DISCLAIMER: The views provided in this episode and the show notes are for informational purposes only. No material is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this episode.

“Why aren’t we doing good, healthy food from the get-go?” says Dr. Sheila Kilbane, pediatrician and author of Healthy Kids, Happy Moms: 7 Steps to Heal and Prevent Common Childhood Illnesses. In today’s episode of The Momologist™, Dr. Kilbane discusses the key contributors behind many common childhood illnesses and an alternative approach to treating children’s health. 

As a pediatrician, Dr. Kilbane was constantly being presented with repeat clients, who were stuck in a vicious cycle of recurring illnesses such as eczema, sinus infections, ear infections, abdominal pain, and constipation. While the typical treatments for these illnesses (namely antibiotics or steroids) may help temporarily improve one’s symptoms, they fail to address any underlying health issues at play. Faced with this problem on a daily basis, Dr. Kilbane decided there had to be a better way, which is what motivated her groundbreaking research on system-wide inflammation. By simply changing what their children eat, parents can heal some of the underlying inflammation that causes many common childhood illnesses. 

Tune into this week’s episode of The Momologist™ for a conversation about the main causes of inflammation and how inflammation in one area of the body can trigger wide-ranging symptoms. If you have a child that frequently gets sick or you’re simply looking for ways to eat cleaner and stay healthier overall, don’t miss out on this episode!

 

Quotes

• “We don’t have to wait until the child has 5 or 6 different diagnoses. We can start to do this when we see one thing…Why aren’t we just feeding everybody like this? Why aren’t we doing good healthy food from the get go?” (12:48-13:05)

• “When the cup of inflammation is overflowing, that’s when we’re having these symptoms. The inflammation can be anywhere in the body. Our body is sending white blood cells to that area in order to work on whatever it’s perceiving it needs to address. If you think about our body like a cup and the water in the cup is the inflammation, when the cup is overflowing that’s where we have the symptoms.” (19:15-19:28) 

• “We don’t have fences in the body, so inflammation in one area is inflammation in other areas.” (23:14-23:21) 

• “We’ve got 5 main triggers of inflammation…It’s the way that our genetics interact with these five triggers. The triggers are: food, environmental allergies, environmental toxins, infectious diseases, and stress.” (28:52-29:15)

• “Hey, you can do this. Let’s start off small, let’s do things a little bit at a time and then we can start to talk about our cleaning products, our beauty products, what are we eating and drinking out of. Can we start to get rid of the plastics? We know that BPA is an endocrine disrupter… That’s one of the big factors that is contributing to what’s going on now and then I think the other factor is the herbicides, the pesticides that we’re spraying on our food.” (45:35-46:18)

• “Take it one step at a time. If the first thing you can do is start to decrease sugar, that is huge. Sugar and dairy, I find, are the two big culprits.” (1:11:02-1:11:19)

 

Stats Mentioned

• “50% of American children suffer from chronic illnesses.” (08:06-08:09)

• “The gut is the hub for about 70% of our immune system.” (21:57-22:02)

• “The stats on food allergies are staggering. The numbers have gone up so significantly in the last 30-40 years…In the mid 90’s there was a study done by the Environmental Working Group… It’