Thanks for coming back.
I've got a question here from a person, I can't really pronounce the name.
It's Somaya S-B-E-I-T-A, Sbeita, something like that.
And Somaya is asking, "Could you please address building children's immunity and gut health.
Please give me some alternatives for antibiotics for my children that will be great."
Okay.
Well, as some of you may be aware, I've got four kids, but they're not kids anymore.
They're like big kids, in fact I'm the shrimp, the little one at the moment, because they're
all tall.
Did I give antibiotics when my children were little?
I never gave antibiotics.
In fact, we never used antibiotics on the kids, ever.
Now, don't feel bad if you've given antibiotics to a child, it's your choice.
I was in a position where I didn't have to give antibiotics to children because I really
didn't think that they were necessary, and my wife and I felt that we had the children's
immunity and their health well under control.
And, we did that through dietary means, but also through supplements and homeopathics,
and various other means.
We never had issues with our children's health and they've never had any issues with their
health.
We've never wanted them to go onto the drug merry-go-round.
We never wanted to start them on medications.
I've been in this game too long to see so many children start with antibiotics and then
end up with all kinds of drugs.
Literally, just ramped up over the years, and I could run a practice full-time with
probably 20 doctors full-time, just restoring peoples' gut, digestive systems, from antibiotic-induced
damage.
I could work 24/7 doing that.
And probably have 20 doctors employed 24/7 doing that.
There's so much carnage out there with antibiotics.
Antibiotics are necessary.
I'm not, again, saying that people shouldn't take them.
They're absolutely vital and they save a lot of lives, but they're dramatically still over-prescribed.
Too many children receive antibiotics for trivial and small complaints.
I've seen this routinely, in my clinic, not just here in New Zealand, but I've seen it
on patients from all around the world, because I've dealt with--when I was practicing, I've
dealt with parents, with children, the 40-50 countries, and it's the same thing I've seen
that's just about every country, over-prescription of antibiotics.
So what happens when you give a little child an antibiotic, do they recover?
Well, they do in most cases, but if their antibiotic is given concurrently, just again
and again and again, there's a slim chance that that child will eventually become a very
healthy adult.
In years to come, it will be seen as one of the biggest blunders in medical history, was
giving antibiotics to such a wide population base.
Not just for humans, but even more so destructive for animals to increase the amount of production.
So, antibiotics have been used in the animal chain now for, I don't know, 50-plus years,
and with humans the same.
It's carnage out there.
So how do you build up a child's health so they don't need antibiotics?
Well, my opinion is you need to get a couple of books and read up yourself and become a
little bit more informed on what's going to help a child's immune system.
One of the biggest bugbears I have with parents today is when the child comes in from play,
is they wipe their hands down with these antiseptic wipes all the time.
Antiseptic wipes are used on kids constantly now.
When I was a kid, we were outside playing with dog muk, we were rolling around in the
dirt and the soil, throwing balls at each other, chucking sticks, we had no computers
or fancy toys or things to play with.
My parents had no money at all, we played outside in the dirt, and that's how it was
for a lot of kids, and it still is today.
Did our immunity suffer?
I don't think so.
In fact, now research has shown that when the child is challenged with lots of bacteria,
it has a powerful immune response, rather than the other way around.
So don't think that all these wipes and creams and potions are going to keep your little
child safe, because they're not.
What are some basic things you can do to get a child in a strong position?
Well, it all comes down to the diet, essentially.
The diet has to be good.
But it's not just the nutritional diet, it's also the emotional diet, it's how you are
with parents with their child at home.
There's a child in a loving environment, does it have good caregivers, loving caregivers
that are really kind to the child, that love their child.
This is a very important part of building a good immunity, it's not just about what
kind of vegetable or meat do I eat.
These are tangible things, a lot of intangible things that bolster up a child's immunity
that people aren't aware of, so that environment needs to be right, in my opinion.
The diet, of course, needs to be sound.
Now you can read all about children's diets online, it's no secret, it's easy to feed
a child the right kind of food.
Start them young with all kinds of things.
That's my experience.
My kids eat every kind of fruit and vegetable.
The love avocados.
A lot of children come to my house, they look at avocados, blech, what's that?
I've never eaten that.
So start them young with healthy food.
Start them young eating raw stuff, steamed stuff, cooked stuff, but all kinds of vegetables.
That's a key thing to do.
Get your child to take a multivitamin.
There are many good brands out there, and this is going to help, to make sure that little
gaps are filled, nutritional gaps.
There could be a zinc deficiency, there could be a manganese deficiency, a molybdenum deficiency.
Small trace elements easily lacking from the diet can affect growth and development of
the child.
So a multivitamin, and there are many good ones on the market.
So one multi a day is a good idea.
Second supplement, fish oil, omega-3.
A child, normally a small child, only needs to take about 250 milligrams per day.
We're talking maybe a five-year-old or something like that.
But if you get a bit older, a bigger child, 500 to 1000 milligrams per day is not a problem.
This will bolster many aspects of the immune system, both the cell-mediated response and
the humoral response.
So the whole immune system will get jacked up and fine-tuned and in a better position
when a fish oil is taken, than when a fish oil is not taken.
Also, it will help improve the child's cognition, so their mental development will be improved
with the fish oil as well.
So there's a couple of key things I'd like you to consider, but one of the most important
ones I should talk to you about is the probiotic.
If you want a child's immune system to be great, if you want reduce the instance of
allergies, if you want to increase the ability to push away infectious disease, I recommend
a probiotic.
In fact, studies in New Zealand at Autauga University, with children, have found remarkable,
remarkable resilience against allergies when children were put on probiotics versus children
put on a placebo.
So I recommend children, every child now under seven, to take a probiotic, at least a couple
of times per year, if not prolonged for two or three months of the year.
I think it's a clever idea today for all the chemicals that we use.
Go to your health food shop, talk to the staff, tell them you want a probiotic for a child,
and you want a mixed-strain.
Spend a bit of money, buy a good quality product, and just give one capsule per day of that
probiotic to that child.
Or a bit of powder, you can mix it in a bit of water or drink, and give that.
So the multivitamin, the omega-3 fish oil, and the probiotic.
They are three good starting points.
If the diet is good, and the emotional diet is good, and the child is not exposed to lots
of iPads and shooting games and things like this, and there's a lot of green time, outside
time.
I played with the kids every weekend, I'd take them to the park.
Poor Tracy would be at home breastfeeding number three or four or whatever, and I'd
be playing with the kids all the time.
Play is important, but the environment, that hame environment is the most powerful thing.
If that's good, the diet is good, and there's some basic supplementation, and you're going
to use natural medicines regularly like I did, like for cuts and things like that.
A bit of tea tree oil on a cut instead of, again, an antibiotic, you've gone a long way
to keeping that gut in that child in good condition, which means that the child's got
a good foundation to grow into strong, healthy, viable adult.
And there you have it.
Thanks for the question.