Kids Need To Get Dirty … Their Health Depends On It

Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone and welcome to the show, I’m Dr. Nicole and today I have the great pleasure of having my friend and colleague Dr. Maya Shetreat as my guest. Maya and I have known each other for several years, and could probably talk for hours about root causes of neurodevelopmental and mental health issues, and kids being put on too many medications and all kinds of topics.

I promise we will keep it to around 30 minutes today. Dr. Maya is an integrative pediatric neurologist, herbalist, urban farmer and author of The Dirt Cure — Healthy food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child, which has been translated into 10 languages, that’s amazing. She’s been featured in The New York Times, The Telegraph, NPR, Sky News, The Dr. Oz Show and more. She’s also the founder of the Terrain Institute, where she teaches terrain medicine — earth based programs for transformational healing.

She works and studies with indigenous communities and healers in Ecuador and is a lifelong student of ethnobotany plant healing and the sacred. And I want to add that Maya is also a parent who has supported her own child through health concerns, so she understands the many issues involved when you have a child with challenges, and I’m excited to have you on the show today. Welcome, Dr. Maya.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So when I first met you and first found your book several years ago, I loved the title of it, I was like — the dirt cure? It just evoked curiosity in me, I was like — I think I get what that’s about. But this is really exciting and I want to dive into this, because I think this is a way of thinking about things that are going on with our kids that a lot of parents haven’t been exposed to, and certainly aren’t being exposed to through the more conventional medical practitioners that they may be working with. So let’s dive in and talk about what is the dirt cure?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

So you know it’s funny because this idea of dirt, everyone has a kind of different angle on what it must be, and it’s really all of those things, so some people would say, oh it must mean getting more germs or getting outside more or getting actually dirty and gardening — so yes, it’s all of those things, so basically for me, it’s being exposed to germs and microbes, eating fresh food from healthy soil and getting out into nature. Those are the 3 foundations of children’s health, children’s neurologic health, but also everybody’s health.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And those are certainly 3 things that most people are not exposed to learning about when their kid is having some challenges and they go in and talk to their healthcare providers. So I’m excited to delve into that. If you don’t mind, I’d love to have you just share a little bit of how you got into thinking about these kinds of things because you are a conventionally trained pediatric neurologist. So I’m curious for you to share your story of how you go interested in some of these other types of things.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Well I think I actually came to medical school with the idea I was going to be doing this kind of work. And I had seen a Bill Moyers special called ‘Healing and the Mind’, and I think I was in, maybe, college at the time. And there was this segment on a little girl who had lupus and she was having renal failure, kidney failure with her meds. But if they stopped the meds, she would have a flare.

So they started to give her castor oil with each dose of her meds, because castor oil has a very strong flavor, which was — I think, a little mean. But they wanted to have a very strong association. And then they stopped giving her her meds but continued to give her castor oil and she actually continued to respond just as if she was getting her meds. And I thought, wow — this is fantastic, I’m completely interested in this and this is what I want to do.

And they said this was a field called psychoneuroimmunology, and I thought great — that’s what I am going to do, and I wrote my essay about it, somehow I got into med school and that was what I thought I was going to do, and I did all my training and towards the end, actually, I realized there was no psychoneuroimmunology that was really available.

Simultaneously though, my son got sick. And so I had 3 children over the course of my medical training like kind of a lunatic, and number 3 was born during my neurology fellowship. And at about a year of age, he started to have these asthma-like symptoms, and initially, I took him to the pediatrician, you know, we gave him the inhalers, he ended up on steroids, he ended up on antibiotics — this kind of amalgam of ways we treat babies that have breathing issues. And he just got worse and worse and worse.

And for about 10 months, it was just chaos of constantly having a sick kid. Every other week he was sick and it was breathing. So it was kind of terrifying all the time. And my husband and I were both at the time in medical training and we both were missing work — it was just chaos. And finally, I was like — why is this happening? And no one could really answer it.

And they just said, well — he’s a reactive kid. And he started to also have neurologic plateau, and really almost like a regression in a sense because he started to fall, he wouldn’t catch himself using his reflexes, so he’d just fall and smash his face. He stopped gaining new words, and again, here I am — this pediatric neurologist in training and I’m terrified watching my child lose neurologic milestones. So finally, I thought — you know what, I’m just going to think about how this could be related to food.

Maybe he’s allergic to something. I took him to an allergist, I had already taken him to the top allergist, one of the top pediatric allergists in the world. And basically, he patted my head like I was a little girl and sent me on my way, which I think a lot of women encounter in the medical system.

And I finally found a community allergist who didn’t have a big reputation, and he tested him and found that he was severely allergic to soy, and he was drinking soy milk because we thought he has a sensitivity to dairy. And so I took him off soy and within one week’s time, he had no more breathing issues unless he was exposed to soy.

So that was this huge lesson of wow — not only did this food allergy interfere with his breathing, but it also caused systemic issues and it caused a real neurologic regression in a sense, because his immune system was so severely activated inappropriately and so the process of healing him really involved — because his gut after all those steroids and all those meds and all those antibiotics, it was totally disrupted and to heal him, it required a lot of attention to his microbiome — and this time, no one was really talking about that in the mainstream.

Now everybody knows what probiotics were, at that time — that wasn’t the case. And so it was really about getting him outside, about finding foods that were going to heal his gut. And not treating him with antibiotics if I didn’t absolutely have to, because I actually disrupted his microbiome. So it was a real journey and I ended up applying also this very much to the kids and adults in my practice and saw amazing results.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think so many parents listening can relate to the story that you just shared about your son, because so often, kids who end up being diagnosed or having symptoms of various kinds of developmental or behavioral or mental health issues, have in their health history things like asthma, allergies, all of that stuff that often get looked at as completely separate, unrelated things — and yet, as you’ve found in your experience, and I think many parents can relate to, there’s such a connection there. And when we get to the root and heal the underlying physical things that are going on, then the brain can function better. So I know that speaks to so many people. So let’s talk about, in the book — you talk a lot about why getting dirty is important for body and for brain health. So share why that is. Why does that matter?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

So I think a lot of people think of the immune system as being kind of like an army filled with warriors that are ready to fight things. But really, the immune system is actually incredibly social. It wants to meet and greet all the different kinds of compounds, foods, organisms, anything that’s kind of coming through, the immune system wants to see, sample, have contact with, say okay — I see you’re cool and kind of let it go on it’s way.

And the more the immune system has that opportunity, the healthier it is. It’s just comfortable with lots of different kinds of things. So when a real problematic organism or compound comes its way, it knows — I need to do something about this. I’m going to let everybody know there’s an intruder. But if it’s only seeing a few different things and it’s really restricted, then it’s going to think so many things are dangerous than really are dangerous.

And so, what ends up happening — if we think about developmentally, how babies start to be mobile, their hands are on the floor, they’re crawling, they’re walking and they’re putting everything in their mouths. We are evolutionarily designed to be exposed to dirt, right? I mean we didn’t have bleach on floors until pretty recently in the scheme of evolution. So getting dirty was the first thing that we did to actually basically educate the immune system.

And that’s a critical part of immune health and immune health, it turns out, so gut health, right — putting all the things in the mouth is a foundation for immune health. And immune health is a foundation for brain health. So what we know now is it’s a gut-immune-brain connection. It’s not just the brain kind of in it’s own little inner sanctum. It’s actually a whole system, a whole organism, right?

It makes sense that we’re not just these — we’re not a bunch of parts all stuck together, we’re an organism where everything is working in concert. So, when the immune system is balanced and healthy, then the brain can be balanced and healthy, but when the immune system is feeling activated all the time, then it actually sends messages through something called cytokines, which is the way that immune cells talk to one another, and they cross the blood-brain barrier, go straight to the brain and actually activate immune-like cells in the brain that then start trying to protect the neurons, but actually kind of can wreak havoc for the neurons at the same time if they are releasing all these inflammatory compounds.

So it turns out that having a healthy immune system means getting out, getting dirty, eating lots of diverse kinds of foods and not shutting down exposure to germs. So all that sanitizing that we do, that we thought to be synonymous with healthy, being sanitized. But it turns out — sure, if you’re getting surgery, you want it to be totally sanitary. But in the scheme of normal life, it’s actually almost the opposite of what you want.

You want to be exposed to germs and it turns out there is all this counterintuitive, based on how we live now, scientific literature that shows that for example, using a sponge when you wash dishes is better for the immune system and is more likely to decrease the chance of allergies than using the dishwasher. The sponges have bacteria in them, right? So they’re germy and that sounds gross, but it’s really important, and having a pet during the early years of life in particular, lower the risk of having allergies or asthma.

Why? Because you are sharing a microbiome with your pet, so it’s exposing your immune system to all different kinds of organisms. And actually, even things like bleach. So children who go to school or live in homes where bleach is used frequently are more likely to have things like bronchitis, chronic bronchitis and respiratory infections over the course of let’s say, the winter. And we think oh, that couldn’t be true because we’re getting rid of the germs — but it’s actually in a certain way the germs that keep us healthy and it’s having diverse, different kinds of organisms that prevent any one kind of organism from growing out of control and causing real infection that could be a problem.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So you’re right, it is kind of counterintuitive to at least this generation of parents, right? Of, you know, keep everything super clean. If your pacifier falls on the floor, make sure you spray it with sanitizing solution or throw it in the dishwasher. I used to feel like kind of a bad mom sometimes, my kid’s pacifier would fall and I would just sort of wipe it off in my own mouth, or wipe it on my shirt and stick it back in, but what you’re saying is that really is an okay thing.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

No! Good parenting! It’s actually good parenting.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right. And I know, I think and I see it so much even as I’m out and about now, all of the sanitizing wipes in the stores to wipe down all the handles of the shopping carts — and while certainly there are some common sense things that we should be doing as far as basic sanitation, what you’re saying is that sometimes we become so hyper vigilant about over-sanitizing everything in our kids’ environment, not letting them on the floor, not letting them be outside in “dirty” places or those kinds of things, that we’re actually doing a disservice to their immune system, and therefore to their brain function too.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Absolutely.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So you introduced me to a word that I know is important to this, and I want to introduce that to other people. The word hormesis. Which is an important concept for all of this, so I want you to talk about how hormesis contributes to our health, how it ties into this discussion.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Sure. Hormesis is basically a concept where something that would be toxic in large amounts can be beneficial in tiny amounts. So a very extreme example would be like fasting. We’re heating a lot about the health benefits of fasting these days. So if you fast for, let’s say a month — that can be very weakening to you, but fasting maybe for 12 hours or maybe 24 hours, it turns out that there’s great benefit. That can go for cold, right?

So going outside in the cold for half an hour for recess is okay, where putting people outside in frigid temperatures for 24-48 hours could be really, really detrimental. So this idea of hormesis is that these small challenges that might make us a little uncomfortable in our bodies, cause our mitochondria, the kind of powerhouses of the cell to step up and function more optimally.

So it’s little challenges, it’s even like one example that we do everyday is — we hear how important phytonutrients are, which are the things that make cranberries red, or grapes purple, or blueberries blue — and we think of them as, oh they’re so nutritious for us, well what they’re really doing is they’re the immune system of the plant, so what happens is, let’s say you have an apple and it’s sitting out at the top of the tree where the reddest, shiniest apple is — that’s because UV radiation causes the immune system of the apple to basically up regulate, to produce more of these compounds.

And what ends up happening is we then eat that delicious, red, juicy apple and we get those little immune compounds, those phytonutrients. And they’re actually like little toxins. But what they do is they inspire and instigate our mitochondria and our cells to function better.

And that goes for our brain cells too. It’s every cell in our body, it makes us healthier. So some of that is getting out in the dirt because we don’t think of… we think of dirt as bad or germy but actually, it’s all those organisms and all those compounds that we find in nature, including in soil, because in soil we actually have as many organisms in one teaspoon of soil as we do people on the entire planet. It’s the ultimate probiotic. And so this is something that when our body is experiencing this kind of small but not small, but small dose of organisms, it actually inspires every cell in our body to do better and function more optimally.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So that really ties into the importance, then, of getting kids out into nature, I would think. And I was actually reading a very interesting article just this past weekend about how deficient kids now are in just time outdoors and how problematic that is for many aspects of their development. You’ve got a specific take on why that’s problematic from what we’re talking about but how does getting out into nature then help us with these things.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Well, I think it’s like on many levels. So we’re talking about this issue of hormesis and that kind of exposure, and I think that’s a tremendous part of it. I think it’s also things like freedom and problem solving without necessarily the watchful eye of parents, it’s about connecting with this kind of… the wisdom that people have connected with from nature over millennia that kids really do have a deficit of outdoor time as well as time. And even having time, that space to think about things and process, so nature really offers, especially unstructured time in nature, really offers something unusual and something unique.

And what’s fascinating about it is there’s a lot of science that shows we benefit in every way from being outside in nature. So there are all these studies from Japan and Asia on forest bathing, something called Shinrin-yoku and it’s very much a part of the culture there, it’s not like a special thing. But basically, all it is is immersing yourself in the beauty of the forest regularly. And so there have been all these studies on what happens when people do that — and what happens is, they sleep better, they focus better and by focusing, it’s the focus that we think of but also organizing better, having better executive function, accomplishing more when they sit down to do work, having better test scores, even from just being in a highly natural playground setting.

Their standardized test scores will increase. Feeling happier, and then all these other kinds of benefits that we wouldn’t necessarily have imagined like increased production of anti-cancer proteins and a boost in natural killer cells, which sound scary but are actually a really important part of the nonspecific immune system.

So all of these different things, I mean we’re fighting cancer, we’re basically helping children to fight cancer by simply letting them play in the woods, or helping them focus better and think better and be more creative and happier and sleep better, and there is virtually no other treatment of any kind, pharmaceutical or otherwise that does all of these things, barring perhaps a great diet. I think that is also foundational, but other than that, I can’t think of any other thing that does all those things. Plus, it’s fun. It is fun to do that, so what could be more of a win-win?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, it’s great and you’re right, there are so many studies now. And sometimes it is funny to me thinking, we need studies to tell us what inherently, human beings have known for all the generations before that being outside is a good thing for us.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

It’s funny, but it’s actually totally by design. This separation that we have from nature, and this is part of what I teach about in my school in the terrain institute, this has been very intentional, this division between us and nature. And nature makes us so happy in many ways and offers so much to us. And we offer things to nature when we create this relationship. So children really inherently know this.

I don’t know about you but I was an only child for one thing, so I did not have a lot of stimulation from other kids unless I had time to play with them, but I actually used to go ride my little bike to a creek in my neighborhood and I’d sit by that creek for hours. I don’t know what I was doing, I was talking to trees, I was splashing my feet in the water, I was looking for muskrats, whatever I was doing, I was totally occupied, no cellphone, that was not a thing. They knew when I was going to come home, but it would be before dark, and that’s how I spent my time. And I think children just know what to do in nature if we let them go and be there.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. It was the same for me. I mean I had 3 siblings, but we were outside all the time. My mom was like get out of the house, go do things — and so we played outside in the cold, in the rain. We were outside and being exposed to all the things that you’re talking about and so I think as you’re saying, there are so many important and valuable elements to that for kids’ development — for their physical development, for their brain development, for their immune development, all of that.

For parents who are listening and thinking about, maybe some of the practicalities of how to do that. So when you talk about getting kids out into nature and the value of like playing in the dirt, and the microbes in the dirt. Kids don’t actually have to be just playing in the dirt, right? They can be climbing trees, there’s immune benefit, there’s benefit to exposure to all of these microorganisms, lots of ways outside, correct?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Absolutely. And the one thing I would say — I think there are unlimited… hundreds, unlimited ways to gain these kinds of benefits and experiences and to build this relationship with nature, which I think is a real relationship. The one caveat, I would say — because even sports can be this unless you’re playing on artificial turf, so I’m really opposed for many reasons to that, but for one thing, it just is actually potentially made from a lot of really toxic components, but more than that, you’re actually not getting this kind of exposure in the same way you would be if you’re playing on grass.

Other than that though, playing a game of frisbee, having a picnic outside, climbing a tree, there are all kinds of… like geocaching, right? These things where you do these digital scavenger hunts, then go into nature to find little gift-y things, there are all kinds of ways to engage with nature without having to literally dig in dirt, but kids do love making mud pies, gardening, all the things are the fun things that kids do.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I love that that is a simple thing that parents can focus on and do. Sometimes, when you think about all of the problems that kids have and all these things that I have to do to address my child’s behavioral issues or learning challenges or developmental needs. And what we are talking about here is so simple but such a powerful foundational thing that parents can do. Go outside and have your kids do things outdoors and that you’re doing great things not only for their physical health but for their brain health and their mental health as well.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s really important to note that I have all kinds of kids in my practice, from kids who might have ADHD or dyslexia or behavioral issues all the way to children who are non-verbal or who have degenerative issues or who have serious, significant developmental issues from birth trauma.

And every single one of those kids, wherever they are on that spectrum of development benefits from being outdoors. Every single child. So it’s not like, oh that’s not my kid, my kid is in a wheelchair, my kid’s not verbal — the whole spectrum. It’s in our DNA and I believe that every child, no matter where they are can always function more optimally. And actually, it’s a great — to me.. it’s OT, it’s PT — it’s speech therapy, you’re hearing different kinds of sounds, and getting stimulated to songs of birds, I mean everything is stimulating our nervous systems in the ways that we were evolutionarily designed to be stimulated. And there’s no comparable thing, we can do a lot of wonderful things for kids but nature is unique.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Love it. We’re running low on time, this time always goes so fast. We can talk about these things forever, but I do want to make sure that we talk about your thoughts on what our kids illnesses or challenges can teach us, because I think that you have a really wonderful perspective on this, so I’d like you to share that.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Well, I think the main thing, a lot of times, what I see is that parents come to me and they’re thinking, I need to fix my kid. There’s something wrong with my kid and we need to fix them. And that’s an attitude that is promoted by our society and our cultures. The teachers are like, “There’s something wrong.” We have to fix it and parents really have a lot of pressure put on them.

Not just from teachers but from physicians and psychologists, all different people in the kind of conventional communities can put this, on us on parents, and what I want to tell parents is there’s nothing wrong with your child. Your child is actually your teacher. And one of the really important thing is I think these symptoms, these things that are coming up are their way of teaching you how to take care of them better. And it can be that they need to be in a different school, you know? It could be that they need a different diet, but it doesn’t have to be something wrong with them or them needing to be fixed.

And I think really that the parents’ job — because there are only 3 things we can do for children: We can love them, we can advocate for them, we can offer them resources. And the rest of it is up to the kid. And so our job is to do those 3 things, which means actually, it’s not to fix them. Actually that’s not one of the things we can do for our kids, and actually we’re not intended to do that. So I think educating ourselves so we can advocate for them well and offer them the best resources is incredible — but also being open to the fact that they are here to teach us things and this process of even having a child who might be chronically ill and have something going on is really an opportunity to learn more about them and what they need, and also more about yourself and what you can be doing differently in your life.  

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love that and can certainly say I agree wholeheartedly. From a professional standpoint, but even from a personal standpoint, as a parent as well, as I think back on challenges with my own children and even current challenges. Every one of those is an opportunity for me to learn more about my kids and learn how to be a better parent to them, how to cultivate better resources for them or advocate for them in better ways, so I really appreciate you sharing that sort of reframe on that, I think that’s really important. I want to make sure that you have a chance to let people know where they can find out more information about you, your book, all the great resources that you have available.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Yeah, absolutely. I’m on social media and Instagram and Facebook and things, but the best place is at my website drmaya.com where I have all kinds of great stuff including free gifts for people to start, how to dive into nature, how to ground and things like that and courses — a lot of things I have actually available for parents, for their own kind of benefit and growth as well.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love that you provide some starting resources to people on the website and for people who are interested in delving more into the nitty gritty of what we talked about today. The book is just a fabulous resource as well that I think people will find helpful, so Dr. Maya — thank you so much for spending time with us today. It was an incredible conversation, one that I know people will find very helpful, so thank you.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Thank you, it was a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Alright, everybody, we will see you next time for our next episode of The Better Behavior Show!