What Most People NEED to Know About Black Plastics (Throw it Away Immediately! )

Introduction to Benadryl

0:00I've seen some of my friends give baby Benadryl. I don't like Benadryl. It's an independent risk factor for development of Alzheimer's. It also causes short-term memory loss. It also impacts your ability to pee. I really don't see why Benadryl is even needed in the market anymore. Dr. Elliot, what would you say your mission is? My job is to just empower people to live their best versions of themselves and keep them out of the doctor's office and out of the hospital. What does the dark circles do? Because I have those. The dark circles on your eyes, you could be allergic. See if it's worse in May and June.

0:30The skin underneath your eyelids is very thin. So you start to see the dilation of the blood vessels, which then looks darkish, purplish underneath your eyes. And if you treat the underlying allergy with a... You may not have dark circles under your eyes at all.

Dark Circles and Allergies

0:43I'm seeing now all over social media that mothers are putting peanut butter on their kid's cheek. Don't do that. Do the exact opposite because you don't want the first exposure to be through the skin. So what are mothers meant to do? Give them... I'm Louisa Nicola, and this is The Neural Experience.

1:02Dr. Elliot, what would you say your mission is? Oh, boy. I just want to empower people through education because I think sometimes people are making health decisions and they think they're making good health decisions and it's based off of erroneous information. So my job is to just empower people to live their best versions of themselves, their healthiest lives, and keep them out of the doctor's office and out of the hospital. Well, I love that because you focus a lot. When you say erroneous advice, you're talking about a lot of the misinformation.

1:34Well, it's two things, right? There's misinformation. And then there's also just stuff that like we were... We, as a healthcare system, we're operating off of the information we knew at the time. And then that information becomes out of date. But by the time we catch up in terms of public education to let people know, hey, this was out of date, years have gone by, right? Like we know that there are lots of things that are currently in our food supply that are not good for us. But by the time all the regulations are in place and that ingredient is no longer in the food supply, we're talking four or five, six years later.

2:06So you really need to empower people to be smart consumers. It's like neuroimaging, right? It's like 20 years before it actually gets, you know, a product gets FDA approved and a clinical trial goes through and we know all this information. And then once it is, then it's not approved by insurance. And then you've got to go through this whole rigmarole. Or you could say, hey, if you can save up the money for this imaging study, there's going to be value for you as an individual. So you may want to consider in making that investment as opposed to letting insurance companies dictate what's covered and what's not covered. So it's, again, empowering people.

2:36Hey, the evidence is there. You may have challenges getting it covered through a traditional insurance, but you should be empowered to know that the evidence is there and something like this may be beneficial for you.

Understanding the Immune System

2:47So we are going to talk all about immunology on this episode, right? We haven't touched on that yet. But if somebody is just listening right now and they've clicked on this episode and they know it's going to be about immunology, what do you want them to walk away with by the end of this? A basic understanding of the fact that we are essentially billions of bacteria. That's what we are. We're a bunch of single-celled organisms that make up what we see in front of us today. And those bacteria need to be cared for and taken care of.

3:17And we can get into how and why. That's number one. And number two, the immune system works by getting the appropriate inputs. And so exposures to those inputs are really important. And we're going to talk about early exposure to those inputs so that our immune system knows how to grow and develop and flourish in the right ways. Oh, well, let's start there.

The Immune System and Confusion

3:37Talk to me.

The Immune System and Confusion

3:37What is the immune system? What does it actually do? And what does it mean when it gets confused? So the main focus of the immune system is to help prevent us against getting sick and being overwhelmed by bad bacteria, viruses, funguses, parasites, and things like that. So when the immune system is operating on all cylinders and operating appropriately, it is appropriately balancing out the good bacteria, bad bacteria, and preventing us from getting sick and dying from an infection.

4:08That's the predominant role of the immune system. Another role of the immune system is what we call sort of immune modulating, immune regulating. And it's sort of just homeostasis, which is a fancy word of just saying, making sure that everything stays in balance and that cells don't overgrow or undergrow. So getting too many cells in cellular overgrowth would be that the immune system has lost their checkups and balances, and that's a cancer. Another way for immune system overgrowth would be autoimmune disease, where our immune system gets super hyperactive and starts to fight against its own body and its own organs.

4:41And then an underactive immune system is an immune system that's not appropriately fighting against those external infections, viruses, bacteria, or parasites.

Autoimmune Disease

4:49Why would my immune system act that way, where it's causing an autoimmune disease, for example? It's like a kid and it's acting out. And it's just not getting the right attention, the right inputs. I'm putting it simply, but obviously there's always that piece of like, what's our genetics and what's in our environment. So sometimes if you have a genetic deficiency, right, our immune system is essentially made up of a bunch of different proteins and molecules, right? So if you don't have the building blocks for the right type of immune system, it can go wrong, just like any kind of organ or other part of our body.

5:24And then it can also be modulated and impacted by inputs in the environment, where you get mutations in your immune system to make it downregulate, meaning it's not going to have the right checks and balances, and then you get overgrowth of stuff. Or it can get overactive and sort of be in this hypervigilant state, where it's either responding abnormally to things that are occurring in the environment, allergies, or it's occurring abnormally to our own cells, which is autoimmune disease. So it's basically a combination of both external environmental factors,

5:58and then could also just be our genetics too. Does MS, multiple sclerosis, that fits under the autoimmune disease, right? So are we born with these autoimmune diseases? Like you said, like it's a combination, right? But are there genetic risk factors involved in it? There are genetic risks. I believe there are genetic risk factors for everything, right? And then it's just a matter of, is this a genetic predisposition that is going to definitely turn into a disease? Or is it a genetic predisposition that might turn into a disease?

6:30And then it's the right kind of sauce and environmental factors and then triggers that disease. So I think it's a combination of both, having a predisposition for something. And then also just being in a type of environmental circumstance where it's not a predetermined thing, but you're an environmental circumstance. And then you have some sort of, it's essentially a mutation, right? Something gets triggered and the checks and balances are off and then something goes awry. The other thing that we don't talk about enough, and it's really hard to do a clinical study around,

7:01you're not going to do a randomized controlled trial around childhood traumas, stresses, right? We know that like childhood infection, for example, right, could then lead to diseases and things ahead of, along the way as you age.

Childhood Trauma and Stress

7:15But what about severe stress and traumas? And then whether it's in the child or even in the parent and then transferred from an epigenetic standpoint to the child. So I think that's a whole other area of interest because, I don't know if you read the book, The Body Keeps the Score, but there's a lot of that, right? Our stress needs to have somewhere to go. And if it doesn't get expressed appropriately or your childhood traumas aren't addressed appropriately, then they're going to settle somewhere in your body. I strongly believe that. But how are you going to sit there and do a randomized controlled trial, like torture a bunch of kids and look at the outcomes, right? So I think that that's just

7:48something that we need to consider. We know how much stress has an impact and a role on our immune systems. So I think it'd be silly to think that severe and intense stressful situations when not dealt with appropriately with the right sort of release valves for those sorts of things don't end up manifesting some way physically in our bodies. You didn't think we were going to get so deep. No, we got so deeply. I'm like five minutes in, but it reminded me of Gabor. Gabor Mate. Yes. He speaks about the growing concern of 80% of all autoimmune diseases are existing in women

8:23and that female population. And he relates this back to trauma that the, you know, just like you said, the body keeps the score and saying that a lot of women take on the burden of stress as albeit primary caregiver. They may be looking after aging parents and then whatever they're going through at the time. And they hold that in rather than seeking, what is it? Therapy? I don't know. Yeah. Not just that or the support systems or the saying that like, you know, this is okay. And not

8:55doing all the self blame, right? Just think about what happens to your body when you're stressed, right? Even if it's a stressful thought and you're, you clam up and you get really intense and your blood pressure goes up and your heart rate goes up and you start sweating, right? And then our bodies can then shut down. And it's meant to be a fight or flight response, right? Where you're like fighting against a lion. Okay. I have this stressful situation. Then it goes away and I calm down. But when it's a chronic stressful situation and you don't have an outlet, you don't have a community to speak to, you start to just internalize it and you blame yourself and you can feel your muscles

9:29tighten, right? And you can feel all the physiologic changes that are happening. So how could we be so ignorant to think that that happening day in and day out, every single day, we start to internalize it. We start to blame ourselves. We start to think that we're not enough and we're not good enough. That stress and all those cytokines and all those toxins are just going to sit in our bodies until we figure out a way to go back in and address that and get ourselves the support system that we need, you know? And we don't talk about it enough. We talk so much about this is the disease and this is the treatment for the disease. And we don't talk about like the root

10:03cause of how we've gotten there and like all of the other contextual information and all of those environmental exposures, whether they're emotional stressors or toxins in our bodies, whatever, like we're not kind of looking at that root cause and looking at the whole person. And it'd just be silly to think that our immune systems weren't affected by that. And we do know, right, when people are chronically stressed, and I'm talking very, very high levels of stress, they're more prone to getting infection. So that data exists. What type of infection? They can get bacterial infections,

10:37viral infections, and those viral infections can manifest as things like Epstein-Barr virus, chronic Lyme disease, and then also just like upper respiratory infections, right? Because your immune system is constantly in this stress situation on override, on override, it gets burnt out. There is something I see over and over again with the women I work with. They're doing everything right, training, eating well, optimizing sleep, and they still feel off. Low energy, brain fog, mood fluctuations, and a lot of the time it comes back to something really

11:12simple. They're evidently deficient in key nutrients such as iron, folate, zinc, vitamin D, B vitamins, especially if they're menstruating. And most supplements just don't account for that. They're built on male default models, or they chase symptoms instead of fixing the foundation. That's why I started using Daily Basis. It's a cycle aligned multivitamin powder, two formulas, one for each phase of your cycle. Replenish in the first half, especially around your period,

11:43to restore what you're losing, and balance in the second half to support mood, inflammation, and gut health. It's one stick a day. You mix it with water. That's it. For me, the biggest shift has been consistency in how I feel. More stable energy in the first half of my cycle, and in the second half, better focus, better mood, and I'm sleeping better. It's foundational, not a stack, not a quick fix. Just one thing a day that covers what most people are missing. They're doing a really

12:14special offer for the Neuro Experience audience. You can use code Neuro for 50% off your first month. That is code Neuro for 50% off. The link is below in the show notes. Guys, I am a big believer in testing instead of guessing, especially when it comes to your health. And for years, we've been told to wait until something goes wrong before looking at our blood work. I mean, that's what the medical system is right now. You know, you break an arm and you're

12:45in the hospital, and that's great. But it never taught us how to get on track as a preventative method. And this is why I use Function Health, because when you use Function, it gives you access to over 100 different biomarkers all in one place. They've got this amazing platform that you can look at everything. It tracks all of your biomarkers over time. So you can start seeing your patterns. And for me, the power is in the inside. So instead of wondering why your energy is off or your mood or

13:16your focus, or you're wondering if you're in perimenopause, you can actually see what's happening inside your body and make decisions for real data. Now, if you want to get some clarity, and if you want to get your blood work done with Function Health, you can, you'll get a discount. If you sign up at FunctionHealth.com slash Louisa Nicola, or go to FunctionHealth.com, use code Neuro100 at sign up to get started. Can you explain to me, let's take a male or a female, we're in New York

13:51right now. She's, or he is in their 40s and they're high up. Then maybe they're a partner at a law firm or you've got the Wall Street guys, highly stressed. They've also got a spouse and they've got a couple of

Innate Immune System and Stress

14:03kids and life is stressful. What's actually happening from an innate immune system level? Because that's the first line of defense, right? The innate immune system. Is that correct? Yeah. So that's what gets activated when we're stressed and what's actually happening. So explain that. So let's first start with like what your immune system is like meant to do. You have two buckets of cells. You've got your Th1 cells, which are meant to fight against viruses and bacteria. And then your Th2 cells, which are meant to fight against funguses and fight against

14:39like parasites and things like that. Right? So that's what they're meant to fight against. When a threat is perceived, right? Normally that threat, our normal immune system is working perfectly, right? We're not being, you know, we're not in these stressful situations. Normally the threat is perceived, right? That threat is a virus. That immune system gets activated. When the immune system, those Th1 cells get activated, a whole bunch of inflammatory cytokines, which are essentially like molecules that give signals to other cells, get activated to say, hey, we're an army. We need to

15:12be activated because now there's just a virus or something that's invading our bodies and we need to start fighting against it. So our, our temperature goes up, right? Because we want to create an environment. That's why people develop fevers when they're sick. Their temperature goes up because it's like, we're going to, we're going to make it too hot for these invaders to exist. Then your blood flow increases because we're like, we're going to just flush these things out. You get increased in the amount of mucus that you produce. You get your lymph nodes start to get activated. So we've got lymph

15:44node channels all throughout our body so that that lymph, the lymphatic system and our white blood cells, all this stuff starts to get activated and it starts literally putting out toxic chemicals to try to kill off this foreign invader, right? So that's essentially in a normally functioning immune system against a virus, right? The virus is a foreign invader. The bacteria is a foreign invader. And you think about it, it's like, okay, that's how I feel when I get sick. I get a fever, I get a runny nose, I get congestion, my heart rate goes up, I get very fatigued because my body is sitting here. Imagine these immune system are like little tiny soldiers, like going and shooting out

16:16chemicals and stuff, trying to like create an environment that's toxic to a virus, a bacteria, a fungus, a parasite, what have you, right? Now, what if the immune system perceived, right, that same insult as a stress, a stressor, a very stressful situation, right? Like the inputs that are getting activated from the foreign, now let's call the foreign invader, an actively chronically stressed life, right? The immune system then can't tell the difference. Am I fighting against like a

16:47virus? Or am I fighting against like, my body feels the same way, or I'm fighting against this environment where my blood pressure is going up, my heart rate is going up, I'm sweating all the time, my cortisol levels are elevated, right? Those are all the signals to the immune system. Oh, there's another foreign invader, right? And so what happens is your immune system jumps on this bandwagon. The external factor is now chronic stress, a high paced job, whatever it is, not being

17:17able, not feeling good enough, not keeping up, trauma, whatever it is, right? And now your body is acting in the exact same way. And it can't discern the difference between this foreign invader, that's a virus or bacteria, or this foreign external stressor that is constantly invading our lives. Does that make sense? Yeah. You've said, I think probably three times I've counted, not feeling good enough. How is that causing us stress?

17:47You're in a perpetual realm of like self-blame, right? That you're like in this environment and whether it's your mom or you're at your job or whatever, where you are trying to operate within a system where it's never enough because we're in this capitalistic society. So there's always going to be a bigger boat. There's always going to be a nicer watch. There's always going to be a bigger house. So if you're bought into, there's always going to be a better job. There's always going to be a better student than your child, right? There's always going to be a better class or extracurricular or whatever. Like that is just, you know, this, this environment that we live in,

18:20right? And so then we internalize that. If our values are aligned with what the culture's values are, we're looking on social media and like everybody looks like they're having a prettier, fancier dinner than you, right? And you're bought into that culture or you're bought into your work culture or the culture of materialism. You're going to feel like you're not good enough. You're going to be like, what am I doing? Because this is what women often do, right? Why can I not be that? Or what is it? I'm going to try to outwork this problem, you know, or I'm going to try to exceed

18:51or excel or whatever. And it's like this bottomless pit. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of it also goes into like, you know, how you were raised as well and feeling like a secure attachment and feeling confident and all that. But if you're bought into this system, it's this never ending rat race that we're in. And we just internalize that and then we become sick. And so all of this, like you mentioned before with what's happening to the immune. So we get chronic stress, chronic elevated cortisol levels. And then the immune system is just like, okay, I give up. It becomes really weak. And that's when we start to see symptoms of,

19:25autoimmune disease. Exactly. And like, you know, the chronic stress is the body cannot tell the difference between a foreign invader that is like a lion standing there or a bacteria or virus that's coming in to invade or your terrible boss at work because your body physiologically is having the exact same response, you know, and that's essentially what happens. So, so other than there's another book, wait, I want to tell you about it's called why zebras don't get ulcers. Yes. Do you know that book by Robert Sapolsky? It's the same thing. Why don't zebras get ulcers, right? They're,

19:58they're being chased by lions every day. It's because it's not a chronic stress. They're chased by the lion. The lion goes away. Everybody goes to sleep. They're fine. Then they're totally back to their norm. They're totally back to their restful state. A couple of weeks later, maybe a lion come, okay, this is the normal cortisol response. This is the normal stress response that happens in response to an external trigger. Then that trigger goes away and we go back to our baseline. If the lion was chasing them all day, every day, they'd have ulcers, right? This is what happens to us in our environment and the world in which we live, where we have these constant stressors

20:29wherever we are. And we're in a fight or flight response all the time. There's no time for rest. There's no time for recovery. This is why we get ulcers and zebras don't and other mammals don't. Yes. But this is why, um, other than talk therapy, you have to practice. Is there a way to like reverse this then? Well, first is awareness, right? Because a lot of times we're not even aware of what we're, how we're behaving and why we're behaving and why we're getting triggered by things. Yeah. And if you, you know, look to Gabor Monte's work, a lot of this is like going back to your

21:02childhood and reparenting and recognizing that the person that's showing up today at that business meeting, that's so mad at their boss and so frustrated might be the young child that didn't get the support and care that they needed and being like, Oh, this is six-year-old Tanya showing up at work today. Cause the truth is I should be able to show up at work and be like, my boss is acting like a not nice person today, but that doesn't have to do anything. That doesn't have anything to do with me. That doesn't have anything to do with like, there's nothing wrong or bad about me. I should not be taking this and internalizing this. I should not be trying to take this on or trying

21:37to fix it. I should be, you know, going, you know, getting through the noise, hearing what they have to say and being like, okay, this is what I need to do today. Okay. That's fine. But not allowing myself to be pulled in to their negative energy and their stuff in the way in which they're showing up. If they're showing up in a toxic way, it's to let them theory. It's like, let them think what they want, let them show up however they want. But that does, that doesn't say anything about my self-worth. But when we show up in a world where we're like, whatever it is, I, you want to perform, you want to be, you know, you want to be the best at what you do. You want people to like you,

22:10right? Then you feed into that energy and then you get triggered by that energy. So you have to recognize that's that person's stuff. I might be getting triggered by this, but this might be an old part of me that needs work. Let me go back and do that work, whether it's through EMDR therapy or other types of like meditations and therapies to show back up and reparent that young self and then say, okay, like I'm not in danger. This is not a lion. This is just some mean colleague or coworker, or this is just another mom. That's like guilting me into thinking my kid has to be in

22:4015 extracurricular activities. Right. And you just say, okay, like I'm not, I'm not in any threat. I'm not in any active danger. Right. Then you can start to show up differently. But the first thing is just recognizing and acknowledging that you're having a physiologic response to something and it's not necessary to have that physiologic response and you can calm your body down. I need to talk to you about mitopure because if you listened to the episode last week, you will know that one of the most fascinating things about aging research right now is the role

23:11that mitochondria play in how we age. So these tiny little structures inside ourselves are responsible for producing energy. And when they start to decline everything from physical stamina to cognitive performance and diseases, I have been taking mitopure from timeline. It's built around a compound called urolithin A. Now urolithin A, this is the only place you can get urolithin A, helps your body recycle and renew damaged mitochondria. So your cells can produce energy

23:41more efficiently. Now I'm currently taking four of the timeline nutrition capsules. You can just go to timeline.com slash neuro. You can search it all. But what I like to think about is this is not a stimulant or a quick fix. It's supporting energy at the cellular level, which is exactly what longevity science is. Now these are phenomenal. If you want 20% off, go to timeline.com slash neuro. I just read a fascinating study and it showed that people who do not hydrate properly actually age

24:16their skin. And that was so scary to me because who wants to look like they have aging skin? So instead of just drinking liters and liters of water and electrolytes, I have decided to use Jones Road Beauty products because they not only have simple formulations that support the skin barrier rather than overwhelming it with unnecessary ingredients, but they also prioritize hydration. How many times do you just use products and products and products and your skin still doesn't feel

24:50hydrated and doesn't look hydrated? This is probably why. So I have been using Jones Road Beauty moisturizer and face wash. And let me tell you, their ingredients are so clean. Most of the ingredients that we use in our skincare products contain heavy metals and other contaminants. So you need to make sure you are using very good skincare. Listen, this is a reminder that good skincare doesn't need to be complicated. It just needs to support your skin doing what it naturally does best. So if you want

25:20to try Jones Road Beauty, go to jonesroadbeauty.com and use code neuro and they'll give you a free little gift at the end. The immune system is wild. It really is. And very intelligent. It's very intelligent. And so are the bacteria that drive it. The good bacteria. Well, actually, that's what I actually wanted to get into. So I think now we have an allergy epidemic. I mean, I don't know why, but I'm hoping that you can explain that. But I want to know what has changed in the last 30 years that explains why one in three people now has an allergy. Isn't that wild? And when we say one in

25:56three people, we're talking about environmental allergies. So these are allergies to things that are like occurring in the environment, like pollen and dust might matter and mold and cat and dog. I want to cut you off for one second. Again, I'm sorry to everybody who's going to hate this, but I was born and raised in Australia. I never had any allergies. I never ever in my life. And I still really don't. But for some reason, when it hits May, my nose, my nose is blocked like severely. Like there is nothing you can do. I've got, I'm allergic to the pollen, but only here. It's, I've never had

26:31this anywhere else in the world. And I always say that's it. As soon as May 1st hits, I have to leave. I have to go to Europe or something. Do you want to know what you're allergic to? Because I could tell you based off of the time of year, what's triggering it and why. But so like from March till May is tree pollen, right? And then from the beginning of May up until the end of July is grass pollen season. And then we've got like mid July, early August, all the way until the first frost, that's weed and ragweed pollen season. And so if it's here in like the Northeast, it's one of

27:03seven types of grasses that you're most likely allergic to. And we could talk about all things that you can do to sort of minimize and mitigate your exposure to the grass pollen. But remember that that's regional, right? So it's what grows here in the Northeast and it doesn't grow in Australia. And after you lived in a place for over six months, that's when your body can start to become sensitized to something. So if I'm assuming you've been living here for like at least a year, and now you're here in this environment and your body's like, wait a minute, this isn't like what I grew up with. This is something kind of weird. I haven't been exposed

27:36to it before. This must be something foreign. And then your body starts to go down that pathway of the allergic response. And it's not uncommon for people to develop allergies really like up until the age of like 30, 35, then we really don't see new onset adult allergies with the exception of shellfish food allergy in adults really after the age of 35 or 40. You tend to see more like medication allergies and skin allergies, but not as much environmental allergies. But you get these peaks of like school age kids, teens, and then like women age 30 to 35.

28:11Hmm. That's so interesting. A grass allergy. Okay. So what, why is one in, in, in three people now has an allergy? So it's really interesting. There's like, it's multifactorial. One of the reasons why it even seems like more than 30% of the population is that there's just a lot more pollen in the air and it's an irritant to anybody's nose. So even if you're not specifically allergic, meaning you don't have allergy antibodies circulating in your blood, just the amount of pollen,

Microbiome and Allergies

28:41and imagine like these little tiny particles all in the air. If you breathe that in, your nose is going to know that this is a foreign body and you're going to sneeze or you're going to feel congested. So we even see people, we call it non-allergic rhinitis. We even see people walking around who don't test positive for allergies who have allergy symptoms. So it's part the sheer amount of pollen and that has to do with the weather. And we've had, you know, not super crazy winters, although this past winter is kind of bad in New York city, but for the most part, more mild winter and above average precipitation, that's kind of the perfect storm for more and more pollen to

29:12be present in the air. And then the other piece is pollution in the air. So pollen will bind to things like diesel exhaust and nitric oxide and sulfur dioxide bind to these things. And now you have what's a super pollen and that's going to be irritating to anybody. And literally we call it the super pollen and it makes the pollen more buoyant, meaning it can travel way farther, like 50, 100 miles from wherever it is that the grass or the tree is. So we're kind of just seeing pollen everywhere in higher and higher amounts, then binding with pollution. And that's just an irritant

29:44to anybody in their nasal passages. So it's like, no one's in the clear from an allergy perspective. So that's sort of the environmental piece, right? And then there are the factors of like, why are people skewing allergic? Why is their immune system skewing allergic? So interestingly, when you look at undeveloped countries and underdeveloped countries, incidence of allergy is so low. Why? Because their allergy cells, remember I said earlier, there's Th1 cells and Th2 cells. Th1 immune system cells fight against viruses and bacteria. Th2 cells fight against

30:18parasites, right? In developing world, they're too busy fighting against parasites and worms and amoebas and all these others. So your Th2 immune system is active. It's busy. It's like, oh, I got to be ready for the parasite. In developed countries, we don't really have parasitic infections. We don't really have that. That Th2 immune system is more dormant. And so it's kind of sitting around bored. And so it's not getting what we said, like in terms of like the right kinds of inputs to develop properly. So imagine your Th2 cells are like sitting around bored. And then they're like, well, I don't know,

30:51is that foreign? That tree pollen, that cat? And so you start reacting to things that are normally occurring in the environment. And that's an allergy. So undeveloped countries, very little environmental allergy. Because again, the immune system is getting early inputs of like, okay, this is a parasite. This is a worm. This is a fungus. This is this weird thing. This is how my immune system needs to react, my Th2 cells. And in the developed world, with the absence of those exposures, that Th2 component of your immune system doesn't develop properly.

31:23Okay. That's why some people have, they're allergic to something and other people aren't. Even if they're born and raised in the same. There you go. Now, the other piece of that, because it's interesting, you see, even born in the same household, we find that if you live in a household with multiple siblings, you're less likely to have allergies. Oh, and I grew up with two boys. So the reason the older children, everyone's outside, you're more likely to be like outside. Also, if you grew up in a rural area. So you're more exposed to germs earlier on,

31:54if you're born in a home with multiple siblings, because like by the third or fourth kid, parents are like, yeah, go eat that off the floor. It doesn't matter. Go run around, play. And we're less like hypervigilant about wiping down surfaces, antibacterial this, antibacterial that, right? Then we're killing off not just the bad bacteria, we're killing off all the good bacteria, going back to the story of the microbiome. So allergies were on the rise in the 1990s, right? Where we realized like, oh, what's going like more and more people are developing allergies with the rise of antimicrobial soaps, antibacterial soaps, hand washes, overuse of antibiotics, right? All

32:29of this stuff. You don't need to use antibacterial hand wash all the time, right? You're not fighting off infection. All you're doing is killing off the good bacteria in your skin microbiome, right? And the microbiome all around you. So now all you're left with are all the weird resistant bacteria. And your immune system is not getting those right inputs and the right type of learning. And that's why we saw an increase in allergic disease because the immune system didn't understand these are good bacteria, these are bad bacteria, here's how I navigate this whole like microbiome and

33:00good and bad and all this. So it just started to say, let me just react to things that I haven't seen before. Dogs, cats, whatever. But the kids that grew up rolling around in the dirt, had pets, had multiple siblings, those kids don't get allergies. Why? This incidence of allergies is much lower because they had exposure to all of the bacteria and all them, like let your kids roll around in dirt within their first year of life. Don't chase them around with antibacterial soaps and wipes. And guess what? Probably don't even need to shower them every day. You mentioned something about the microbiome thesis. And I often think about

33:36the difference between natural birth and C-section and how that relates to immunity, microbiome, but also allergies. Yep. A hundred percent. And it is seen in observational data and studies that children that are born of C-section have a higher incidence of allergies. So then you say, well, why is this? Well, what is the first exposure to bacteria that babies have? It's through the birth canal, right? And so you're bypassing that birth canal. And interestingly, now we start to lather on and expose babies to like vaginal fluid and materials

34:13from the vaginal canal to work to prevent that, to sort of reintroduce it right at the moment that they're born, the right kinds of bacterial exposures that they should have. So again, in the 90s, when we started to see the increase in allergies in general, and then that also led to the, you know, speaking about peanut allergy and avoiding and delaying, right? That was a recommendation made in 2000 in response to this. We're starting to see an increased incidence in allergy, right? We made the wrong decision. And we'll talk about that in a moment based on the information we knew

34:44at the time. But anyway, again, elective C-sections were on the rise during that time. So emergency C-sections, you can't do anything about it. But we were seeing more and more when working women in the 90s, 2000s, we even see it now where they're like, well, I want to have my hair done. And like, I don't want to take off work or whatever. And I'm like, I don't want to, oh gosh, vaginal birth, right? And so there was a time where women were having elective C-sections and it was easier for the OBGYN doctor who was like, okay, great. Let me schedule you in a couple of weeks early as opposed to getting called at two o'clock in the morning, right? So it was all of these dynamics in play,

35:19increased incidence of C-sections. Oh, look at that, increased incidence of allergies. And it wasn't just one thing, right? It was also the overuse of antibacterial products in the home. It was this hygiene hypothesis of making sure your babies are clean and everything is wiped down and everybody's perfectly sanitized. And it's the overuse of antibiotics, right? You should only be on an antibiotic for a bacterial infection, right? That your body is not appropriately clearing, but we were putting everybody and their mother on C-packs and amoxicillin and this and that, even when they didn't have a bacterial infection. And we also said, stay on the antibiotics for as

35:50long as possible, 10 day course, 14 day course, however long as possible. And when you do that, we were not paying attention to the fact that we were also killing off all of the good bacteria that exist within our body, right? When you have that skewing of your microbiome and all the good bacteria, remember, cause we're essentially billions of bacteria. That's what's keeping us alive. Um, that's when your immune system gets nuts. That's when it goes awry. That's when you start developing allergies and autoimmune disease. I want to talk about the institutional failure in your perspective. And I think there was an Israeli or the American Academy of Pediatrics,

36:21the 2001 guidance and the Israel comparison, 10% versus 2%. You've done your research. I love this. So like I said, in the 1990s, we started to see an increased rise in allergies, right? Why? Okay. We're in the developed world. We're seeing fewer parasitic infections and types of infections. Our TH2 immune system starting to become dormant. We're prescribing antibiotics like crazy. We're starting to see increased incidence of C-sections, right? So you're bypassing that first exposure to bacteria in the vaginal canal. Everybody's being sold everything about how to keep

36:54everything perfectly clean and your baby's clean and we're in, you know, keep your babies in a bubble and don't come anywhere near germs and all this sort of stuff and all these products being sold and introduced. Everything's antibacterial, right? That is likely the reason why we saw the increased incidence in allergy, right? But we started to see this increased incidence and we saw in peanut allergy and nut allergies and food allergies in particular in children. Also peanut is a choking hazard. So it was the easiest one to put on the chopping block by the American Academy of Pediatrics to say, we're seeing this increase in allergy. You know what? Delay introduction. We didn't understand

37:27that the early exposures were important, right? And you got to give science a break, right? Where you say, well, we were doing this based off of the information we knew at the time. Now, 30 years later, we know a lot more about what the immune system needs and how the immune system works and hindsight is 20-20. But anyway, at the time they made a decision to say, delay the introduction to peanut till after the age of two with a belief that the immune system needed to mature. And once the immune system was matured, it would be mature enough to recognize that peanut is a normal food,

37:59right? That's not what happened. And what's critically important and what we realize now is exposures within the first 12 months of life. That's actually what's most important so that our starting with birth through the vaginal canal, so that our immune system develops properly, right? What I said in the beginning, it's all about the inputs, like a computer system, the inputs that you feed the algorithm with, right? You know, the inputs that you give to your immune system so that it grows and develops and knows how to show up in the world properly, right?

38:29So what happened is no introduction of peanut until after the age of two, right? But then you still had peanut butter everywhere, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, kids going to school, older siblings, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, whatever, there's still peanut butter in the house. So what happened was the exposure to peanut became through the skin, through touch, right? Because there were still peanut places. So this is the theory is that the initial sensitization to peanut was through the skin. Your skin is actually your first and largest immune system organ, right? So when you're

39:02exposed to something through the skin, immediately, your immune system says this is something foreign and it reacts to it, because normally, it's a virus or bacteria, you get a cut, you get a scrape, there's a bacterial thing, it fights. So if you're getting exposed through the skin, and that's your initial exposure, right? So imagine peanut powder, peanut protein from residual surfaces, right? And then it doesn't see it ever again, right? Just through the skin. Then after the age of two, you start to introduce it and the body's like, what? That's that stuff that came exposed on my skin? That's foreign. I'm going to develop an allergic response to it. So that's kind of like the theory and the

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41:58The peanut allergy is so interesting because I have, I've been on a plane where a girl actually, somebody had a Snickers bar or something like that. I don't know what they had, but a girl had an allergic reaction. And I think at that point it was insane. We're like literally over the ocean and they had to get the EpiPen and obviously calm her down. But it's interesting because I'm seeing now all over social media that mothers are putting peanut butter on their kid's cheek early on to

42:31teach them, I guess. Yeah. Don't do that. Why? It's the exact opposite because you don't want the first exposure to be through the skin. And I, we often say, don't put skincare product, put food products on your skin. And that also relates to like the oat baths and the almond oils and all this sort of stuff. You don't want the initial sensitization of a food-based product to be on your skin. So what are the mothers meant to do? Give them peanut powder. Give. Orally. Oh, give a baby between zero to two. Four to six. Four to six within the early introduction, within four to six months, right?

43:04Peanut powder. Yeah. Or bamba. So we go back to the case study in Israel and why the incidence of peanut allergy in Israel is 0.2%. And here we're approaching 10%. Wow. 0.2% developed country. So it's not all, you know, that's, that's not the game here versus up to 10% in the United States, right? Why? Because teething rings in Israel are made of bamba, which is made of peanuts. So little babies are sucking on bamba and like teething rings very, very early on. So we realize and understand. And then we started to actually do something called

43:36the LEAP study where we looked at people that were children who are high risk for developing allergies because they had a family history or sibling with an allergy, gave them peanut early on. Lo and behold, they didn't have allergies. Early introduction. So I talked about the skin being a, um, immune system organ that is very reactive, right? The gut, the GI tract is very tolerant. So you want to introduce the food through the GI tract first. Then it's okay to put the food products on your skin or whatever, but that intro or initial introduction should not be on the cheek.

44:08You're going to end up sensitizing your child. And then when you do give them peanut, again, all the stars need to be lined. There's some genetic factors and other things at play, right? It's not every single person is going to develop the allergy, but you do not want to introduce a food product initially on the skin. You, cause again, this is not an immune tolerant or this is not an immune tolerant organ. These, your skin is going to react, introduce it through your GI tract, very tolerant, breaks it down is like, Oh, this isn't something foreign. This is a nutrient. This has got a bunch of protein. This is a food. I should break it down. No, early

44:40introduction. It's dangerous to delay introduction. What else should a mother or father be giving their kids in that timeframe? All foods, as long as they're not a choking hazard, right? As long as they're pureated, the biggest thing in that, you know, age group is choking hazard. Also breastfeeding is important. And the reason breastfeeding is important is because you don't have an infant doesn't have the immune system markers. Like it's not producing antibodies yet. So the only way that the baby gets antibodies

45:11against infection is through maternal milk. So you want to breastfeed ideally if you can for the first four to six months, there's some data to say beyond that, but really those first four months when you're, when the baby doesn't have antibodies to infections because they haven't been exposed to things yet, you get passive immunity from your mother's breast milk where you collect essentially all your mom's antibodies so that you're not at risk for infection during those critical first six months of life. It's interesting what you said. Um, and this was, I think I heard you say

45:43this on another podcast. You said that, um, not free schools are going to create the next allergy epidemic. It's driving me crazy. And it's not to say, look, I have a number of patients who have not

Nut Free Schools and Allergies

45:53allergy and it's very scary. Right. And you're, so I want to just acknowledge you're, you're having your child go into a school, right. And then other kids are eating nuts and there's a fear, right. Oh my gosh. What if they share food with my child? What if they, you know, come into contact with not, you know, all of this stuff. So it's a very scary world to be in as a parent of a child with food allergy. And so I want to acknowledge that that said, what is happening with nut free schools? Number one, we're literally characterizing nuts in the same way we're characterizing like

46:29sugars and seed oil. And people are like, it's nut free and it's seed oil free and it's sugar free. Okay. There's a huge difference, but nuts are good for you. They're healthy. There's a big difference between no sugary snacks and chocolates and like a nut free school, because what's happening is we're delaying introduction of nuts to children because as a parent, I'm not going to go and buy snacks with nuts in them for my kids or even have them in my house because I can't bring them to school. Right. So as a parent, I'm like, okay, what's safe to bring to school? Okay. Nut free. Fine. I'm just not going to buy snacks with nuts in them. So you have to be very, very intentional

47:03about making sure your child gets exposure to nuts, like outside of school so that you don't suddenly see this whole, I predict there's going to be an increased incidence of nut allergy in school age children because we are inadvertently avoiding it across an entire population. No one, no kid in school can eat nuts, which means most parents don't have them as snacks, which means most kids are just avoiding them out of convenience of like, yes, not free because it's just easier to do. So number one, nuts are not bad. Sugar is bad. We should not have sugary snacks in school.

47:35Completely agree. Don't also characterize that alongside nuts. Number two, nut allergy is not going to be transmitted through the air. Okay. It gets transmitted through surfaces, contact with surfaces. Otherwise, like you'd be walking in a supermarket, like no allergic kid would be able to walk into a supermarket because, oh, well, there's nuts there. And there's like the almond and peanut scooper things, right? Where people go like, but there's the only food allergen that you need to be

48:06concerned about in terms of sensitization from the air would be fish. And that's if like you're at a fish boil and you actually like can smell the fish in the air and it becomes overwhelming and it's suspended in the air. When it comes to peanut and tree nut allergen, it's direct ingestion or contact with a surface. And then you're touching your face, you're licking your finger or something like that. So like we need to normalize that like nut free tables. We need to educate not sharing snacks and that your food is your food. We need to make sure that teachers and aides and everybody in the lunchrooms are

48:41aware and able to treat anaphylaxis. There should be EpiPens in all schools. Yeah. Right. Like that's how we address this as opposed to removing tree nuts from an entire population, because now we're putting the rest of the population at risk for an allergy, just like we did when we made the recommendation to not have peanuts before the age of two. And then we literally increase the incidence of peanut allergy by 100 fold. I have to keep going back to institutional, okay. Institutional failures and awareness on

49:14social media. You seem very passionate. I know that you're a, you're a board certified internal medicine physician, but you're also an immune, uh, allergy, immunology, yeah. Alice, yeah. Allergy. Okay. It's a hand mouthful. It is, but you're very, you're very passionate and you're very driven. Um, you have the data. Does it get you mad when you see people on Instagram spreading, albeit, uh, their claims, their, um, misinformation, and not just that I'm seeing so many people actually demolish nuts as a

49:45whole. You know, people are getting scared of nuts because you've got some biohacker who will remain unnamed telling us that there's, you know, mold all over our nuts anyway. So does this really, does this matter? Does it upset you? Yeah, it's really tough. And it's, it's, it's a very interesting world we're in right now. Right. Because you look at, you know, you find you watch one thing on nuts that are bad for you. Right. And maybe that thing is not very like polarizing. It's just like, Hey, my kid has a nut allergy. I avoid all nuts. I don't like nuts. But then you

50:16watch that. So then the algorithm feeds up the next thing that's a little bit more polarizing. And then the next thing that's a little more polarizing and then it's all over your feed. And now you've created someone who's so incredibly passionate about the fact that nuts are bad for you, whether it's nuts or anything else. It's yes, partially the people, partially the algorithm. It really is a challenge out there. And like, I just wish that people could recognize that. Right. And that, you know, it's part individuals, part algorithm and not live in extremes. I'm seeing it across the board,

50:46across every single health topic, imaginable, everything. And like, we are becoming so polarized. I'm sure people are going to be mad at me saying this. Right. And I, what I'd like to say is like, there are two sides of a story. There's also data and knowledge and evidence and history. Yeah. So what I ask people to do is like, you know, lean in on people that, you know, are like reputable sources, credible individuals, credible people, you know, don't be afraid to like ask questions if you're not sure, but don't go down this like diehard path, whatever it is you're seeing

51:18on social media, whether it's peptides or skincare. It's what it's just the wild wild west. I know I talk about that often. Um, okay. I want to talk about adulthood and developing allergies as you get older. For example, um, I, for some, I don't think it's an allergy. I love kiwi fruits, but it makes my tongue a bit weird, but I still like them. Nothing, nothing detrimental happens. I don't stop breathing, but it does. And I never had this when I was younger. So a couple of things,

51:48one thing is called oral food allergy syndrome. So if you, depending on what grass pollen you're allergic to, kiwi's a fruit, like there's grasses and trees, there's plants. So there's cross reactivity. So sometimes if you're allergic to something in the environment, you can also react to the fresh, a fresh fruit that has very similar protein components. So your body can't tell the difference. You're like, why are you chewing on that grass leaf that I'm allergic to? Right. Because they're in the same family. So that could be part of the issue. The other part of the issue

52:19is that certain fruits are very high in histamine and allergic type cells. So just the content of the food, food itself, if you eat enough of it, pineapple is another example where you're like, kind of get an itchy tongue. Yes. Yeah. And it like, doesn't matter. And it's because it contains histamine and histamine is the chemical that our allergy cells release when we have a reaction and it's responsible for itching, swelling, redness, congestion. Okay. That's it. Okay. So can you put it in the microwave for like a couple of minutes or a couple of seconds? And that can denature the protein just enough. I'm so against hot pineapple in Australia. I don't know if they do

52:52it here. In Australia, they put pineapple on, they put pineapple on pizzas. I'm going to lobby against that. Just a little warm, maybe just like simmer. Maybe people don't like microwaves, just like, just increase the temperature just enough to denature the protein so that it doesn't cause that. Yeah. Well, likely there's a lot of adults who are suddenly developing shellfish allergies or other allergies to food they've eaten their entire lives, but now they're getting it. It's frustrating, right? So in terms of shellfish allergy, which is the one allergy that we do see

53:25in adults right over the age of 40, where, and it's, I mean, it's the like worst thing ever to have a shellfish. I personally love shellfish. Here's the, at least current theory around this. And it has to do with two, two major factors. One is the use of alcohol and the other is the overuse of antacids. And I don't want to say overuse is not people's fault, but people are popping, were prescribed and popping Nexium and Pepcid and stuff like crazy for GERD, for acid reflux, for bloating, all their GI symptoms, right? It's one of, Nexium is one of like the most prescribed

53:57medications in nineties, two thousands, even up till today. So these, all these antacids, right? All of these over-the-counter things, Nexium, the things that are called proton pump inhibitors, which prevent your stomach from producing acid. Well, what also happens in your stomach is digestion, right? So when you're messing with your pH of your stomach, either through antacids or a frequent alcohol use, it doesn't break down foods as well as it used to. And shellfish in particular doesn't get broken down properly. Now, again, this isn't in everybody,

54:28but it's the perfect storm of some genetic predisposition, maybe some antibiotic use, and then regular use of antacids and alcohol in those populations, right? It changes the way that you break down, let's say shellfish, right? And now something that was normally tolerated by the GI tract, oh, broke down into tiny peptides that look like a squiggly line, right? Now that squiggly line looks like two dashes and your body's like, wait a minute, that's something foreign because the way in which your body's breaking down that food inside your stomach is now altered because of your pH and

55:03the acidity and the suppression of the acid and all these antacids and alcohol, which now have impacted the cellular structure and function of your digestive enzymes in your stomach, right? Now the protein from shellfish looks foreign. What happens? Allergy because your immune system is reacting to something foreign. So now your TH2 cells are like, yes, I have something to do. And now you've developed a shellfish allergy. Oh, that's why. And can anyone, can they do something about it? Not really. You have to avoid shellfish, unfortunately. So once you get it, that's it. Yeah. Now there is, that's so sad. Although I should say there is more, um, there,

55:40there are more treatments that are available that didn't used to be before. One is called oral immunotherapy. Hasn't really been studied in the shellfish population as much allergic population as it has in peanut, milk, egg, tree nut, where you actually are given small amounts of what you're allergic to. There's actually like an FDA approved peanut powder where you go into the allergist office and you get small amounts of it until your body can actually tolerate it. And we, you train your immune system to no longer be allergic to it. So there is that, but you have to continue to be on those little amounts of peanut powder throughout your life. So that your body remembers, Hey, this

56:14is something normal. This is something normal. There's also a therapy called Zolaire, which is an anti-IgE therapy. IgE is the antibody that activates your allergy cells, right? So it basically calms your immune system down so much. It's a once a month injection so that you're able to tolerate small amounts of the allergen. So if you have a shellfish allergy, it doesn't mean you're going to be able to go eat a ton of shrimp cocktail. What it means is you don't have to worry if you ordered a piece of fish and a piece of shrimp accidentally, like, you know, shrimp juice got on it. And we call

56:48those the accidental ingestions where you're not actually eating the physical food, but there's a small trace amount of it. Maybe it also helps people if they have a tree nut allergy and like there's a food that says may be made in a facility that contains peanuts that you don't have to be like so hypervigilant and worry because your body can handle trace amounts of it because you're getting an injection that blunts your overall allergic response. Oh, okay. So it just is like turning down the nom because you are in an allergic state or more of a hypervigilant allergic state. So it's

57:21used for people with chronic hives and it's FDA approved for that. It's used for people with allergic asthma already approved for that, right? And now we're seeing a new indication for people with food allergies who are worried about an accidental ingestion. Hey, have this Zolair in your system once a month? So if you accidentally are exposed to something in a trace amount, you don't have to worry because your allergic response system is blunted. Okay. Well, why don't we now talk about food sensitivity tests? And I know you have a lot to say about this. IgG panels, food intolerant test,

57:53a $300 wellness test sold through influencers. What, what are these? Baloney. No. No. Cause I actually, when I did a blood test, they're like add food sensitivity test on there. Sure. They'll suggest tons of unnecessary tests. But so here's the thing, food sensitivity and food intolerance are real things. Yes. There's not a good blood test to determine that. So you probably got a whole list back and you're like tomatoes, peach, I eat those things all the time. What do you mean? And so what it happens, you inadvertently like, well, cut things or unnecessarily cut things out

58:26of your diet and it makes absolutely no difference. So if you want to go through that path, go right ahead. Those probably aren't the foods that are triggers for you. There are 10 foods that are the likely triggers for most people's sensitivities and intolerances. And you can just do a food elimination diet. If you want to be kind of aggressive and say, I'm just going to stop eating these 10 things. And they just so happen to also be the things that most commonly cause allergies. So milk, dairy, egg, peanuts, tree nut, soy, fish, shellfish, like, you know, and then you can consider sesame on there as well. So you could be like, I'm just going to cut these 10 things out.

59:02Right. And especially for things like dairy or like, and gluten is wheat is the last one. I can just cut out dairy and gluten or wheat and see if I feel better. Right. And starting there, or you can do the full elimination where you cut out those 10 things. And it really depends on like, okay, what is it that you're, you know, you're, what are your symptoms? Are you having skin type symptoms? Are you having GI symptoms, bloating, whatever it is. There's also like food triggers for migraines. But the good news is like, we already know what the triggers are. Acne, eliminate these foods. Migraines, eliminate these foods. Bloating, eliminate these foods. Like, you know,

59:37diarrhea, eliminate these foods. So anyway, there's like a way to do it without the tests are not really necessary. And you're going to end up with all of these like random positive tests and not know what to do with them. Okay. I did not know that. It's like flipping a coin. Yeah. You know, another thing I wanted you to clear up. Now I live, I live in Manhattan and now I'm at the busiest point in my life. Right. So I notoriously make my own food every single day, but now that I'm getting busier, I'm now getting, I'm trying to find, locate a, a place that can make my food for me. Right.

1:00:11A healthy version. But what I find is that they come in these black plastic containers. Now this is not about, uh, the plastic, you know, microplastics, right? No, no, no. I've heard you say that black plastic is harmful when you heat it in a microwave. I've never heard black plastic. Yes. And it's not just heating it in a microwave. It's how hot the food is. Like, oh, the Chinese food restaurants are the worst. We're literally like the container is warping by the time it comes to me. And I'm like, oh, it's not. Okay. So here's the thing with black plastic and why in particular,

1:00:43it's dangerous. And it also refers to like the appliances that you're using and things too, like your kitchen, kitchen utensils because of the recycling process and the way recycling occurs, anything that's black goes into one bin. Right. So that includes kitchen utensils, but it also includes like anything here that you see that is plastic, including electronics. Right. So like your computer screens, your TV screens, your kitchen appliances, all of these things, many of which have been treated with chemical flame retardants. Right. So now the recycling can't

1:01:16tell the difference between what's an electronic plastic and what is a kitchen utensil plastic. And it all gets melted down in the same way and recycled in the same way. So then there is a chance that your kitchen utensil or your kitchen container or your food containers or whatever contain chemical flame retardants. So then you heat them up and those chemical flame retardants are volatile organic compounds, which are not meant to be heated up and they get into your food. And that's the reason why black plastic is something that is on the no fly list. Yeah. But it's the same as all plastics.

1:01:49If you heat normal plastic, whether it's clear plastic, I guess it's the same thing. Yes. But in this case, clear plastics typically not treated with chemical flame retardants. The issue is the electronic waste, right? And like every single TV frame, every single computer frame, all of those plastics that are used in electronics, your stereo systems, all of that, right? Those are black plastics that are treated with flame retardants. That is, that is sickening. Well, what can you do? It's not like you can call the restaurant and say, so I, I must say one of my

1:02:20favorite restaurants is called Len Len. Okay. It's, you know, it's down on Park Avenue. It's a, it's, it's, um, a Thai restaurant. And what am I going to do? Call them and say, listen, You're going to have to be like, listen, I'm a regular. Yeah. Here's my glass, like Tupperware, put my name on it when I order, put the food in this Tupperware. What about the, the, um, Chinese containers, the white little paper ones? Yeah. I think it's the same issue with BPA and those things that are aligned with BPA. The same thing with like the coffee to go cups that are probably BPA aligned again, which is a toxin. And it's all these things you don't think of. And like one of the

1:02:55times, you know, I get criticized on social media because I'm like, don't touch this and don't do this. At the end of the day, it's about awareness, right? And like little choices and decisions that you make right for your, you know, for your home with kitchen utensils. It's like, Oh, I just bought the black plastic ones. Cause I thought they were pretty, you know, now, if you know, I should go for like wood or stainless steel. Okay, great. Easy switch. So like my role is to just bring awareness to some of these things. And of course you have like the fear factor of don't touch this. I never do this in my everyday life. I just had a coffee cup from, you know, from wherever. And

1:03:25I'm sure there was a BPA line drink, but I wanted my coffee, you know, but at least you have awareness so that generally speaking, overall, you could start to make healthier decisions. If you don't know, then you don't, you know, it's, it's a shame. It's little bits at a time. Yeah, exactly. Do you touch receipts? I hate receipts. So I wasn't touching receipts before this because I'm like, no, I don't want this paper receipt. That's going to sit in my bag. And just like, what am I going to do with it? Am I ever going to like, have you ever looked at a receipt to prove that someone

1:03:56overcharged you? And I can talk to your credit card company or you're like, okay, fine. It was $3. That was annoying. Right. Yeah. But no, so I've never touched receipts for that very reason. Um, and now even more so, but like, look, taking the receipt. Now my, my kids were like, mommy, don't touch that. Exactly. Yeah. You know, everyone's so petrified of receipts and, um, a new phenomenon is, uh, blending. Don't blend. Don't, you know, your blender should be glass, not plastic. I'll be it. I'm glad that they said that my blender is, uh, is glass, but the bottom of it is black plastic. Yeah. But I know, but what are you going to do?

1:04:30What are you going to do? Exactly. Exactly. Look, we need to have enough awareness around it so that companies start to create alternatives that are healthy alternatives. Like it has to come from the consumer being like, well, I'm not buying this anymore. Right. Then for companies to actually create the change and for our government to say, this is not allowed to do this anymore. We have to fix our recycling practices. So like, you know, it's, it has to start somewhere. We can't just live, you know, under our sheets and be like, oh, I'm not going to touch anything or I'm, or I'm just going to live in ignorance. You know, we have to become advocates of this

1:05:03so that we can become healthier, live healthier. It's got to start somewhere. If someone listening right now suspects that they or their child has an allergy, what is the actual pathway? So the first things first is like a characterizing what the symptoms are and the why behind what's going on. So in terms of allergies to things in the environment, here are the symptoms or things to look out for or be concerned about in babies and in young children, eczema, allergic eczema. So that's typically what we see first. Then you start to

1:05:34see runny nose, congestion, itchy eyes. Sometimes they'll have a little nasal crease right here. And it's called the allergic salute because little kids are doing this all the time. If your kid's doing this all the time, they probably have allergies, dark circles under their eyes. Um, wait, what does the dark circles do? Because I, I have those. It could be allergy. See if it's worse in May and June. Um, the dark circles on your eyes, because you end up with like vasodilation because your immune system is starting to get like activated and stuff. And the skin underneath your eyelids is very thin. So you start to see the

1:06:07dilation of the blood vessels, which then looks like a darkish, you know, bluish purplish underneath your eyes. So if you work to constrict those blood vessels by calming down inflammation in your nose, your under eye circles can get better. And if you treat the underlying allergy with immunotherapy, you may not have dark circles under your eyes at all. Okay. So eye symptoms, itchy eyes, rubby eyes, coughing, those are all allergy symptoms that last more than a week, right? Runny eyes, runny nose, cough, whatever, you know, that's likely a virus if it's lasting seven to 10 days,

1:06:41but longer than that for months at a time, that's likely allergies. And then as it relates to food allergy, you'd know your kid eats something and all of a sudden their face blows up. They have hives, they vomit. Those are all signs of a food allergy. Sometimes though, if a child is kind of eating something regularly and they have very, very bad eczema and their eczema keeps getting worse. We typically see this in kids under the age of two. It could be a manifestation of a food allergy. How about red eyes? Itchy red eyes. Absolutely. That's allergic conjunctivitis. And this time of year,

1:07:13it's really important. Pollen can get stuck in between your eyelashes. It gets stuck in your hair. It loves hair products. The false eyelashes, pollen will get stuck in there. And then you're told like not to scrub because you don't want to disturb the lashes. So itchy eyes are really a thing. And also people can react to eyelash glue and they don't want to believe it's the eyelashes. But if you have any redness or like a little skin patch right here, or your eyes start to tear or you get a runny nose within a couple of days of getting your fake eyelashes, it's eyelash glue. I feel like I need to go home and take a low dose antihistamine every day.

1:07:46Yeah. Yeah. You may need to. I mean, that's, that can kind of blunt that allergic response, block systamine from being released from your allergy cells. And some people do that as a preventive measure so that their symptoms aren't triggered. How do you feel about Benadryl?

1:08:04I don't like Benadryl. And especially, so Benadryl is one of the older antihistamines, right? We've gotten a lot better with antihistamines, but Benadryl crosses the blood brain barrier, right? They, they do say that it's a risk factor for dementia. Yeah, absolutely. And not only that, so it's a, it's a risk, independent risk factor for the development of Alzheimer's. It also causes short-term memory loss. You see on the bottle, like you can't operate heavy machinery when you're on it, which also means it stays in your system, like for the next day, like for 24 hours, you shouldn't be. So it alters your mental state, your memory, your cognition.

1:08:40It also has anticholinergic effects. So it can, that means impacts your ability to pee. And so you can have like bladder retention, can end up with constipation. So there's a whole host of side effects, arrhythmias is another one. And like when we have so many other second generation newer antihistamines that don't cause these symptoms, I really don't see why Benadryl is even needed in the market anymore. And so then they're like, Oh, we'll just make it a sleep aid because people get groggy from it. Number one, you can get a paradoxical effect, especially if you give it to kids where you

1:09:13think you're like, give your kids some Benadryl on an airplane to go to sleep. And then they're like wired and up. It could also contribute to restless leg syndrome where like the kids are kicking around and even in adults after. So like, and, and also it doesn't improve the quality of your sleep. So you may be drowsy, but you're not getting deep restorative sleep. So it doesn't work for that use case either. Yeah. I've seen some of my friends give baby, is it baby Benadryl? Yeah. Yeah. They shouldn't do that. Dr. Tanya Elliott, this is part one of our immune series. Thank you

1:09:47so much for coming in and being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. This was so much fun.

1:09:53Thank you.