Meenal Lele, THE BABY AND THE BIOME: How the Tiny World Inside Your Child Holds the Secret to Their Health
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[0:58]Mino Lele is the author of the baby and the biome. How the tiny world inside your child holds the secret to their health
[1:05]This is a revolutionary look at immune disease and what one parent has learned to reverse it
[1:10]She designed, ran and published multiple large clinical studies across orthopedics vascular medicine and allergy
[1:17]She has an engineering and business degree from the University of Pennsylvania
[1:20]And is the power and is the founder of Little Mixins an allergy prevention company
[1:24]As a food allergy and asthma parent, she is committed to bringing an end to the immune diseases that plague 80 million Americans
[1:31]Welcome Mino. Thank you so much for coming on momstone have time to read books to discuss
[1:36]The baby and the biome have the tiny world inside your child holds the secret to their health
[1:42]Thank you so much for having me. It's really cool to be here
[1:45]I showed this book to my nine-year-old daughter and she was like, what's the secret?
[1:50]What is it? So I'm here to find out
[1:53]Yeah, I mean the secret in a nutshell is that your microbiome
[1:59]So this is it's I think of it the way a 200 years ago or 200 years ago basically
[2:04]We didn't know about germs, right?
[2:05]And so we thought that like we thought that it was we had to explain why we were getting all these diseases
[2:09]And we said well it must be you know
[2:12]God's smiting us or something and that was the only explanation because we couldn't see that layer of it
[2:16]And we've actually known about our microbiome for a long time because as long as we've been able to see the bacteria, right?
[2:22]We know it's there
[2:23]But the thing that we didn't understand is how much it actually controls our body functions
[2:28]And that was a big difference, right?
[2:30]Because we've talked forever and if you every time you hear about a new disease
[2:33]Everyone's chasing after all these genetic causes that are like oh well
[2:36]We found this gene and that gene and this gene
[2:39]And the truth is that like
[2:41]Genes obviously have a have a role to play in everything, right?
[2:44]It's not to some extent creates your predisposition to things your susceptibility to things
[2:49]But it's actually a smaller part of the story than the environmental influences that are around you
[2:55]And the way those environmental influences affect you like you are you, right?
[2:59]So why does why does a gust of air pollution affect you and not somebody else is actually
[3:05]Is because of the way it shifts your the microbes that live on you, right?
[3:09]And the simplest it's a really simple example because we see it very very clearly
[3:13]And the reason to worry about it with babies is because babies
[3:16]Generally speaking should be born with basically the same microbiomes, right?
[3:20]They are in the womb
[3:22]Duffings touching them
[3:23]Nothing's influencing them and so they should come out like
[3:26]You know
[3:27]Basically about the same and then from there you start to see this divergence
[3:31]And when you follow that divergence
[3:33]That's where you really start to see the differences and rates of chronic diseases and things like this
[3:38]And why does this so important and the whole crux of the book is that
[3:42]It's actually because the baby is so small because there's so few influences on the baby
[3:48]And everything's in that early stage
[3:50]That's your best chance to kind of nudge things back onto the right course
[3:55]Right so have your golf balls flying onto the you know the other the other ones you want to back on your own fairway
[4:01]And have you been watching me play golf?
[4:04]No, no judgment
[4:07]Okay, and you know and and you can kind of keep things moving along
[4:12]And there and for a lot of us there's there's actually this window like I think the easiest way for me to always think about it
[4:19]Is we've kind of understood that these early life influences can really set up a baby's brain
[4:24]Right we think about the traumas the baby could have or a toddler or things like this
[4:28]And we sort of understand how zero to three almost 80% of the baby's brain is set up
[4:33]80% of your neurons are laid down and your decisions are being made about like how you think about the world how you model it
[4:39]And so how we care for children is zero to three for their brains
[4:43]Really projects their trajectory for the rest of their life, right?
[4:46]But your immune system is really really similar. It's a second brain
[4:50]And your immune system is largely controlled by this microbiome
[4:52]So how we treat it in the first three years
[4:55]Kind of decides are you going to be a sickly person for the rest of your life
[4:59]Or are you going to be a relatively resilient and healthy person for the rest of your life, right?
[5:04]And it's you know, of course just like with brain, right?
[5:06]It doesn't mean nothing matters after three
[5:08]It just means that there's so much we can do to increase the odds that our children are healthy
[5:14]And I'm you know, I'll let you get another question, but a statistic people don't really know
[5:20]Keep going. This is great. You're like giving a lecture. You didn't know, but you're like I'm a lecture circuit this morning
[5:25]Yeah, 50% of babies today, like if you have a baby today
[5:30]And I give this example, you know, with my son who's born in Pennsylvania hospital
[5:34]It's you know, and we talk about it in the book by the time
[5:37]The 50% of those babies born in Pennsylvania hospital in college
[5:41]50% of them will have a chronic immuno illness
[5:45]And that's how bad it's gotten right like 50% of us will end up with something chronic like allergies like food allergies
[5:52]eczema
[5:53]You know, lupus Hashimoto's thyroid is ADHD autism
[5:57]These are all now understood better and better to be immune diseases even, you know
[6:02]Type one diabetes is an autoimmune disease a different kind of immune disease
[6:07]And they're now even calling dementia and Alzheimer's almost like type three diabetes where you know
[6:13]So it's all the same immune system
[6:17]Damaging itself and we can we can do a lot to stop it and the best part about this is that it's not like
[6:24]Oh, if only we move to Mars then we can stop this for so many
[6:31]You know, I'll give the example of there's a particular probiotic, right?
[6:36]It's called lramnosis and when moms take it their third trimester through breastfeeding
[6:41]Right because the end of result. Why do we take lramnosis? Because we want a healthy
[6:46]Solid amount of bifidobacteria actually and the lramnosis really helps the bifidobacteria grow
[6:51]We want a really healthy amount of bifidobacteria in a baby's gut at six months old
[6:57]That cuts the risk of eczema for the rest of their life
[7:01]by 50%
[7:03]So if I have a child with eczema, which I may or may not let's just throw that out there
[7:07]Yeah, because there may not be a good golfer. You may or may not
[7:11]Is it because of something I didn't take when I was pregnant and now I doomed the child forever
[7:17]See that's a really diffused way to think about it in my opinion, right? Because
[7:22]Most self-funishing interpretation of everything. I think it's hard not to think of it that way
[7:27]Look, I have a kid who has
[7:30]10 different food allergies. He's got asthma. He's got eczema and the truth is
[7:35]Did choices I make in inadvertently increase his risk of all of these things?
[7:42]Yes, is that my fault because I didn't even know that that was a thing
[7:47]No, you know like it can both I guess
[7:50]It can both be my fault and I'm also not to blame like both of those things can be true at the same time
[7:55]And I think the more important thing is okay like I guess I'm an eternal optimist and the way I look at it is
[8:04]That happened, but then I have a younger son who because I went
[8:08]You know crazy thinking about this stuff before the younger son had these
[8:13]He has nothing right so even in a span of 18 months we were able to change little little things
[8:19]That helped another person be really really healthy and the way I look at it is now we have this information
[8:24]We know there are little things we can do to reduce the risk of eczema the way we care for babies in
[8:29]How many courses of antibiotics we choose to use?
[8:33]We can use early allergen introduction
[8:35]Which is 98%
[8:37]Protective against peanut allergy for example right really simple intervention. There are choices we can make now that we have this
[8:45]to reduce our child's risk so
[8:48]I don't know, you know, it's like
[8:50]In the 70s parents did all sorts of crazy things that they didn't know any better and
[8:55]I mean what are we supposed to do like set around blaming them, you know
[8:58]That's not helpful and so I don't I don't think of it that way, but I do think I
[9:03]Have tend to think more hey
[9:05]Wow, this is cool that this is in my control
[9:07]I don't have to just sit there
[9:08]Wondering if my child will get sick like I can
[9:12]Do something to reduce that risk
[9:14]Okay, so two questions one is what are the main couple things that like a pregnant person now or somebody who's contemplating kids or their grand kids about to be born
[9:24]Whatever, what are the main things that maybe they didn't know was like equivalent to the smoke smoking in the 70s or something
[9:30]Yeah, and then once you have
[9:33]Once you've been set once kids are set on a certain path
[9:36]Is there anything we can do to change it or if those 50% of kids at
[9:42]You know, you're responsible at your hospital is that it like can there be a course correction or not?
[9:46]What is it too late?
[9:48]Okay, so to answer your first question
[9:50]What is the most important thing and if I had to pick one most important thing in pregnancy?
[9:56]Unfortunately, I would say it's worrying about your diet
[10:00]It's worrying about your diet because your diet will influence the state of your gut and
[10:07]your vaginal microbiome, which will be 100% of the input to how your baby is seated.
[10:13]What's their starter set of bacteria, right?
[10:15]So I think the most important thing you can do in your pregnancy is limit, you know, limit
[10:21]the negative influences on a microbiome, like we talk, you know, smoking, air pollution.
[10:25]But honestly, because a lot of it, 80% of our immune system and 80% of that sits in
[10:30]our gut, it's the high sugar, the processed foods, everything that deteriorates our gut microbes.
[10:37]And I think smoking is a good example because in some sense people have always known
[10:44]and some intuitive level, like, hey, it's probably not the same great throw tar in my
[10:48]lungs, but I'm not sure that that's what's called lung cancer, right?
[10:53]And no one has ever said like, I'm 100% sure pizza is a great food and that's just as
[10:59]good for me as it's been at salad, right?
[11:00]Like no one thinks that, but we didn't really have the causal connection to say, why
[11:05]is it that pizza or like some other food when it's a huge part of our diet causes us to
[11:10]be so sick?
[11:11]And now we can actually show how the processed foods, how the high sugar foods disturb
[11:16]our gut and how they lead to these things.
[11:19]So I think that's the most important thing you can do in pregnancy that you have at
[11:22]your disposal.
[11:24]And then there's a bunch of more stuff, you know, we talk about in the book.
[11:26]And then you ask the really second, the second most important question is like, what
[11:29]can we do, right?
[11:31]And I have a lot of hope for the future because you can't solve a problem until you understand
[11:36]the root cause of how it happened.
[11:39]And now that this science exists over the last 10, 15 years, it shows how these microbes
[11:46]and things, you know, disrupt it.
[11:48]There are a lot of therapies in development right now that use that and try and shift it
[11:54]to to modulate, you know, the immune system to basically course correct.
[11:59]Like everything, right?
[12:00]It's like a little bit of trauma of emotional trauma when your little could take 10 years
[12:06]of psychotherapy to undo, but we can get to a healthy place.
[12:12]And unfortunately, that's sort of still the ratio we're looking at.
[12:15]like it's not like you can get to 20 and then say, cool, I'll take this, you know,
[12:21]six month course of Accutane and like be done with it, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't
[12:25]work like that for a lot of these diseases, at least not today.
[12:29]And obviously people will keep pushing for better and better treatments, but because
[12:34]we can't have 50% of the world be really sick, but today there's no good answer.
[12:40]And and even until you get to the treatment, you know, why go through the 20 years,
[12:44]30 years, whatever it is, of that, if you don't have to.
[12:48]Awesome.
[12:49]Okay.
[12:50]I'm going to stay optimistic with all the, tell me about the business you also founded
[12:55]based on allergies, food allergies and all that.
[12:58]Sure.
[12:59]You know, the business, so I'm an engineer, I talk about this by training and this is
[13:04]sort of my bent on the world, which is a little bit why I'm optimistic, because I'm
[13:07]like everything's solvable.
[13:08]We just, we just have to get the right formulas and we're going to fix it.
[13:13]But when I, when I heard about early allergen introduction, and again, that was a really
[13:16]visceral one, right, because I have a son who can't, there's 10 different foods he can
[13:19]eat, which means we basically like you can't eat restaurants.
[13:22]We can't, you know, it's, and it's a thing because you eat three times a day.
[13:26]And with my younger son, because we, all the science came out, unfortunately, like right
[13:30]after my kid got sick.
[13:33]And so, so with the younger son, we were like, great, we'll do this.
[13:36]And it was just an insane amount of work.
[13:38]And I thought this is so stupid because why something that's so effective, right?
[13:43]If we, anything else in society, if you said something, hey, this is 98% protective against
[13:48]a lifelong disease that has no treatment.
[13:52]We wouldn't be like, good luck to you, hope you figure out how to do it, you know?
[13:57]And this is one where we just decided like that's what the doctors decided to do is just
[14:01]like good luck to you parents.
[14:02]We have this information we may or may not even tell you about it, but you could treat
[14:07]it to be, you know, you have a 98% chance of fixing it if you figure it out on your own.
[14:12]And I thought that's insane.
[14:13]So this is just a manufacturing challenge.
[14:15]And so it went and created a line of products basically that make it really, really simple.
[14:19]And so it just concentrates all these proteins into inexpensive, especially like with the price
[14:24]of eggs today, right?
[14:26]You can get six months worth of exactly the infant safe correctly prepared eggs, everything
[14:31]you need for like 30 bucks.
[14:34]And that way if a parent doesn't have to pay a lot and they don't have to, it doesn't
[14:38]have to take up 30 minutes of effort a day, they're much more likely to do it, right?
[14:42]And so that was, I figured we could solve those problems.
[14:44]And that's really where Little Mixins has come in.
[14:47]And you know, we're excited that the market response has been good because, you know,
[14:51]again, everyone wants, if somebody can take the workout and make it inexpensive, that's
[14:55]a good thing for everybody.
[14:57]So it's for kids, like what ages, when do you start, who needs to know about this
[15:02]product?
[15:03]Sure.
[15:04]Every baby, every baby who is between basically four and six months old.
[15:10]So as soon as they start solid foods should be regularly.
[15:13]So roughly every week, twice a week should be introducing or should be feeding two grams
[15:18]of peanut protein of well cooked egg protein of, you know, a bunch of different nut proteins
[15:22]into the baby's diet.
[15:23]And so, you know, one of the ones we make is basically like, here's a packet of that.
[15:27]You give the baby a food every single day.
[15:28]And so it just, it just throws into whatever food or milk or whatever they're eating.
[15:33]You don't have to think about it like any other additive or any other supplement or something
[15:37]that you're giving them.
[15:39]And that's it.
[15:40]You do this for six months.
[15:42]And then that's it.
[15:43]That's the window in which the immune system decides whether or not to have food allergies.
[15:46]And so if what you're doing is basically training tolerance by feeding the baby these
[15:50]proteins in this exact window, their body, the same way our body develops antibodies to
[15:56]like trigger a reaction to a food.
[15:58]Our body also develops what are called T cells that tell the body like, stay cool.
[16:05]We like this thing.
[16:07]That's amazing that that exists.
[16:09]I'm, yeah, it didn't exist when all my kids were really little.
[16:13]Yeah.
[16:14]We also have kids of food allergies and it's no fun.
[16:17]But many parents do so we know how this goes.
[16:20]Yeah, say, you know, we're on the same team.
[16:22]It's all right.
[16:23]Yeah.
[16:24]It's not possible that a kid is just born like they're definitely going to, I know the
[16:29]census, stupid that from the time they're born, we know they're going to have the
[16:34]food allergies.
[16:35]I know there's the genetic disposition that they may develop it and some might be more
[16:38]less likely.
[16:39]But you can still start much.
[16:41]No.
[16:42]Yeah.
[16:43]Okay.
[16:44]All right.
[16:45]So pretty much no.
[16:46]I know it's not because it's just not.
[16:47]I think the core of it and people it's just annoying because so many doctors are like
[16:49]still say like, wow, it's genetic, you know, which just makes no sense.
[16:52]you can't have a genetic disorder that didn't exist for you.
[16:54]I basically didn't exist 40 years ago.
[16:56]Like what happened to our genetics?
[16:58]Like we didn't all go through Chernobyl, you know.
[17:01]So something had to have crazily changed our genetics if that were true.
[17:05]So it's you can have kids that are very high risk and kids that are very low risk,
[17:11]you know, but it's all about those influences and the key is that the food allergy is not
[17:15]modulated by something that our genetics do.
[17:18]It's modulated by the adaptive part of our immune system.
[17:21]But we have an innate part of our immune system.
[17:22]If you think about the stuff that's like the structures that are there from the beginning,
[17:26]that's really genetic.
[17:27]The adaptive part of your immune system that actually learns like every new virus you get,
[17:32]you get new antibodies to deal with that virus.
[17:34]That's your body adapting to it.
[17:36]So it's the adaptive part of our immune system that determines if we have food allergies
[17:40]or not.
[17:41]And so the adaptive part is not based on genetics.
[17:43]It's adapted because it's doing it after you're born.
[17:47]So when you did this deep dive and tried to figure out how to prevent your next son from
[17:52]having the allergies and you went back, what were the things that you were like, oh,
[17:56]this is why my son has allergies to 10 different foods.
[18:00]So the biggest things again are like, I talk about this in the book.
[18:04]When my son was, my older son was little, you know, he had all the things they talk about
[18:09]and usually they're like, well, the highest risk is like, you know, see section birth,
[18:13]not breastfeeding.
[18:14]Those two things do increase your risk, right?
[18:16]But nothing's ever like a, if this then you definitely have allergies.
[18:21]But we had a perfectly healthy pregnancy.
[18:22]I eat great.
[18:23]I've always been a bit of a health nut.
[18:26]The, you know, vaginal burst like nothing was wrong.
[18:29]So he should have been on and we breastfed everything should have been great.
[18:32]I think the biggest thing that happened actually is my, I think, and this is, there's
[18:36]no way to prove this is my son sort of started to develop cradle cap and instead of,
[18:41]we didn't know at the time that it's basically a fungus.
[18:44]And so with my younger son when he got it, we basically just used some dander shampoo
[18:48]and it went away.
[18:49]And that was it.
[18:50]But with the older son, he scratched at it until it, until it basically got infected.
[18:55]And then he went on this course of antibiotics.
[18:57]And again, this is, I can't prove that this is true.
[18:59]I don't know that it's true.
[19:01]It just right from there if things just like started to like snowball.
[19:05]It was, and because I think it was right at that age, like suddenly he was on these antibiotics.
[19:10]The antibiotics suddenly turned into way worse eggs and more flares.
[19:13]But after the eggs, I'm a flare started developing was around six months.
[19:16]And we started introducing solid foods, but we're avoiding the allergens, we started
[19:21]developing the food allergies.
[19:23]And then, and like his immune system was clearly just like, you know, like just one
[19:29]thing after another, going more and more wet, because like one course of antibiotics leads
[19:32]to a more trigger happy immune system.
[19:36]That's not a scientific term that then maybe causes you to have another course of antibiotics.
[19:39]You know?
[19:40]And every time we're doing that, you're just sort of like, unfortunately, often wiping
[19:45]out all the good bacteria just as well as wiping out the infections.
[19:49]So that's what I think happened.
[19:50]But like I said, that just could be nonsense I made up.
[19:54]Wow.
[19:55]Fascinating.
[19:56]I'm like literally going back in my head.
[19:57]What did I do wrong?
[19:58]But it's okay.
[19:59]It's okay.
[20:00]I know. I feel like a lot of people have that reaction when they read this book.
[20:00]I know.
[20:02]It's, I will say that the number of like emails I've gotten from people who have reached out and said like,
[20:10]the thing that's most gratifying for me is when the people, even kids, whose kids are sick,
[20:14]but they're looking back and being like, I knew that there was like, a holistic explanation to this.
[20:19]Like doctors kept saying to me, like, it was unpredictable, it was unknowable. It was, you know,
[20:24]it's all random. And yet, I can feel in my bones that these things are all connected.
[20:29]And now I see it and I feel so much more sane. Like, I can't change it now, but like,
[20:34]it makes it all make sense. Yeah. No, there is like some closure to those open questions,
[20:39]which I also appreciate. Thank you. Okay, so you did all this research. You started your business
[20:45]and then in the middle of all that you also wrote this book. So how did that fall into everything?
[20:49]And when did you know this was a book and tell me about that piece of it?
[20:53]I think I don't remember if I talk about this in the book itself, but so I have a friend who
[20:58]she is a, a bunch of my friends from college went on to do PhDs. It's a running joke that like,
[21:04]they're all like my six girlfriends. They're all doctors of different kinds. And it's just me with
[21:08]like my bachelor's degree. And she's a blacker. You're just like, yeah, when I email them to like
[21:14]hang out and like, dear doctors. But one of them, she, you know, she's written a few books. She's
[21:20]like a professor of art history and stuff. And so she was like, you have all this stuff in your
[21:24]head. We were chatting one day. And she's like, you know, you've all this stuff in your head.
[21:27]You should just like write it down into a book. And I'm such a, you know, math and science person
[21:31]that I was like, that is what are you talking about, you know, like, don't. And then she's like,
[21:36]well, you know, she's like, worst case scenario, just write it down. And then you'll have it,
[21:41]you know, and really what happened is the pandemic happened. And I found myself suddenly with like
[21:45]a whole lot of free time. And so I gave myself one month four hours a day. And I said, just like,
[21:53]for four hours a day for one month and like, see what comes out of it. And again, I've been
[21:57]thinking about the stuff I've been researching and talking to doctors and stuff for years at this
[22:01]point. Right. So it just sort of like flooded out of my brain into a manuscript. And I was so lucky
[22:08]that, you know, this lovely team of folks then decided to help me, you know, turn it into something
[22:15]that wasn't quite so sciencey sounding and make it into something that was more readable and
[22:22]approachable. And now with it out, you had already mentioned all the emails that you're getting,
[22:27]like, what is the most satisfying piece of this for you?
[22:31]I think it's that, you know, it's like the little, it's the little things. Like someone who
[22:35]emailed and said, you know, forever I couldn't convince my husband to do anything about our
[22:42]daughter's eczema. But, you know, after reading this, he's like, oh, okay, there's a root cause
[22:48]like now he's willing to try. And it doesn't mean that modification is definitely going to be
[22:53]the thing that fixes it. But he's like willing to try and search for a deeper fix. And, you know,
[22:59]and later they said their kids had their kid had gotten a lot better. Right. This is a child who
[23:04]was getting sent home from daycare because they were scratching if their skin so much that it
[23:08]would bleed off, bleed on the toys. You know, and now this kid is okay. And like these, I mean,
[23:14]I don't know what else can we do in life other than try and like make a few other people's lives
[23:18]a little bit better. Yeah. Well, this is not just a few other people. I mean, eczema and all these
[23:21]things. These are so pervasive. And really, the fact your quality of life, you know, it's
[23:26]that to itch all the time. I mean, it's the worst. So, wow, really awesome. So what are you going to do
[23:32]next? You know, we have a lot of things in the pipeline that we're working on, you know, for me,
[23:39]the biggest things are expanding access to this information. Right. Again, I kind of come back to
[23:45]from my engineer's perspective and saying like, look, there's a, we're all party to a system,
[23:50]like these things are never a single thing happens. It's always like a system shifts. And so in that
[23:57]same way, how do you fix the whole system? And I think that that comes down to there's a lot
[24:03]that we can do systemically to improve childhood nutrition, access to early-allerge and introduction
[24:09]and these proteins potentially improve. I mean, one of the things we were able to do was actually
[24:14]put together just in the last few months is put together a scientific paper around L. Ramnosis
[24:20]and get that published in the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology. So there's a lot of
[24:24]education we have to do of physicians actually, of primary care physicians. And then, and then
[24:29]creating access. I think like we're never going to solve when cheetos are cheaper than carrots,
[24:38]people are going to eat cheetos and not carrots. And we need to be able to find a way to incorporate
[24:43]the externality cost of the cheetos. I like cheetos for the record. I'm not saying you can
[24:48]ever eat cheetos. They're delicious. But I also like here. I could take your leave cheetos,
[24:54]but externality cost brings me back to business school and I'm like, yes, you know,
[24:58]flashbacks with these two. Yeah. But that's it. Right? Like we need to, we need to incorporate,
[25:02]so sorry, I also have an, you know, I also have an undergraduate business degree. So you have to
[25:07]incorporate that cost into it, right? And find a way. But that's, it's interesting. Like there's
[25:13]a lot of lawmakers that we've been educating. And when they see it that way, like, okay, but if I
[25:18]keep this carrot really expensive or I don't put it into the wick package or I don't do
[25:23]acts like, but then what I'm paying on the back end, right? And today, health care is I believe
[25:30]it's 16% of our GDP. And it's just growing massively every single year. Right? There will be a
[25:35]time not too long from now. We're half of every dollar, if not more, we'll just go into like
[25:40]treating illnesses we created by being, you know, Pennywise pound foolish. And I think that's,
[25:46]that's the bigger picture. Wow. Changing the world. Basically. Very discreet ways out of time.
[25:52]I love it. So it's so last tiny question for the treatment of eczema. What do you recommend
[25:59]as a mom of an eczema? You know, what, what, what is your go to for anyone with eczema?
[26:04]Not that you're a doctor in this area. I'm just asking. Yeah, you know, I mean, okay, so with
[26:10]anything, right? So eczema is an allergic disease. So what that tells you is that a form of an
[26:16]allergy is causing a flare. So step one is try and calm the flare down. That's, you know, use
[26:21]your steroids, use your creams, things like that. But if you do not pull out the allergic trigger,
[26:28]you will just keep flaring. So the truth is, you know, what we did, for example, and I recommend
[26:32]this to a lot of people is try for two weeks, because it only takes two weeks. Try a really hardcore
[26:38]elimination diet. Like anything in the person's diet that you think could be triggering their food
[26:43]or triggering their eczema, pull it out. And if two weeks later, nothing's better, then you know
[26:47]it's not food. But if it, if it did get a lot better, which is also a good case scenario, then one
[26:52]at a time every three days, you just add back in a food until you figure out what's the foods
[26:57]that are triggering the eczema flares. And again, it might not be food. Same thing. Like try the
[27:01]the foods first. If that helps great, then you just kind of go scorch dirt on my chemicals in your
[27:08]house. The soaps, everything. Like try and get rid of all of it again for two weeks. It gets better.
[27:14]Great. And one at a time, go back to that detergent, go back to the whatever, go back to the whatever
[27:19]until you figure out what the triggers are. But if you don't find the triggers, you're never going
[27:23]to calm that eczema down. Okay. This has been so fascinating for me. I am going to dive
[27:31]deep into this book and find all sorts of great helpful things and just like stew in my past mistakes.
[27:39]And what I can do in the future. What's at the point? I know I know stew out. I mean, when you find
[27:46]people with anxiety, that's what they're going to do anyway. It's fine. But I like doing that.
[27:50]It's fine. It's very familiar feeling. So I'm excited when I get those opportunities and discrete
[27:54]packages. Okay, lasting any advice for someone else trying to write a book. Oh, I mean, I think
[28:01]you take the advice of my friend is just like, just sit down and do it, right? Because you just
[28:05]don't know. And you might get to the end and be like, yeah, this is garbage. And or, but like the worst
[28:10]case scenario, I just, I'm a big believer in like just do it because the worst thing that happened is
[28:15]like you spent us a discrete amount of your time doing it. And then it's done. And maybe something
[28:20]great happens. Maybe it doesn't, but at least try. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. This has been
[28:25]really fun for me. Alicia. Thanks. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on
[28:31]the baby and the biome. I must give to anybody as soon as they're doing it. They're having a baby.
[28:37]This is like the go-to gift. You have to do this. They have to read this done. No, thank you.
[28:43]All right. Take care. Take care. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[28:49]Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[28:55]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[29:00]lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the
[29:05]sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[29:10]now trim music.