029 Dr. Leila Masson – An Integrative Approach to a Healthy Child and You

Integrative paediatrician, Dr. Leila Masson, joins me to chat about disease prevention through an integrative approach incorporating nutrition and lifestyle. We discuss PANDAS, ADHD, depression, the importance of good nutrition and what that actually means and how we should get out in the sun and play in the dirt. This is an episode for everyone as the principles that are discussed can apply to us all.

Selected Links from the Show

Dr. Leila Masson
Children's Health A-Z for New Zealand Parents by Dr. Leila Masson
Dr. Sue Swede
The Dirt Cure by Dr. Maya Shetreat-Klein
Professor Thomas Borody - fecal transplant
Sun Smart App
The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff
STUDY: Cleaning products as damaging as smoking

Download the PDF transcription
Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   Hello and welcome to Unstress. I'm Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Children's health, what a topic? One of the things we should be saying is that children are the canaries in the coal mine. Knowing how our kids are actually doing is I think a really important reflection on how we are doing as a society health wise. Things are not as you will hear in this episode looking all that great. In fact, many of you may have heard the predictions that this generation of young people may be the first generation to not live as long as their parents. Now, that is a really disturbing prediction, to say the least. Whatever the story, we all have lessons to learn about our children's health, the causes and what to do about it.

My guest today is Dr. Leila Masson. Now, Leila is the integrated medical practitioner. She's a specialist paediatrician. She also happens to be a lactation specialist, and we'll talk about that as well. Leila has written a great book. It's called Children's Health A-Z, and apart from that, she's an educator of both health professionals and the public. Today, she shares some great insights with me. Now in case, you're wondering what the term integrative encompasses, an integrative approach looks at underlying causes and the observations that Leila makes about children's health are just as applicable to us as adults, not just our children.

And as a paediatrician and also a public health specialist, she's interested as I think we all should be in disease prevention through healthy nutrition and lifestyle. Remember, so many of the diseases we hear about are preventable and according to the WHO, they involve nutritional and environmental and lifestyle issues. Leila is passionate about treating the whole child as well as supporting the whole family, and within her private practice, she also treats children on the autistic spectrum. She takes a holistic approach to behavioural and learning challenges as well as allergies and a whole lot of other paediatric health problems, and also, we'll touch on some issues around breastfeeding. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Dr. Leila Masson.
Download the PDF transcription
Welcome to the show, Leila.

Dr. Leila Masson:                Thank you so much, Ron for having me on your show.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   Leila, we often as a society, we congratulate ourselves on living longer, but our kids do reflect how healthy we really are as a society. What are some of the observations you've made as a paediatrician about children's health? How are we doing?

Dr. Leila Masson:                Well, it is true. Overall, they're living longer, but if you look at our children, actually more and more health problems, behaviour problems, developmental problems coming up. The percentage of children with ADHD, with autism, allergies, autoimmune diseases going up every single year and we have to ask ourselves, "Why is that?" Our genes haven't changed over the last 10, 20, 30 years, but our children really have in their health.

If you talk to a teacher who has been teaching for quite a while, they always tell me, You know, 20, 30 years ago,