weeks, or do you have to give your body time to recover?

Dr. Elisa Song 27:17
You know, I think it it really depends on what’s going on and how long that gut dysregulation has has um been around. Um I always, you know, if there’s any particular health concern, whether it’s, you know, some mild eczema patches or whether it’s, you know, um, you know, severe anxiety, um, I always like to start when I can with foundational testing because a lot of times, a lot of things, I can’t know exactly what your child or their gut microbiome needs without doing some testing. So I do like to do foundational blood testing. If there’s any nutritional deficiencies, we have to optimize those. Otherwise, you’re trying to rebuild on a shaky foundation, right? And so, you know, the the um and it’s targeted, but in the ones I always like to do at the beginning are a complete blood count, you know, a ferritin, which is your iron stores, a red blood cell zinc, red blood cell magnesium, a vitamin D level, and an omega-3, omega-6 fatty acid level. So at Questol, it’s called an omega check. And so those, why those? Because zinc, magnesium, iron, and omega-3s are the most common nutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies in kids and and adults, frankly. Um, but you know, why not just supplement? Well, it’s more that sometimes I’m shocked at how much supplementation kids need, right? So if you’re just giving, you know, a very low amount of, let’s say, vitamin D, for instance, you know, if you’re giving the you know 1,000 IUs per day of vitamin D, or the 400 IUs, which is is what’s you know recommended conventionally, and your child’s vitamin D, um, if the normal range is 20 to 100, and let’s say they’re at a 22, well, most conventional docs would say, they’re normal. I always want the number, right? Because normal is not always optimal. And in this case, if your child has eczema or asthma or anxiety or ADHD, I want to get their vitamin D level up, you know, to 60 to 80. That’s three to four times where they’re at right now. 400 IU a day is not gonna do it, right? So it gives you more comfort that when you go up to um high higher dosages, that it’s appropriate. Um and um and same thing with zinc and and magnesium and your omega-3s. So starting with that, and I also like to do a stool analysis. I kind of view that as foundational. Now, I mean, full disclosure, I am the chief medical officer for a stool testing company called Tiny Health. Um, and Tiny Health tests um microbiomes of all ages. So even for you know, perimenopausal women, um, or even now they’re doing some great studies on our um on our elderly populations to see what it what is the microbiome that is optimized for longevity and health span. But for infants and children, I mean, I would say children of all ages, you know, toddlers, teenagers, tiny health is the only one that has age-appropriate reference ranges. This is very important. And for me as a functional medicine practitioner who’s used over the past two and a half decades, you know, the the more common, I mean, the ones that now you know pretty much every functional medicine practitioner is using, they’re great tests. However, they’re not appropriate for kids. Right. And as soon as I start using a more appropriate um test with relevant markers, it’s it’s changed um how I can target um, you know, kids’ treatment plans and their outcomes. And it also uses um a technology called um metagenomics. It looks at shotgun metagenomics, which is actually the preferred, now considered the gold standard in clinical testing, microbiome testing in the office, more than culture, PCR, and 16S sequencing. I mean, those are just those are kind of technological terms, but that that’s that’s more old school testing. We need to move to using the power of metagenomics to see not just what’s in your child’s gut, but also what those microbes are doing for you. So it’s not just enough to know, let’s say that you have um uh, you know, facalibacterium, that’s one keystone bacteria. But does that Facali bacterium have the genes that actually show that they can produce butyrate for you? Right? So that function is really important. Um so I so I look at those foundations. Uh now, if you don’t have a pediatrician who’s able to, you know, test for you, I mean Tiny Health does have a consumer test that anyone can order. Um, but the foundations, if you’re on an antibiotic, or let’s say you’ve been on an antibiotic, your child’s been on an antibiotic um, you know, years ago, the first thing is that’s really important is to feed those beneficial bacteria. We need to feed them. We can’t expect them to grow on barren soil, right? And so feeding them all those prebiotics, you have to double down on your microbiome champions, right? Your fiber, less than 5% of American kids and adults get the daily recommended fiber, um, you know, phytonutrients, all the different colors of the rainbow, these polyphenols feed the good bacteria. And fermented foods actually has been in one Stanford study, it was found to um improve microbiome diversity better than fiber. Not that fiber was bad, but but if that’s the goal. And so if your kids aren’t yet into like sauerkraut and beet kibust, well, I mean, you could try kombucha or kefir. Um, you can ferment just about anything. In my book, I have a recipe for a fermented blackberry lemonade, which is so easy to make and a in a really good kind of introduction to fermented foods for kids. So there’s feeding the bacteria. And then after antibiotics, that is an appropriate time to take a probiotic supplement. Um, and there’s lots of different probiotics. I do think, you know, trying to uh find one um with appropriate strains for kids, lots of different organisms in there because your gut, again, has trillions of uh microorganisms. So just taking one or two strains doesn’t make sense. Um, but I’ve shifted, I think that the prebiotics are actually more important than the probiotics. Um, and then the probiotics are there to help, you know, kind of reseed um, you know, whatever whatever has been displaced. Um and then if if your stool test shows that abnormal bacteria have taken over, we want to clear them, right? And that maybe with an herbal um an herbal tincture, there’s several good ones that can help um eradicate those abnormal bacteria. And you know, why why do we want to do that? Um there are certain bacteria that become resistant to those antibiotics, and those bacteria, some of them, a particular category of bacteria called gram-negative enterobactericeae. But those bacteria have compounds on their outer membranes that are very inflammatory and are linked with an increased risk for autoimmunity, for mental health disorders, for all sorts of metabolic health concerns. And um simply by getting rid of that, I had one girl who had anxiety, OCD, you know, PTSD, ADHD, I mean, whatever acronyms you can think of, she had them, right? And she had tried many, many different psychiatric medications, was not improving, only getting worse. And so when we uh and when mom came to me, we did her stool test and we found that she had high levels of these gram-negative bacteria. Um, so your question, Sandy, how long does it take to restore, right? She hadn’t been on antibiotics recently, but she had been on a lot when she was younger. She was about 10 years old when I saw her. And um, we found all of this abnormal bacteria. We we um replanted beneficial bacteria with a prebiotic supplement, um, gave her a probiotic, we cleared out this gram-negative bacteria and this this inflammatory compound called LPS. I mean, less than a month, mom writes back and said that they’re starting to see their daughter come back. Right. Um, and this was after years of trialing different medications and therapies that that that weren’t working, right? Um, and then we repeated the stool tests after about two months. And you should, I mean, her microbiome score initially, if you know, if you have a score from zero to a hundred, I mean, her first score was one of the worst I’d seen. I mean, it was like a I I want to say maybe it was like a 15. I mean, it was way down. Um, when we repeated, it was way up in the 80s. I mean, it looked so much better. So that was a relatively short amount of time. Sometimes it takes six months longer to right. It it can take longer. It depends on the other foundations. That’s where, you know, we really when we’re thinking about how do we live a microbiome-centric diet and lifestyle, it all matters. So for if we’re eating the wrong foods for our microbiome, if we’re not hydrating enough or getting enough movement or sleeping, all the things that as moms we tell our kids to do, well, they’re just as important for their microbiomes, right? So if we can incorporate all of those, then the shift to a healthier microbiome can be much faster. Um, but it’s again, it’s not this is we’re not talking quick fixes here. We’re talking about lifestyle changes that are going to help your kids fit for the rest of their life.

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Sandy Zamalis 37:12
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Artificial Sweeteners And Added Sugar
Dr. Amy Moore 38:14
Talk a little bit about um artificial sweeteners and their impact on the microbiome.

Dr. Elisa Song 38:20
Yeah. So added sugars, when I talk about microbiome mischief makers in our food, I already mentioned the emulsifiers, right? Um but added sugars is another huge one. And along with that is added sugars and artificial sweeteners, right? Because many times, I mean, what I mean, what kid doesn’t know that too much sugar isn’t good for them, right? I mean they’re being told that all the time. That’s too much sugar, right? Cut, let’s cut the sugar. But nobody’s talking about, okay, what about sucralose or acosulfine potassium that are in all the quote, sugar-free, you know, um drinks and, you know, prime hydration or whatever drinks, um, even green, even what appear to be on the outset, healthy green powders will be sweetened with sucralose so that they can claim um zero sugar. And so um added sugars we know will support the growth of abnormal microbes, including yeast overgrowth, which can um, you know, be very disruptive to kids’ mental health and behaviors. Um, artificial sweeteners, though, I mentioned sucralose, acosulfine, potassium, saccharin, you know, aspartame, um, these have been shown to disrupt the gut microbiome, you know, cause gut dysbiosis, and um indirectly also cause um brain changes, right? Now, some of these are in animal studies, but rats actually happen to be very similar to humans, right? But um, but when we look at um uh rat studies, we can see changes in brain functioning with artificial sweeteners. Um this one study, and a lot of people have have heard, you know, the the the study and maybe even seen the brain images of sugar being you know just as addictive as cocaine, right? Lighting up all of those dopamine centers in the brain. Well, one study was that kind of I looked at, you know, really um stopped me. They took rats that were already cocaine addicted, right? I mean, so sad for the rats, right? But they they took these rats, right? I mean, and and and put in front of them, I can’t remember which artificial sweetener, maybe it was um aspartine, but they put an artificial sweetener in front of them and cocaine in front of them, and they immediately went to the artificial sweetener. I mean, that is scary, right? And you think, oh my gosh, what’s that doing to my child’s brain if they’re if they’re getting loaded with sugar-free but artificial sweeteners? Now, then the question goes, well, what about the natural sugar substitutes like um stevia, um, monk fruit? There’s a new kid on the block called allulose. I think those are better, right? They don’t and and there’s some evidence even that you know monk fruit um may have some benefit for your gut microbiome. On the other hand, I want kids to um become less used to the sweet taste that has sort of pervaded all of our packaged foods, get used to foods that have more natural sweetness and um and then use sweets kind of you know, every half sweets every once in a while. Nowadays, our kids’ taste buds are so trained for intense sweetness that I mean, even you know, a delicious apple will taste not sweet enough, right? And so, you know, just you know, cutting back on the overall added sugars, keeping it down to under 25 grams a day, and then also keeping down the sugar substitutes, even if they’re natural sugar substitutes, is one of the best ways to help your child’s palate expand to accepting more foods that don’t have that intense sweetness. And, you know, when I say 25 grams of added sugar, that number is ingrained in my kids’ heads because they know, okay, 25 grams and that’s about six teaspoons, right? So if they go to, and you know, let’s say, I mean, we just yesterday we were at the farmer’s market. Mom, can I have a boba tea? And so, you know, I said, well, go look and see. Let’s look at the ingredient list and the nutrition facts. Um, and of course it had, I mean, maybe 32 grams of added sugar, right? I mean, some of some of the drinks had 55 grams of added sugar. 55 grams of added sugar is over, what is that? That’s um 11, that’s 13 teaspoons of sh white sugar, right? That you can’t spoon that in in five minutes. You can sure slurp down, you know, a grande mocha frappuccino thing in five minutes, right? So it’s much quicker. Um so anyhow, so we have that discussion, and and I didn’t say no. I said, look, this is this is, you know, your choice. We’ll make this choice together. And you understand, like this, you’ve kind of dipped in, you’ve you’ve gone negative on your sugar bank for today, right? That means we’re gonna do the best we can, you know, to balance that out and you know, surround it, have a healthful dinner. And we had a great dinner last night, you know, lots of veggies and fiber and um, and just you know, learn how to have that balance because that that once they’re off of college in the workforce, you know, raising their own kids, we need them to understand how to make those, um make those choices for themselves and eventually their families.

Helping Teens Change Without Battles
Dr. Amy Moore 43:44
What is your recommendation? So, you know, I work with a lot of families who obviously at the in the teenage years, it’s very difficult to make dietary changes all of a sudden. Um, even though, you know, it’s it’s one thing to teach parents. The negative impacts of highly processed foods and sugar. And but it’s another thing than to switch long-engrained patterns. And I always kind of throw it back like, well, who buys the food? Like who is stocking your pantry? Who is stocking your refrigerator? Right? Like, let’s start there. But what are your recommendations to parents about how do we help shift that mindset of the kids?

Dr. Elisa Song 44:29
Yeah. Well, the first thing I think is just to recognize that it’s not going to be perfect. And, you know, in reality, uh, most parents are not, right? I mean, I, you know, I used to um, you know, once a week I’d have this appointment downtown. And and what would I do? I’d get my matcha latte with um two pumps of syrup. Now I don’t get any syrup because I’ve I’ve gotten used to the taste without it and I love it. And when I get the pumps of syrup, I’m like, oh my gosh, that is so sweet, right? And so so it’s it’s just, you know, we have to give our kids some grace and no, it’s not gonna be perfect. And if you say no to everything, I I will say that is one of the fastest ways to have it backfire, right? Because it’s just it, it’s, you know, kids are at in their preteen and teenage years, they are um learning how to assert their independence in the world, right? Now, one thing though is I always teach kids about the science of it, right? I talk to them about it. Um, I’ve had teenagers who it’s interesting, they’ve actually read my book and parts of it and you know, uh, and it and gone off to college. And some of them are sending me photos of the meals they’re making, right? They’re like, look, Dr. Song, like, you know, I have this food. I’m like feeding my microbiome. So it we have to trust it does stick, right? We talk about not in a judgy way, not in a, you know, um guilt-ridden way, but just okay, like this is this is the why. One of the aha moments, a lot of teenagers suffer from, you know, um, if not anxiety, anxious feelings, right? Um, have a hard time managing stress. And so when I let them know, and you know, and kids don’t want to be stressed, right, that 90% of your serotonin is made by your gut, that’s a huge light bulb moment for a lot of teenagers. I mean, that that’s you know, when they’ll lean in and really, and you know, if you want to manage your stress, if you want to be able to, you know, um fall asleep more easily, you got to start nur nurturing your microbiome, right? Another way to get kids is through their skin, right? That gut skin access is so important. So a lot of kids won’t necessarily change your diet, you know, just because it’s healthy, but if if you say, look, it will impact your your breakouts, right? It will help your skin and your hair be more clear. So trying to figure out what their goals are, because chances are whatever their goals are, it it ties back to the state of their microbiome, right? Um, and so and also talking about that balance and how can we overall nourish our microbiome? Again, you know, sometimes like breakfast is hard for teenagers. A lot of teenagers are skipping breakfast, right? Um, and then, you know, at lunch, maybe they’re having a bar, which is just another thing. I just, I don’t want teenagers living on bars, right? But at least we can choose the better bars, right? Um, but at least, you know, at dinner or their bigger meal, they can they can think about how do I keep half my plate with fiber and vegetables, right? And then choose, okay, what’s my protein, what’s my starch gonna be? Um, and and teaching them how to cook, because once they, when kids learn how to cook, I mean, even if they’re not making gourmet meals, if they know how to be proficient in the kitchen, that has been shown to increase the likelihood that they will eat vegetables as adults and also feed their kids vegetables. So getting them in the kitchen, you know, starting starting from when they’re younger. Um, and then, you know, helping them to learn what the good swaps are. So, you know, now like my kids, they’ll I mean, there’s a time when your kids are young where you’re like, I d going to the grocery store alone is like heaven, right? Because you’re not constantly saying no to the little hands that are picking, of course, the things that are are at their level, the cute cartoon characters that that have all the artificial dyes and the whatever. And so, um, but now I bring them with me because if they want a bag of chips or if they want some ice cream or if we’re at Trader Joe’s, um, they go and they will look at labels and come back and say, Mom, I think this one, you know, looks okay. And so I’m I want to learn how to do that and navigate the grocery stores on their own so that when they, you know, have an apartment in college, um, they know how to do that, you know, and and you know, there are Trader Joe’s are actually, you know, in quite a few places. And so then, you know, with that for for kids going off to college, what I will um suggest that they do before they leave, like that senior year and that summer, go to Trader Joe’s, figure out like two or three balanced meals they can make, even if you’re getting frozen vegetables and you know, the Trader Joe’s fried rice and you’re stir-frying and adding some, you know, some um precooked, you know, chicken breast. That’s great, right? That’s better than going to going to in and out. Right. And so um just trying to make things really, really practical and doable, showing them teaching them how to make swaps and always tying it back to their own personal health interests um and then trusting, like trusting that it’s gonna come back because it does.

Dr. Amy Moore 49:36
Yeah, my um middle child uh turns 25 this week and we had his birthday dinner last night. And so when we asked him, okay, what do you want for your birthday dinner? He said he wanted vegetable kebabs and uh different types of brats and sausages on the grill. And, you know, we buy, we source all, you know, farm-raised organic everything. Um, and uh we’ve always done it that way. And so for the to watch them, all three of my boys who are adults now, make their veggie kebabs, just loading up the

Teaching Kids Food Science And Control
Dr. Amy Moore 50:12
the different colors of peppers and multiple types of onions and squash, and it was so cool to see um that they did not choose, you know, okay, let’s go to Red Lobster so we can get cheese biscuits. I mean, he wanted this fresh food, you know, from the house. And so anyway, it does pay off. Absolutely. That was my point that um that is just the norm that was in our house growing up, right? And we have two kids with celiac, and you know, like we had to eat it um in a certain way, but it does pay off when, you know, you just explain. And I love that you said teach the kids, especially teens, the science.

Dr. Elisa Song 50:54
Um and so I actually find if we’re gonna teach the kids, there’s a certain receptiveness and also a uh um a growing brain capacity in middle school that I feel like that like 10 to 12 years of age is perfect. Like I, you know, I taught this um uh I made up a six-week curriculum for as a um in my kids’ co-op school for my daughter’s um third and fourth grade class on we call the healthy belly, happy you. And I taught what we went through your microbiome and how do we eat? What you do a movement challenge and mindset challenge and all the things. So that was amazing. But then when I did it for my son’s sixth to eighth grade class, oh my gosh. I mean, and it was, you know, we we spoke about it in a different way. It was kind of, you know, um uh leveled it up a little bit from the third and fourth graders, but the light bulbs and the, you know, um going home, looking at the packages, like shifting, um, you know, talking to their parents about like, oh, maybe we should buy a different, different kind of um, you know, pasta sauce or whatever it is, right? Um, it was phenomenal. And those kids are still, you know, um now in high school um having that in their mind, right? As they go through and and they’re making their food choices. So um it’s never too early though, right? When you have your, you know, when you’re bringing your your toddler and their cute little, you know, grocery courts cart cover and you know, and you’re picking food off and you know, they’re kind of a captive audience right in front of you, and you know, like purposely pick up a label that looks cute and you know, like let’s say like the I don’t know, the SpongeBob fruit roll-ups, right? Or the unicorn one, right? And just say, look, honey, wow, do you see what this says on the cover? I know that this unicorn is so cute and the rainbow, and you know, that’s something that you might want, but it says artificial. Like, do you know what artificial means? That means fake. Like, you know that plastic orange, you know, with your food set? Do you would you want to eat that? Right. So you can kind of, you know, just at any age, just point out, like, oh no, what what you want to do is let’s look at the back here too, and let’s see what it says on the label. We never look at the front because the front, it’s too cute. We want everything that that is gonna draw your attention. I mean, it’s the same thing with, you know, as as kids get older and they’re learning about dopamine and and serotonin, which I mean kids learn about even in middle school. Um, you know, what what I talk to them about is is is, you know, who do you want to have control over your decisions? Right. Of course they’re gonna say me, right? Like I want to have control, not my mom, not anybody else, right? Me, right? So then we have a conversation about what happens in in food labs, right? These food scientists, right? Think about them as mad scientists in the laboratory. They are purposefully, just like the video game manufacturers, they are purposefully creating foods and food chemicals that are so addictive that now you are no longer in control of what you want to eat. Right. Those cravings you have for that, you know, the fiery hot Cheetos or whatever it is, like that’s not that’s not you. That’s your brain addicted and and being told by the food scientists what it wants. So if they really want to have that control, it’s it’s gotta be on their own terms. And so that that also will, you know, sometimes get kids to stop and say, oh, yeah, okay. They they are purposefully manipulating my brain and my taste buds, right?

Dr. Amy Moore 54:35
Or you ask them to look up the source of those natural flavors, right? Like the isn’t isn’t it the vanilla from the anal glands of a beaver or something like that? I mean, and then what child, like what teen is gonna go, oh, I want the vanilla flavored from the you know, anal glands of the beaver, and then I think I’m getting that right.

Dr. Elisa Song 54:57
Am I remembering that right? I don’t know, but I know there, like if you look at um uh there’s one example of um, you know, a McDonald’s strawberry flavored milkshake, right? And if and you know, the the they just have to write strawberry flavor. But if you actually look up the ingredients of what’s in of what makes up that strawberry flavor, it’s like 60 different chemicals, and many of them are solvents and gasoline products and all, and you’re like, oh my gosh. I mean, what so that strawberry flavor is really not anything to do with strawberries, right? Right.

Sandy Zamalis 55:30
My husband, my husband went on this journey recently with um store-bought bread, you know. He saw a video that was talking about the ingredients that were in, like just the regular store-brot loaf bread that is pre-sliced in the whole bread aisle. And oh my gosh, he was so horrified. He was eating, I mean, he loves bread. He loves a peanut butter sandwich more than anyone I know. And that totally changed his mind about um about that, which is really funny because um we try to be gluten-free in our house, and that was like the one place he wouldn’t let go until

Where To Find Dr. Song
Sandy Zamalis 56:09
TikTok intervened.

Dr. Elisa Song 56:12
Well, and you know, it it’s it’s it is true. I mean, that you want to start being really savvy. And and at any age, it’s so eye-opening. I mean, this was last fourth of July, and we were having a barbecue, and I was looking for um gluten-free hamburger buns, right? And truth be told, some gluten-free food, it’s crap, right? I mean, it’s worse than the non-gluten-free stuff. So you have to really be savvy about label reading. But anyhow, I saw these, like, there’s a whole, you know, shelf. We, we, I mean, I’m in the Bay Area in California. We have a lot of gluten-free options, thankfully. And, you know, so I’m looking at, you know, at these, at these brioche gluten-free artisan buns and all these like yummy looking buns, and I turned over every single label, and they all had mono and diglycerides. I’m like, I why? Why do you need an emulsifier in, you know, in um in a hamburger bun? And so, I mean, I actually found one um one package of hamburger buns. Um, it didn’t look like the fancy artisan, like, you know, um high-end packaging of the others, but it had all like really clean ingredients. And so that’s the the front of that package marketing. I mean, you gotta really understand how they’re trying to suck you in as kids and adults.

Dr. Amy Moore 57:38
Yeah. I mean, and so many gluten-free uh baked goods have xanthan gum in it, right, to give it the stretchiness instead of the gluten being there. But I mean, it is a really unclean ingredient. And so I really think it’s important like for people to go, okay, what is the source of this ingredient? Like if we don’t know what it is, we need to look it up because like that keeps you from wanting to put it in your body, I would hope. So, I know we are out of time and you’ve got to get going uh because you have a busy practice. But uh, Dr. Song, thank you so much for being with us today. This was um just a really enlightening conversation um about the importance of knowing uh what we’re putting in our bodies and um how the microbiome um impacts mental health and overall health. And so this is a message that we’re so glad you brought uh to our listeners today. Thanks for being with us.

Dr. Elisa Song 58:34
Oh, thank you so much. This is such an important topic, and I’m so glad that you’re sharing information to parents everywhere.

Dr. Amy Moore 58:40
So, how can our listeners find you and find more from you?

Dr. Elisa Song 58:44
Yeah. So the best place to find me is on my website, healthykidshappykids.com, or on Instagram is where I’m most active. That’s healthy kids underscore happy kids. And my book, which is also called Healthy Kids Happy Kids, is available pretty much anywhere books are sold. I mean, of course, you can get it on Amazon, and it’s often actually um on sale on Amazon. Uh, but if you have a local indie bookstore, I mean, please support them because that is how that’s how we’re gonna, you know, uh change our kids’ love of reading is by

Closing And Follow The Show
Dr. Elisa Song 59:14
actually going into bookstores.

Dr. Amy Moore 59:15
Absolutely. Holding those books um themselves, right? So we will put links um to all of those places that you just mentioned, um, how to get your book. We’ll put your social media links and your website links in our show notes so that our listeners can find more from you. Thanks. All right, we’re gonna close the show. Listeners, thank you so much for being with us today. If you want more from us, uh you can find us on social media at the Brainy Moms. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter that I mentioned at the top of the show. You just go to theBrainy Moms.com and sign up right there on the website. If you want more from Sandy and you want to see some really cool stuff on brain training, follow her on TikTok at the Brain TrainerLady. Look, we’d love it that you choose to spend this hour with us each week. We hope that you feel a little bit smarter after being with us today. We’ll catch you next time.