Something as simple as pooping (or likely not pooping) has far reaching root causes that a bandaid like Miralax does not even begin to fix.
Take a peek into the lens of an expert, Dr. Erica Peirson, a renowned Pediatric Naturopathic Doctor, with a global practice.
Since constipation is so prevalent in children with Down Syndrome and Autism, I created a CONSTIPATION TOOL KIT just for you. Click HERE to download an ebook with 5 simple strategies (and a bonus).
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Disclaimer: The information in this Podcast is for educational purposes only. Vaishnavi Sarathy, Ph.D. is an educator, not a doctor, specifically not your child’s doctor. Please consult your physician before implementing any supplement or diet recommendations.
Audio Transcription:
Vaish:
What is gut health? And why is this the primary importance in treating any dysfunction? You are listening to functional nutrition for kids, the 20-minute podcast that takes you from old methods and research to new attitudes with ancient wisdom and cutting-edge research. My guest for today is the very accomplished pediatric naturopathic doctor Dr. Erica Peirson. Dr. Peirson is well known and respected for her work and advocacy with children, especially with trisomy 21, or Down syndrome. She sees kids from all over the world and has a unique functional approach that focuses on root cause symptoms, including gut health. Welcome, Dr. Pearson. Well, Erica, so have you here today. Thanks for joining us.
Dr. Erica:
Thank you so much for having me Vaish. I’m looking forward to this. Okay.
Vaish:
And I have a question that I want to start with right away because the phrase gut issues and gut health is thrown about so much in the wellness industry, if I may call it that, though, I know that you run a much more precision-based practice. But what do we really mean by this phrase? gut issues?
Dr. Erica:
Yeah, so gut issues come in. Yeah. And I’m so glad you’ve highlighted that many, many forms, I’ll say, you know, when we’re talking about gut health, we’re talking about different layers, I’ll say of the gut, or we’re certainly talking about dysbiosis, which is a term that some of your listeners are familiar with, and some may not be dysbiosis is an imbalance of bacteria within the gut.
That can be anything from pathogenic bacteria within the gut, the lack of beneficial bacteria within the gut, or just an imbalance of you know, yeast and bacteria within the gut. So there’s dysbiosis is one level of I would say, I’ve got issues, another kind of layer of gut issues would be a leaky gut. So when we look at the actual Lumen or the tube of the gut itself, right, on a microscopic level, there can be issues with the lining of the gut that are allowing antigenic foods and things to enter the system and create, you know, reactions within the body immunological reactions. So there’s leaky gut, right? There’s dysbiosis, I think those are two kinds of related things within the gut, but very similar as well. And then, of course, tied to all of those, there’s inflammation.
There are bile issues, pancreatic issues. And then of course issues with, with the stomach. Oh, my goodness speech I could go on, there are issues with motility, right, with just the movement of the gut. So I guess I guess our point there is that it can be gut issues is a very general term for a lot of different imbalances that can occur within digestion.
Vaish:
Yeah. And, and thank you for saying that, Dr. Pearson, because that that is so important because a lot of times all of this is generally just considered leaky gut. And then there’s just like, shoot from the hip practices to address gut health. And, and it’s important to note that it can start from dysbiosis go all the way to bile, stomach motility. And you could probably, like, just keep listing if we had more time, right?
Yes. And my next question was going to be that when a child with I know you don’t see children based on their diagnosis or labels, and you see every child independently and uniquely, so But irrespective of the diagnosis when a child enters your office, would you say that the gut is the first place that you look?
Dr. Erica:
It’s yeah, it’s definitely a very important topic that I review in great detail with a family is their child’s gut history. Right? Not just their current signs and symptoms, but their history. And I look, we look with a lot of detail, you know, certainly in, in their digestion, a lot of detail and what their stool looks like and smells like and look, you know everything about it. So yeah, it’s definitely a huge part of our focus, for sure.
Vaish:
Yeah, so that’s great. I mean, I feel like we should actually say never go to a doctor that doesn’t talk, at least for some time about poop, right?
Dr. Erica:
Absolutely. You know, we, we, I even, I even appreciate it when a child, you know, has a bowel movement in the office so I can sense it. See it, smell it? myself. You know, I’ve had parents who go to a gastroenterologist and they say, oh, no, I don’t want to see your child’s poop. Oh, my gosh, that’s a GI doctor. That’s probably what I want to see. So there’s, um, yeah, so there’s a lot of detail in it. Yeah, it certainly is. With everything, we look at. It’s a big one, for sure.
Vaish:
And I think this is a good segue into another question. I was wondering how your approach differs from that of primary care or you know, a traditional Western medicine practitioner who sees the same child when a person comes to see you and when, when a child would this season of mine is very focused on focus itself on hyperactivity and energy, but you could give me any examples. How does this change when a child goes to see a conventional doctor?
Dr. Erica:
Yeah, so I would, I would say our views are, in many ways 180 degrees different. We are I would say our toolbox is bigger. I like to use the word toolbox a lot, you know, what are tools in our practice? You know, certainly, conventional medicine has its place, right? I used to be an EMT and working in the emergency room conventional medicine absolutely has its place.
I don’t want to, you know, put anyone down. But, you know, I think that some of the conventional medics medical doctors themselves would admit that they’re missing, you know, a lot of root cause of chronic disease that we look at, you know, a lot differently. So there are tools, for example, let’s go to a gastroenterologist since your talk is about gut health, there are tools for constipation, for example, in many cases, one tool mirror lacks, right? And so that’s all that many gastroenterologists will recommend where we look at, you know, why is constipation there? You know, is the nervous system involved here? Is there muscle tone involvement here? Is there mitochondrial dysfunction involvement here? Are there nutrient deficiencies that are present and are these nutrients involved in acetylcholine synthesis where acetylcholine is important for gut motility? So, do you see the depth of information that we’re looking for not just, here’s this prescription for MiraLAX? This will solve your child’s constipation, which it will, right? The problem?
The argument is that you know, yeah, some of the conventional works, I’ll put that in quotes, it works from a symptom perspective, but you’re not solving, you’re going to miss a whole lot of underlying issues that they are affecting that child on a whole systemic level, right. And so, so we look for that, where’s that root cause and it’s going to be different for each child, let’s say constipation, for example, it’s going to be different for each child and using the varying depths, you know, history and physical and, and diagnostic testing when, when possible, to find that root cause creates, in my opinion, in my experience, healing at a much deeper level. So I’d say what we do is a lot different. And again, lastly, to kind of close that is, is I’m not putting down, you know, the conventional medical guys, they are women, they work in a system that is problematic.
You know, when a doctor’s appointment is 510 15 minutes long. You don’t they don’t have time, and I can’t imagine working in that system that much. Must be terribly frustrating.
Vaish:
Yeah, I agree. And I think that yet your experience provides a really nice contrast between where those two systems that have value in emergency medicine, I mean, that that is fantastic, and that this is really what Western medicine I feel is like, built to shine in that area, right? You’re working with chronic disease and dysfunction, which is almost always an inflammatory issue. And then where you do have to look at the root cause and you do have to look at so many. I mean, it was amazing, just you just took constipation, and you built an entire matrix around it. And that was so great. I just loved listening to that. I think there’s, there’s like a standard joke is that constipation is not a meter likes deficiency, right?
Dr. Erica:
Right. Absolutely. That’s one of my favorite. Yeah, you could use that with any kind of you know, the drug started X deficiency. It’s, you know, there’s something more going on often.
Vaish:
And, and even though I wasn’t really planning on asking about me relax here. I think that I have had so many people come to me and talk about me relax. I feel like that’s the single biggest within codes drug that I talk about. What is your opinion on MiraLAX? Relax, see it again, on prolonged use of Miramax?
Dr. Erica:
Certainly, yes, well, okay, so that’s good separation, right? Short Term versus long-term use. Now we have some children, we have had some children in our practice who have severe blockages of stool, right. And then, again, my emergency background is you know, you’ve taken care of that acute situation that stool has to move, you know, whether it’s and if it’s MiraLAX, it’s going to move it then, by all means, write a short term, whether that means you know, three to five days or a week, what have you to us that Marillac there are other osmotic diuretics. MiraLAX pulls water into the bowel, that’s an osmotic diuretic. And so that’s how it helps to kind of soften the stool and move it through.
There are other osmotic diuretics that are in many cases just as effective like vitamin C, magnesium oxide, for example. But long term use of MiraLAX absolutely has not been studied in children is not even recommended by the manufacturer. If you read your bottle of MiraLAX and you look on the back, I can’t quote it. Exactly. Again. I was just like you I wasn’t prepared for this, but I think it says something like not recommended for the long term. Right. Yeah. And there are some studies that I think I think, potentially even link it to some cognitive changes. I have in studies too.
Vaish:
And I can actually look them up and post them in the footnotes of this podcast. I’ll do that. Yes, yeah. Yes. Sorry to put you on the spot there. I don’t like me relax. No. Yes. Yeah. And I think you brought a beautiful difference between chronic and acute conditions. And this is very important, because, on the one hand, well, actually, on the one hand, I have had several gi doctors telling both children and adults is that this is the safest thing you can take. And there’s no time limit to this and you can take it forever.
This is I find this very surprising, given that usually, their approach is alarmist in many other situations. But yeah, and on the contrary, you have people in the quote, unquote, natural community, where anything bad anything chemical is bad for you, and you should never do it. But Dr. Pearson brought an excellent difference between something that is acute and something that is chronic, and what you need right now, and, and the requirements may change.
Dr. Erica:
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah and then lastly, to say about me relaxes listeners should know that mere relax is polyethylene glycol, which is the same thing as antifreeze. It’s a slightly larger molecule and anti-freeze. And so the argument is that it is not well absorbed by the body. But again, to allude back to our conversation about leaky gut, yes. Right. That could very well be different and somebody with leaky gut, so yeah, so it’s not an antifreeze. It’s not a compound I want in my body or my child’s Yeah, Exactly.
Vaish:
And in most situations, the children that you see in your practice, probably have a leaky gut. So yeah. And I know that you’re an expert in Down syndrome and autism, but you see that central issues of focus hyperactivity, energy, etc, can also be related to the gut. gut health. Is that the case?
Dr. Erica:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you almost can’t separate the two in a way I would never, I would never treat a child with hyperactivity, focus issues without looking at their gut and thoroughly looking at their gut. Right, um, the Connect, and there are connections there, the connection between, let’s say, gut issues and hyperactivity, let’s just make that one.
It’s not direct, it’s not always direct. But in an indirect way, it can, for example, gut issues. Again, we’re speaking very generally, let’s talk about low-grade inflammation, constipation, just, you know, a little bit of tummy discomfort, which we’ve all had at some point in our life, perhaps it can absolutely affect your sleep again, maybe some of the adult listeners out there have experienced this, right? You have an upset stomach, you’re not going to sleep well. So the child then has gut issues, isn’t sleeping well, on a long-term basis like that. 100% that’s gonna affect their ability to focus, behave properly. And many children who are hyperactive, I’m putting a lot into this answer. And many parents, patients who are hyperactive are actually very tired. Yeah, children, we call it tired and wired. Right.
They’re fighting very hard to not crash and fall asleep. Right. And so they will, you know, be hyperactive bounce around the room a bit to keep themselves awake. And then, you know, just have trouble focusing for sure. So, the gut issues affecting sleep then affecting energy levels that the next day? Yeah, absolutely. There’s a connection there.
Vaish:
Is there any case study that you’d like to share?
Dr. Erica:
Yeah, you know, I, I thought I don’t have a specific case study. But I have many cases, right of children when we work on gut health. And again, that can mean many things. Whether it’s clearing dysbiosis, but for many children, just clearing stool and you know, chronic constipation can lead to better sleep, too.
I want to make one more link there too, between gut issues and cognition and focus and hyperactivity is histamine. Yeah, good there. So histamine is an amino acid within the body that a compound that can acts as a neurotransmitter, right? That affects the central nervous system can create headaches, migraines, brain fog, poor sleep, right can impact sleep, there are several studies looking at sleep, and histamine. And histamine can come from the gut. certain bacteria within the gut that we detect when we do our in-depth stool analysis can create histamine within the body. And so those gut bacteria creating those histamine and other neurotransmitters can then yeah, impact the child’s ability to focus for sure.
Vaish:
There are so many prongs in which the God God helped me as we could probably take each prong and make an entire podcast of that right?
Dr. Erica:
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Vaish:
Looking at words that you’re saying and I feel like they should be. They should be, you know, a podcast about specific neurotransmitters or about just sleep. I mean, we could just take sleep and do like 10 podcasts about the things that
Dr. Erica:
Exactly yeah.
Vaish:
Part two of Dr. Peirson’s stock will be uploaded next time, both in order to honor my commitment to keep these podcasts under 20 minutes, and also to highlight her excellent analysis of complexity and root cause scenarios involved in something as simple as constipation. Now, my takeaways from this discussion would be that a pity for an L scenario is almost never a root cause analysis almost never looks at why a problem such as constipation is occurring, and therefore is not functional. In its approach, it is worthwhile understanding the matrix of causes that can affect constipation, or at least making sure that your provider is considering these.
These causes can range from poor digestion, which includes everything from chewing all the way down to wine production by the liver to gut inflammation, to vagal tone. And if some of these concepts do not make sense, at some point, we will have a podcast season on physiology and we will get these in. My other takeaway would be the fact that MiraLAX does not fix the root cause of constipation actually hides it quite effectively. And it’s completely unsuitable for prolonged use. I will post papers on me relax on my Facebook page facebook.com/functionalnutritionforkids. This is also the place where you can post any questions or comments that you have. Now constipation itself can be a root cause worthy of its own podcast another day, and we will revisit constipation for sure. Do come back next week to listen to part two, to Dr. Peirson’s two fantastic non-negotiables in the pursuit of health. You’re listening to functional nutrition for kids. See you next Thursday. And thank you so much for listening.
