146. Dr. Joel Warsh: Vaccines, Ultra-Processed Foods for Kids, Screen Time, and the Modern Parent's Playbook

Raising healthy children today requires more discernment than ever. Between conflicting vaccine guidance, ultra processed food marketing, and the explosion of screen exposure, modern parents are navigating a landscape filled with noise and strong opinions. In this episode of Extend, we sit down with Dr. Joel Warsh, board certified pediatrician and founder of Integrative Pediatrics, to unpack how parents can think critically about vaccine schedules, evaluate medical credentials online, and make informed decisions rooted in both data and context. We break down the evolving CDC recommendations, shared clinical decision making, the food pyramid reset, ultra processed food exposure, sugar overload, seed oil debates, dairy questions, allergy desensitization, screen time guardrails, and the real risks of repetitive head injuries in youth sports. We also explore how practical changes at home such as reducing added sugar, setting clear screen boundaries, prioritizing real food, and fostering open medical conversations can meaningfully shape a child's long term metabolic and neurological health. Dr. Joel Warsh, also known as DrJoelGator, is a board certified pediatrician based in Los Angeles specializing in parenting, wellness, and integrative medicine. He holds a Master's degree in Epidemiology, trained at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, and is the author of Between a Shot and a Hard Place, where he tackles complex vaccine questions with balance, data, and clarity. What We Discuss: (00:00) The Information War in Parenting and Why Nuance Matters (06:00) Trust, Government Agencies, and Rebuilding Medical Credibility (10:00) Credentials on Social Media and How to Vet Health Advice (15:05) The Updated Vaccine Schedule and Shared Clinical Decision Making (19:30) Vaccine Risk Assessment, Communicability, and Mechanism of Action (24:30) The New Food Pyramid and the Case Against Ultra Processed Foods (28:00) Chronic Disease in Kids and Practical Nutrition Shifts at Home (32:10) Dairy, Alternatives, and What to Replace It With (35:00) Allergies, Immune Dysregulation, and Desensitization Therapy (38:10) The Seed Oil Debate and What the Research Actually Shows (45:20) Sugar Overload, Refined Grains, and Metabolic Consequences (52:15) Screen Time, Dopamine, and Social Media Guardrails (56:50) Gaming, Attention, and Real World Social Development (59:25) Youth Sports, Concussions, and Long Term Brain Health Risk Thank You to Our Sponsors: IM8: Try IM8 today with a 30-day money back guarantee. You can get 10% off your first order with code DRSHAH at https://im8health.com/discount/DRSHAH. Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram:@darshanshahmd https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Dr. Joel Warsh Website: www.theshotbook.com https://www.theshotbook.com Instagram: @drjoelgator https://www.instagram.com/drjoelgator/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'm really excited with Extend Podcasts to feature topics that a lot of podcasts in the health world miss over, topics such as women's health, hormone optimization, and even children's medicine, because so many of us have kids or are gonna have kids one day, and we really need to talk about their health, because decline and chronic disease really does begin earlier on in life, sometimes even in childhood. So in today's episode of Extend, we're zooming out from the noise of social media health debates and asking a bigger question. How do parents actually make informed decisions in a world flooded with misinformation? I'm joined by Dr. Joel Warsh. He's also known as Dr. Gator,

• 1:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  a board-certified pediatrician with a master's degree in epidemiology. We talk about the growing credentials crisis online, where anyone with a doctor in front of their name can weigh in on topics far outside their training, and how that fuels confusion for families. Dr. Gator also explains why it's so important to seek multiple trusted opinions, understand who is funding research you're reading, and recognize the pharmaceutical bias built into much of modern medical education. From there, we dive into the real drivers of childhood health today: ultra-processed foods, excess sugar, screen

• 2:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In time, dairy debates, seed oils, and the realities of sport-related head injuries. We unpack why so much nutrition research is industry-funded, why whole foods and metabolic health should be the foundation, and how parents can make practical changes even on a budget. This episode is not about extremes. It's about nuanced transparency and helping parents think critically so they can confidently navigate modern medicine and raise healthier kids in a complicated world.

• 2:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Dr. Joel, so good to see you.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me back.

• 2:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, that was such a great conversation last time, and we didn't get a chance to cover everything I wanted to cover.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  There's a lot in kids' health. There's more than just vaccines, even though that's what it seems like I'm talking about every day.

• 2:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, you talk a lot about vaccines out there. And, you know, we certainly had a great episode breaking down all of the crazy information people are getting right now from not just social media, but the government too around vaccines. And you wrote an incredible book, Between the Shot and a Hard Place, that we recommended on the last podcast for people that are going through this live right now. There's a lot of people out there having kids. And now, more than ever, they have the opportunity to make an informed decision about vaccines.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think it's really great that we are able to talk about it now. But it is, I think, just a bigger issue in general, the fact that we need to be able to talk about everything. And there's so much controversy going on right now, not just on vaccines, though we hear a lot about it, but on food and social media influencers and really just pretty every topic seems like it's a war. Everything's very divisive, even though when you're in the office, most people are somewhere in the middle.

• 3:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  But that's not what you seem to hear ever.

• 3:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and you know, I think that's like a huge benefit that you and I have, is that we actually see people and talk to them, dozens of people every day sometimes, right? Having a clinical practice, you know what's going on in reality versus a social media influencer that is either a biohacker or talking to people one-off and then just screaming it into social media.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very important that more and more practitioners get involved in social media. I think- Because that is where people are getting their information from. You can fight it, but that's just the reality of the world. I certainly fought it. You know, when I went through medical school, there was no training in social media. There wasn't much of it at that point. Maybe you can hang out with your friends on Facebook or something like that, but it wasn't important like it is today. And I think most young people and young parents are getting a lot of their health information, parenting information from social media. And most doctors especially are terrible speakers. They're scientists, super smart people, but maybe not social media trained. And I think that's a big problem, that individuals who maybe don't always give the best advice, have the huge platforms and can get things to

• 4:58Speaker 01

  20 million people in a second, whereas a doctor who has really good information can't. And I, I'm glad to see it changing. I'm glad to see more people are doing it. I'm glad I got involved. I mean, I hated it a long time ago and I never would have. I was like, no, you need to get it. I was like, ah, why? And now, you know, all these years later, it was good that I did it. But I think that we have to be very mindful that a lot of the people that have the best information don't have the platforms to get that info out there.

• 5:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. I, I think you're absolutely right about that. And I think it's really important for people that are getting information from social media is to look at who's putting the information out there. There's another huge problem. A lot of people use the term doctor when they don't really have the MD degree, right?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and there's a lot of great doctor, non-MDs out there. I mean, doctor could be PhD. A lot of times chiropractors use that and they are all technically doctors, not a physician. And there are a lot of chiropractors that know way more about a lot of topics than doctors do. So it's not that you can't listen to them, but I think people use that term sometimes and they don't realize what it actually means. And I, I, I think that's a, just a failure of wording. Like we should, there should never, there should never be that same word. It should be two different words and that would just make it simple and, and a chiropractor can give great information, but you would know it's from a chiropractor's lens versus a medical doctor's lens, which I think are a little different because the training is just different. I mean, it's the same thing as, do I know what a nutritionist knows? No, I don't. They spend five, six years in training, maybe more, learning about food. I might have a couple of classes if anything.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Or maybe I learned it myself, but I'm not a nutritionist. So I think that's really helpful. But it's hard for parents to know sometime. And that's why I think, but I do get asked a lot, like, how do you know who to trust? And how do you know what to Listen to it for me. I think that comes from relationships over time. So following people, listening to them, the more that they're honest about things, more that they can talk about things that they've gotten wrong in the past. I think that helps to build a relationship with them, you know, through social media that you can trust them a little bit more. Anyone who's telling you just to trust them, they know everything. That's usually a big red flag for me because the people that I really respect, they say, no, no, don't trust me. Like, go research yourself. This is what I believe. Go look at it yourself. Get different opinions. And I think that's what parents have never been trained in, right? We've never been trained in

• 7:02Speaker 01

  how to aggregate this information for something useful. And that is a really important skill, because there's so much noise. There's so many people saying, it's like, oh, eat a carrot. No, carrots are gonna kill you. And you're like, okay, what do I do?

• 7:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. It's so true. You know, I think also, a lot of people have, for many years, gotten information from our government, right? And we somehow were under the impression that the government, when they give us information, they have spent a lot of time, money, and energy, synthesizing a lot of science before they give us the information. And if unfortunately, people have found, or fortunately, or unfortunately, people have found out in the last decade, that that is not the case. And so how do you feel about the information that's coming currently from our, from Washington DC?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Well, I think the two questions there. So I think, you know, you have to be mindful with all information that you get from anywhere. You would hope that you could trust your government agencies with the information. I think we've learned over time that we can't always. Generally, we would hope and expect that information is a synthesis of the best data out there. And that's what they're supposed to be doing. There are a lot of great committees out there that do, you know, whether you're talking about ASAP for vaccines, or nutrition councils. Their job is literally to sit there, to look at all the data, to synthesize it to the best of their ability, and to come up with recommendations. And you would hope that you could trust that. And oftentimes, can trust it to the best that we can trust something. But I do think we're in this weird place now, because we realize how much has been funded by the industries that they're supposed

• 8:36Speaker 01

  to be protecting against, and how much we've been influenced by that. And even just as a doctor, you know, you really, at least for me, I sit back now, and I think like, how much of what I know is influenced by pharma? Because we go through medical school, and you don't think that you're biased, but you really are biased towards pharma, because

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Pharma pays for a lot of the med school, donates to everything, it donates to the journals and the news and everything is funded by that. So when you go into medical school and you learn about this is the, these are the disease symptoms, here's the pill for that. Okay, I mean, obviously, we want pills, we want to save people, not every medication is bad, but that's influenced.

• 9:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  And so we are all influenced by that model and it wasn't always that way. There, before the Flexner Report, before, in the early 1900s, we really were, America was a nation that really did do homeopathy and alternative practices and many other countries around the world still do a lot more than we do. And that was really taken out of our medical system at that time, for some good and for some bad. But we now have a very pharmaceutical model. And I think that's just something we have to recognize moving forward. So maybe we can kind of work our way back. But simply, yeah, we have some trust issues in our, in our big societies and our big organizations. And that's, that's where we are today. And I hope that we can rebuild that trust, but it's hard right now because there's a lot of fighting.

• 9:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure, there is a lot of fighting. I mean, going back to the Flexner Report we just mentioned, that turned us in America first, and then they kind of like metastasized the rest of the world into an evidence-based model, which sounds really good on the surface, right? However, because it's really hard to get evidence of the effectiveness of therapeutics like nutrition, sleep, exercise, and no one's going to fund that evidence, we kind of turned away from the more holistic and even homeopathic models because it's not funded and you can't do massive studies on that because there's no incentive to do those massive studies.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I couldn't agree more. There's a lot of great things in the Flexner Report. I mean, you don't want people out there being snake oil salesmen and you want things to be evidence-based. And obviously, I don't have, I have a master's in epidemiology, so I have nothing against science. But there's a very specific science that we're doing now. And most of that is very pharmaceutically based because that's who's funding those studies. And that is something that I don't even think was intended at that time or wasn't necessarily thought of at that time. But once you move everything to a medical model and everything funded by pharma, then that's the only thing that we see. Whereas there could be, and often are, Other things that would be just as effective, not more effective, or certainly have fewer side effects that would be reasonable to do and that integrative practitioners do all the time. And if doctors were to have that evidence, they would absolutely do it. It's not like a doctor wants to harm a patient, doesn't want to do something, but they want the evidence.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  And the evidence for a lot of these things doesn't exist or certainly doesn't have the same robust data that a medication does because the company paid a billion dollars to do that study where no one's doing that on vitamin D.

• 11:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, exactly. And I think there's a huge, the other huge problem there is that just because there isn't evidence doesn't mean that that doesn't work, right? We know there's not a lot of great evidence around getting, for example, a lot of vegetables in every single day, right? But we know it's definitely a healthy way of living. And so people have to really kind of.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Well, not everyone knows that these days. You know, there's a lot of arguments. Though that seems to be something that we agree upon, more fiber. But, you know, even with the food pyramid, right? It's like not everyone can agree on the basics.

• 12:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's really crazy. Let's go back to credentials again. Okay, so you're a physician, you're a board certified pediatrician. Is that correct?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 12:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And do you have any other board certifications?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Uh, so, so pediatrics and then a master's in epidemiology.

• 12:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Master's epidemiology, okay, great. So when someone's looking at your profile, you obviously put this on there. And so someone knows that you're an expert in pediatrics. Someone knows that you have epidemiological training. And so you can sort through a lot of data around epidemiology. I'm a board certified surgeon, which covers a lot of different buckets, also trained in functional medicine. And so people, I put that on my profile so people know who I am. But a lot of times people put doctor. And like we talked about earlier, there's a lot of different types of doctors out there. And there's some really great ones. There's PhD nutritionists, which I follow, that I get a lot of my nutrition information from because they are really good at that data. And to your point, we didn't get a lot of nutrition education in medical school.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 12:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so I definitely love it when people put their credentials up there beyond just the word doctor. Like, what are they really a doctorate of, right? And the flip side of that is, for example, chiropractors that are talking about neurology on their Instagram pages. Or, I mean, there's some even, even doctors of law that put, use the word doctor, and then they start talking about medical things, you know? And how, how do you advise people on looking at the credentials and understanding like, what does that person really get to talk about based on their credentials versus what they should really be staying away from?

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. I think it depends on how you're going to use the information. So I think if it's for entertainment value, if you're watching somebody, it doesn't really matter what their credentials are. If they have a funny video or they're trying to talk about things, but once you're going to implement something into your life, especially if you're going to follow someone and consistently take their advice, I think you do need to do a little bit of digging and make sure that they are educated in what they're talking about because just because you're a chiropractor doesn't mean you're not extraordinarily educated in neurology. You could have taken all sorts of courses and programs after. You could have got a masters in neurology or something like that, or maybe it's specifics to your field. You did a ton of research, got a PhD in diabetes. And so even though you're a chiropractor, you're way more knowledgeable than most doctors. Alternatively, if you're just talking about things because it's the topic of the day,

• 14:16Speaker 01

  that's something that should be at least a red flag for you to say, all right, well, maybe this person could be correct, but they're not as educated. So maybe I need to also go see what someone who is a researcher in this field would know and kind of match that with that information. So it's hard. I mean, you have to do a little extra work today, but I do think the more you're going to take something in to make a change in your life, the more you have to be skeptical and just make sure that those individuals are giving you the best advice. And I also think it's a really important skill to synthesize, like we talked about, like, don't just listen to one person. One person says, oh, you know, seed oils are bad or seed oils are good. Okay. But what is the nutritionist say with the PhD? What does some other person that I trust say?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  What does my doctor say? Like, if you can get a bunch of different opinions and they all pretty much match, that's a good, that's a good thing. But if just one, I won't pick chiropractors, but let's just say, one individual who's an influencer online says seed oils are bad, then you have to go, okay, well, why are they saying that? What does everybody else say? And if they're the only one saying that, or especially if they're trying to sell you a product, which is a, I don't know, seed oil free thing, then that should be a red flag that maybe they have a motivation or maybe they were paid to do that as an ad.

• 15:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  And that's just useful to know. It doesn't make it right or wrong. It just means you have to, you have to be a little bit aware of how social media works and a lot of it's about engagement, not about necessarily saying the right thing.

• 15:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Absolutely. So let's talk about a few things that I have big question marks on and get your expert. Knowledge on in pediatrics and just raising children because I have two children, twelve and nine years old. And I've done a lot of my own research around some of these topics, but I think it's important to like, get your expert opinion. And most of the listeners out there probably have kids themselves or grandkids even, or even if they don't, they might want some in the future. So I think we're at a really critical moment in raising children in America, where there's so much conflicting information about really important things, right? And we just either are developing the data right now and/or we have very little data and we're doing

• 16:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  massive experiments on society and we're just gonna see what happens. And I don't think that's necessarily a great way to raise our kids.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 16:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For people that haven't listened to the vaccine podcast, please listen to it. It goes really, really in-depth. But I do want to just touch on vaccines just real quick, because in America, we give, we recommend many, many more jabs than most other countries do. Is that correct?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Well, we did.

• 16:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Give us the update on this and where are we now?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  So depending, this is very complicated, because each organization has their own opinions and everyone's currently fighting at the moment. And I don't know if that, there's an end in sight with that for the moment. But the CDC's schedule originally, we had vaccines for 18 different diseases, multiple vaccines for many of them. So you were doing somewhere between 50 and 100 vaccines, multiple in certain vials. Many other countries have fewer. We have one of the most, if not the most, in the industrialized world. And there were many that had many fewer. So Denmark has been in the news a lot because they have one of the fewest, like they do for 10 vaccines. And then, then they have others where it's shared clinical decision making. So more if you're high risk or you decide that you want to do it. So they have a much lower recommendation.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Many of the other countries are somewhere in the middle, maybe somewhere between 12 and 15. So those were the kind of extremes. Recently, the CDC, HHS came out with a new schedule, moved it more to look like Denmark. So we're doing the same 10 plus chickenpox. So now it's 11. And then a number of vaccines are no longer on the standard recommended schedule. They are shared clinical decision making. So we're talking about hepatitis B, hepatitis A, rotavirus and flu. Those are now up to the doctor to discuss. Shared clinical decision making versus on the standard recommended schedule. But the American Academy of Pediatrics and many other organizations don't agree with that. So they have kept the schedule the way that it was before.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  So technically, there are fewer recommended vaccines on the CDC schedule. But still, most people practically are doing the exact same thing as before and haven't really taken that advice and started doing it yet.

• 18:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So what does a parent do? You know, say, you know, we're having a baby. And in the next six months, what are the vaccines? Should I follow the CDC schedule? American Academy of Pediatrics? Should I listen to my pediatrician? Who knows which one he's or she's looking at? What does a parent do?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Well, the good thing about what has happened is it has increased people's awareness about vaccines, which I think is important because everything at the end of the day should be a discussion with your doctor. And if you have questions, I think if you can get educated, you can read some things, some different books, some different articles, you can at least have an understanding of what's going on. So you have a great place to start with your questions. If you want to do the American Academy of Pediatrics schedule and do all the vaccines, that's pretty easy. If you want to do anything else, then you're going to have to have those discussions with your doctor. And I think that's where the education really comes in. It would be nice if you didn't have to do that, if you could just follow the schedule and it's simple. But that's certainly not the case right now because everybody's arguing and doesn't seem to want to sit at the table together and have a discussion.

• 19:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  So I think it'll depend on your values. You're going to have to have discussion with your partner. You're going to have to decide what you, what you feel is the risk level that you're willing to take. And most of the vaccines are still similar on both schedules. So regardless of which one you follow, especially at the beginning, it's not going to change all that much. Hepatitis B is probably the biggest one where there's more discussion around that. But even still, hepatitis B is very, very low risk if you don't have hepatitis B. So it's not, you know, to me, the end of the world if that's the discussion point right now. The other ones like measles and whooping cough. And polio, and they're still recommended in all the schedules. So that doesn't, doesn't really change.

• 19:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  For the parent, but it's confusing. It's confusing when even. Our organizations can't agree, different doctors can't agree. And it's really to be very frustrating that the organizations are not talking. Like you have HHS pulling funding from the American Academy, the American Pediatrics suing them not sitting down at the table. Like I listened to the former president of the American Academy speak. And he was frustrating because they just decided they don't, you know, they, they don't like what's going on. So they didn't go to the meetings. And I don't agree with that. I think they need to be there. I think everyone needs to be at the same place at the same time. And even if you totally disagree with the direction, the only people that are going to change it are going to be sitting there, having discussions, making your points. And I think that everybody's talking over each other right now. Nobody's talking to each other.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  And everyone has the same goal, which is healthy kids. They don't agree on how you get there. But maybe there are some common ground that doesn't involve lawsuits if everyone sits at the table, but that's where we are currently. And I hope that changes.

• 20:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. I think some of the biggest issues that we talked about the last thing we talked about this was number one. Is it a highly communicable disease? Right? And so that's not just protecting the individual, but also protecting society. And we also talked about how new the vaccines are and their mechanism of action. Like, is it a live attenuated vaccine versus a dead vaccine versus an mRNA vaccine? And kind of when they were developed and how much experience we have with these types of vaccines as well to also factor into the decision making process. And then there was also a conversation that we had about potential side effects and complications of vaccines, particularly related to things like autism that people are attributing to vaccine usage. And so these are all topics that parents need to sort through.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you, you need to be educated on first what the diseases are and how risky they are to your kid and how common they are. What's in your area? What's going around? I think that's really important. So you have a understanding of what, what would you even be protecting against? And then, once you have that understanding, then you want to start researching on the reactions, how common they are. What are the questions that people have? Why are some people concerned about vaccines? Why are some people saying they don't want to get vaccines? Why is there all this back and forth? I think at least if you have a little bit of that. Understanding it helps to put that into perspective so you can at least ask some educated questions. But if you just watch online, people are just tuning out. And that's not helpful either. And that's why I think, you know, my SubSec is doing really well right now because I talk about vaccines, but try to be in the middle.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  And sometimes I'll be like, well, here's the perspective, but here's the other perspective. And you're not getting a lot of that. And that's why I've tried to do that, but I'm just, I'm not a part of that. I'm not part of the HHS. I'm not a part of what's the inside decision. So I don't know what they're thinking. I can only try to decode it from the outside. But I think that's what we're going to need more of. And I really, really hope that things settle a little bit. And I know that some people don't like Secretary Kenny. Lots of people don't like him. But ultimately have to ask, well, why is he doing what he's doing? He's doing what he believes is best for kids. You can agree with it or disagree with it. But I do think if he can be presented with different information, the organizations will eventually hopefully be able to work together, find some middle ground. They may not agree on everything, but when does anybody agree on everything, right?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  That's not, that's not realistic that they're going to have to agree on everything. But I think hopefully they can find some way to sit down together. And to stop suing each other and to come up with some unified guidance for parents, which is what they're really looking for. Because otherwise you don't really know who to trust and that's worse.

• 23:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. I think, you know, the pendulum was so far in one direction for so long. And the current secretary and administration has pushed it all the way to the other direction. And now it's time to find that middle ground again.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And hopefully we will. I mean, that seems to be the way things are these days. They're very extreme. But I would hope that there's room to find some more middle ground and things will not be as extreme, but we'll see. I don't know.

• 23:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Do you see anything new coming in vaccine technology that could change a paradigm?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, the mRNA technology is the new main thing, right? And so the real question is going to be whether that's going to be used for other, other infections, other diseases. Cause there's a lot that was researched on it and it's such a controversial vaccine now because of the co-vaccine, because of the concerns around side effects. And certainly the potential lack of efficacy over time, those are all major concerns for that platform. So even just as recently, you know, Just very recently, given the flu vaccine for Moderna, there was applications on that and it's not even being looked at right now by the FDA because there are just concerns around the trials. But there certainly is potential for that technology. Maybe it's not going to be for respiratory viruses. Maybe it's going to be for more severe things. There certainly could be some potential for cancer.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  I mean, a lot of people would trade a lot more side effects for cancer.

• 24:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Right. So it's a much more severe potentially disease. If you already know you have cancer, you're terminal or have severe disease. Well, you're much more likely to be, oh, I have a one in a thousand chance of myocarditis. Okay, cool. Like, I will, I will take those risks. So I think that research needs to continue and there could be some usage for that in the future. Maybe for very specific diseases, it could be very useful for you. So there is a lot of potential with that technology, but it has to come with appropriate safety. So I think that that's where I'm at. I'm sure there's all sorts of other technology that they're working on too. And I would hope so. I mean, we really haven't had a lot of change in vaccine technology in a while. Maybe there are ways to do things more orally, skin patches, other things that we can do. Like, is it not possible, if we have some of our vaccines that are oral, so maybe you could just take a drink?

• 25:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  And you could get your whooping cough, your RSV. Maybe that's possible. You could just take one and it's all in there. I don't know.

• 25:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that would be fantastic. So, okay, moving on to other topics and especially related to children. The food pyramid just got flipped upside down. And, you know, we know that the original food pyramid did have a lot of funding behind it from organizations that pushed their agenda for selling more of their products, the original one. And now we have a new food pyramid that is exactly the opposite of that. And so maybe you could take us through your thought process on the food pyramid and specifically how that affects our children.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm a big fan of the new food pyramid. I think, as soon as it comes out, because of Secretary Kennedy, there's so many people that just get angry about it. And that again is unfortunate because you shouldn't have a political view of all of these things. I know it always gets that way, but you have to look at each thing individually. You can dislike 99% of what he does and 1% of what he does. If you're like, well, we're going to focus on more food that is healthy. Real food, decreasing sugar, decreasing ultra-processed chemicals. Those are all things that everybody agrees upon. So when you're gonna have a new food pyramid that focuses on that, that's a good thing. And everybody should be behind the basics of these changes. And then people say, "Oh, but you know, we had those changes before. We have made those things 10 years ago. We have my plate and other things."

• 26:54Speaker 01

  But nobody knows about that.

• 26:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Nobody heard about those things, or they certainly didn't. Certainly in the nutritionist world, they did. But the reality is those things failed. The pyramid, at least back then, had really good marketing. It was something that people remembered. You still remember the pyramid. And I think most average individuals never heard of my plate or the other things that came after it. They still think of the food pyramid, and that's what they base it on. For whatever reasons, got very good PR.

• 27:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  So flipping the pyramid, talking about the pyramid again, I think is good PR, and certainly something that people heard. And even if you're reiterating a lot of what was in the recommendations after the old food pyramid, even if it's similar, it doesn't matter. If you're rebranding, like, that's what good business does, right? You can have a great product, but if nobody knows about it, or nobody's following it, then it doesn't work. So I think it's a lot of rebranding and then a focus on very clearly stating, "Ultra-processed food is bad, too much sugar is bad, we need more fruits and vegetables, we need more protein, we need more healthy fats. Don't be so afraid of saturated fat or meats like we were and some people were in the past." And I think that's all good.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  I think that's what you want. We need a messaging that's very clear. "This food is bad for you, this food is going to kill you, this food is gonna make you sick. We're seeing skyrocketing chronic disease, not every country has this." We need a clear unified message on that. And that, this pyramid does that. So that part is good. You can argue the minutia, you're gonna argue the minutia always. Someone's gonna have some sort of comment, but that's not the bigger takeaway here. The big takeaway is, real food, healthy food, cook at home, cook more, local food, that's important. If we do that, we're gonna change our health drastically in America.

• 28:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And then, you know, the other piece of this, though, is that we have such an incredibly huge amount of ultra-processed food out there, and a lot of it is geared specifically towards our children, like in the cereal aisle, you know, waffles and pancakes and all this stuff in the frozen aisle. How does a parent kind of fight that?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, well, there are two things. If you have a little kid, Yeah. You know, before the age where they're going to be asking you for specific things, you have all the control, so just don't buy it. Right. I think that's really important for the little kids. They don't introduce them to it. They don't need any of that ultra-processed food in those first few years. Don't expose them to it. They don't need to know about it. They don't, they won't crave it because they've never eaten it. And, you know, if you go to a party, it's okay, fine. But at home, you're just not going to have it, and they're not going to really know. Once they get older, that's where it certainly gets a little bit more difficult. If they're seeing it other places, then I think it comes down to explaining to them at an age-appropriate level, like, "This is the food we're eating at home. We're not going to buy that. It's not good for you. It makes you feel bad. It's going to make you sick. You're not going to grow as well." Whatever it is, the wording that you're going to use, most kids will understand that, and they're not the ones doing the purchasing. You are.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  So you just don't buy it for your home, and then at least if they're out in the world, they eat a little bit of it, it's not the end of the world. The hardest situation is the family that wasn't really aware of this at all, and was buying lots of ultra-processed foods and wants to change it. I think at that point, it's just really important at this time to understand that that's part of parenting. And we have a very sick country in general. Fifty percent of kids have a chronic disease. And if you want to keep eating the same way, that's your right to do it. But most parents don't want kids to have diabetes, or obesity, or all sorts of autoimmune conditions. And if we keep doing the same thing, we're going to continue to see those numbers rise. And right now, if you have two kids, one of them's going to have a chronic disease. That's the statistics. So I think it's okay to say, "Look, we're not going to buy these things anymore.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  I want you to be healthy. These foods are not as healthy as what we need. I'm going to try to cook more. We're going to have more foods." You're not trying to get them food that they don't like. You're trying to get them healthier food that they do like, and include them, take them with you, give them options, read labels. There are ways to do it in a much healthier way. And we're lucky that we do have a lot of options out there at the store. And not everything necessarily costs more. Some stuff does, but it doesn't always. And at least wherever you can with whatever you can afford, you're buying more local produce, you're buying more things that you know what the words are, that are fresh. At least if you can get more of that in, then they're getting those nutrients. So it's possible to do, even if you're on a budget. Plenty of things are the exact same price. You read the labels, you get the better version.

• 31:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Yeah, the kind of the line that I hear a lot of times, it's too expensive to eat healthy. It's really not anymore.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  We're lucky there are a lot more options and certainly this year, people are much more mindful of it. But the reality is it can be more expensive depending on what you're buying, but it doesn't have to be. There are many ways to eat healthy on a very limited budget. There are a lot of people I've seen online, you know, different professionals and there's been a lot of discussion because that's the talking point. It's too expensive. Number one, that's not a reason to promote healthy eating, right? That is too expensive. Then the answer is, okay, well then how do we make it cheaper? Right? The answer is not we should promote unhealthy food. It's we should promote healthy food to everyone that can get that. And if it's unaffordable, which certain things are difficult because they're more expensive, then we should work to make that cheaper. That's a more long-term issue.

• 31:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  But that doesn't mean you shouldn't give the right evidence-based information for people to be healthy because you don't want to give people, you say, oh, it's fine, right? You want them to know this is what you should be eating.

• 32:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  It doesn't mean you have to eat that all the time. It's not to shame somebody. It's so that you know, if you're going to the store, this is healthy and this is not. You're going to get a treat? Okay, you do that. But let's do whatever we can within our budget to try to eat more eggs and try to eat some chicken and try to get some veggies in there. And it doesn't always have to be more expensive. And where people feel like it's more expensive, let's provide the resources to help people to get the healthier food on the budget that they have and to improve those budgets so that way some of that food is cheaper. And that has to be our goal, our bigger goal. As a society in the next decade, we have to make that food cheaper. We have to get rid or decrease the subsidies for the crappy food and increase the subsidies for local farms

• 32:46Speaker 01

  so that way we can get more good food, healthy food at a cheaper price. And that doesn't mean you have to have all of it, but even if everyone has access for 5% of their food, that's going to go a long way.

• 32:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah. So the specific foods I wanted to ask you about is for children, there's a lot of talk about dairy, right? And so how do you feel about dairy in children? And maybe you could touch a little bit about the growth hormone, the antibiotics given to cows and how that affects children.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, dairy is always controversial because a lot of kids are so sensitive to it. A lot of kids just don't have the enzymes to break it down or don't have a lot of it. And as you get older, many people, they lose that lactase enzyme to break down milk. So they just don't feel good when they're eating it. But also, you do see a lot of kids are just very sensitive to milk now. And I don't know that we know exactly why, but certainly the hormones, antibiotics, the way that they're treated, they're certainly not pasture-raised cows most of the time. And so that milk obviously affected. And so you see a lot of kids that have sensitivity. Milk has a lot of nutrients in it, so it certainly can be a good part of your diet. But that's where each kid's an individual. You have to see how they deal with it. I don't have any problem with it. I certainly see a lot more people not drinking it than drinking it these days. It seems like people will drink alternatives.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  But I don't have any problem with milk if your kid does fine with it. I think it's a great source of nutrients. And that was even just part of the discussion lately, right? Like, oh, should we have milk back in schools? And we should. There's no reason why it shouldn't be there. And we shouldn't make the best quality milk that you can have for those that want it. I mean, it's certainly, one of the things that's often forgotten in the discussion is what are you replacing this with? Right? That is a huge part of whether something's good or not. Because if the question is, am I having milk and replacing juice or soda? Almost for sure, that's going to be good for you unless you're intolerant to it. But if you're replacing it with water, maybe it's not as good for some kids. So it really depends on what you're replacing it with. And I think for a lot of kids in school, they're drinking a lot of juice and soda. So milk is a way better option.

• 34:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So the way you stack it is water is probably the best. Milk is probably good, too. And then soda juices are the bottom of the pyramid of things that you should be considering for your kids.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. And I think milk, it depends on the source, right? I think if you get a really good quality milk, it's good for you. But just most milk is probably not the best quality milk anymore. So it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but you're at least getting some nutrients and fats.

• 35:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  A lot of like nut milk and soy milk and oat milk.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  I think those are fine, too. I think mixture is fine. A lot of them have, they have fortification. So you're still getting your calcium and other things that you need. Certainly, if you're not able to tolerate regular milk, that can be a good option. If you're eating healthy, you can get all your nutrients from food. So that's fine. I don't think you need milk. But a lot of people do drink it. But again, it's the same question, like what are you replacing it with? If you're going to do almond milk or whatever nut milk is opposed to juice, that's great. If you're going to just, if your kid's fine with water, just let them drink water. And I think that's fine.

• 35:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's great advice.

• 35:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 36:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 37:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 37:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Another big topic that comes up with children all the time is nuts and peanuts and allergies to nuts specifically, and then more broadly allergies to anything. And how do we get in this situation where so many people are peanut allergic? And how do we protect our kids from this?

• 37:45Speaker 01

  It depends how controversial you want to get, but nobody knows, right? I think nobody really knows why we have all these allergies. Certainly, we're exposed to so many chemicals and toxins these days that I think our immune systems are going haywire, and you're overcompensating for something that should be normal. We just didn't have the peanut allergies back in our day. You know, people had it, obviously, but not that come. But now you can't bring peanuts anywhere.

• 38:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Because there are so many kids. So why that is, I mean, people would debate, certainly, but I think we're so deficient in nutrients and so surrounded by chemicals that, for whatever reason, it's sending our immune system to do things it's not really ever meant to do. And I don't know, hopefully, we're going to really figure it out. But allergies is a weird one, because you know, you have kids that are totally fine for 10 years, and then they develop an allergy, and other kids, they have it when they're newborns, and it just goes away over time. So I don't think we have a great understanding of exactly why it happens. But I do know for sure it's happening more. It's happening way more. Like, you look, the statistics have been doubled and tripled over the last few decades.

• 38:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You probably see a lot of kids in your practice with peanut allergies.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  You get some. I mean, we definitely have plenty of eczema, allergies, autoimmune conditions. People in my practice are fairly health conscious, so I think it's a little lower. I mean, certainly lower than the statistics that you see, but you definitely see it. And I certainly see people come because they have that. But it's a lot more than it used to be, at least by statistics. So I think that's a real thing, and we will need to figure out why. But probably it's a lot to do with our food and toxins.

• 39:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you know, there's some newer therapeutics out there that I saw. I don't know if they're new, but they're new for me, is giving kids through the internet, they send you allergy shots that you can give your children, right? And how do you feel about that whole method of treating kids with that?

• 39:22Speaker 01

  It depends how severe your allergies are. So certainly allergists mostly were the ones administering it. And you would go, you would get low dose allergy therapy. And the research is very good. So especially for severe NFL axis, I've seen numbers as high as 25 to 50% improvement for kids with peanut allergies. So if you have anaphylaxis, you shouldn't be doing it at home. You should be doing it at the allergist because oftentimes what happens is because you're going up on the dose. You're getting a very tiny dose, but you're going up slowly and you're never going to know where it can have a reaction. So you give a dose that's slightly high, your kid can have anaphylaxis. So you want to have that, those doctors there to make sure in case that you need it. But, but low dose therapy makes a lot of sense to me. You're, you're showing your body a little bit of the allergen and hopefully over time you become more tolerant to it. So the, the theory is very logical to me, makes a lot of sense.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  And it's kind of homeopathy in a way. If you think about it, it's weird because people like had a poo poo, homeopathy totally, but it's like obviously a much, much, much lower dose. But it's a very similar concept to me, um, just with, uh, you know, a real, a real higher dose as opposed to like a very, you know, minute dose where you have it in homeopathy. But that kind, that kind of theory has been around forever, giving your body small amounts so it becomes tolerant. So I think there's a lot of logic to it and people definitely find success. Some, not everybody, but some do.

• 40:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay. You know, I recently got a email from you about seed oils and you broke down the science around the big seed oil controversy online. So what are your thoughts on seed oils?

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Seed oil is one of the craziest topics of, I think, this last two years, right? Because, I mean, so I went through it because I thought it was just so interesting, like even my journey with seed oils. Because I don't know, maybe five or 10 years ago, I wouldn't have thought about it, right? Yeah. I mean, I was still mostly cooking with olive oil, but that just because I did that. But it wasn't really so thoughtful of like, oh, I'm so against canola or anything like that. And, and certainly many, many years ago, I didn't think about it at all. And my parents definitely used seed oils sometimes.

• 41:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  My parents did.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The canola bottle looks super healthy.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's what my mom bought.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  And, and there was a lot of a push, maybe 10, 20 years ago, to move towards more, more seed oils, just because they were thought of to be more heart healthy. And there was some research that showed that, that, that was true or, you know, had better effects on your lipids and things like that. Cause there was a lot of concern for many years and still is, but around, you know, heart disease and increasing your cholesterol. And so some of these things were the, then more natural options. And that's kind of where things were for a while. And then maybe a year or two ago, like everything was anti-seed oil.

• 41:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  And that's really the first. First time when I was thinking about it and then you start to hear, oh, well, this is the way that it's produced and it's so bad for you. And, and, and that shifted my opinion because I was like, okay, well, it makes sense like olive oil. Sounds healthier. It's what I use anyways. It makes more sense. It's more naturally produced. There's not as many chemicals that are used to. Obtain it. We never really used seed oils before in history, so maybe they're not, not so good for you. And, and most of the people that ever talked about it didn't really talk about the research. They just kind of talked from authority. That seed oils are bad for you. And then I started seeing so many conversations about seed oils pop up. On, on podcasts and shows and debates and people. That are very respectable in the nutrition world, PhDs that would say like, this is crazy. Like, what are you talking about?

• 42:29Speaker 01

  The research doesn't show that seed oils are bad for you. And so that was really interesting to me because I was. Really thinking that seed oils were bad for you. It made sense to me that, that not terrible for you, but not, not good for you. And it makes sense to say, don't take seed oils, you know, eat something else as much as you can. But that's not actually what the research shows. And the more that I listen to the experts talk about it, the more that you see that. The research doesn't necessarily show them to be bad for the outcomes, which we. Really think of like heart disease and, and cardiovascular disease. I think it's still up in the air. I, I don't necessarily personally think that seed oils are great for you. I think they're probably. Olive oil and avocado oil and using butter and things that are more natural are probably going to be better for you in the long run.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  And there's some concern that maybe over the long run, seed oils could be inflammatory, but at least to me. The research is not very clear that it's so bad for you that I don't think you need to be worried if you use a seed oil every now and again. Or if you go to a restaurant and they have it, I don't think you need to be very dogmatic. Not to have a seed oil, at least based on the research. If you want to never eat it, I think that's fine. But going back to what we discussed before, what are you replacing it with, right? That's to me is what's so important and a really great point that some of the nutritionists make because a lot of people, that's either what they can afford or what they have.

• 43:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  And if that's going to get you to eat veggies because you're going to cook in that, then that's good. You don't want to not have any oil and no veggies. I think seed oil plus veggies is better than no veggies. So if that's what you're going to be able to use and that's what's available, then I think that's totally fine and we need, we need those veggies. So that's where I've landed, but it's been back and forth.

• 44:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  And I think it's to me still a little bit undecided yet because I still, if I had had my gut, I still feel like seed oils are not that great for you. And we haven't found that research as to why it's problematic yet. And maybe that's a part of long-term inflammation, but the research does not show that they're a problem.

• 44:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I'm kind of just as confused as you are. But my gut is still that is really not that great for you. One of the things I think we need to do a lot more research into is how does it affect your actual gut? Does it have, how does it affect your microbiome? What short chain fatty acids are you doing with it? Like, there's so many things there as well.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, because maybe it's affecting in terms of, you know, allergies, autoimmune conditions. Like, maybe that is actually one of the factors which is long-term, which most of those studies were never really looking at. They were looking at cardiovascular disease death. And if they are mucking up your immune system in some way, that would be really useful to know. And are they doing that more or less than olive oil or other things? I don't know. My guess is they're, they're, they're pretty industrially produced.

• 44:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They are.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  And it's not that using chemicals is inherently always bad. But it just seems like when you look at that process, that there's probably something that we're losing there. That's probably not that great for you. That, that's my gut. My gut is that it's not that great for you and I would still choose to do the more natural thing. But, you know, you could be wrong. I could be wrong.

• 45:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Those large studies that some of the nutritionists are using that they're trying to say the seed oils are probably not that bad for you. The end outcome that they're looking at is cardiovascular disease, which is only one end outcome, right? So there's many other outcomes that we need to look at. Gut health, for example, is one of them, like inflammation. So I think you're right. I think we, we still don't know. But in my opinion, the way I talk about it is like, look, olive oil, avocado oil is not made industrially. Like, it's a pretty natural process. If you just YouTube, how is a seed oil made? You can see like it is a big chemical experiment just being thrown together in massive factories. And because it's, you know, because the color's horrible, they take the color out of it. They change the consistency.

• 46:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's, it's a lot of manufacturing, basically. And to your point, like, that might not all be bad. We just don't know. But why wouldn't you just go with the more natural?

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the other point that I've heard that a number of very pro seed oil people have made that I think is very relevant to whether you're making these choices is they always say, well, you know, a lot of seed oils are in foods that are not that good. And so that that is very logical and very common sense. And most of them concede, well, even if you stop taking seed oils, even if it's not that bad for you, but you stop eating all those other foods because you're not eating seed oils. Therefore, you're not eating all that crap. And that's going to be a good thing. So sometimes for for taking out seed oils can be good just for the fact that you're going to eat way healthier because you're not going to eat any of those foods that have the seed oils in it. And to me, that's a win. So I I think that that's something to consider. Decreasing seed oils probably has a very big net benefit for someone who's not eating all that healthy and a lot of ultra processed food.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Because you just by nature, take out a lot of those ultra processed foods and then you're eating healthier. So that's a net win. So it's it's a net kind of effect that we're looking for, which is very complicated when it comes to nutrition research, because it's really hard to control people with what they're eating and then following them for a long period of time. And unless you stick them in a room for a year or two years or five years, like, how do you know if your seed oil is eating today are affecting your autoimmune condition in six years? Like, that's hard. That's a hard thing to control for. So it's not a very simple question.

• 47:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's it's a difficult one, but I fully agree with you. On the food topic, I feel like we've covered some good ground there. Is there anything that I've missed? You talk about with your patients a lot and you're in the clinic every day. So I would love to hear what your clients are coming in talking about food wise.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, those are the big ones. Seed oils is a big one. Milk is a big one. Gluten is always a big one. So, yeah, I think it's the same thing as dairy. Not everyone has problems with gluten, but a lot of people do seeming these days. So I think, you know, minimizing it, especially if you're having symptoms is very reasonable. Sugar, same thing. That's always a big topic and we eat way too much sugar, sugars and everything. So

• 47:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Refined grains being kind of like an offshoot of sugars as well, right? Easily broken down into sugar.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and, okay, I guess one important topic always is sugar. Generally, when people are talking about sugar, they're not talking about fruit and vegetables. So we don't want people to stop eating fruit because of sugar. That's a very different kind of sugar. We're talking about the refined sugar that there are scoops in it in your sodas and your candies that you have. Tons of grams every day, that way more than you ever need. Most kids are eating more added sugar in a day than they need in a whole month. You don't really need any or very little, but more than is even, you know, the maximum. So that's a good area to focus is just decreasing that extra added sugar and really try to use the natural ones whenever you can for cooking and and that I think will get most people a long way.

• 48:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I think one important fact also about sugar that many parents should consider is that when you give your kids sugar like every day or they have free access to candy, they actually need more of it over time to feel that sweetness and that energy burst, right?

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 48:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They get more of a, they get more of a craving for it, but they also get less of an effect from it, which is then puts them into the spiral of just needing more and more.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a lot of times it's just in food that makes you crave it more as opposed to getting something with fiber and the other nutrients that helps to satiate your body. So you're not eating a ton. So we're, I mean, the companies know they've created all this food so that you want it more, that you have to eat more, that you have to buy more. Nobody created an app, you know, an orange, right? It's like it's there, it's, it's, it's, it's it's got its sugar, but it's got all sorts of other things that are very helpful for you. So we just have to be mindful of that because it's so easy to buy that packaged food and it's so much easier on busy parents and we live in a, it's tough. It's really tough for parents. I mean, you go back just a few decades ago and most moms were home and most dads were working and you were able to be home and cook for longer and and spend time and that was a priority for people and they

• 49:46Speaker 01

  valued cooking and it was important in the family and that's changed a lot in the last few decades where now we have many families have two working parents. Food's not all that important to a lot of us. When we were growing up, it was faster, cheaper, easier. And we lost health, we lost cooking, we were never trained in it. And I think we need that pushback and hopefully that's one of the big messages coming out of the food pyramid and just you know, I know Maha or health in general right now, the most positive, like that's what we have to get back to it. You have to prioritize cooking. It has to be important. And I know it's tough. And it's easier to grab something, but we're seeing the effects of that. And something has to give and what's given is our health.

• 50:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  And we have to find a way, and this is bigger than just each family, but we have to find a way to find some balance and to prioritize food and to make sure that families have that time to prepare food and have the ability to buy food and have the ability to afford it, which is, which, these are big topics, but, but that's important. That's why we're here, because it's really easy to take a snack bar and tell your kid to go versus spending all day cooking for your family of five, five people or whatever it is. Like, that takes a lot of time and effort that just a lot of parents don't have, because, you know, the mom's or dad's not home. Like, both people are out and who's, who's, who's home cooking all day? They're just not an option for every family.

• 51:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think for most families, it's more of a question of time versus affordability as well, because the affordability, another aspect of it that is more and more true, the better the food companies get at making processed food is you end up buying a lot more of it, right? In like industrial quantities at Costco. And because it is hyper palatable and it's not nutrient dense, so your body just craves more of it. And so you think you're buying more food, but the reality is you could eat so many less packages of a vegetable, for example, than the amount of chips that you're eating.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Correct. No, that's very correct. And I, and I think that in the next couple of years, I hope that there's a lot of education that's available to everybody, especially those that aren't aware, that feel like they can't afford to eat healthy. I think we need to do our best to provide an understanding for everybody of how they could eat healthy on their budget.

• 52:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  And that is something that is very, very, very attainable, because that's just education. And that's just making sure that those things are available at the price points that people have. The harder part, like you said, is time. Time is harder, because not everyone has time. You might have a single parent who's got three kids, who's got three jobs, like, they don't always have the time. But that's something we're gonna have to deal with, and it's a bigger issue. But at least from the education standpoint, we can move the needle for a lot of families who might think, I just, I, there's no way I could eat healthy. There's no way I could afford that. And maybe there is a way that. We can help families to understand, okay, well, you can buy this and you can afford this. And this is a meal that you can make. And this is actually the same price. This is cheaper. Here's where you can go to get this cheaper food that's better for you.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Like that, those are all things that are possible with the right education from the right people in the right place. So the people that need it.

• 52:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  And that's the kind of support that this country does need. Cause there's, there's such a wide, I mean, there's, there's, you know, very wealthy people, very, very different needs for different populations. But we need to make sure that we're getting to the communities that need it so that everyone can understand how they can afford, what they can afford. And it's not just about being wealthy, because a lot of wealthy people don't buy good food either. So, you know, and, and even if you're like middle class, I mean, people are struggling no matter where you are.

• 53:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  So, understanding that you can buy healthy food on the same budget, even if you have a bigger budget, is still important because I think there are a lot of people that would be considered middle class that feel like their budget is very strained for food.

• 53:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  True.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  And buy things because they feel like it's cheaper. And they don't even necessarily realize where you could go or what you could get that would be way healthier. And that's just a lack of education. Cause I don't think our generations were really taught this at all. Like, we really weren't taught it. So you're just buying what's easy. And, and you may have no skills in cooking. And I've told this to many times before, like, maybe you have to go take a cooking class. Maybe like, but some people need some humility and like, maybe your cookie's not that good. Maybe it's not that your kids won't eat the good food. It's that you don't know how to cook it.

• 53:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Like, that's, that's the, that's reality. Like, we just weren't taught it. That's okay.

• 53:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, take a cooking class. It's, it's a lot of fun, actually. Um, I want to switch gears also because we have a lot to talk about is into another big topic. You're probably hearing a lot of questions from your parents as see you with their children. What is appropriate amount of screen time for a child? And how do they think about screen time?

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Screen time? So I would say it's a little different for different ages, right? I think for little, little kids don't really need a lot of screen time or any screen time. I mean, the technical recommendations are zero screen time before too. But that's not really realistic for most families, especially with older kids. You might be watching something. And, and I do get questions often from parents that are so concerned like, oh, you know, the older one's watching a cartoon and the younger one was watching it a little bit. Like, I'm scared, is it ruining their brain? And I'm not worried about that. It's not ruining their brain. We all watch a little bit of TV. When we were little, to me, the big concern when it comes to screen time, especially as kids are getting older, is the ever increasing amounts of hours of screen time that our kids are getting, where it's, in some studies, like seven to nine hours a day on average for older kids. That's way too much. You have to be thinking about what they're not doing during that time.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  I'm not worried, but you're doing your homework on a screen, you're watching a cartoon for half an hour, whatever. But that doesn't bother me. If you're on screen all day, that does.

• 55:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  So to me, we have to focus on minimizing that back down to something reasonable and focus on, well, what are they doing while they're on those screens? I don't think they're going anywhere, so having them to be the boogeyman is probably not realistic. Kids are gonna have their screens, but we can certainly minimize it.

• 55:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So to your point about, you know, screens, eight to 10 hours a day, a lot of schools are requiring the kids have a computer. And so they're using their computer all day, potentially at school, then they're coming home, they're doing homework on the computer. So it's really hard for them to even get through life without having their computer with them. And then you add in the additional iPad, the additional iPhones and things like that, and it becomes really difficult for a parent to manage.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  I agree. I'm not so worried about school. I think that's something that we're gonna have to continue to study to see our kids doing better or worse with screens. It's pretty mixed in terms of the research that I've seen in terms of schools with screens. But we know that actively learning is by far the best way. But whether a screen is a big problem for kids at school, I don't know. We know phones are. So we know phones are a big problem. And that we've really moved the needle on. And I think we're really at a point now where it's pretty widely accepted that screens or phones at school are a problem, and a lot of schools are starting to take it away, really minimize it, which to me is just common sense. Like, how can you possibly focus if you're scrolling through Instagram? And, you know, this is going on in the world, and that thing happened, and this friend is talking about this.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  You're not able to focus at school. It's hard enough sometimes to focus.

• 56:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  So I think that's a good step forward. I think we want to minimize phones at school. Doing your homework, being on a word processor, if that's what you need to do for school, fine. But minimizing the other stuff, being on social media all day, scrolling for hours, that is very damaging. The research is very clear. I mean, for adults, it's very damaging, but for kids, you know, with a developing brain, even worse. So most of the studies show that we really want to push back kids in terms of their social media as far as you possibly can.

• 57:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  And I think that's just good guidance right now. We just don't need...

• 57:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  We don't need that, not at that age.

• 57:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I think social media, a lot of countries are now outlawing it completely. I think Australia, India have totally said, no social media if you're under 18 years old.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, you know, one thing that I think China does really well is they actually shut social media for kids, from what I know, like at 10 o'clock or something like that, or 8 o'clock, whatever the time is, which I think is reasonable. Like, you need to be able to sleep.

• 57:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  And we know how important that is, and, and, you know, not that much important stuff is gonna happen at 11:00 PM that you can't see tomorrow morning.

• 57:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  So like, I think there are a lot of guardrails that we can start to put in. This is an experiment. We never had this before. It's changed so quickly. Things are changing every week and every day, and we have not had the ability to catch up for what's good or not good for our kids. But I think it's quite clear that we need guardrails on this for our kids.

• 57:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Is it true that kids, their dopamine system is more likely to be hijacked than adults?

• 57:58Speaker 01

  I would think so.

• 57:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I would think so too.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they're not as developed, so I would think that, that you would, it would be much harder, well, much easier to hijack that, that system, and you just also don't have the life experience to put things in perspective sometimes. Like, even, it's hard enough for an adult when you see your friend off, you know, on a beach somewhere, and you're like, ah! But if a kid's seeing that, or they're seeing they're missing out on, on, you know, some activity there, they weren't invited to something, there, I think they're much more apt to those wild, much more severe mood swings, and, and, and not being able to put into perspective that it'll be okay, um, because they weren't invited to the party. That, I think, we see a lot of that with kids. It's just, it's tough to see these things over and over again, to feel excluded.

• 58:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. And what about the gaming? Okay, so Roblox is huge right now. So is, I think, Minecraft, Roblox, there's a few other games, you know, like, and you see kids on these games for hours and hours in a row. And that also seems to me like to be a hijack of the dopamine system as well, because, you know, they're getting this fast-moving screens, constant buzzes, and, you know, explosions, and this and that, and so, like, how do you think about gaming?

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd say it's a tough one. You know, we know for surgeons, it's very good, right? A lot of surgeons, the more they play, the better they are as a surgeon, but for kids, to me, it goes back to what are they not doing? You know, if you play a game for a few hours, is that the end of the world? Probably not. But if you're playing it for a few hours every day all the time, what are you not doing? You're not getting outside, you're not moving, you're not socializing, you're not getting out into nature. That can't be good for you. Now, you know, if you're making millions of dollars playing video games, which people do these days, but I mean, it's just not that common. So I think in general for your health, which we're talking about health, it's not good for you. Unless you're making millions, then I guess.

• 59:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Do you think there's an effect on kids' ability to socialize if they're socializing purely through like texting while gaming or texting on their devices?

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you're not working on your skills to socialize, then you're not gonna be very good at it. So I think it's just a different world that people are exposed to. And if you're only exposed to gaming and that's where you get your validation, then that's what you're gonna do more as opposed to being put into maybe more social situations where you're on a soccer team, you're on a dance team, whatever it is, and you start to meet people and make friends in real life as opposed on the screen, and then you start to build your confidence in that way. It's a new world. I think it's hard because it's hard to say, you know, we didn't grow up with this. So it's easy to say, oh, well, you know, screens are bad, video games are bad. And I think there are some kids that maybe do quite well with it. But I think mostly, if you're sitting in front of a screen all day, it can't be good for you. It can't be good for your health, your heart, your longevity, because you're

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  not moving. So that part is certainly bad for you, and you gotta find some sort of compromise or middle ground there.

• 1:00:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Have you seen that hashtag iPad kids? Yeah, where kids go crazy when you take their iPads away? I've had that experience with my own kids. Like, why does that happen?

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  I think they're just addicted to it. They want it and they're used to it. And you know, they're happy when they're watching their video or whatever it is, and then they're mad when you take it away. So I don't think that's anything new. It's the same thing as if you take away their car that they want to play with. It's what they're using. So yeah, kids get mad sometimes.

• 1:01:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  On the topic, I would like to cover a lot. We have a few more minutes, but I do want to cover one more topic for kids is that we encourage our kids to play sports and obviously there's a lot of different sports out there that they can be playing. And one of the ones that my son wants to play right now is football, but I get really concerned about CTE with football and also, you know, not just, not just having a concussion, but also the many hits that come over time. And so is there rethinking of sports with children, specifically sports where there is a propensity to get injured in your head over many, many years that could lead to long-term damage?

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have a lot more research and data now on head injuries and concussions and understanding that back-to-back injuries, multiple injuries have synergistic effects. And the more head injuries you have, the worse it is for you. We've seen it a lot with boxers and wrestlers and football players and soccer players and people that hit their head a lot. So we know that it's a problem. It doesn't mean you shouldn't play a sport, but it is a known risk for sure. So certainly for those, if you do start having a few concussions, you should have a higher threshold to stop playing that sport if you can. It's definitely identified because you see in all these sports now, they have much stricter precautions. They won't let people come back in. They have to have an evaluation if they get something

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  that looks like a concussion before they can even go back into the game. So even professional sports are taking it much more seriously because there's a very clear understanding that multiple back-to-back concussions have a severe effect on your brain and can lead to long-term damage. And the more that you have in a short time, the more likely that's going to happen. So I think we're, we pretty definitively know that at this point. So I don't think that's not true. It doesn't mean you shouldn't play football, but it does mean that that's a real risk that you need to understand before you're going to play. And, and I think it's something that needs to be reiterated to kids as they get older because you, you do have to understand that that you're putting your future at risk if you're getting a bunch of concussions. Not everybody does get a lot of concussions, but certainly it's a much higher risk in football to get concussions or, you know,

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  boxing, I mean, you're going to hit the head all the time. So. You see a lot of boxers that have very severe mental difficulties when they're older.

• 1:03:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. What about not just concussions though, also just head injuries that don't lead to like concussive type of syndromes?

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, any injury is probably not good for you. So I think that that's an issue. But I think any, any sort of head injuries are much, there, there's so much more emphasis on that now, so much more research and none of it's good.

• 1:03:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  So I think that's just something that parents need to be aware of. And I think it's a reasonable concern and a lot of parents do have that concern that say you're not playing football. I mean, that's an option that you can have. I mean, if your kid's willing to listen to you, then so be it, but they may or may not be. But I think it's a reasonable concern, but you can get hurt doing anything too. So it doesn't mean that you're a professional, whatever, you shouldn't do it. It's just, there's that risk.

• 1:04:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, but I do think that parents need to be more aware of that risk because I think there's also, this is not a controversial topic anymore. It's not like, well, maybe there's a problem.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  No, it's not controversial at all. We know for sure. And that is why even with professional athletes, they won't even let them back in the game after they get a head injury until they get an evaluation because they know that you let that person back in there, they get another head injury, it's going to be a problem. Like it's clear, we've seen it over time. Lots of professional athletes had to stop because of that. So they see it all the time and we have that data because you can kind of see it on screen. But that's the same thing for kids and you're seeing it more and more in the college level, high school level before that where kids get injured and they're not the same after.

• 1:04:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, exactly. Wow, we covered a lot of ground there. Thank you so much. I think this is going to be a fantastic episode for, like I said, anyone who has kids or is going to have kids, they're going to learn so much from this. And thank you so much for the updates. And I just think we got to have you back on every year, keep us updated on what's the best thing to do for our children.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  Thank you. It'll, it'll be all different at that point too. All the rules will be changed for people.

• 1:05:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You can eat gluten, you can go play football, you could have a hundred vaccines, no problem. No, just kidding, I'm kidding about all of that. But thank you so much. As always, Dr. Warsh, it's a pleasure having you.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:05:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you.

• 1:05:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That was a fantastic conversation with Dr. Gator. Here are my top five takeaways. Number one, the credential crisis is fueling confusion. Not everyone who puts doctor in front of their name online is trained in the topic that they're speaking about. And when these people step outside their expertise for viral moments, misinformation spreads fast. Number two, follow the incentives in research. Much of modern medicine is shaped by pharmaceutical funding, while life cell interventions like sleep, exercise, and nutrition are underfunded because there's no product attached. Number three, vaccines require open nuanced conversation. Vaccines' schedules and recommendations vary globally, which can feel confusing for parents,

• 1:06:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  highlighting the need for more transparent dialogue, individualized discussion, and informed conversation between families and their pediatricians, rather than one-size-fits-all narratives. Number four, screen time is rewiring developing brains. It's not just about limiting hours on a device, it's about how their time is spent when off the device. Constant digital stimulation is affecting kids' dopamine systems, emotional regulation, and when it's not paired with real-world social development and activity, the effects can be detrimental. And number five, health decisions for kids require nuance, not extremes. From dairy to seed oils to youth sporting head injury, most pediatric health topics aren't black and white.

• 1:06:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Parents need balanced risk of air conversations and multiple sources of information instead of polarized narratives.

• 1:06:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you liked this episode, and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps us support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.