June 12, 2026 • 43 mins
Somewhere between the lunchbox, the tablet screen, and the drive‑thru window, childhood took a detour. We’re witnessing a full‑blown pediatric health crisis—rising anxiety, attention issues, stalled growth, and inflammation hiding behind “normal” lab work. Dr. Adam Brockman dives into the hidden biology behind modern childhood, where the “Beige Diet” of ultra‑processed foods collides with young immune systems and developing brains. In this episode, you’ll hear the story of Evan—a boy whose stalled growth exposed a storm brewing in his gut—and discover why healing our kids means more than symptom‑chasing. Joined by integrative pediatric expert Dr. Matthew Hand, Dr. Brockman unpacks the Whole‑Child approach, showing parents how to rebuild resilience, restore balance, and rewrite the future of children’s health—one meal, one night of sleep, one mindful habit at a time.
Special Guest: Dr. Matthew Hand, Pediatric Nephrology Director and Professor at Dartmouth
Medical School and Children’s Hospital
Special Guest: Dr. Matthew Hand, Pediatric Nephrology Director and Professor at Dartmouth
Medical School and Children’s Hospital
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the number one radio health talk show in America,
The Doctor Bob Martin Show. Doctor Martin is a chiropractic physician,
a board certified clinical nutritionist, and diplomat of the American
Academy of Anti Aging Medicine. The information presented on this
show is educational in nature. Please consult your personal healthcare
provider regarding health issues. You may have got a health
(00:32):
related problem or challenge, not feeling well, and you just
don't know where to turner what to do. Doctor Bob
Martin is here for you and will do his very
best to answer your health question. The tone free number
to ask Doctor Martin a health question or to make
a health related comment is eight hundred six oh six
eighty eight twenty two. Eight hundred six oh six eighty
(00:53):
eight twenty two. That's eight hundred six zero six eighty
eight twenty two. It's the Doctor Bob Martin and Show.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Welcome, Welcome, you are listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman, and folks today, let's talk about
our children. And somewhere between the lunch box, the tablet
screen and the drive through window, a lot of our
kids they get pushed into a biological conveyor belt that's
headed in the wrong direction. We're watching a pediatric health
(01:24):
crisis unfold in real time, and it's not subtle anymore.
It shows up, you know, with a child who can't focus,
and a teenager who can't sleep in the seven year
old with stomach pain, a ten year old with anxiety,
and a parent that's standing in the kitchen wondering how
things got this complicated this fast. And we're not talking
(01:46):
about just coughs or colds or scrape knees anymore. This
is about a generation that's growing up in a food
in a lifestyle environment that is actually colliding with their biology.
And one of the biggest drive of this is the
beige diet. And you know exactly what I mean. We're
talking about the crackers, the nuggets, the puffs, the fries,
(02:08):
the bars, the cereal, the chips, the toaster pastries, the
white bread, the sweet and yogurt tubes, and the ultra
process convenient foods that dominate the modern childhood menu. Their
shelf stable and their kid friendly, and they're everywhere, but
they also create a nutritional wasteland. In many homes, children
(02:28):
are eating calories that are empty. It's fuel without intelligence.
We're seeing bodies that are overfed and undernourished at the
same time. And that's where this whole child philosophy has
to come in. If we really want to protect the
future of our children, we can't just chase symptoms from
(02:50):
one doctor's office to the next. We have to ask
the bigger questions, what is happening in our gut, what
is happening in our brain, and what is happening in
the immune system or in a sleep cycle, or in
our nutrient reserves, or what about even our stress response.
Because a child is not a collection of disconnected parts.
(03:13):
A child is an ecosystem. And when an ecosystem gets
overloaded with inflammatory foods, are chronic stress or poor sleep,
or have those nutritional gaps, the body starts waving red flags.
And the troubling part is how normal this has become.
We have pediatric mental health visits, they're climbing, Metabolic issues
(03:37):
in children are showing up even earlier, and digestive complaints
are becoming routine as and we have attention problems and
mood swings and skin issues and immune dysfunction, and they're
often treated like unrelated bad luck when in many cases
they're connected at the same biological thread. And there's good news,
(03:59):
and that is this. Once you see that pattern, you
can start changing the pattern. You can shift the inputs,
you can rebuild that terrain. So here's your cue to
join in the conversation. Do you have questions on children's
health or maybe a recommendation that has worked for you
and your children. I want you to chime in. You
(04:21):
can do that through our hotline which is eight hundred
six zero six eight eight two two, or our website
which is doctor Bob dot com. Again that's eight hundred
six zero six eight A two two, or at doctor
bob dot com spelling out the word doctor doct r
bob dot com and folks. Later in the show, after
(04:44):
the break, we're going to be joined in by one
of the leading voices in integrative pediatric medicine, and that's
doctor Matthew Hand. He's the Section Chief of Pediatric Nephrology
in the Director of Pediatric Integrative Medicine at Dartmouth Health
Children's Hospital and you've probably seen him on twenty twenty
in the Discovery Channel and even the Oprah Winfrey Show.
(05:06):
So he's going to be joining us later to unpack
what parents can do right now to support that resilience,
the growth in the long term health and their kids.
But before doctor Hann joins us, I want to I
want you to take in. I want to share a
story that hits this issue at home. So I want
to talk to you about Evan. Evan was the kind
(05:29):
of kid people described as just small for his age
until that explanation started to fall apart. At first, his
parents they didn't panic. Some kids they're just late bloomers,
some are just built smaller and families hear this all
the time. But over the months and then it happened
in years, that gap got harder to ignore. His friends
(05:52):
they kept growing, but Evan didn't. Shirts they still fit
long after they should have been outgrown, and pants they
stayed the same size, and photos from one birthday to
the next looked almost frozen in time. And his parents
they did what any caring family would do. They started
(06:12):
to ask questions, first with the pediatrician and then was specialists.
Was it genetics or thyroid issues or growth hormone deficiency
or was he just a slow starter? And on paper,
some of these basics they didn't look as dramatic as
you know to trigger an alarm. Let's say that's that's
(06:35):
often how these stories begin, not with one giant crisis,
but with a long trail of these little clues that
they're easy to dismiss when you're only looking at one
lab or one symptom or one office visit at a time.
But Evans's growth chart was telling a different story. Growth
in children is one of the most important vital signs
(06:56):
that we have. It's that bodies report card. And when
growth starts to stall, the body is usually spinning energy
somewhere else. And that's the part that most people miss.
A child doesn't just randomly stop growing. If the body
is under siege, it starts to shift its priorities. Instead
of building bone or muscle or tissue, it diverts resources
(07:20):
to defense or inflammation control or survival. So as this
work up on Evan deep and more pieces start to emerge.
Evan had a history of digestive complaints that never seemed
dramatic enough to dominate this conversation. He had some bloating,
some abdominal discomfort, and periods of poor appetite and occasional fatigue.
(07:41):
Nothing that is is theatrical, nothing that screamed emergency. But
taken together, these were random, not necessarily random footprints. They
were breadcrumbs. And this is where that conventional symptom by
symptom model can miss the hidden architecture of disease. One
one doctor sees a growth delay, one sees stomach issues,
(08:04):
one sees fatigue, one sees mood changes. But the body
is often telling one story in several different languages. And
eventually that focus turned to where it should have been
with Evan, and that is the gut. And that's what
was found. Was like a hidden storm, not always obvious
from the outside, but active on that inside. So we
(08:24):
got chronic intestinal inflammation that can quietly rob a child
of those raw materials that are needed to grow. It
reduces that absorption of iron or zinc or protein or
fat soluble vitamins, magnesium, or other key nutrients, and it
triggers immune activation or systemic stress, and that interferes with
(08:45):
his hormone signaling. So if we're talking about this, the
body becomes too busy fighting an internal fire to build
a healthy child. And for some kids the hidden storm
may be siliac disease. For others, it might be inflammatory
bowel disease, or food sensitivities, or dysbiosis or chronic constipation.
You get what I'm saying here. That exact diagnosis it
(09:08):
may matter, but the larger principle matters too. When the
gut is compromised, growth can become collateral damage. And that's
why this story matters so much, because Evan's case is
not just about one boy who stopped growing. It's about
how many children are waiving this biological distress flags and
they get mistaken for personality or pickiness or just a phase.
(09:33):
It's about how easy it is to normalize low energy
or poor appetite, or chronic tummy aches or these skin
flare ups, and also the stalled growth when they've all
become so common. So parents, if your child is always
tired or always bloated, or always constipated or always moody,
(09:55):
you know, don't ignore that. Don't let anybody convince you
that the body's warning their meaningless. The body keeps score
and in children, one of the first places it shows
up is in their development. So Evan's story it's a
reminder that the gut is not just a digestive tube.
It's a command center. It influences nutrient absorption and immune balance,
(10:17):
and inflammation, in neurotransmitter production, and then in this case
obviously growth itself. And when there's a storm, the whole
child feels it. And so folks, after the break, we're
going to zoom in and look at this this mystery
and connect the dots with one of the best people
to do that in the country, and that's doctor Matthew Hand.
He'll be joining us just after the break to talk
(10:39):
about pediatric mental health crisis, this biological blueprint that's beneath it,
and why this whole child model may be one of
the most important course corrections in modern medicine. So don't
go anywhere you're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show,
(11:00):
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(12:14):
Welcome back to Health Talk America presents the Doctor Bob
Martin Show. I'm your host, Doctor Adam Brockman, and today
we're going to continue to dive into a topic that
hits home for every single person that's listening, and that
is the health in the future of our children. We
live now where health it's often defined by the absence
of symptoms. But if we want our kids to thrive,
(12:37):
to truly thrive with vitality and resilience, we have to
dig into that a little bit deeper. So I've asked
a special guest today, and it's a true leader in
the world of pediatrics. It's doctor Matthew Hand and he's
not just any doctor, He's the chief of pediatric nephrology,
and he's also the director of Pediatric Integrative Medicine at
(12:58):
Dartmouth Health's their Children's hospital on Dartmouth's Medical School campus.
And you may have seen him on twenty twenty also
the Discovery Channel and even the Oprah Winfrey Show. He's
at the forefront of bridging that gap between conventional medicine
and that evidence based integrative world. So with that, I
(13:19):
want to welcome doctor Matthew Hand to the program. How
are you today, doctor Hand.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I'm great, I'm great. Thanks for having me. I can't
wait to talk. I look forward to going over the
stuff and really trying to change healthcare for children. It's
been a mission of mind for a long time. So
I'm looking forward.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
To this great. Great, great, and I'm excited to have
you on the show. This is important conversation because really,
you know, that is our future. We need to look
at that and see just tweak where we can. And really,
doctor Hann, I want to start with talking about something
that's very important, and that's mental health. We're seeing this shocking,
(13:54):
staggering record a number of visits and mental health for
pediatric patients, and to me, I see it as a crisis,
plain and simple. From that integrative medicine approach that you
use that perspective, what are some non pharmaceutical type of
foundational blocks, like specific nutrients or lifestyle habits that the
(14:17):
parents can start to use to support that child's emotional stability.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, it's a great question. And if you think about it,
if you go back to when I first started in medicine,
which I won't tell you how long ago it was
because I'm actually very young, but the fact is that
we had almost no kids that were presenting with anxiety, depression,
severeo CD issues, all the things that we're seeing right now,
that is insomnia, which all falls into that sort of
(14:43):
mental health realm. And it was actually a very very
very small percentage. And now if you look at the numbers,
surveys have shown that over half the children, particularly adolescents,
are reporting some degree of anxiety on a general basis,
and over twenty five percent to thirty percent are actually
maybe even higher than that. I suspect it's even higher.
Now are being treated for anxiety and or depression. And
(15:06):
if you think about anxiety and depression basically the same concepts.
Lattu once said that if you think about the future,
you get anxious. If you think about the past, you
get depressed. And if we stay in the moment, that's
where we are all okay. And it's really true. And
we see this now for our kids, and this has
really evolved to where we're looking at numbers that we
(15:28):
used to see in the adult population in terms of
anxiety and depression and other mental health concerns. And why,
you know, the question is why, And I think anybody
who lives out there now can understand it. The foods
are different, our movement is different, our exercise is different.
The stressors on children have gone up tremendously. You talk
(15:49):
about things that used to be in college or now
in high school, things in high school or now in
middle school. Things in middle school are now into grammar school.
These pressures have just ramped up on these children. At
social media. You look at electronic exposure. That's been a
real big topic in the media lately, but we've known
this for a long long time there. In fact, Europe
was way ahead of us in this. So the days
(16:11):
of walking to and from school and having some recess
and having breaks and having an hour for lunch, having gym,
having things that helped to break our day, not having
social media all the time, being able to walk home.
All the things that helped to excuse me, sort of
calm and settle us are sort of gone. We eat
high glycemic load foods which cause a lot of shifts,
(16:33):
and I think if we look at that and say, well,
how do we change that and how do we actually
now integrate that into our treatment plans for kids? It
didn't necessarily have to be there years ago because it
was sort of automatically there, but it isn't there anymore.
So we look at all We literally look at every
single modality that's out there from an integrative standpoint, and
(16:55):
we start with food. You know, we look at food
and trying to get more phyto nutrients in. We know
anxiety and mental health issues has an inflammatory component, so
looking at foods that decrease inflammation in the body, all oils,
lower glycemic load, meaning less starches and sugars, but really
ramping up the phytonutrients and looking at how food can
can help trying to get a little yin to the
(17:17):
yang or leaking into the yong, and day to day movements,
so having some kind of calming movement that they do.
Some of the most stressed patients I have actually are
my athletes who are trying to get to another level
and there's no yin to the yang. It's all go, go, go,
go go. So incorporating five or ten minutes and a
mindfulness that based movements is really important. And then we
(17:39):
look at other supplements and herbs that depend and those
can be anything from omega three fats, to vitamin D
to in particular the nerve ie nerves that we use,
the alphiidines and the valerian roots and sometimes CPD oil.
But bringing in these other things that can be quite
helpful for them. I know there's a bit of a
long answer to the and we could go on forever
(18:01):
on that, but I'll stop and you can ask me
something else.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
No, No, that that that was? That was great. That
was That's exactly what I want listeners to to hear
because these number, these numbers for for these these mental
health patients, for for pediatrics, they're they're troubling. So a
lot of times when we look at at mental health,
we often jump straight to therapy or medication, and that
definitely has its place, but we often we we frequently
(18:27):
ignore that biological foundation. So I think, uh, I think
you may have made mention of this before, maybe like
a nutritional psychiatry and and for for example, just talking
about a couple of these nutritional components. Magnesium, it's involved
in over three hundred biochemical reactions and many of them
(18:48):
regulate the stress response. So if if we know a
child's deficient, yes, and that may be like you said,
it might be to poor soil quality and high sugar diets,
that nervous system is stuck in that high late, high
alert state. And then you mentioned the OMEGA three fatty acids,
which I'm huge on across the board for for adult
(19:09):
seniors all the way down to pediatric you know, you know, consumers, patients, listeners,
they have that that specific the e p A, that
DHA component, and the brain we know is that sixty
percent fat. So if we're not providing those building blocks
that that can really affect affect the mood, that state.
(19:30):
But you you really you gave some powerful points and
I can want to continue this conversation on those, but
I want you to touch on this briefly. We can't
we can't build that foundation if we don't have those
nutrients in place and there's a particular line of products
that you like for children. I want you to tell
our listeners what line of products that is in. What
(19:52):
you like about their line.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, well, the Da Vinci line or the Little Da
Vinci line, we actually put together years ago to try
and replace a lot of this, And you're exactly right.
The lack of these nutrients is tremendous right now. We
know the vitamin D is deficient. We know that Omega
three's are deficient. We know when we look at the
foods that we have, they're missing many things that they
(20:13):
used to have. So years ago, Da Vinci and I
got together and said, hey, what can we do for kids?
Because one, you wanted to be as clean as you
possibly could, because we don't want a lot of dyes
and we don't want a lot of sugar or things
like that into them. We also wanted to make sure
that they reached the amount that fit for the scientific data,
because most of the patric supplements at the time didn't
have that. They really were missing what would actually be
(20:36):
looked at from a data standpoint to show that there
was a benefit to them, and so we had to
make them. We had to make them taste good, okay,
because kids aren't going to eat them if they don't
taste good. One of the ones actually we tried one
time and it didn't come out very good, and one
of the kids said, are you trying to poison me?
So we realized we had to change the flavor for
that one. But no, so Da Vinci and I sat
(20:59):
down and looked at things that were missing on the
market and what we could do specifically for children and
really put these products together to match what the kids need.
We didn't look at huge amounts. We looked at what
we cover about eighty five percent of the population in
terms of what the kids could look at, including Omega
three's vitamin D, multi vitamin, probiotics and those types of things.
(21:21):
Healthy inning as a common product too.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well, let's get into that a little bit more, doctor Hand.
I got to take a take a quick break, but
when we come back, I definitely want to discuss the
Da Vinci line and more what you uh some of
those some of those health truth bombs you dropped in
that in that first first the first part of the conversation.
So again we're with doctor Matthew Hand. He is the
chief the pediatric neuphrology director at Dartmouth University Medical School,
(21:49):
Children's at Children's Health Hospital. Will be write back with
doctor Hand after this message. You're listening to the Doctor
Bob Martin Show. Are you waiting for the riot? Excuse?
Are you waiting for sites? While you waiting the time?
(22:13):
Welcome back. You're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman, and I'm here today with doctor
Matthew Hand. He is the chief chief at Dartmouth. He's
the Pediatric Nephrology Director. He also is is very involved
with integrative medicine at the school. And again we've been talking.
We briefly mentioned about a little da Vinci's line for
(22:37):
pediatric pediatric ages, and I encourage you as a listener
to check out their line. It's at da Vinci Labs
dot com. That's spelled d a v i n Ci
Labs dot com and you can find their products there.
And they also have their online retailers through full script
(22:58):
that's through Healthcare Professionals and all so ierb dot com
and Amazon. Okay, so I want to get back in
this conversation with doctor Hand and doctor Hand now staying
on the path of some of those hidden connections that
you that you mentioned in the last segment. You're an
expert in kidney health, and most most parents think of
the kidneys as just a filtration system. But how does
(23:21):
the child's physical health, in particular their gut or their
kidney function actually influence their mood and also their focus
in the classroom.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, it's a great question. And the you know, we
think of the kidneys as just making urine right, that's
what that we think of it in sort of traditional
everybody in the world thinks of it that way. It
turns out the kidneys actually control every facet of your body.
They control your heart can't work right without your kidneys,
your brain can't work right without your kidneys. No organ
can work right without the kidneys. And in traditional Chinese
(23:52):
menstement or East Asian medicine, the kidneys are viewed as
the single most important organ in the body in terms
of its overall control how the boy works. So it
does have a lot of importance. But interestingly, the gut
health is really really important, and we're learning more and
more about gut health and how this biosis changing the
microbiome and what happens within our intestines actually impacts not
(24:17):
only just our gut, but the rest of us, how
it impacts our brain, how it impacts our ability to focus.
This biosis has been associated with ADHD. This biosis has
been when I say DS biosis, obviously people understand that,
but it means change in the bacterial flora and the
intestines that they's been associated with changing autism patients. So
(24:38):
and also just if you look at inflammatory markers, it's
very important terms of inflammation. And so the kidneys and
the gut all work together in terms of being able
to balance all of this out. And the healthier both
those organs are, the better we are for long term success.
And the better we are for both our mental health,
our inflammatory process in our body, and in particular for kids,
(25:00):
is their ability to function. If your belly doesn't feel good,
you don't do very well. And this huge percentage of
children are dealing with abdominal pain. And so when we
really try and target those organs for overall health and wellness,
we know that we do better and the kids do better.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, and like you said, it's it's all interconnected. And
I know that you're you're very big on that whole
child approach. So you got the kidneys, they're they're vital
for maintaining what you said, that internal environment, including the
electrolyte balance, blood pressure, you know, a number of different
things in nearly every body system and so when these
(25:38):
things are off even slightly, it can lead to that
that brain fog, the fatigue what we're seeing now with
the younger and younger patients. But this, this gut brain
axis is perhaps that most direct link. So we got
about ninety percent of the body serotonin, that that feel
good neurotransmitter, we could say that's that's produced in the gut.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And if a child has chronic inflammation or that dys
biosis like you mentioned, which is that imbalance of the
gut bacteria, it sends that distress signal up the vegus
nerve all the way to the brain. And you know,
we got we got the ad h D symptoms for
focus even even aggression here. So we need to start
treating that stomach or in this case, the whole system
(26:24):
including the kidney, and then we're starting to treat that
nervous system as as as a as a reaction to
that or would that be safe to stay?
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah, exactly, And I think you know, it's really hard
when you look at the data on this because there's
massive amounts of information out there and the connections with
what you really do when you actually put the whole
thing together, is you realize that all this is connected.
These aren't reduction theory where it's just A plus B
equal C, but all these interconnections that are occurring. So
(26:52):
the food you're eating is changing the bacteria and the gut.
The bacteria and the gut is changing your inflammatory response
and changing your serato owned response. The antibiotics that you
need for something might change that, and all of this
sort of creates this complexity theory that we really have
to look at and overall health for kids, and I
think and the vague nerve as you're saying, and I
(27:13):
know as an ostropathic doc, when we treat babies in
the neonatal intensive care unit and we release that vagual
nerve with gentle manipulation techniques, the whole body colms. And
so when we can look at this and we look
at both, so we talk about it from a subtimus standpoint,
we talk about it from a food standpoint. Prebiotics, probiotics,
all the things that help these things to work well
(27:34):
and heal. And when you get to the kidneys, I mean,
one of the big things we're seeing now is we
if you just want to talk about things like obesity
for example, and obesity, it's impacts on the kidneys, it's
packs on blood pressure, its impact on mental health. All
of these things seem to sort of come together and
you see things now and kids that we never saw
in kids. This was only seeing adults for a long, long, long,
(27:56):
long time, but now kids are dealing with it at
almost rates that adults are. So if we can work
on the gut, and we can work on the kidneys,
We can work on sodium intake, we can watch our
sugar so we don't see lots of blood sugar swings
and kids, so we lower inflammation if we work on
improving that and the bacterial flora, the microbiome, all these
things impact mental health, they impact overall wellness, and they
(28:19):
impact long term success in terms of resilience for the kids.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Are there are there any specific supplements that you recommend
to balance out that gut microbiome and and help with
the kidney kidney you know, if you will just a
function in general for pediatric.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Agency Yeah, it's a great question, and you know we
we do. I mean, first of all, we always talk
about food, right, and we can talk about tricks to
get kids to eat bet I don't call them tricks,
but ways to do that. But I use a lot
of probiotics. I mean, the data on probiotics is getting stronger.
It's it's you know, people can argue one study versus another,
but the preponderance of the evidence is showing, you know,
(28:57):
larger numbers of colony forming units with more broad overall
organisms tends to help with many things, including belly pain,
including colic, and including with improving some of the dys
biosis is going on. We look at prebiotics, prebiotics sometimes
we really try and target that with food as much
as possible, but sometimes it's just not what the kids
(29:18):
are getting in depending on what they're eating. So we'll
use those two if someone is dealing with more extensive
GI issues. So let's say somebody's having more crampy belly
pain or having nausea, what have you. Things like in
terra coated peppermine oil ginger, those can be used in
some of the kids to help. But interestingly, the nervine nerves,
(29:39):
so using things like valerian roots or elthenine. Some of
these things that help to calm the mind also calm
the gut, so it's really a mix. So we use
a lot of the nervine nerves to help the kids
to heal and feel better from a GI standpoint.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
We're talking with doctor Matthew Hand. He is the chief
the Pediatric Neuphrology Director, and he's also the Pediatric Integrative
Medicine Professor at Dartmouth Health Children's Hospital at the Dartmouth
Medical School campus. And we're talking today about how we
can improve our children's health and in particular their mental focus.
(30:20):
And we've been talking about the little DA Vinci line
and listeners, if you're interested in finding out more information
about the research some of doctor Hand's works work, I
encourage you to head over to DA Vinci's website, which
is da Vinci Labs dot com and that's spelled d
a v i Nci Labs dot com. Doctor Han, we
(30:42):
got to take a short break, but I'm loving this conversation.
When we come back, we're gonna get into it a
little bit further. We're talking again with doctor Matthew Hand.
We'll be right back on the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
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Speaker 2 (32:18):
Welcome back, We're talking with doctor Matthew Hand about the
future of our children's health. And you're listening to the
Doctor Bob Martin Show, and I'm doctor Adam Brockman, now
doctor Hand. The new guidelines, the dietary guidelines that go
through I think about twenty thirty. They're finally catching up
to what we've known for years, and that's that we
(32:38):
need to get back to whole foods, that those minimally
processed foods. But I also want to know we know this,
let's get real. Parents are busy between between all the practices,
the soccer practice, homework, whole foods. They seem like a
tall order. So I wanted just maybe a few. Maybe
(32:58):
let's just say three of those most impactful food swaps
that we can start to make this week that improves
child's long term Hell I'll say.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, no, it's a great question, and I'll come into
the swap part in a second. But I think even
more important is, yes, medicine. If you really want to
make a change, the swap is one thing, but if
you really want to make the change, get the kid
to tell you what they need to eat. Okay, this
is the biggest thing that I think we tend to
tell kids what to do all the time. Kids are
actually very smart, and the kids have known for a
(33:29):
long long time what they should be eating. They're just
not because we have in some cases a relative abundance
of food, but easier foods that are more ultra processed,
high high density calorie kind of thing, and also typically
high in salt and sugar. So we got to try
and get away from that. But one of the best
ways to get kids to eat better is just ask
(33:49):
them a simple question. You know, if you look at
the food in front of you, which of these do
you think is better for you? Okay? And then don't
take things away. The biggest problems we have is we
tell kids what they can't have, not what they should have.
And so I always tell the kids the simple thing.
If you want to take one thing to do, just
say which food do you think is better for you?
(34:10):
And anytime you're somewhere, it doesn't matter where you are, school, home,
friend's house, or whatever. After a game, start with the
healing food. Just start with your healing food. If you
look at a kid and say, okay, there's a donut
and there's a bowl of fruit, which you think is
better for you. You know which is better for your
belly pain or which is better for your headache, Which
is better for your anxiety? Well, they always know, but
they want the donut. If you tell them they can't
(34:31):
have the donut, they're going to eat the donut and
ignore the fruit. But if they start with the healing
food every time, they have now control over this. And
in the beginning of this we talked a little bit
about resilience and giving them control also gives them resilience.
So if they start with the healing food every time,
you'll see an amazing shift. Yes, we are now catching
up as a society in terms of what we should eat,
(34:53):
but we've known it for a long time. Just how
do you make it happen? And I can tell you
if you do that with it's not going to work
every time, But if you do it consistently over three months,
the kids are going to ramp up their fighter nutrients,
they're going to decrease some of the starchy and ultra
processed foods, and they're going to start really taking control
over their life. So asking them that question in a
non judgmental way every time is really important. So when
(35:18):
we look at other swaps that are out there, trying
to look at things, you know, like if you can't
get fresh stuff, using frozen is okay, particularly with certain things.
It's a little easier to cook and to eat that way.
Try and look at the healing nature of each food
that you're getting. So no matter where they are, if
they're asking themselves which food is more healing for them,
they will migrate towards that in an attempt to eat
(35:41):
that prior to eating the other foods. I think that's
you know, we can talk about, you know, swapping out
you know, something for multi vitamins and stuff like that,
which I do think multi vitamins are important now because
I just don't think our foods have been and what
they used to have, and I strongly recommend those, and
I do recommend, you know, obviously i'll make a three
fause it's hard to get the omega three fats in.
(36:02):
But even adding like ground FlexE to sauces that you're
making with the kids, like certain sauces, cooking noodles a
little more identate to decrease some of the glycemic load
for the noodles that are there. These are subtle things
that you can do that can be actually very helpful
for the kids. But always ask them do you think
food is important in your health? And if you do,
which food would you start with to heal yourself? And
(36:23):
believe it or not, it makes a dramatic change that
can really answer your question completely, but it gives you.
But this is really the important thing is getting these
kids to engage in this process so.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Well, this is such an important conversation that we're probably
just going to be able to touch on a few
things today. And I really and I really do like
that because we know, we know a lot of times
that that we know when we need something in our
in our diets, you know, something starts to starts to
fail or whatnot. In children, they're they're able to just
go ahead and say that. And I like giving that
(36:57):
option to to do that. And moderation is the key.
If you take out everything, they're they're just going to
I always say say this, you know, we had to
have some moderation because if they turned eighteen and they've
never had they've never had a burger, then they're gonna
gravitate towards that at eighteen and you're never gonna see,
You're never gonna have any good foods again, right so
so so moderation is the key. And you know something
(37:19):
that something that that we talk about often is is
something like, let's just call it, you know, the beige diet.
That is, if if it's beige and it comes in
a crinkly bag, it's probably not doing your kid any favors.
So it's about being that health investigator. We know those
are alt processed foods, we need to stay away from those.
(37:39):
And then and then also these these high sugar contents
content in a lot of the foods that we eat.
Now it's like marinating your your your organs, if you will,
and the sugar. Right so, so, as you know, we
just got about a minute or so before break doctor hand.
But as a as a neuphrologist, why is it so
critical that we limit those hidden sugars that sodium in
(38:00):
early childhood.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Well, we got to watch the salt intake because we
know that can lead to hypertension, which in some populations
thirteen percent of the pediatric population is now hypertensive, which
is crazy. Sugar is important not only from the blood
sugar standpoint, but the inflammatory process that goes along with it.
And that's why if you start with the healing food.
You block a lot of that and so people forget
(38:22):
that they lower the glycemic load if they start with
the fibery type food before is for the starch. So
you can hit all of those things at once.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Again, we're talking with doctor Matthew Hand. He is the
Clinical Professor Pediatric, Pediatric Integrative Medicine Director at Dartmouth University.
And again I encourage you to visit some of his
work and you can find some of it at da
Vinci Labs dot com. And we'll be right back with
(38:53):
the doctor Hand for our final stretch. You're listening to
the Doctor Bob Martin show. Hi, it's doctor Adam Brockman.
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Speaker 1 (40:02):
What's wrong with, what's wrong within, what's wrong within contentent.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Welcome back. You're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman and we're in our final segment
with doctor Matthew Hand and doctor Hand. It's been been
a pleasure to have you on the show today again.
You probably may have seen doctor Hand on twenty twenty
or the Discovery Channel or the Oprah Winfrey Show, and
now he's on the Doctor Bob Martin Show, which I'm
glad to have him here. And you've dedicated your career
(40:34):
to this, this whole child philosophy. So I want you
to say, in the final couple of minutes, how does
the little Da Vinci supplement line reflect this mission? And
what's your your final word to parents out there who
want to protect their kids' future in their health.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Yeah, it's a great It is a great point. So
I started doing integrated medicine twenty years ago. Back then
that hardly any of us have you even trained in
integrated medicine for the pediatrics. And I realized a few
things that we were seeing a shift in the healthcare system.
We're seeing kids now with chronic diseases that the adults had.
And I also realized that health is not just about
(41:11):
pharmaceuticals and not just about dumping pills into kids, which
should become sort of commonplace, that really everything can be
a healing modality. Everything from our food to our movement,
to our dogs and our pets, to supplements and herbs
and manual therapies. Really anything that you can bring in
can be a healing modality. And the shift that was
happening to our children was really taking them away from
(41:33):
this concept of health and into this concept of disease.
So we started working on this. That's what I'm doing now,
and I've been doing twenty years, trying to incorporate this
into healthcare of all the children because their food is
important and their movement is important. And it's interesting, you know,
when I see patients in the office, I say to
the kids, so, do you think your food is important
in your health? And they're like, well, of course it is,
like what's wrong with you? You know? Then you have health
(41:56):
health care has sort of ignored that do you think
movement is important in your patient's health? Of course it is.
Why do you have even have to ask this question? Well,
because it sort of left the concept of health and wellness.
And so we've really pushed this hard, and we've looked
at the deficiencies the kids have, what's either it's in
their diet or what's been out there just in terms
of farming processes, what's in the soil, how hard it
(42:17):
is to get them to eat better foods, the effects
of social media and all the other external things that
are impacting children. And in order for us to really
heal the kids, we have to look at all of
these processes and it has to become a natural part
of our healthcare system and a natural part for parents
to be able to integrate easily as easily as possible
into their kids overall health and wellness. As I said
(42:39):
earlier in the show, we're now looking at thirty five
percent of kids dealing with chronic pain, thirty five percent
of kids dealing with anxiety and being treated for them,
twenty five to forty percent dealing with some degree of insomnia,
none of which none of which traditional Western medicine has
good therapeutic interventions.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Well again, doctor Hann, great information today, and thanks so
much for for joining the show and shedding some light.
And it's a very confusing world. And that is supplementation
and nutrition for children. So folks, again, this is about
arming yourself and your children with knowledge and taking control.
And to learn more about doctor Hand's work in the
little Da Vinci line, I encourage you to head over
(43:17):
to Da Vinci Labs dot com. That's d a v
i n Ci Labs dot com. You can also find
their products through trusted retailers like IRB dot com and Amazon,
and through healthcare professionals through full script or. You can
ask questions through us at our website which is doctor
Bob dot com, or our toll free hotline which is
eight hundred and six zero six eight A two to two.
(43:38):
This is doctor Adam Brockman for the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
And folks, your child's health is one of our greatest wealth.
I want you to protect it, I want you to
nurture it, and also I want to see you next
hour on the show.
Welcome to the number one radio health talk show in America,
The Doctor Bob Martin Show. Doctor Martin is a chiropractic physician,
a board certified clinical nutritionist, and diplomat of the American
Academy of Anti Aging Medicine. The information presented on this
show is educational in nature. Please consult your personal healthcare
provider regarding health issues. You may have got a health
(00:32):
related problem or challenge, not feeling well, and you just
don't know where to turner what to do. Doctor Bob
Martin is here for you and will do his very
best to answer your health question. The tone free number
to ask Doctor Martin a health question or to make
a health related comment is eight hundred six oh six
eighty eight twenty two. Eight hundred six oh six eighty
(00:53):
eight twenty two. That's eight hundred six zero six eighty
eight twenty two. It's the Doctor Bob Martin and Show.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Welcome, Welcome, you are listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman, and folks today, let's talk about
our children. And somewhere between the lunch box, the tablet
screen and the drive through window, a lot of our
kids they get pushed into a biological conveyor belt that's
headed in the wrong direction. We're watching a pediatric health
(01:24):
crisis unfold in real time, and it's not subtle anymore.
It shows up, you know, with a child who can't focus,
and a teenager who can't sleep in the seven year
old with stomach pain, a ten year old with anxiety,
and a parent that's standing in the kitchen wondering how
things got this complicated this fast. And we're not talking
(01:46):
about just coughs or colds or scrape knees anymore. This
is about a generation that's growing up in a food
in a lifestyle environment that is actually colliding with their biology.
And one of the biggest drive of this is the
beige diet. And you know exactly what I mean. We're
talking about the crackers, the nuggets, the puffs, the fries,
(02:08):
the bars, the cereal, the chips, the toaster pastries, the
white bread, the sweet and yogurt tubes, and the ultra
process convenient foods that dominate the modern childhood menu. Their
shelf stable and their kid friendly, and they're everywhere, but
they also create a nutritional wasteland. In many homes, children
(02:28):
are eating calories that are empty. It's fuel without intelligence.
We're seeing bodies that are overfed and undernourished at the
same time. And that's where this whole child philosophy has
to come in. If we really want to protect the
future of our children, we can't just chase symptoms from
(02:50):
one doctor's office to the next. We have to ask
the bigger questions, what is happening in our gut, what
is happening in our brain, and what is happening in
the immune system or in a sleep cycle, or in
our nutrient reserves, or what about even our stress response.
Because a child is not a collection of disconnected parts.
(03:13):
A child is an ecosystem. And when an ecosystem gets
overloaded with inflammatory foods, are chronic stress or poor sleep,
or have those nutritional gaps, the body starts waving red flags.
And the troubling part is how normal this has become.
We have pediatric mental health visits, they're climbing, Metabolic issues
(03:37):
in children are showing up even earlier, and digestive complaints
are becoming routine as and we have attention problems and
mood swings and skin issues and immune dysfunction, and they're
often treated like unrelated bad luck when in many cases
they're connected at the same biological thread. And there's good news,
(03:59):
and that is this. Once you see that pattern, you
can start changing the pattern. You can shift the inputs,
you can rebuild that terrain. So here's your cue to
join in the conversation. Do you have questions on children's
health or maybe a recommendation that has worked for you
and your children. I want you to chime in. You
(04:21):
can do that through our hotline which is eight hundred
six zero six eight eight two two, or our website
which is doctor Bob dot com. Again that's eight hundred
six zero six eight A two two, or at doctor
bob dot com spelling out the word doctor doct r
bob dot com and folks. Later in the show, after
(04:44):
the break, we're going to be joined in by one
of the leading voices in integrative pediatric medicine, and that's
doctor Matthew Hand. He's the Section Chief of Pediatric Nephrology
in the Director of Pediatric Integrative Medicine at Dartmouth Health
Children's Hospital and you've probably seen him on twenty twenty
in the Discovery Channel and even the Oprah Winfrey Show.
(05:06):
So he's going to be joining us later to unpack
what parents can do right now to support that resilience,
the growth in the long term health and their kids.
But before doctor Hann joins us, I want to I
want you to take in. I want to share a
story that hits this issue at home. So I want
to talk to you about Evan. Evan was the kind
(05:29):
of kid people described as just small for his age
until that explanation started to fall apart. At first, his
parents they didn't panic. Some kids they're just late bloomers,
some are just built smaller and families hear this all
the time. But over the months and then it happened
in years, that gap got harder to ignore. His friends
(05:52):
they kept growing, but Evan didn't. Shirts they still fit
long after they should have been outgrown, and pants they
stayed the same size, and photos from one birthday to
the next looked almost frozen in time. And his parents
they did what any caring family would do. They started
(06:12):
to ask questions, first with the pediatrician and then was specialists.
Was it genetics or thyroid issues or growth hormone deficiency
or was he just a slow starter? And on paper,
some of these basics they didn't look as dramatic as
you know to trigger an alarm. Let's say that's that's
(06:35):
often how these stories begin, not with one giant crisis,
but with a long trail of these little clues that
they're easy to dismiss when you're only looking at one
lab or one symptom or one office visit at a time.
But Evans's growth chart was telling a different story. Growth
in children is one of the most important vital signs
(06:56):
that we have. It's that bodies report card. And when
growth starts to stall, the body is usually spinning energy
somewhere else. And that's the part that most people miss.
A child doesn't just randomly stop growing. If the body
is under siege, it starts to shift its priorities. Instead
of building bone or muscle or tissue, it diverts resources
(07:20):
to defense or inflammation control or survival. So as this
work up on Evan deep and more pieces start to emerge.
Evan had a history of digestive complaints that never seemed
dramatic enough to dominate this conversation. He had some bloating,
some abdominal discomfort, and periods of poor appetite and occasional fatigue.
(07:41):
Nothing that is is theatrical, nothing that screamed emergency. But
taken together, these were random, not necessarily random footprints. They
were breadcrumbs. And this is where that conventional symptom by
symptom model can miss the hidden architecture of disease. One
one doctor sees a growth delay, one sees stomach issues,
(08:04):
one sees fatigue, one sees mood changes. But the body
is often telling one story in several different languages. And
eventually that focus turned to where it should have been
with Evan, and that is the gut. And that's what
was found. Was like a hidden storm, not always obvious
from the outside, but active on that inside. So we
(08:24):
got chronic intestinal inflammation that can quietly rob a child
of those raw materials that are needed to grow. It
reduces that absorption of iron or zinc or protein or
fat soluble vitamins, magnesium, or other key nutrients, and it
triggers immune activation or systemic stress, and that interferes with
(08:45):
his hormone signaling. So if we're talking about this, the
body becomes too busy fighting an internal fire to build
a healthy child. And for some kids the hidden storm
may be siliac disease. For others, it might be inflammatory
bowel disease, or food sensitivities, or dysbiosis or chronic constipation.
You get what I'm saying here. That exact diagnosis it
(09:08):
may matter, but the larger principle matters too. When the
gut is compromised, growth can become collateral damage. And that's
why this story matters so much, because Evan's case is
not just about one boy who stopped growing. It's about
how many children are waiving this biological distress flags and
they get mistaken for personality or pickiness or just a phase.
(09:33):
It's about how easy it is to normalize low energy
or poor appetite, or chronic tummy aches or these skin
flare ups, and also the stalled growth when they've all
become so common. So parents, if your child is always
tired or always bloated, or always constipated or always moody,
(09:55):
you know, don't ignore that. Don't let anybody convince you
that the body's warning their meaningless. The body keeps score
and in children, one of the first places it shows
up is in their development. So Evan's story it's a
reminder that the gut is not just a digestive tube.
It's a command center. It influences nutrient absorption and immune balance,
(10:17):
and inflammation, in neurotransmitter production, and then in this case
obviously growth itself. And when there's a storm, the whole
child feels it. And so folks, after the break, we're
going to zoom in and look at this this mystery
and connect the dots with one of the best people
to do that in the country, and that's doctor Matthew Hand.
He'll be joining us just after the break to talk
(10:39):
about pediatric mental health crisis, this biological blueprint that's beneath it,
and why this whole child model may be one of
the most important course corrections in modern medicine. So don't
go anywhere you're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show,
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(12:14):
Welcome back to Health Talk America presents the Doctor Bob
Martin Show. I'm your host, Doctor Adam Brockman, and today
we're going to continue to dive into a topic that
hits home for every single person that's listening, and that
is the health in the future of our children. We
live now where health it's often defined by the absence
of symptoms. But if we want our kids to thrive,
(12:37):
to truly thrive with vitality and resilience, we have to
dig into that a little bit deeper. So I've asked
a special guest today, and it's a true leader in
the world of pediatrics. It's doctor Matthew Hand and he's
not just any doctor, He's the chief of pediatric nephrology,
and he's also the director of Pediatric Integrative Medicine at
(12:58):
Dartmouth Health's their Children's hospital on Dartmouth's Medical School campus.
And you may have seen him on twenty twenty also
the Discovery Channel and even the Oprah Winfrey Show. He's
at the forefront of bridging that gap between conventional medicine
and that evidence based integrative world. So with that, I
(13:19):
want to welcome doctor Matthew Hand to the program. How
are you today, doctor Hand.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I'm great, I'm great. Thanks for having me. I can't
wait to talk. I look forward to going over the
stuff and really trying to change healthcare for children. It's
been a mission of mind for a long time. So
I'm looking forward.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
To this great. Great, great, and I'm excited to have
you on the show. This is important conversation because really,
you know, that is our future. We need to look
at that and see just tweak where we can. And really,
doctor Hann, I want to start with talking about something
that's very important, and that's mental health. We're seeing this shocking,
(13:54):
staggering record a number of visits and mental health for
pediatric patients, and to me, I see it as a crisis,
plain and simple. From that integrative medicine approach that you
use that perspective, what are some non pharmaceutical type of
foundational blocks, like specific nutrients or lifestyle habits that the
(14:17):
parents can start to use to support that child's emotional stability.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, it's a great question. And if you think about it,
if you go back to when I first started in medicine,
which I won't tell you how long ago it was
because I'm actually very young, but the fact is that
we had almost no kids that were presenting with anxiety, depression,
severeo CD issues, all the things that we're seeing right now,
that is insomnia, which all falls into that sort of
(14:43):
mental health realm. And it was actually a very very
very small percentage. And now if you look at the numbers,
surveys have shown that over half the children, particularly adolescents,
are reporting some degree of anxiety on a general basis,
and over twenty five percent to thirty percent are actually
maybe even higher than that. I suspect it's even higher.
Now are being treated for anxiety and or depression. And
(15:06):
if you think about anxiety and depression basically the same concepts.
Lattu once said that if you think about the future,
you get anxious. If you think about the past, you
get depressed. And if we stay in the moment, that's
where we are all okay. And it's really true. And
we see this now for our kids, and this has
really evolved to where we're looking at numbers that we
(15:28):
used to see in the adult population in terms of
anxiety and depression and other mental health concerns. And why,
you know, the question is why, And I think anybody
who lives out there now can understand it. The foods
are different, our movement is different, our exercise is different.
The stressors on children have gone up tremendously. You talk
(15:49):
about things that used to be in college or now
in high school, things in high school or now in
middle school. Things in middle school are now into grammar school.
These pressures have just ramped up on these children. At
social media. You look at electronic exposure. That's been a
real big topic in the media lately, but we've known
this for a long long time there. In fact, Europe
was way ahead of us in this. So the days
(16:11):
of walking to and from school and having some recess
and having breaks and having an hour for lunch, having gym,
having things that helped to break our day, not having
social media all the time, being able to walk home.
All the things that helped to excuse me, sort of
calm and settle us are sort of gone. We eat
high glycemic load foods which cause a lot of shifts,
(16:33):
and I think if we look at that and say, well,
how do we change that and how do we actually
now integrate that into our treatment plans for kids? It
didn't necessarily have to be there years ago because it
was sort of automatically there, but it isn't there anymore.
So we look at all We literally look at every
single modality that's out there from an integrative standpoint, and
(16:55):
we start with food. You know, we look at food
and trying to get more phyto nutrients in. We know
anxiety and mental health issues has an inflammatory component, so
looking at foods that decrease inflammation in the body, all oils,
lower glycemic load, meaning less starches and sugars, but really
ramping up the phytonutrients and looking at how food can
can help trying to get a little yin to the
(17:17):
yang or leaking into the yong, and day to day movements,
so having some kind of calming movement that they do.
Some of the most stressed patients I have actually are
my athletes who are trying to get to another level
and there's no yin to the yang. It's all go, go, go,
go go. So incorporating five or ten minutes and a
mindfulness that based movements is really important. And then we
(17:39):
look at other supplements and herbs that depend and those
can be anything from omega three fats, to vitamin D
to in particular the nerve ie nerves that we use,
the alphiidines and the valerian roots and sometimes CPD oil.
But bringing in these other things that can be quite
helpful for them. I know there's a bit of a
long answer to the and we could go on forever
(18:01):
on that, but I'll stop and you can ask me
something else.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
No, No, that that that was? That was great. That
was That's exactly what I want listeners to to hear
because these number, these numbers for for these these mental
health patients, for for pediatrics, they're they're troubling. So a
lot of times when we look at at mental health,
we often jump straight to therapy or medication, and that
definitely has its place, but we often we we frequently
(18:27):
ignore that biological foundation. So I think, uh, I think
you may have made mention of this before, maybe like
a nutritional psychiatry and and for for example, just talking
about a couple of these nutritional components. Magnesium, it's involved
in over three hundred biochemical reactions and many of them
(18:48):
regulate the stress response. So if if we know a
child's deficient, yes, and that may be like you said,
it might be to poor soil quality and high sugar diets,
that nervous system is stuck in that high late, high
alert state. And then you mentioned the OMEGA three fatty acids,
which I'm huge on across the board for for adult
(19:09):
seniors all the way down to pediatric you know, you know, consumers, patients, listeners,
they have that that specific the e p A, that
DHA component, and the brain we know is that sixty
percent fat. So if we're not providing those building blocks
that that can really affect affect the mood, that state.
(19:30):
But you you really you gave some powerful points and
I can want to continue this conversation on those, but
I want you to touch on this briefly. We can't
we can't build that foundation if we don't have those
nutrients in place and there's a particular line of products
that you like for children. I want you to tell
our listeners what line of products that is in. What
(19:52):
you like about their line.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, well, the Da Vinci line or the Little Da
Vinci line, we actually put together years ago to try
and replace a lot of this, And you're exactly right.
The lack of these nutrients is tremendous right now. We
know the vitamin D is deficient. We know that Omega
three's are deficient. We know when we look at the
foods that we have, they're missing many things that they
(20:13):
used to have. So years ago, Da Vinci and I
got together and said, hey, what can we do for kids?
Because one, you wanted to be as clean as you
possibly could, because we don't want a lot of dyes
and we don't want a lot of sugar or things
like that into them. We also wanted to make sure
that they reached the amount that fit for the scientific data,
because most of the patric supplements at the time didn't
have that. They really were missing what would actually be
(20:36):
looked at from a data standpoint to show that there
was a benefit to them, and so we had to
make them. We had to make them taste good, okay,
because kids aren't going to eat them if they don't
taste good. One of the ones actually we tried one
time and it didn't come out very good, and one
of the kids said, are you trying to poison me?
So we realized we had to change the flavor for
that one. But no, so Da Vinci and I sat
(20:59):
down and looked at things that were missing on the
market and what we could do specifically for children and
really put these products together to match what the kids need.
We didn't look at huge amounts. We looked at what
we cover about eighty five percent of the population in
terms of what the kids could look at, including Omega
three's vitamin D, multi vitamin, probiotics and those types of things.
(21:21):
Healthy inning as a common product too.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well, let's get into that a little bit more, doctor Hand.
I got to take a take a quick break, but
when we come back, I definitely want to discuss the
Da Vinci line and more what you uh some of
those some of those health truth bombs you dropped in
that in that first first the first part of the conversation.
So again we're with doctor Matthew Hand. He is the
chief the pediatric neuphrology director at Dartmouth University Medical School,
(21:49):
Children's at Children's Health Hospital. Will be write back with
doctor Hand after this message. You're listening to the Doctor
Bob Martin Show. Are you waiting for the riot? Excuse?
Are you waiting for sites? While you waiting the time?
(22:13):
Welcome back. You're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman, and I'm here today with doctor
Matthew Hand. He is the chief chief at Dartmouth. He's
the Pediatric Nephrology Director. He also is is very involved
with integrative medicine at the school. And again we've been talking.
We briefly mentioned about a little da Vinci's line for
(22:37):
pediatric pediatric ages, and I encourage you as a listener
to check out their line. It's at da Vinci Labs
dot com. That's spelled d a v i n Ci
Labs dot com and you can find their products there.
And they also have their online retailers through full script
(22:58):
that's through Healthcare Professionals and all so ierb dot com
and Amazon. Okay, so I want to get back in
this conversation with doctor Hand and doctor Hand now staying
on the path of some of those hidden connections that
you that you mentioned in the last segment. You're an
expert in kidney health, and most most parents think of
the kidneys as just a filtration system. But how does
(23:21):
the child's physical health, in particular their gut or their
kidney function actually influence their mood and also their focus
in the classroom.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, it's a great question. And the you know, we
think of the kidneys as just making urine right, that's
what that we think of it in sort of traditional
everybody in the world thinks of it that way. It
turns out the kidneys actually control every facet of your body.
They control your heart can't work right without your kidneys,
your brain can't work right without your kidneys. No organ
can work right without the kidneys. And in traditional Chinese
(23:52):
menstement or East Asian medicine, the kidneys are viewed as
the single most important organ in the body in terms
of its overall control how the boy works. So it
does have a lot of importance. But interestingly, the gut
health is really really important, and we're learning more and
more about gut health and how this biosis changing the
microbiome and what happens within our intestines actually impacts not
(24:17):
only just our gut, but the rest of us, how
it impacts our brain, how it impacts our ability to focus.
This biosis has been associated with ADHD. This biosis has
been when I say DS biosis, obviously people understand that,
but it means change in the bacterial flora and the
intestines that they's been associated with changing autism patients. So
(24:38):
and also just if you look at inflammatory markers, it's
very important terms of inflammation. And so the kidneys and
the gut all work together in terms of being able
to balance all of this out. And the healthier both
those organs are, the better we are for long term success.
And the better we are for both our mental health,
our inflammatory process in our body, and in particular for kids,
(25:00):
is their ability to function. If your belly doesn't feel good,
you don't do very well. And this huge percentage of
children are dealing with abdominal pain. And so when we
really try and target those organs for overall health and wellness,
we know that we do better and the kids do better.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, and like you said, it's it's all interconnected. And
I know that you're you're very big on that whole
child approach. So you got the kidneys, they're they're vital
for maintaining what you said, that internal environment, including the
electrolyte balance, blood pressure, you know, a number of different
things in nearly every body system and so when these
(25:38):
things are off even slightly, it can lead to that
that brain fog, the fatigue what we're seeing now with
the younger and younger patients. But this, this gut brain
axis is perhaps that most direct link. So we got
about ninety percent of the body serotonin, that that feel
good neurotransmitter, we could say that's that's produced in the gut.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And if a child has chronic inflammation or that dys
biosis like you mentioned, which is that imbalance of the
gut bacteria, it sends that distress signal up the vegus
nerve all the way to the brain. And you know,
we got we got the ad h D symptoms for
focus even even aggression here. So we need to start
treating that stomach or in this case, the whole system
(26:24):
including the kidney, and then we're starting to treat that
nervous system as as as a as a reaction to
that or would that be safe to stay?
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah, exactly, And I think you know, it's really hard
when you look at the data on this because there's
massive amounts of information out there and the connections with
what you really do when you actually put the whole
thing together, is you realize that all this is connected.
These aren't reduction theory where it's just A plus B
equal C, but all these interconnections that are occurring. So
(26:52):
the food you're eating is changing the bacteria and the gut.
The bacteria and the gut is changing your inflammatory response
and changing your serato owned response. The antibiotics that you
need for something might change that, and all of this
sort of creates this complexity theory that we really have
to look at and overall health for kids, and I
think and the vague nerve as you're saying, and I
(27:13):
know as an ostropathic doc, when we treat babies in
the neonatal intensive care unit and we release that vagual
nerve with gentle manipulation techniques, the whole body colms. And
so when we can look at this and we look
at both, so we talk about it from a subtimus standpoint,
we talk about it from a food standpoint. Prebiotics, probiotics,
all the things that help these things to work well
(27:34):
and heal. And when you get to the kidneys, I mean,
one of the big things we're seeing now is we
if you just want to talk about things like obesity
for example, and obesity, it's impacts on the kidneys, it's
packs on blood pressure, its impact on mental health. All
of these things seem to sort of come together and
you see things now and kids that we never saw
in kids. This was only seeing adults for a long, long, long,
(27:56):
long time, but now kids are dealing with it at
almost rates that adults are. So if we can work
on the gut, and we can work on the kidneys,
We can work on sodium intake, we can watch our
sugar so we don't see lots of blood sugar swings
and kids, so we lower inflammation if we work on
improving that and the bacterial flora, the microbiome, all these
things impact mental health, they impact overall wellness, and they
(28:19):
impact long term success in terms of resilience for the kids.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Are there are there any specific supplements that you recommend
to balance out that gut microbiome and and help with
the kidney kidney you know, if you will just a
function in general for pediatric.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Agency Yeah, it's a great question, and you know we
we do. I mean, first of all, we always talk
about food, right, and we can talk about tricks to
get kids to eat bet I don't call them tricks,
but ways to do that. But I use a lot
of probiotics. I mean, the data on probiotics is getting stronger.
It's it's you know, people can argue one study versus another,
but the preponderance of the evidence is showing, you know,
(28:57):
larger numbers of colony forming units with more broad overall
organisms tends to help with many things, including belly pain,
including colic, and including with improving some of the dys
biosis is going on. We look at prebiotics, prebiotics sometimes
we really try and target that with food as much
as possible, but sometimes it's just not what the kids
(29:18):
are getting in depending on what they're eating. So we'll
use those two if someone is dealing with more extensive
GI issues. So let's say somebody's having more crampy belly
pain or having nausea, what have you. Things like in
terra coated peppermine oil ginger, those can be used in
some of the kids to help. But interestingly, the nervine nerves,
(29:39):
so using things like valerian roots or elthenine. Some of
these things that help to calm the mind also calm
the gut, so it's really a mix. So we use
a lot of the nervine nerves to help the kids
to heal and feel better from a GI standpoint.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
We're talking with doctor Matthew Hand. He is the chief
the Pediatric Neuphrology Director, and he's also the Pediatric Integrative
Medicine Professor at Dartmouth Health Children's Hospital at the Dartmouth
Medical School campus. And we're talking today about how we
can improve our children's health and in particular their mental focus.
(30:20):
And we've been talking about the little DA Vinci line
and listeners, if you're interested in finding out more information
about the research some of doctor Hand's works work, I
encourage you to head over to DA Vinci's website, which
is da Vinci Labs dot com and that's spelled d
a v i Nci Labs dot com. Doctor Han, we
(30:42):
got to take a short break, but I'm loving this conversation.
When we come back, we're gonna get into it a
little bit further. We're talking again with doctor Matthew Hand.
We'll be right back on the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
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Speaker 2 (32:18):
Welcome back, We're talking with doctor Matthew Hand about the
future of our children's health. And you're listening to the
Doctor Bob Martin Show, and I'm doctor Adam Brockman, now
doctor Hand. The new guidelines, the dietary guidelines that go
through I think about twenty thirty. They're finally catching up
to what we've known for years, and that's that we
(32:38):
need to get back to whole foods, that those minimally
processed foods. But I also want to know we know this,
let's get real. Parents are busy between between all the practices,
the soccer practice, homework, whole foods. They seem like a
tall order. So I wanted just maybe a few. Maybe
(32:58):
let's just say three of those most impactful food swaps
that we can start to make this week that improves
child's long term Hell I'll say.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, no, it's a great question, and I'll come into
the swap part in a second. But I think even
more important is, yes, medicine. If you really want to
make a change, the swap is one thing, but if
you really want to make the change, get the kid
to tell you what they need to eat. Okay, this
is the biggest thing that I think we tend to
tell kids what to do all the time. Kids are
actually very smart, and the kids have known for a
(33:29):
long long time what they should be eating. They're just
not because we have in some cases a relative abundance
of food, but easier foods that are more ultra processed,
high high density calorie kind of thing, and also typically
high in salt and sugar. So we got to try
and get away from that. But one of the best
ways to get kids to eat better is just ask
(33:49):
them a simple question. You know, if you look at
the food in front of you, which of these do
you think is better for you? Okay? And then don't
take things away. The biggest problems we have is we
tell kids what they can't have, not what they should have.
And so I always tell the kids the simple thing.
If you want to take one thing to do, just
say which food do you think is better for you?
(34:10):
And anytime you're somewhere, it doesn't matter where you are, school, home,
friend's house, or whatever. After a game, start with the
healing food. Just start with your healing food. If you
look at a kid and say, okay, there's a donut
and there's a bowl of fruit, which you think is
better for you. You know which is better for your
belly pain or which is better for your headache, Which
is better for your anxiety? Well, they always know, but
they want the donut. If you tell them they can't
(34:31):
have the donut, they're going to eat the donut and
ignore the fruit. But if they start with the healing
food every time, they have now control over this. And
in the beginning of this we talked a little bit
about resilience and giving them control also gives them resilience.
So if they start with the healing food every time,
you'll see an amazing shift. Yes, we are now catching
up as a society in terms of what we should eat,
(34:53):
but we've known it for a long time. Just how
do you make it happen? And I can tell you
if you do that with it's not going to work
every time, But if you do it consistently over three months,
the kids are going to ramp up their fighter nutrients,
they're going to decrease some of the starchy and ultra
processed foods, and they're going to start really taking control
over their life. So asking them that question in a
non judgmental way every time is really important. So when
(35:18):
we look at other swaps that are out there, trying
to look at things, you know, like if you can't
get fresh stuff, using frozen is okay, particularly with certain things.
It's a little easier to cook and to eat that way.
Try and look at the healing nature of each food
that you're getting. So no matter where they are, if
they're asking themselves which food is more healing for them,
they will migrate towards that in an attempt to eat
(35:41):
that prior to eating the other foods. I think that's
you know, we can talk about, you know, swapping out
you know, something for multi vitamins and stuff like that,
which I do think multi vitamins are important now because
I just don't think our foods have been and what
they used to have, and I strongly recommend those, and
I do recommend, you know, obviously i'll make a three
fause it's hard to get the omega three fats in.
(36:02):
But even adding like ground FlexE to sauces that you're
making with the kids, like certain sauces, cooking noodles a
little more identate to decrease some of the glycemic load
for the noodles that are there. These are subtle things
that you can do that can be actually very helpful
for the kids. But always ask them do you think
food is important in your health? And if you do,
which food would you start with to heal yourself? And
(36:23):
believe it or not, it makes a dramatic change that
can really answer your question completely, but it gives you.
But this is really the important thing is getting these
kids to engage in this process so.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Well, this is such an important conversation that we're probably
just going to be able to touch on a few
things today. And I really and I really do like
that because we know, we know a lot of times
that that we know when we need something in our
in our diets, you know, something starts to starts to
fail or whatnot. In children, they're they're able to just
go ahead and say that. And I like giving that
(36:57):
option to to do that. And moderation is the key.
If you take out everything, they're they're just going to
I always say say this, you know, we had to
have some moderation because if they turned eighteen and they've
never had they've never had a burger, then they're gonna
gravitate towards that at eighteen and you're never gonna see,
You're never gonna have any good foods again, right so
so so moderation is the key. And you know something
(37:19):
that something that that we talk about often is is
something like, let's just call it, you know, the beige diet.
That is, if if it's beige and it comes in
a crinkly bag, it's probably not doing your kid any favors.
So it's about being that health investigator. We know those
are alt processed foods, we need to stay away from those.
(37:39):
And then and then also these these high sugar contents
content in a lot of the foods that we eat.
Now it's like marinating your your your organs, if you will,
and the sugar. Right so, so, as you know, we
just got about a minute or so before break doctor hand.
But as a as a neuphrologist, why is it so
critical that we limit those hidden sugars that sodium in
(38:00):
early childhood.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Well, we got to watch the salt intake because we
know that can lead to hypertension, which in some populations
thirteen percent of the pediatric population is now hypertensive, which
is crazy. Sugar is important not only from the blood
sugar standpoint, but the inflammatory process that goes along with it.
And that's why if you start with the healing food.
You block a lot of that and so people forget
(38:22):
that they lower the glycemic load if they start with
the fibery type food before is for the starch. So
you can hit all of those things at once.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Again, we're talking with doctor Matthew Hand. He is the
Clinical Professor Pediatric, Pediatric Integrative Medicine Director at Dartmouth University.
And again I encourage you to visit some of his
work and you can find some of it at da
Vinci Labs dot com. And we'll be right back with
(38:53):
the doctor Hand for our final stretch. You're listening to
the Doctor Bob Martin show. Hi, it's doctor Adam Brockman.
We talk about health every week. When your joints hurt,
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(39:14):
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Speaker 1 (40:02):
What's wrong with, what's wrong within, what's wrong within contentent.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Welcome back. You're listening to the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
I'm doctor Adam Brockman and we're in our final segment
with doctor Matthew Hand and doctor Hand. It's been been
a pleasure to have you on the show today again.
You probably may have seen doctor Hand on twenty twenty
or the Discovery Channel or the Oprah Winfrey Show, and
now he's on the Doctor Bob Martin Show, which I'm
glad to have him here. And you've dedicated your career
(40:34):
to this, this whole child philosophy. So I want you
to say, in the final couple of minutes, how does
the little Da Vinci supplement line reflect this mission? And
what's your your final word to parents out there who
want to protect their kids' future in their health.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Yeah, it's a great It is a great point. So
I started doing integrated medicine twenty years ago. Back then
that hardly any of us have you even trained in
integrated medicine for the pediatrics. And I realized a few
things that we were seeing a shift in the healthcare system.
We're seeing kids now with chronic diseases that the adults had.
And I also realized that health is not just about
(41:11):
pharmaceuticals and not just about dumping pills into kids, which
should become sort of commonplace, that really everything can be
a healing modality. Everything from our food to our movement,
to our dogs and our pets, to supplements and herbs
and manual therapies. Really anything that you can bring in
can be a healing modality. And the shift that was
happening to our children was really taking them away from
(41:33):
this concept of health and into this concept of disease.
So we started working on this. That's what I'm doing now,
and I've been doing twenty years, trying to incorporate this
into healthcare of all the children because their food is
important and their movement is important. And it's interesting, you know,
when I see patients in the office, I say to
the kids, so, do you think your food is important
in your health? And they're like, well, of course it is,
like what's wrong with you? You know? Then you have health
(41:56):
health care has sort of ignored that do you think
movement is important in your patient's health? Of course it is.
Why do you have even have to ask this question? Well,
because it sort of left the concept of health and wellness.
And so we've really pushed this hard, and we've looked
at the deficiencies the kids have, what's either it's in
their diet or what's been out there just in terms
of farming processes, what's in the soil, how hard it
(42:17):
is to get them to eat better foods, the effects
of social media and all the other external things that
are impacting children. And in order for us to really
heal the kids, we have to look at all of
these processes and it has to become a natural part
of our healthcare system and a natural part for parents
to be able to integrate easily as easily as possible
into their kids overall health and wellness. As I said
(42:39):
earlier in the show, we're now looking at thirty five
percent of kids dealing with chronic pain, thirty five percent
of kids dealing with anxiety and being treated for them,
twenty five to forty percent dealing with some degree of insomnia,
none of which none of which traditional Western medicine has
good therapeutic interventions.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Well again, doctor Hann, great information today, and thanks so
much for for joining the show and shedding some light.
And it's a very confusing world. And that is supplementation
and nutrition for children. So folks, again, this is about
arming yourself and your children with knowledge and taking control.
And to learn more about doctor Hand's work in the
little Da Vinci line, I encourage you to head over
(43:17):
to Da Vinci Labs dot com. That's d a v
i n Ci Labs dot com. You can also find
their products through trusted retailers like IRB dot com and Amazon,
and through healthcare professionals through full script or. You can
ask questions through us at our website which is doctor
Bob dot com, or our toll free hotline which is
eight hundred and six zero six eight A two to two.
(43:38):
This is doctor Adam Brockman for the Doctor Bob Martin Show.
And folks, your child's health is one of our greatest wealth.
I want you to protect it, I want you to
nurture it, and also I want to see you next
hour on the show.
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