What a Holistic Pediatrician Wishes You Knew About Your Kids' Health w/ Dr. Ana Maria Temple

23:50Most people are like, oh, it's neutral. I'm good. No, no. No, no. That's on the inside. On the outside, we want a pH of 5.5. Staph aureus hates a pH of 5.5. So, again, does your topical regimen deal with the skin pH? Does it deal with staph aureus? Because those two are the main things that we need to address when trying to rebalance the skin microbiome. Oh, that's fascinating. Okay, I'm curious. Do you use something like apple cider vinegar to change that pH? Yes, in the bath. Yeah. Okay. Yes. All right. And then one last question. I'm curious, why do they grow out of it, though? Because I feel like there are a lot of toddlers or babies I know that have it, and then the 6, 7, 8, 9-year-olds don't have it anymore.

24:32Ah, because so it appears to the naked eye that they outgrow it, but eczema shapeshifts. So what happens is the immune system didn't regulate itself. the immune system stopped just showing up on the skin. Now it shows up as seasonal allergies. 60 % of kids with eczema develop seasonal allergies. Really? Seasonal allergies usually develop like 3, 4, 5, 6 years old. 60 % of kids with eczema develop asthma. And asthma starts coming down the pike. And when we look at the graphs, you'll see eczema peaks early on as eczema seems to resolve, if you will. And I'm doing quotes on a podcast, guys. But as the eczema seems to resolve, you'll see seasonal allergies and asthma picking up food allergies.

25:13The rates of food allergies are astronomical. So what happens is like, oh, their skin's intact. I'm like, yeah, but when their skin was open. Food allergies, we used to think that we are eating the food and that's how you got food allergies. I mean, that's still the case in some. But when you have eczema, food allergies actually develop because of sensitization through the skin. Interesting. I've never heard a doctor say that before. Yep. It's like now becoming more and more, even the traditional docs are talking about it. And so your skin's open, you're oozing, bleeding. The number one defense mechanism of our bodies, our skin, and it's open to the world.

25:48So all of a sudden, now you have peanut allergy because dad just had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and touched the baby. And then now we had eggs. We scrambled some eggs because that's amazing food, right? Great. You touched, you kissed, you smooched the baby, and their cheeks are full of eczema. Now you've introduced egg and peanut through broken skin. The immune system is like, what is this? Because the immune system gets regulated through the gut and not through the skin. It gets very confusing. All of a sudden we have dog allergies. We have pollen allergies. We have all these other sensitizations.

26:19So your skin may look better, but now you have a lifelong peanut allergy. Fascinating. Now you have long-term asthma, seasonal allergies. By the way, everyone's like, I mean, it's just seasonal allergies. I'm like, that is an autoimmune dysregulation. And then it's like, oh, now I have anxiety. Now they have ADHD. It's all related. The cascade has started with eczema, but we decided to, not a big deal. We're going to outgrow it. The eczema shape-shifted, and the immune system just took another turn to show up in different parts of the body. Because remember, it's not just the skin. The whole body is affected.

26:52That is fascinating. Okay, so really quick, I want to talk about seasonal allergies. That little side tangent here, because it is springtime here in Utah. Yeah. Almost summer. But a lot of people deal with seasonal allergies here and they just claim it's Utah, it's our trees, the blossoms. I mean, it happens everywhere. But not all people deal with seasonal allergies. So it's only those that have a system affected. Correct. And so, again, right, there's always the back to the inflammatory bucket. So, for example, let's say that most of the time you don't have seasonal allergies. But two weeks a year when the pollen is truly dumping, like the amount of pollen has overflowed your bucket of inflammation.

27:31And for those two weeks, you suffer. Maybe you take some Zyrtec and Claritin, and then you're good. All right, you're fine. But if you're like, I can tell when seasonal allergies are starting, and I have to start my, you know, quercetin, his defense, and my nettle leaf and my Zyrtec in February to prepare for five months of allergies because my eyeballs are falling off. I'm coughing. I'm having asthma attacks. I'm having eczema flares. I'm like, okay. Because, again, it's normal to go and weed outside. and the weeds are full of pollen and you're weeding and it's in your face and you're sneezing and you're itchy and you take a shower and you're better.

28:05That's a normal response. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about when it's like you know when it's starting. You know you have to be on these meds. You cannot survive without the meds. You have the brain fog. You have nausea. You have vomiting because seasonal allergies are not just your eyeballs and your nose. I just had an 18-year-old, she was like, who has an autonomic dysfunction. Her blood pressure drops. She becomes severely lightheaded, extreme fatigue when seasonal allergies start. Oh, interesting. But for a long time, we were like, it's an autonomic issue. Like, what's going on here?

28:35And then we started putting it together. It's a histamine issue because her histamines are exploding. And she literally, and we have four different histamine receptors in our body. We can talk about it if you want to. But that affects different parts of our body, not just our nose and our faces and our coughing. So interesting. Okay, so back to eczema then really quick. Do you see a lot of kids go from eczema to asthma? Because I feel like there's a bunch of little elementary school kids now that have asthma. Yeah, 60%. 60 % of kids with eczema have asthma. That is incredible. Yeah, and that's lung inflammation.

29:09So we went from skin inflammation to lung inflammation. And no one's really talking about that. No, they're just using inhaler. It's not a big deal. My daughter, my daughter had eczema, asthma, seasonal, the whole thing. And they were like, she's fine. As long as her inhaled steroids working, she's good. And as long as her topical steroids are working, she's good. And as long as her Zyrtec is working, she's good. And, oh, she also had chronic constipation. So she's on Miralax. And her Miralax is working. And I'm like, why is she on so many chronic medications? Well, OK, I love this story of yours because you were a pediatrician dealing with sick kiddos.

29:40And this is how you changed to be more of a natural pediatrician. Yeah. Tell that story, though. Sure. I mean, so I was five years into my medical practice. and all my children were sick, as I shared with my daughter what she was like. My little guy had seasonal allergies that were so bad that he could not go out for an Easter egg hunt. His eyes were swell shut. His tears were streamed down his face. His body was covered in hives and he would be on the ground writhing in peace, ripping his skin off. And then my middle son had boogers, you know, the kind of snot that you can't walk outside anymore with that.

30:14There's not enough tissues in Costco for it. And also ADHD. and so I took him to the pediatrician the three ring circus and I lined my ducklings on the table and I was like why are there so many medicines but you were a pediatrician I was a pediatrician and I didn't know what to do and then for my little guy they said we've run out of allergy meds he was on five allergy meds oh wow the only next step is allergy shots he was two years old oh my goodness and then I told you what they said about my daughter and that she's fine on all her meds. And by the time we got to my middle son with his ADHD and snot, I stopped listening because I'm like, okay, we're just talking about more meds.

30:52And I walked out of there defeated, felt like a crazy person, dismissed. And I was like, oh, my doctor self had no idea what to do. But the warrior mama took over and she was like, wait, what? Wait, wait, the story, the story they're saying is that these kids are going to be on medicines for the rest of their life. That's not what's going to happen. I was like, I don't know what the next step is, but the story is going to be with how they come off their medications and other families are going to change their lives because of how these kids have healed. I don't know how to do this, but we're going to rewrite this story.

31:24Love it. And the next week I went to the kids' elementary school. A nutritionist was giving a talk and I walked in with my pediatrician self. I think I even did a hair flip. And I was like, I know what she's going to say, but I'm here to support the school. And it was on that day, on a Tuesday morning, 7.30 in the morning, freezing my butt off in a first grade classroom where the fog lifted and I understood the root cause of my children issues. And all she talked about was sugar. And she had this amazing display of where the sugar lies in children's food. And I realized that just because I was giving my children strawberries at lunch and broccoli at dinner, they were not having a well-balanced diet.

32:05So I came home that night, 7.30, my stilettos, walked into the pantry and threw away the Lucky Charms, the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, the Toaster Strudels, the chicken nuggets, the Pop-Tarts. You name a garbage, we were eating it. And, you know, that's when I became an outcast in my family. John and I, my husband, orthopedic surgeon, fought over food over the next five years. Oh, interesting. My family and friends thought I lost my mind. My medical partners were like, where's the evidence? It's 2007 people. There's no AI. There's no, I think barely Google was going. Anywho, but I was like, it couldn't be wrong to get rid of processed food and bring in fruits and vegetables.

32:45And then because when, as all mama warriors know, once you get something in your head, doesn't matter about the naysayers. Doesn't matter what, you just keep going. So over the next several years, my kids came off. They never needed allergy shots. They never needed ADHD medicines. They came off the topical steroids, the in-health steroids, the allergy medicines. By 2016, so nine years later, we quit our jobs. We moved to New Zealand. No health insurance, no doctors, no medications. And the children climbed the highest mountains and bungee jumped of all the bridges. I know you've been there, so you know I'm done.

33:18And I saw what it looks like to come back from chronic disease. So when we came back to the States, I was like, I'm not doing the same thing over again. We're going to do this differently because I saw the power of food. I saw the power of nutrition, of ingredients, of supplementation, and other families can benefit from that. So, yeah, my children's journey changed the way I practice medicine. Which I absolutely love. You have taught so many people, helped so many patients. You're out there spreading, you know, just so much good information about health. Let's take a quick break to hear from our show sponsor.

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35:14And I think most parents are like, yeah, I'm doing a good job. That's what I'm doing. But they're not realizing all the sugar that is adding up throughout the day within the Capri Sun and the chips or whatever, and then the dessert. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because the marketing is fantastic. Yeah. Right. I mean, hello, roaring waters. Yeah. Capri Sun, roaring waters. So a mom, a dad, a parent that's trying to do, I'm not going to get juice. I'm going to get roaring waters. It's dextrose in it. So you're like, oh, it's not sugar because you're not sugar. And if you're not, you don't know how to read ingredients, you're like dextrose.

35:48I don't know what that is. So that sounds fine. But yeah, so it's just water. It's water with sugar. That's what roaring waters are. So how is a parent going to know? When you look at things that go kid-friendly, there's protein bars that are safe specifically for kids. The first thing I do is turn it around and it has more added sugar than an adult protein bar. That is crazy. That's really crazy. Kid yogurt. Oh, let's talk about baby yogurt. Want to do baby yogurt? Yes. Six grams of added sugar in a baby yogurt. And on it says, pediatrician recommended. And I'm like, six grams of added sugar in a teeny tiny baby yogurt with a baby face on it.

36:21By the way, I saw those guys at Expo West, not this year, last year. Yeah. And I literally marched up to them. I'm like, what are you guys doing? And what did they say? They're like, I mean, we're changing our formula. We're coming up with a new brand. I was like, I'm not recommending your product. I was like, you got to change your product. That is absolutely ludicrous that you are putting a brand for babies and brainwashing the customer to give this to children when it's a major cause of inflammation. Good for you for standing up for that. That was not nice. Good for you. Especially if it says pediatrician recommended on it.

36:52Then that. With a baby face. Yeah. Then people don't know. And they're like, okay. Great. Trust that. Absolutely. You're so busy when, oh my gosh, as moms, I'm just going to talk for as moms. As moms, the amount of things we have in our head. Right. Right. From the moment they wake up, do they brush their teeth? Do they put their clothes on? Are their clothes on the right way in? Did my sons put underwear on? You have to remind them to put socks and shoes on 365 days a year. Did you pack their lunch? Do I let them buy lunch? What is in their lunch? And then you're like, oh, my God, they have eczema.

37:19Now how do I deal with their eczema? Now they're throwing themselves on the ground. All the 10 million things. I have to go to work. Now I've got to do emails. I have to volunteer. I have to volunteer a gazillion things. And then you go to the store and you're like, oh, okay, well, it's pediatrician approved. I'm just going to grab it. Absolutely. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. It's too much. It's too much. Okay, so now I'm curious, though, about ADHD. Oh, yeah. Because this is one I hear about all the time. Every day, followers are asking about it. You hear about it in the schools all the time. So maybe let's start with, again, why are so many kids dealing with ADHD today versus back in our day?

37:52Can we go back to when we were in school? I don't remember one kid on ADHD medicine. I don't either. And people tell me, well, it's just because they weren't diagnosed back then. Well, first of all, let's talk about the diagnosis of things. I mean, let's use my son, for example, forever and ever, right, the diagnostic criteria. He was the kid who was underneath the chair, chewing on his crayons, like climbing flagpoles, talking out in class. And he was saying, no, his friends use his voice. I was like, so your friends are ventriloquists. This is amazing. But so he's that kid, so annoying, right?

38:27He was like off the chain. But he had amazing grades. He got everything. He understood things really fast, really quick. But he needed to move all the time. If he sat still, he was like, he would become a problem because he had to move his body. He was a behavioral nightmare. But he had tons of friends. And he did amazing in sports. And so a lot of times when it comes to ADHD, because a lot of kids' parents come to me, they're like, oh, the teacher says they have ADHD. I'm like, let's dig into, first of all, what is that? Okay. Because you know what's annoying? For a teacher, oh my God, it is so hard to be a teacher.

38:58So I can't even imagine the difficulty. If you're dealing with a kid who is under their chair and chewing on their pencils, correct? And you've got 28 other clowns that you've got to deal with. 34. Correct. And so having that, but the first question I'm always like, does it affect when we're dealing with ADHD? Everyone has some form of hyperactivity and attention, right? We all do. Does it affect your life? And the question is a simple question. Does it affect school? And I don't mean behavior because you're throwing yourself on the ground. Is it academically? Can they retain the information? Are they at the top of their class because we have the brilliant kids that are just simply bored?

39:33Okay. And are they retaining the information so the brain's working great? Are they able to have friends? Are they able to socialize properly? Or are they the annoying kid that no one wants to hang out with? Then in sports, if they're doing any sports or activities, are they able to follow instructions? Are they able to be a team player? Right? So is this interfering with any of those? If two out of the three are fine, we're not dealing with medication. We're dealing with a behavior issue. that we need to take and we're going to talk about some things to do for that. But medication, I reserve for the kids that, number one, we've done all the things we're about to talk about and they cannot retain stuff.

40:07I have kids that have seven tutors and they just cannot progress in third grade. They're still on a first grade level. Two plus two is really hard. Putting letters together, they can't make a word. So they're falling behind academically because despite all the effort, the behavioral intervention, nutrition we're going to talk about, micronutrient replacement, all this stuff, Their brain is just not functioning optimally and they might need something. That is when I'm like, yes, you know what? You've got it. You can't keep up. Like you have to be able to read and do math. Makes sense. Basic things.

40:37So those are kind of the things in the criteria because, yeah, there's so many kids that are like. So back to Jake, when we were in New Zealand, he was in an all-boy high school. Oh, interesting. Guess how many behavior problems he had? Zero. None. Because they would do an hour and a half of didactics. Then they would send all the bozos. and sorry guys, I just, I referred my children, all the bozos outside for 45 minutes to play rugby. Then they would come back in for another hour and a half. Then get sent out to go play soccer and eat, come back for an hour and a half, be done. But it was a very strategic, and it were boy teachers who dealt with boy attention spans, with boy enthusiasm.

41:14Boys get bored. Yeah, they do. They just, they're different. I've got four of them. Right. They're just different than girls. There's nothing wrong with that. They're just different. That's it. Anywho. So from behavioral standpoint and how quickly people are referring children for ADHD medication. Okay, so let's talk about this then. So your teacher says, I think they might have ADHD. Go get them tested. What testing is there for it? It's called neuropsychological testing. You could start simply with Conner scales that your pediatrician can give you. And there is a specific questionnaire that you, the parents, will do and the teachers will do.

41:49And I encourage you to give it to every single teacher, not just one because the one that is a problem because we want to see is it an issue in just that one classroom or is this a for classroom issue, like for teacher issue. Right. And that can be give you a great insight into, yes, we have a problem. Now we're going to do neuropsychoeducational testing. I mean, that's three to four thousand dollars. The Conner scales are free. You got to pay for your copay to go see your pediatrician. But I'm saying like it's not three to four thousand dollars. Okay, so they do the Connors testing. It shows that they have ADHD.

42:21Yep. So they come to you. Yep. Do you first start them with a new diet, new supplementation? What? Yeah, well, you know, it was always in my previous life, you know, it took me 30 seconds to write Ritalin. Yeah. 30 seconds to change somebody's life. It's not a 30-second thing. 12-month situation, you know what I mean? So it's a big deal. And so, yeah, we look at their diet. And the number one thing that I see, first of all, added sugar. And for Jake, that was one of the huge thing for him was red dye 40 and added sugar and screen times. We'll talk about that later. But were enormous neurological irritants for the child.

42:54And again, just because not every child gets irritated by red 40 doesn't mean red 40 is not an issue. Right. And if red 40 is not an issue, maybe blue whatever and yellow whatever and green whatever. Right. All those additives. Where is that in nature? Nowhere. So the body doesn't know where to process them. So for some kids, it puts it in the neurological system, which then causes the inflammation. Yep. Added sugar, fun fact, added sugar shrinks our brain. I always tell kids because, you know, I'm like, don't Google until I tell you. I'm like, Google, does sugar shrink your brain? Harvard. Because, you know, Harvard says that it's a trip.

43:28But, yeah, so children and adults with high glycemic index diets, so diets that are very high in sugar that spike the insulin, it shrinks the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that makes a ton of new brain cells. Interesting. And then it interferes with your long-term memory. And so all of a sudden, you're just not recalling as much. So we got to decrease added. And again, I didn't say no sugar. I didn't say no. But decrease it. Decrease it to like a sugar budget. We have budgets for money. Oh, there you go. So budget for sugar. And when I teach children, I don't go into you could never have added sugar.

44:02Let's be wise about it. Let's flip all our packages around. Let's look at the added sugar number. Let's count how much we have that for the day and decrease it. And then the way we're like, so you have to choose. You want the cookie? Great. Well, we're not going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a cookie. Right. Do you want the granola bar? Great. Well, we have the granola bar, but we're not going to also have the cake or the juice box. We have to choose. So we teach them. Sure, you can have it, but you have to pick one or the other for your brain, for your health, for your memory.

44:29I love how you said that budgeting the sugar. Yeah. Because I'll tell people like, I don't want the sugar in my ketchup. If I'm going to enjoy sugar, I want to enjoy it in my cookie. Correct. Okay, I'm going to use your terminology. Oh, yeah, yeah, a sure budget. A sure budget. And kids are really receptive to that. I don't say the food is garbage. I mean, I'll say it on a podcast. But to the children, I'm not going to say garbage. But I'm going to say, hey, listen, let's be aware of what we put in our bodies. And we just do a little math from the back of the label. I love it. Okay, so these people, though, the kids that are on Ritalin, is it hard to get off of Ritalin?

45:02Not if you make the changes. And again, right, there are some people that are going to need it. But I'll tell you, the people that make dietary changes, So removing processed foods, like we're talking about it, if you can't read it, don't eat it. If it has food coloring in it, artificial flavors, preservatives. If we do those, we reduce our added sugar. Gluten is a big one. Gluten really irritates the brain. Yeah, a lot of brain inflammation. A lot of brain inflammation with gluten. So we were going to remove, and I do take dairy out, replace dairy as well. Where eczema dairy is first, in brain, gluten is first.

45:31Yeah, I believe that. So we replace those, and then we do some lab work, and then we replace micronutrients. and we work on the gut and we do all these things. Of course, we've got to work on screen time, outdoor activities, sunshine, all the things. Even for the children who need Ritalin, we're able to reduce the dose significantly. Okay, you just said lab work. So are there certain labs for ADHD? Yes, there are. And again, if you go to your pediatrician or psychologist, psychiatrist, and you request labs, they look at you like, what? So here's the thing. One of the biggest culprits for ADHD symptoms is actually anemia.

46:04So low, so he - Back to anemia again. And do we ever treat anemia with Ritalin? No. No. The brain needs iron to make memory-focused concentration. You know, fun fact for sleep disorders, a sleep doctor is not even going to do a sleep test on you unless your ferritin level is 60, which means you have enough iron for the brain. Because otherwise you spend money and time to do a sleep study for them to then do blood work to go, you need iron. Well, that's just a waste of time and money. So you need iron for proper sleep, to decrease restless leg syndrome, to decrease nightmares, to decrease breath-holding spells, to decrease seizure activity.

46:43Here's a big deal. And then to improve memory focus and concentration. We know that in little kids, so at the age of one, everyone gets a finger poke, a CBC. And parents always go, why do we get a CBC at one? We're like, oh, because if you're a nursed child or you don't have a diet rich in iron-rich foods, your hemoglobin may be low at one. And then they're like, well, why does that matter? Oh, because in children with low hemoglobin levels at one, we've shown that they have neurological defects at the age of five. Oh, wow. So we know that at one, we're making sure that the hemoglobin is right.

47:20And not all pediatricians do this. At one, we're all about the hemoglobin to preserve brain function. But then when they become seven or eight with ADHD, no one's going back to that. Exactly. Wow. Baffling. That is baffling. Baffling. So we want to do CBC. We want to do our iron panel. We want to do our ferritin. Vitamin D, crucial for ADHD. Here's the other thing. Kids with ADHD have a comorbidity, which means another diagnosis with anxiety. For some kids, it could be the anxiety that's driving the inattention. And for some, it's the inattention that's driving anxiety. But the two are interrelated.

47:54And we know that vitamin D helps both of those. Interesting. Back to the zinc RBC because we need zinc for brain function. B vitamins become really important here, B12 especially, and folate. And so we want to make sure that we get those numbers. And then you get the methylmalonic acid like we were talking about earlier as well. Those would be the first things that we do for brain function. So it sounds like the same things that affect eczema as a little baby affect the toddler, older kids with the ADHD. I know. Isn't amazing because then we're like they've outgrown their eczema but they have adhd i think it's another diagnosis is it another diagnosis or is it micronutrient deficiency that again never got repleted and now it was showing up in the skin but now it shows up in the brain okay so fascinating yeah all right so i have a question though about adhd because for some reason i don't know why my employees in their young 20s my college-age kids they're all fascinated by taking these adhd tests online, right?

48:53Like you answer the questions. All of them come to me saying, I have ADHD. The test just shows that I have ADHD. And then some have come to me like, what medication do I need to go on? And I'm like, oh my gosh. So do you deal with adults that have ADHD? Well, so, but that was my whole point when we started the conversation. Everyone has ADHD. We're distracted. We easily distract. And by the way, 20-year-olds, they don't even realize this, but I'm so sorry to tell you this, but you already know this. TikTok has messed your brain up. Has made them all have ADHD because they've got to go from one topic to the next within three seconds.

49:29Do you know that majority of teenagers cannot watch a movie without being on their phone and getting a feed from their TikTok? While they're watching a movie. While they're watching a movie. Oh my goodness. That's maybe why they hate going to the movie theater. Correct. I want people to have a think on this. How often have you watched a show or a movie as an adult, or have you watched your teenager and then you had to pull out your phone to check something. I mean, really, how many business deals are these teenagers doing? You know what I'm saying? Well, you have to pull out your phone to get a little dopamine.

50:02One of the nurses I had in clinic, when she would be in a down period, like thinking between patients, she would be on TikTok. I could see her. Yeah. I can't tell you how many people wait in lines. They're like, a little TikTok feed, a little Instagram story, a little reel. I mean, our reels are amazing. Yes, you should watch them, obviously. But it is changing the nervous system. I'll give you an example because people are going, you're full of doo-doo. Let me give you an example. Well, I'm laughing about all of this because my older kids were just over the other night watching 27 Dresses. I think that's what it's called.

50:32Yep. And I'm laughing because all of them were on their phones scrolling while we were watching the movie. No. Yes, so that's, you know, I never thought really anything about it. It's just my older kids. I was like, oh, well, they're busy doing whatever. Their nervous system has been programmed. I don't want to sound like a weirdo, but it has been. John actually realized, I was talking about it, and he, like, something clicked, and he goes, oh my gosh, that is exactly what I'm doing. So he had to put himself on a TikTok hiatus because he was like, I became a teenager. Oh, that is funny. Okay, you were going to say something.

51:06Yeah. So cab drivers in London, they've studied the brains of cab drivers in London. Okay. They know all the streets and London is a really complicated place. Their brain is different than people who use Google Maps. Oh, interesting. The people who have used Google Maps, and I am one of them, that part of our brain is so minuscule compared to a cam driver from England who's using their brain, not a map. They know all the streets. They remember the streets because they've used their brain in a very specific way, which we are no longer using, using Google Maps. Well, they're visualizing probably also which directions the roads are going and where they lay.

51:47Correct. The memory of turn right over here. Remember the old school days? It was like at the McDonald's, make a laugh, and then at the gas station, right? I was just telling my kids that the other day. That's how we had to get places. Correct. So our ability to memorize and focus was incredibly better, not because we're better people, because we had to exercise the brain that way versus on Google Maps. Makes sense. I need a recipe. It's on my phone. Makes sense. Phone numbers. If you had a pay phone, okay, most people don't even know what a pay phone is, but if you had a pay phone, who are you calling?

52:17Yeah. 911? Like, you don't even know people's phone numbers. Yeah. Right? That area of the brain is gone. And now, this is even worse. I love AI, guys, so I'm not trashing it. Oh, I've been hearing this. Here we go. Here we go. But with AI, you don't have to write an email. You don't have to write a letter. I know. You don't have to think of your talk reel. You don't have to make your slideshow. So guess what happens with that area of the brain? Bye-bye. If you don't use it, you lose it. And so, yes, it's become convenient. As I said, I love AI. I love all these conveniences. But we cannot ignore the fact that that's driving our nervous system that is leading to a lot of our memory, focus, and attention issues not because you need Ritalin, because we need to remove some of these distractions from our life, and we need to exercise our brain properly in addition to the nutrition and micronutrients.

53:08Okay, so fascinating. We could do a whole show on technology and how it's rewiring things. I want to help the moms because I have a lot that I know of that have kids on Ritalin who just say, like, we've tried other things. I can't get them off. So to those moms, would we say, like, First, go get your blood work done, change the diet, supplement with things, and then try getting off Ritalin again. Right. So I would say, yes, I love the diet, the supplementation, of course. We've got to work on the gut. Got to figure out what other things are distracting in the gut because if we have a lot of bacteria, the dysbiosis, a lot of yeast, that can also be very irritating to the nervous system.

53:49So we've got to work on those. We've got to change our environment. We've got to sleep. We've got to talk about sleep before we even talk about reducing Ritalin. If your child is mouth breathing, if they're snoring, if their sleep is interrupted a thousand times at night, it's almost you can't pass go until we make sure that the sleep is on point. And the sleeping with the mouth open and mouth breathing, things like that, is disrupting their sleep? Correct. Correct. And then it's impeding. It's preventing them from forming long-term memories. So when we sleep is when we make long-term memories.

54:18You know, one of the tricks for studying is always like study the most critical things for an exam right before you go to bed. And then you go to sleep and then your brain works it into the long-term memory. If you don't get adequate sleep, if you don't go through all the stages of sleep, if you don't have enough deep sleep, you can't make those long-term memories. And all of a sudden you have ADHD and we're treating your sleep issue with Ritalin. So we got to take care of the sleep and we have to rein in the electronics. And yes, we can decrease Ritalin. And again, we're not stopping it completely.

54:48Like just step down. And, you know, let's say that they're on, I don't know, 40 milligrams of really, okay, we'll go to a 30. Hang there for a month, see what's up, see what's going on. Then we go down to 20. So you don't have to just cold turkey it. Just slowly step down, and that's going to be much more successful than just going cold turkey. Okay, so I have so many questions, but I have two questions I want to ask you about this. So bedwetting, I've heard that correlates with ADHD. And mouth breathing. So for the same reason. Correct. And bullying. bedwetting is a big bullying like flag red flag to be bullied is as you all know it raises our cortisol level and then when your cortisol level is up it changes the way you're like so when you're always like on pins and needles during the day so imagine that you're always stressed out of your mind i mean i was stressed out of my mind last week and so you're like but you're like you're not pooping really well you're not peeing really well you're just irritable right but everything is like tense.

55:45And when it's tense, your bladder is tense. So you go to pee, but the body's like, and it only releases enough pee until it just, the pressure's released, but it holds on to pee. And then you sleep at night and now the body finally relaxes and now you pee. Interesting. Yeah. It's a huge correlation to, yes, and ADHD, mouth breathing, constipation, but bullying is one of those two. Because again, and then because you have anxiety, because bullying now happens very, you know, more on the sly. It used to be like the playground. They take your lunch money. On the phone. Now it's on the phones and it's very, it's very...

56:21Sly. Yeah, sly. Yeah. Okay, so my other question I had for you is I know a bunch of 20-year-olds who like to take Ritalin because they're like, oh, but it helps me study for the test so well or it helps keep me focused so much. And so it's almost like they're abusing this drug. Yeah, that's like snorting cocaine. It's what he tells anybody. It's legal cocaine. You know, like, oh, they're doing it. I'm like, you just paid for meth. You know what I mean? It's like, so Ritalin, the reason Ritalin was invented was actually in World War I. Hold on. When we have planes, one or two. Whenever we have planes, guys.

56:55Because you had to remember to get over the Atlantic. And you had to remember the codes and the Morse code and all the things and the coordinates and the, I don't even know. Well, you had to remember a lot of things. So that's where Ritalin is in the Army. is during World War I with the planes. And if we didn't have planes in World War I, I'm sorry, it's World War II. Anyway, but what they realized is that once you're off Ritalin, you don't remember those things anymore. You only remember when you're hyped up on, does it work? Of course it works. Cocaine works. I mean, it's, right? Meth really gets your brain going.

57:29High doses of caffeine. But the issue is that you're using it, but that's not a long-term solution. You're not teaching your brain to learn. You're not teaching your brain to retain information. You're giving it a tool to remember it for like three seconds, and then you're done. And then when you need this information later on, here we go. Okay, I got to learn it from scratch again. Well, yeah, because I was teaching at a college class, and they were telling me like, yeah, if we don't do the Ritalin, then we do huge amounts of energy drinks for the high caffeine so that we can do well on tests.

57:57And I was like, oh, my gosh, I didn't know this was a thing. Yeah, yeah. You're just paying for legal drugs. Okay, so in reality, they need to do all the things that you've talked about. sleep they need to get rid of the processed food the processed sugar right your brain can do it your brain can do it but the problem is we were as i'm going to talk about americans we're for the easy way out yeah i could take really i could remember the test you could totally remember the test without it i had a an adult like a 23 year old and she started her job and she's like well i need ritalin uh i'm like what do you need ritalin now you're not in college anymore she's like the meetings are really boring and i just lose focus i'm like meetings are boring okay most of the time most meetings are boring i was like you need to figure out how you're going to stay on task it's not but again when you start taking brittlin just to take a test then i'm going to take ritalin just to be in a business meeting now i'm going to take ritalin just to go out do you know how many 40 year olds take ritalin to go out wow and then it's like why do we have yeah Okay, so moms need to listen to this.

59:01And if they are giving Ritalin at 7, 8, 9, 10, maybe this is the wake-up call for them to go get their child tested, supplement with things, look at their diet, things like that, so that we don't continue this generation of 20, 30-year-olds wanting it. Right, right. And it's a matter of like, do some kids need it? Absolutely. Do as many kids need it who will have been prescribed it under no circumstances. I probably say 75 % of people prescribed RELIN do not need to be on it. Fascinating. Really bold statement and I'm sticking with it. Fascinating. Thank you so much for answering all of these questions.

59:34I could talk to you forever. One time you did a podcast episode for me about the immune system when colds come and like viruses and fevers. It was fascinating. You guys should go listen to that podcast episode because you talked about like the humidity in the room. Yep. Which I've used on so many reels. You talked about how sugar depletes the immune system within like. Five hours. Yeah. For five hours. It was a fascinating one. I'm almost sad we didn't talk about that today. That's enough. But we have it. We do have it. Go watch it. And you just share so much good information. So tell everybody where they can find you.

1:00:07Well, you know, because we are like Swiss sisters from another mother. You could also find me at Costco. Yeah. and Target and Walmart, because like you, you know, knowing and doing are really hard. And we just talked about how difficult a mom's and a parent's job is these days. So I also believe in like, if we can show you, if I can show you do this rather than that, you're more likely to go purchase this and start changing your child's diet for the better. And all that great information is on my Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and all the things. And now we talked about that we do too much of it.

1:00:40Yeah. Yeah. D-R-A-N-A Maria Temple. And you are just so fun to follow. You are just entertaining and you just say how it is. And I love when your kids are on, even though they're grown, it's always fun. Your son was talking about being a picky eater when he was little. And I was like, oh, that is such good advice. Well, I did a picky, like, what are the questions? And I'm like, well, you know, why don't we hear from the recovered picky eater himself? And he always loves to have some, he has some opinions. He is the best. Your kids are really fun to watch. Thank you. Okay. Well, I've been ending all my podcasts this year with five quick rapid questions.

1:01:14All right. So number one, what emerging health topic are you most excited about right now? Creatine in women. Ooh, I love that. I know a company that sells a good brand. I do know one of those two. Okay. Number two, what's a piece of advice you give your younger self? It is okay that you're regimented and tenacious. Ooh, I love that. Were you that way when you were younger? I was and I got criticized all my life for it. Really? Yeah. It was like, you're too regimented. You need to loosen up. You need to, you know, everybody had opinions. And I really feel that because I stuck to my guns. Yeah.

1:01:47And when I believed in a cause, I didn't let go. Amazing things happened. Well, and that's what's turned you in to be such an amazing person. And I kind of advocate. Yeah. You kind of need to be regimented to get it done. I love that. Okay. Number three, what's the one health practice you'll never compromise on no matter how busy life gets. Sleep. I actually thought you were going to say exercise because you show exercising all the time. And I know you do it like on a daily basis. I do. And you know what? I did it under protest this morning before. John's like, we're going to work out. And I'm like, I don't want to because it's a lot for my system.

1:02:19He's like, OK, we don't have to lift a ridiculous amount. So no, we worked out. I say sleep because majority of adults think that that is BS and not needed and it's a waste of time. Yeah. And I would say that with all the travel that we do, with all the work, with all the responsibilities, my bedtime is critical. The phone is out of my room. Children don't sleep in my room. They never slept in my room. Everyone is in their own space. I create a heaven of just good, pure sleep where I can get rest and be present for everybody the next day. Oh, I'm the same way. No kids in my bed ever. They had their own space.

1:02:56My sleep was a priority from day one. Yeah. Number four, what's your favorite Just Ingredients product and why? Easy Lob creatine. Had my 10 grams before coming on this podcast. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love the purity of it. I love my travel packs. We travel all the time now that we're empty nesters. So the creatine individual packs are a lifesaver. They help me with my jet lag, with my energy, my memory. I'm about to be 53 next week. And it's just, it requires different set of nutrients and stuff as you age. You look amazing for 53. Thank you. We now have a new creatine with ketones in it.

1:03:35And I'm telling you, it has been game changer for me. Game on. I'll have to give you some. And last question, what is the best ingredient you've found to life? Which you've answered this a few times on this show now. If your mindset is that there's more to my children's health and their medications, you will change. If your mindset is like, I'm not pleased with the ingredients in the food, I know it's going to be hard, but you're going to change. If your mindset is, I'm going to love my partner despite the worst days, the good days, the most horrific things, you're going to make it work. I just find that because my tenacious mindset and when people change their mindset.

1:04:19It is a night and day difference in our clinic when a family comes in and they're like, we're doing it. We're all in. We're going to change the child's skin and we're going to change our family's trajectory. They're better in six months, like blink of an eye. The families are like, I'm not sure. I don't know. This is kind of witchcraft, voodoo medicine. It takes them forever to get to the other side if they get to the other side. Oh, I love that so much. In fact, last few weeks of work have just been really hard. and someone said to me, you know what? You're always focusing on the hard things.

1:04:49What if you said, come what may and love it? So whatever the hard thing is, like come what may and say why you love it instead of why it's hard. And I was like, that's an interesting mind shift. I love that. Back to the mindset shift, right? And now it doesn't become something that bogs you down and suffocates you. Now it's like a challenge. Exactly. Well, I love that. Well, thank you so much for being here. It's been such an honor just getting to know you and having you as a friend and support and you flying out here means the world to me. So thank you for being here. Listeners, if you do not follow her, you are missing out tremendously.

1:05:23She is just a huge wealth of knowledge that gives so much free information. So go give her a follow and thank you for being here. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Always a pleasure. Thank you for being here and being part of this community. Don't forget to subscribe to the Just Ingredients podcast. We've got so much more to share with you. And if you're not already, come join us daily on all social media platforms at just.ingredients. Until next time, keep choosing what nourishes you.