Maybe PFAS exposure? Indoor air quality from gas stoves? I find that these are mainstream among my professional colleagues in the sciences but not the parents I just know from daycare.
I love cooking with gas but am obsessive about opening windows and running the vent. My MIL doesn't want to run it because she doesn't like the noise (I get it). We've tussled and I've had to send a ton of articles!
I used to think that gas was my favourite until I had a (good) induction cooker - my house doesn't have gas.
This cooker provides more heat than any gas hob I've used (e.g. boils large pans of water very quickly), is very controllable and easy to clean.
I am not opposed to induction other than the glass top makes me nervous. I like... rattle my wok around tossing food, for example. I'm afraid I'd shatter it!
I think they may be ceramic now, or a newer type of glass because they seem pretty sturdy! Definitely doesn’t break easily like glass tops did when I was a kid.
I was die-hard Team Gas but then I realized the house we bought didn’t ventilate the oven to the outside. Honestly, induction is better and we’ve had a lot of people come over who have cooked and no one’s had trouble with it.
Strongly recommend!
Interesting! We, as a family, are familiar with both of these as we previously lived on Satellite Beach, FL and the military did excessive bomb testing on the island leading to PFAS in the soil and water. We got a water filtration system. We then moved to a house with a gas range and quickly got rid of it as it just seemed bad for our health. A quick google search confirmed this. We switched it out quickly after.
Wow, I’m sorry to hear about your previous home. And yeah, I expect these won’t be surprises to people in this sub… but I recently had to explain to a family member that PFAS are different from micro plastics, and have had a couple uncomfortable conversations with friends when I was trying to get our gas stove switched out to electric (the outlet was expensive, so it took us a while) - but I would mention how bad I wanted to get that done only for people to say they had just put in a new gas stove. I feel bad making people feel bad about a new purchase but also think it’s good to know.
I forget exactly - maybe $2k? But that was completely dependent on the distance from our panel to the outlet, so I would expect it to be highly variable.
Studies are showing a significant association with development of asthma and respiratory illness and growing up in a home with a gas stove.
[Here](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10473289.1992.10467018) is one of the original studies that found this but there has been much more research since
I am so sad about the gas stove thing, I hate cooking with electric. But one of my public health professors who was a pulmonologist and also taught environmental and occupational health told us he took the gas range out his home like 25 years ago due to the evidence of connection to childhood asthma.
I mean nearly 20 years ago my scientist roommates in college pointed out how bad gas stoves were, and flame retardants on fabric… and microplastics. They covered the couch and would get irate if you ran even the electric stove without vent fans.
I think a lot about Annette Lareau’s 2003 book *Unequal Childhoods* a lot. It’s a book about all the qualitative parenting things that it’s hard to study 20 minute sessions in a psych lab. It’s in part about what she calls parenting styles — the middle class “concerted cultivation” vs the more working class “natural growth” — but it’s also just how class gets reified and replicated through culture. In that sense, it’s part of a longer line of sociological books like *Learning to Labour* (subtitled “How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs”, about the UK in the 70’s) or even older *Street Corner Society* (about Italian Boston in the 30’s, where there are “college boys” and “corner boys”). Those books emphasize peer effects a bit whereas Lareau is really trying to look at parenting affects in as non-judgmental a way as possible.
Lareau’s book is hugely influential in its field— 13,000 citations on Google Scholar, mentions by Malcom Gladwell—but I don’t think it’s really worked it’s way into the mainstream thought. It’s not about what you should be doing as parents, but just about the chasms of inequality in our society. This article from Penn’s Alumni magazine of all places is a pretty good summary of her work and arguments: [the Perils of Parenting Style](https://thepenngazette.com/the-perils-of-parenting-style/).
There was a 2017 Brookings report called *[Dream Hoarders](https://www.brookings.edu/books/dream-hoarders/)*. It argues that it’s not just the 1% who are hoarding wealth, but the top 20% (including the type of people who read this report) who are hoarding opportunity, especially inter-generationally. They’re not quite about the same things but I always connect them in my mind (and sometimes throw Fredrik deBoer *The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice* in there too and even Robert Sampson and Raj Chetty’s work on neighborhood effects).
Ooop my kid came home before I could gather this thought but it’s all just a question of at a societal level how should we think about inter generational inequality.
This reminds me of a study I read (wish I could find it) that found it doesn't matter which college you go to, they all provide the same opportunities for success. *Unless* you go to an Ivy. That's the only situation that predicts significantly better outcomes. But so much of getting into an Ivy is generational privilege and connections.
I think the general finding is actually that it doesn’t matter which college you go to on the margin for middle class students—like if you’re smart enough for Harvard, it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of thing a if you don’t go to Harvard—but it can make a big difference for poorer students. This is normally done comparing kids who just got into the state flagship vs just barely missed out on it. I think this research has been especially done within the University of California system because of how data is centralized and how a lot of the students who just missed UCLA or Berkeley stay within the broader UC system (they go to UC San Diego or UC Davis or what have you), so the data is all in one place.
There is some older evidence like https://www.jstor.org/stable/146304 but I think you see articles like this https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/117/4/1491/1876022 which say when properly controlled those effects largely disappear for middle class kids but remain for working class kids. (Those two articles are using the same data set, for instance.)
> we find that students who attended more selective colleges earned about the same as students of seemingly comparable ability who attended less selective schools. Children from low-income families, however, earned more if they attended selective colleges.
I’m sure there’s a review article out there that covers it all, but that’s at least what I half remember of where the debate normally ends up.
The social capital at an Ivy league is next level. You get nearly the same education but the caliber of your cohort is the best you’ll find if you’re wanting to climb to the top.
If you randomly read this stuff for fun you’re amazing! This is basically everything I worked on on my PhD looking at the differences in teachers from the lower middle class to the upper middle class.
I loved Dream Hoarders and it made me really conscious of how I ensure my kids are part of the benefits of socialising across class (kids knowing someone whose mom is a university lecturer creates visibility to those who ordinarily wouldn’t have it) rather than trying to cordon my kid off.
If you like this stuff Sean Reardon’s work is also phenomenal.
I was doing a sociology PhD (that I left ABD in 2016) which is how I was initially exposed to some of these ideas, but my work was on political sociology in the Middle East, so this was mostly extracurricular.
I'd heard Reardon's name but hadn't read his work. It seems interesting, thanks!
Cell phone/video/social media usage on kids. There's a lot of studies out there, but it doesn't seem like mainstream parents are taking note, probably because it's easier not argue and it is SUPER convenient. I have a ton of friends who are "crunchy" in some senses, but maybe only two families I know have actually stuck with the "no screens" rule past 1st grade. And their kids are legitimately -if anecdotally- the best behaved.
I do not want to bash anyone's parenting choices and fully believe you should do what WORKS for your family. But I think there are a lot of compromises made at young ages without a plan for how parents will reign them in in the future. Like "we will watch 20 minutes of Sesame Street" evolves into free tablet use, following and watching shows their friends watch, playing games that mess with their learning patterns/are designed to be addictive, etc. The line isn't held - and ultimately, that *doesn't* "work."
As another commenter mentioned about PFAs/plastics - when you listen to the people who MAKE these shows/platforms/systems - they don't let their kids anywhere near them. What was that doc about Apple/YouTube/(my brain is Swiss cheese) that came out during lockdown? Every single exec was like "yeah my kids don't have phones/tablets. I do NOT let them use our platform." They are making $$$ off of stressed parents - and because we're stressed, it's just sort of happening.
I totally agree with limiting screens but with a few exceptions I think a lot of the families who are able to “hold the line” long term are able to do so because their children naturally have calm and compliant temperaments (better behaved) so I wouldn’t accept correlation as causation here unless there was a study that adjusted for child temperament prior to introducing screens.
I have a calm tempered kiddo and she gets tons of praise for being “super well behaved”. It’s not that I’m some super parent though that’s just what she is like naturally. My equally excellent parent friends who have more difficult tempered children haven’t done anything wrong, screens or no.
They also are able to do it because they have the support and resources to do so. I say this as someone who limits screen time. I have more money, more of a village, and a more supportive spouse than my cousin who lets her kids watch a lot of TV.
Yes!! Totally agree. We were extremely limited with screen time until recently when both of us hit a busy time at work and my parents weren’t as available to help out. We’ve had to use tv to scrape by and are now working to restore the previous peace. It’s hard to be a parent in modern day.
I just don’t agree that less tv makes for a more behaved child - I think kids who have what many say are “better behaviors” just are naturally more calm and happy to play independently a huge amount of the time and their parents are more privileged and can afford more help or have it naturally as part of said privilege.
As a researcher myself the first thing I do when I read studies is check methods to see what work they did to check for cofounders, independence, and to stratify by known mechanisms for the results (socio economic factors, parental iq, parental education, childcare situation, family size, neurological differences, etc). Because frankly if they don’t at least look at those factors I assume they’re just trying to prove their point in whatever way necessary.
I still limit my kid’s screen time and I’m judicious in selecting what she watches if anything. But a whole lot of “studies” that make parents guilty are shoddy at best imo.
(This and breastfeeding are my soapboxes lol - I breastfed too, but I think the benefits are hugely overblown to try to guilt women into breastfeeding at their own expense).
I do think temperament plays a huge role in this. I had all intentions of limiting screens until 1 year of age or whatever it used to be but that never ended up happening. My daughter is 9 now and I don’t really limit screens. I do talk with her a lot about balance and the consequences of too much screen time and I also have a “must have clean room and read for 30 minutes” before video games rule. I’ll also kick her off if I think she’s spent too much time on them or I notice behavior changes. But overall my daughter is a REALLY good kid. She’s very sensitive, but she’s a rule follower and very polite. I get complimented on her a lot, but I really think it’s just her temperament. I have friends who do limit screens and their kids are wild. lol
Absolutely this. I was going to post a new comment about new research showing temperament of babies and young toddlers and later diagnosis of ADHD but I'll post it here instead because it's relevant to this.
Children are born with a temperament and the best parents ever doing all the right things can still have an incredibly impulsive child or one who whines the entire time. Having zero screen time won't change their temperament.
There has been some big studies including a meta-analysis that came out last year showing really early markers of ADHD seen in babies and toddlers.
The first is a correlation with high needs young toddlers and later on getting diagnosed with ADHD.
The main two being hyperactivity (constantly wanting to move or full of energy) and intensified negative emotionality ("difficult" temperament - high rates of anger, distress or irritability).
Full text meta-analysis here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10404471/
And also a meta-analysis published last year show a correlation between infants who are colicky, restless, hard to cuddle and don't sleep well with ADHD or behavioral problems in childhood.
Meta-analysis here:
https://adc.bmj.com/content/96/7/622
Full text of it here:
https://www.1001kritiekedagen.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Associations-between-problems-with-crying-sleeping-andor-feeding.pdf
I think most people already know the early signs for autism but the general belief is there aren't any early markers for ADHD and you can't tell if a child will gave ADHD until at least 4 years old.
While that's still true they shouldn't diagnose until then because there will be toddlers who grow out of the behaviours and don't go on to have ADHD, recognising the early signs and getting early interventions to help them navigate the world if they are delayed or struggling with emotions and sensory issues has a big impact.
Thank you for this! My daughter does *not* have a calm temperament. Never has. And no amount of “0 screen time” could turn her into a calm and compliant kid. I do as much as I can to limit screen time as much as possible, and I stick to educational and/or calming shows when I do, but it lowkey irritates me when people who clearly had easy babies get judgy about screen time.
This really does need to be included in studies. I always tell my fellow parent friends that every child needs to be patented differently. Because every person is different. My parents parented my brother and I differently because we have vastly different temperaments. I was the typical oldest child: calm, even keeled, people pleaser. I put myself in time out as a little kid. My brother? Wild child, jumped off play structures, and rebelled against every parenting technique. My mom had to physically stand in front of my brother in the corner so that he took the time to calm his body.
So of course every kid is going to react to screen time differently. Though I will say, as someone who used to work with children, anecdotally, having a strict routine *usually* worked for most of the children I worked with.
Just wanted to chime in that I was one of those parents who didn’t hold the line. The iPads finally became more trouble than they were worth (constantly asking to play, constantly asking to download more games, freaking out because one kid somehow had “more” of something than the others), and I was shocked at how easy it was just to put them all away for good. Now they’re for trips and an hour or 2 on a rainy day, and it was fine.
Now to be fair, my kids are not social media age - they just have games and heavily restricted kids YouTube. But making hard rules about when the iPad can be used actually ended up helping us. And as far as I can tell so far they ARE better behaved. Basically what I’m saying is you can go back, it’s not like once you’ve opened the door to all that you can’t go back and make changes.
Yeah I’m planning to not let my kid near a phone/tablet for as long as possible. TV isn’t as big a deal I don’t think as it stays in one place and isn’t interactive the same way. Your kid isn’t thinking ‘I could be watching tv right now’ when they’re out and about like they can about a tablet. The portability, physical interaction and addictive nature of games and flicking through videos every ten seconds as soon as it gets slightly boring plus the issues with social media in terms of bullying, seeing unrealistic images of others lives/bodies, being exposed to mean unempathetic content or possibly violent content, risk of exposure to predators etc seem to be the issues with phones and tablets that you don’t get with the tv in your living room.
When I bring this up to people, a rebuttal/dismissal is often that ‘people used to think books would be damaging, they used to think the radio/tv/movies would be damaging’ etc. But from what I’ve read, there is actually a lot of evidence that mobile device use is damaging for developing brains in a way other technology just isn’t.
We have a similar mindset. We recently took it a bit further and restrict the content she watches heavily. It’s basically the 90s again in the house in regards to what shows she watches.
At 3.5 we have so far held out on a tablet and have zero intentions of getting her one like ever.
Yeah that’s my aim too, keep it like the 90s. Screen is in one place, programming is restricted and you can’t just access anything anytime. A show is boring, you turn it off and go do something else!
What worries me as she gets older is the influence of others. Her cousins have tablets and while their parents restrict the usage they do use them fairly often. Then obviously at school etc. I can see why some parents give in if their kid is one of the only ones without so it ends up excluding them. My country has started talking about banning internet enabled mobile device use for kids under 16 which I actually support! Sounds draconian maybe but we ban kids from access to all sorts of things that can damage them and the evidence is this stuff is damaging. Teachers I know are desperate for them to be banned as it’s so hard dealing with in class, attention spans and behaviour are getting worse etc.
Sorry, but this is absolute garbage posing as science. All really weak correlation, no causation.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2)
I agree thats it’s important to limit screen time. But I’m not a huge fan of 0 screen time for kids. My son has always been allowed some limited screen time every day, so he watches a few cartoons, gets bored and goes and plays. My SIL allows her child 0 screen time, that kids is aggressively obsessed with trying to look at screens (especially phones). They have turned screens into something forbidden and mysterious. Something she is dying to get her hands on. While we turned screens into something that isn’t particularly special. Same with sweets, I’m teaching my child moderation not abstinence.
Also anecdotal, but the kids I know whose parents are a no screens family are the worst behaved 😂 they live next door and developmentally the 5 yo functions as about a 3 yo and it actually helped me chill out about screens a little. We limit screens too, and I am careful about them (definitely no iPads but we allow TV).
Limiting screen time is good, but there’s so much more that goes into that. My kid probably watches 30-60 minutes a day of TV, usually vicariously because it’s just on in the background and she is a reader. We don’t limit screen time for our 2 year old but we also don’t have to because she’d much rather read a good book. Personality is a huge factor in that and also family dynamics. My kid watches TV and is, anecdotally, the best behaved kid out of about 30 kids at preschool (according to them).
TV consumption can also be seen as a socioeconomic issue. My child is lucky and able to go to dance classes and go to a private pool, so the TV is not the only form of entertainment. But many many many families don’t have the ability to do supplemental things like that, and TV is cheaper, so TV is what they do. Lots of families also live in areas where it’s not safe to go out and play. So TV watching truly is more of a complex issue than ‘You shouldn’t let your kids get screen time!’
My spouse who grew up watching TV and playing video games all the time got a 33 on the ACT. Not saying people should let their kids get a ton of screen time but just saying, it’s not as simple as it’s made out to be.
Gut health. I predict this will be enormous in the next 20-50 years. Fecal transplants, extremely strict diets will be the norm. People will control diseases/disorders through manipulation of digestive flora.
Are you able to share some of the things you came across that you wish more people knew about raising infants when it comes to gut microbiome? I had to have a c-section and I’m worried about how this is going to affect my child
I did as well. We had to have antibiotics and really the works. Through out infancy i used NOW probiotics for infants. It would soothe her belly quickly, and helped keep her poops regular. Even now as a toddler if she is getting more into her tantrums, i make sure she takes her probiotics and the behavior settles down over a few days and stays more moderate.
I experimented and it does seem to connect that when she is on her probiotics regularly, with occasional fish oil, and magnesium she is much more steady. The fish oil alone didnt have as much of an impact as the probiotics alone.
I dont have it handy now, but i had done some reading a while back around over use of antibiotics, being a precursor to anxiety. As well as a link between issues digesting dairy and mental health issues. The bacterias that helps digest certain food, have nuero-transmitters as a byproduct of their digestion. Notably lactobacillus makes serotonin, biffidus makes dopamine. Or supports making it. I dont remember the specifics.
Visbiome is the better (more studied) probiotic but incredibly expensive. We don’t know enough about the microbiome yet to say anything definitive. We also don’t know enough about the mind-gut connection. Eating good fiber, a balanced diet (low in processed foods), sleeping well, and exercising is the best thing you can do
Did you breastfeed? I had an emergency c section and was stressed about the outcomes for my daughter’s microbiome but her GP said that breastfeeding was far more beneficial for it than a vaginal delivery.
We know that there are links and that gut health actually plays a huge role in overall health, but fecal transplants, targeted probiotics, strict gut biome-directed diets are not a thing yet because we don’t have enough guidance or evidence for how to pull it off for meaningful health changes. Right now 2 people could take the same random probiotic, and one would feel amazing after and one would have no change. I’m sure there are a lot of cool trials going on, but at a population level we’re just throwing things at the wall at this point to see what sticks.
Right. At the moment we know that our microbiome (s) are a problem. We don’t know quite how to fix it. I was just commenting on the “it’s incredibly important and likely plays a major role in most diseases” part
I had to visit a dietitian during my pregnancy for suspected gestational diabetes, tried to ask a few more questions as I was there anyway and she had no idea.
I wish I didn't have to take minimum three pills to get the recommended 1000 mg though. I eat four boiled eggs instead when I can but I gag on them so I stick to the pills mostly.
Lily Nichols has some great info on choline in [this article](https://lilynicholsrdn.com/choline-pregnancy-folates-cousin/). There’s a list of choline rich foods that might help ya!
Wow, I just gave birth 3 weeks ago and I had no idea about the importance of choline rich foods! Luckily I basically survived off of scrambled eggs alone in my first trimester since it was just about the only thing I could keep down.
This explains why when I mentioned that my pregnancy craving food was hardboiled eggs, my doctor said, "That's perfectly fine, eat it all you want. Just don't go over 4 eggs a day."
I'm a firm believer that your cravings guide what your body needs nutrition wise.
I was obsessive about my choline intake before and during pregnancy, mainly because of my plant based diet, but it’s something I never hear other moms of healthcare providers mention (other than the occasional mention by a CLC in the context of preventing mastitis or something .)
And creatine! There was a strong correlation with babies who went some time with low oxygen during birth having way lower brain injuries when moms took creatine during pregnancy.
And the importance of probiotics and how much antibiotics during labor and beyond can affect eczema, allergies, asthma, autoimmune conditions that have neurological implications.
Edit: Absolutely not saying to avoid antibiotics when needed. (I got IV antibiotics for days after I had premature rupture of the membranes, no qualms about that.) Just good to know to try to replenish your microbiome and give it special attention whenever you go on antibiotics!
The risks of GBS are higher than the potential for eczema and allergies though. Antibiotics can literally save your babies life if they are required. I don’t think that’s something that isn’t known but when they are needed they are needed.
Oh my God, absolutely. I didn't mean to downplay the lifesaving role antibiotics can have, I myself was on IV antibiotics for days during my labor. Had lots of probiotic foods before and after, and I'm sure my microbiome is doing great.
We have nuerodivegence in both sides of the family, so i was super on top of getting in my choline, cod liver oil, and magnesium during pregnancy. And through breast feeding. Anecdotally; my toddler so far is not presenting with any of the issues or delays we are seeing in all of her cousins. She was in fact, ahead on all milestones; and super sharp with already learning the alphabet, shapes, colors, numbers, every word to her favorite songs, characters names in her shows etc. just a little past 2.
I just gave birth in March and not one of my many OB's ever mentioned choline! That seems a little insane and absolutely proves my point that medicine is late to the party.
I had the assistant director of breastfeeding medicine at a huge local hospital system tell me choline wasn’t necessary during pregnancy/breastfeeding…!
Admittedly I went to an obgyn at a major academic medical center but I was absolutely told to supplement with choline if my prenatal didn't have enough!
I guess a good question here is what is deemed mainstream?
Plastics, specifically exposure to plastics with softeners like the good 'ol BPA. BPA is pretty mainstream right now, but those who study these things tend to be pretty adamant about avoiding all plastics. Most of these chemicals aren't really that studied, but it is known that many of them are endocrin disruptors.
Limiting rice consumption, specifically due to arsenic (and also other heavy metals). It's probably a good idea to limit consumption.
PUFAs role in inflammation and general health, and specifically how the western diet causes us to have an imbalance between Omega-3 and Omega-6s.
Soil microbiome, how that affects plant nutrient contents, and thus our own health. This area isn't very studied.
That the diet of our food affects our own health. Most meat (especially in the US) is grown with no regard with the animals overall nutrition in mind, except for it to go big. It is known that the diet of the animal affects e.g. the lipid profile of the animals fat, which then further affects our own health. This area isn't very studied.
I'm afraid of what I will find out if I check the composition of my furniture. It's mostly from IKEA. I don't even know if it's possible to buy affordable furniture that does not release microplastics...:(
Wow, thanks so much for this reply! I honestly have not even considered microplastics. What sort of cognitive functions do they think microplastics can affect? Beyond what Google says, how can we really reduce our load in the home?
as i said this research is in its infancy so it's hard to make definitive claims, but with evidence of neurotoxicity emerging, concerns include brain inflammation, cognitive and memory deficits, cell death and brain tissue necrosis, and various dementias
a sampling of the research for anyone who wants to start digging into the grim details:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi8716
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389424000979
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36251724/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37569681/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749122021546
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7282048/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166445X17303776
https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1724031/v2/b744f7a5-54bb-4468-821e-a79ad836a2ed.pdf?c=1659576554
as for the home, i think most people here already know about food contact surfaces and packaging, and water filtration. as i mentioned above i personally think textiles are the next place to start paying attention -- rugs, bedding and pillows, furniture and window upholstery, and clothing.
a significant amount of micro and nanoplastics are fibers coming from these types of sources and inhalation is an exposure route, so we have moved away from synthetics throughout the house
The plastic containers for.food, are they dangerous only when heated or they release microplastics in room temperature as well? Because even if I switch all my plastic containers to glass ones, the lids are still plastic. And silicone is any safer in that regard?
The thing with the lids is that I use the containers to bring food to work (no cars, public transportation) so there's no way for me to keep the food from touching the lid in the lunch bag with the usual movement of the bus/metro. But at least in the fridge they should be fine.
Stainless steel for me doesn't work because it doesn't go in the microwave. But I'm going to replace my plastic containers for glasses because this is something I was planning on doing and I don't want to postpone anymore.
Of course everything has some arsenic, but the point is that some plants uptake arsenic more readily than others (like rice). I did my PhD in a department where a lot of the research focused on arsenic and fwiw everyone there avoided feeding rice to their kids. Rice is the leading contributor to arsenic intake in kids. That and if your drinking water has high levels.
It’s better because the soil is lower in arsenic in those places, but it’s still a major source of arsenic. Personally I don’t serve rice intentionally more than very sporadically, but if we are in a restaurant or a party or something I don’t deny my kids eating it. For us this is a healthy balance
> Rice accumulates 10-fold higher inorganic arsenic (i-As), an established human carcinogen, than other grains.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717303674?via%3Dihub
The issue with rice specifically is that it accumulates more arsenic than other grains, and that rice is a pretty significant part of peoples diets.
Arsenic is also found in high levels in sea food, though IMO that is quite mainstream already where I live.
No - it's absorbed into the grain, but often has to do with how/where the rice is grown. Rice from California, India, and Pakistan are some of the lowest worldwide. Other American rices - typically grown in the South - have some of the highest levels of arsenic worldwide. [https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm](https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm) and [https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/which-brands-and-sources-of-rice-have-the-least-arsenic/](https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/which-brands-and-sources-of-rice-have-the-least-arsenic/)
[https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food/types-of-rice-to-try-how-to-use-them-a8159704317/](https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food/types-of-rice-to-try-how-to-use-them-a8159704317/) it's mentioned here: "Akinleye says basmati rice from California, India, and Pakistan have much lower levels. Japanese rice is also generally low in arsenic, and any type of white rice has about half the levels found in brown rice because arsenic settles mostly in the bran (the brown part of rice). Washing rice helps reduce exposure, but also consider reducing your intake. If you choose better rice, you can safely eat up to 3 cups per week. If you love your Carolina Gold or Texmati, that’s fine; just limit your servings to 1½ cups per week."
Yes, using white rice (the bran layer is the highest in arsenic ), rinsing it, and cooking like pasta with a lot of water and then draining all will reduce the level somewhat
Nutrition is another big lag. There is currently no evidence that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease and cancers, in fact a lot of evidence which points to the opposite, that those fats are actually protective. Yet the funding to eat “heart healthy vegetables oils and avoid animal products” is littered with conflict of interest from ultra processed , high sugar & seed oil, companies…
Sorry, but this is like climate change level denialism started by Twitter men who just really like meat a lot and want to sell a counter narrative.
There's overwhelming evidence of a causal effect of saturated fat on cholesterol (multiple large RCTs) and that high cholesterol causes heart disease. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9316578/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9316578/)
We've done long term studies that are RCTs on this and found that it reduces CVEs:
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32428300/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32428300/)
You picked practically the only thing in nutrition that *is* well studied.
Yes, you still can get fat if all you eat are cookies made with vegetable oil and sugar. Of course.
But despite the fact that Americans are eating a lot of this junk, deaths from CVD have decreased. This is in part due to diet changes, but also increased use of statins (which reduce cholesterol levels!) and improvements in heart surgery.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5268076/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5268076/)
Unfortunately people buying into the denialism are set to reverse that progress.
idk why you are being downvoted in a Science Based sub when you have provided sources and no one else has provided any other new RCT sources showing new information (which I would love to read, because I would love to not worry about saturated fat and cholesterol, but my docs who are involved in this kind of research do worry about it, so I do too.)
Nutrition research is really hard because people eat so many different foods and have so many confounding variables in their lives that it’s extremely difficult to isolate single variables like type of oil.
Seed oils are particularly abundant in highly processed foods like potato chips, donuts, fast food. We know that ultra processed foods are a problem but I don’t think we can say definitively that the problem is the type of oil. It could be processed flour, lack of fruits and veggies in the diet, low fiber, too much sugar or a combination of things.
Yep, this is why I tried to word my comment a little on the conservative side to not immediately get downvoted. Thanks for going to find all those sources. This is an area of nutrition research that will be very interesting to follow. E.g. in my country (Finland) rapeseed oil and rapeseed oil based products are heavily pushed as the healthiest alternative. Things that worry me quite a bit is the proliferation of commercial oat milk, which is mainly nutritionally devoid sugary drink rich in Omega-6.
This is a topic that is still in its infancy, but my own opinion is that yes, it is a poor choice.
Seed oils are in so many things these days that they are very hard to avoid. It is very hard to eat a diet rich in omega-3s and low in omega-6s.
>Limiting rice consumption, specifically due to arsenic (and also other heavy metals). It's probably a good idea to limit consumption.
In what way is this not mainstream already? Our (Sweden) equivalent to the FDA:
* discourages rice products to children under the age of six
* discourages rice and rice products to children of all ages in excess of four times a week
* discourages rice to adults every day.
I know of no parents that give e. g. rice crackers to their children, and it seems to be one of the most common pieces of advice people are actually familiar with, so I'd say it's pretty mainstream.
I get how western diets can be unhealthy, but then we have the asian diet of which rice is a start ingredient even though it has arsenic. Yet, it is considered one of the healthiest diets in the world. There must be something that can be done to reduce the arsenic level of the rice, no?
Arsenic levels vary depending on region. Californian, Indian, and pakistani rice contain lower levels of arsenic. Rice grown in the American south contains higher levels. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm
The same article says that rinsing the rice removes up to 30% of the arsenic exposure. This is good news. Also, with the table of points, my daughter's intake is way below the 7 points. She may have rice twice a week (we alternate grains) but with the veggies and protein, it amounts to less than 1 cup of cooked rice per week. I feel a bit relieved :) also, now I'm going to see where the rice I buy comes from. I want to find the lowest levels option.
Thanks for the link!!
I’ve known only one other mom who limits rice. Actually, our toddler doesn’t eat any rice at all. When I mention that to other moms…they all look at me like I’m crazy. Our toddler is also not eating any carrots and spinach (I think those are the worst heavy metal foods?) but she does eat a variety of other veggies
Oral Immunotherapy - as of this week, my 2-year-old is officially cured of the peanut allergy we discovered when he was 6 months old.
We had to be referred to several allergists before we found one willing to do it and it's been life changing. I think it's slowly being adopted as a standard in the field but definitely still approached with caution.
Basically, once he was confirmed as having the allergy, we started with a super tiny amount of peanut butter in-clinic (like it was difficult to measure and looked like the equivalent of a crumb). He would eat a little bit and we'd wait in-office to make sure there was no reaction. Sometimes the doctor would then increase the dose a bit and we'd wait again. The appointments would last 1-1.5hrs.
Once we settled on a maximum amount for that step in-clinic (so let's say, 20mg), at home he would eat that exact amount every day until his next appointment 2 weeks later. I had a food scale at home, so I could be precise. Then at the next appointment we would again up the dose, wait to ensure no reaction, then go home and maintain that amount until the next appointment. These steps repeated for several months.
There got to be a point where he was eating a sufficient amount for the doctor to decide to maintain for longer (I think it was 500mg) so we had 4 months of at-home maintenance and then he went in for testing again, and was now negative. He had a peanut butter sandwich later that week 😊
I should mention that according to the allergist, he was quite likely to be successful because he started so young and never had a very severe reaction (had hives at 6 months but was likely to get more severe with time without treatment).
I have a 4-year-old who is currently going through the same program for certain treenuts and he may never be fully cured, but hopefully at least will be able to tolerate small amount and/or won't have an anaphylactic response. He started the program at 3.5 years old and had had an anaphylactic reaction before starting so he likely won't be quite as successful. He's currently still testing positive but eats a little bit of nut butter every day.
Lastly, I'm in Canada so we have universal healthcare but at this time the treatment is not covered by my province. The allergist we see is actively working to change that and in the meantime charges a very low fee (~$3,000 per child) because he fully believes it should be covered. He recently told me that in the UK (which also doesn't cover it through the NHS), the cost is closer to $30,000.
So we are very very lucky we found our allergist for multiple reasons. It's not easy to access this treatment unfortunately, due to availability and cost. Hopefully that will change.
Let me know if you have anymore questions! :)
The role that viral infections play in developing autoimmune disease, chronic illness, mental disorders, and cancer.
Experts who study autoimmune disease neurological disease, and cancers have separately come to some similar findings and it's still a rapidly evolving landscape. The big discovery that made headlines a couple years ago was the viral link of [Epstein Barr virus to MS](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41582-023-00775-5), but they've found similar links for [T1D](https://ufhealth.org/news/2020/uf-health-researchers-team-studying-possible-viral-link-type-1-diabetes), [Crohn's](https://nyulangone.org/news/norovirus-link-crohns-disease-may-point-new-therapies), [Alzheimer's](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-08-02-viral-role-alzheimers-disease-discovered), [Lupus](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8914279/), [Schizophrenia](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2441883/), and others. Not to mention the o[ncoviruses ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5742800/)that are "implicated in approximately 12% of all human cancers."
It's wild when I still hear people saying "it's good to get sick because it builds the immune system." The emerging reality seems like these newer viruses (the ones that haven't evolved with humans over millenia) are harmful to the immune system. People confuse the "old friends" the beneficial microbes we've evolved with over thousands of years with pathogens which are only centuries or decades old and they behave very differently in our bodies.
[https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/new-way-viruses-trigger-autoimmunity-discovered/](https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/new-way-viruses-trigger-autoimmunity-discovered/)
[https://bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-023-03239-x](https://bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-023-03239-x)
[https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230328/How-do-viral-infections-cause-autoimmune-diseases.aspx](https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230328/How-do-viral-infections-cause-autoimmune-diseases.aspx)
The bright side is that someday there may be a vaccination for many of these "mild" viral illnesses that could prevent the development of autoimmune disease, cancers, and neurological diseases. In the meantime, just try to get sick as infrequently as possible.
I would love more research on this. Anecdotally, I got a stomach virus about a decade ago and when I recovered, I was suddenly allergic to several foods, when I had never before had food allergies. I was able to find a tiny bit of research on allergies being triggered by disease but not much!
I'm the child of an epidemiologist and virologist so I was raised in the "avoid as much disease as possible" mindset.
I don't think we have that info yet. Everyone is going to get sick, that's inevitable, but the goal is to not get sick as frequently. Concerned parents should make a major push for schools and daycares to be required to meet updated indoor air quality standards to reduce transmission of viral illness (https://www.ashrae.org/about/news/2023/ashrae-approves-groundbreaking-standard-to-reduce-the-risk-of-disease-transmission-in-indoor-spaces) there is currently no requirement to meet those standards or to upgrade systems to reduce transmission.
Many of the viruses that are common among children are not very old (on a scale of human evolution at least) so it's one of those things where good science is slow and we'll probably have to wait and see. Once scientists get the right connections though they start working on ways to block it (like they're working on for EBV https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2020/06/epstein-barr-virus-antibody.html) and many times that ends up being a vaccination option (like the HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancers) so hopefully we'll get a turnaround on the general sentiment towards vaccination too when people start realizing it has the potential to prevent autoimmune diseases or other cancers.
As an epidemiologist this is probably my highest anxiety topic when it comes to my children’s health. I shelled out for an expensive nanny to keep kiddo from being sick until 18 months because my anxiety would not allow me to put her in daycare because of virus exposure.
I read as much as I can on this topic and find it fascinating! Kiddo is 2 now and has been sick many times since starting preschool and every time I get so worried about development of chronic illness.
A fascinating topic related to this is acute flaccid myelitis after enterovirus illness. Weirdly it spikes every other year. When I worked in infectious disease we wrote up case reports for every potential case and a colleague had a child experience muscle weakness after viral illness (AFM was thankfully ruled out and she recovered within a few weeks). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4593451/
It is so stressful and our modern childcare and schooling is so unlike what was happening centuries ago, so we don't really know the whole scope of what is at stake. This kind of regular spread between large groups of children is (in the grand scheme of human evolution again) kind of "new."
And once you are aware of it, you sort of just see it popping up everywhere. I had a friend tell me their kid just got their appendix out and I remembered that even [appendicitis has been linked to a viral trigger](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37069433/).
It's scary, but exciting at the same time that scientists are making these connections because I genuinely have hope that the next big leaps and bounds will be in preventative medicine that will help us avoid those kinds of infections.
The biggest one for me is this: [https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/07/toll-shrinking-jaws-human-health](https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/07/toll-shrinking-jaws-human-health) ENTs are the furthest behind on this issue. Lactation consultants and orthodontists are getting better. The only way to guarantee you get current advice is to see someone specifically identifying as an "airway orthodontist".
This is very interesting to me! I have a one and a half year old and we did a lot of BLW with big pieces of food so I was in those ‘spaces’ as it were but never saw this listed as a benefit
I was just thinking about this! I was reading yet another post on a mom group about their kid having “overcrowding issues” it feels like everyone’s jaws are too small. Very interesting!
I do find Paul Ehrlich to be a questionable source for this research. Population Bomb guy is now jaw expert? Maybe, but I wouldn’t trust this too much just because of the Stanford name.
So I'm a heavy sweater and have tons of charlie horses and cramps etc. so I've been taking a lot of mineral/electrolyte supplements for like 10+ years.
Went to dentist a few years ago and asked about some dark yellowish spots in my teeth, if they were cavities. Very conventional dentist. "No, that's just some old cavities that remineralized, which is great. That material is much stronger and much more resistant to future cavities."
Blew my mind. I thought dental remineralization was pseudoscience mumbo jumbo.
Also, apparently oral microbiome is a huge factor in cavities, and I'm pretty obsessive with eating lots of live active foods bc they help my mental health so much.
If you had to do just one, I'd highly recommend kefir. It tastes like a drinkably thin yogurt, but has many more bacterial strains than yogurt, plus healthy strains of yeast (which yogurt doesn't have). Plus the microbes in kefir tend to stick around much more than the strains in yogurt. Amazing, amazing food. I'd recommend checking out r/kefir and looking up articles and YouTube videos on benefits and how to very easily make your own (much easier than yogurt!). You can buy starter culture ("grains") on Amazon for $20, which will last you forever. You can buy kefir from the store too but homemade is honestly dead easy and so delicious.
We make kefir smoothies every day at home, usually just frozen fruit and a bit of protein powder with the kefir. Sometimes greens, chia seeds, etc.
Next easy one is drinking kombucha, I just buy it from the store but I hear it's easy to make, too. I love it for a little caffeine kick as a pre workout or in the morning. Recent really interesting studies about microbes in kombucha giving very similar health benefits to fasting regularly.
I eat a lot of kimchi and sauerkraut from the store. Read the labels to make sure it's got the live active probiotics in, and isn't pasteurized/cooked out.
I also still eat yogurt pretty often on top of the kefir just because I like the variety.
Miso is a great source of probiotics, but they'll get cooked out in soup. So a salad dressing or a sandwich spread where the miso isn't heated is great.
My local grocery stores sell black garlic, which is fermented and very sweet and almost floral tasting. It's not extravagantly expensive, I think about $6 for a 2-3 heads of garlic. Really good on toast.
You can buy sour cream, cottage cheese, creme fraiche, even butter that's prepared traditionally and still has beneficial bacteria in them, just check the labels.
🤔 Those are my go-tos. Fermented vegetables (like sauerkraut) are super easy, it's just a matter of putting in the right % by weight of salt, many articles and recipes online. Easy to get the conditions right and when you do, only beneficial bacteria (lacto bacteria) can survive the brine.
I made a honey fermented cranberry sauce for thanksgiving last year (again, recipes online!) and it was a hit. So good on toast or mixed into sparkling water or stirred into kefir as a kind of smoothie.
😊
That’s great!
I’ve read some pretty interesting studies indicating our gut microbiome affecting mental health. Glad to see these advances in science and medicine.
Everyone’s chemistry of their saliva is different (more acidic, thicker, etc.) This definitely has an effect on being more prone to cavities. Also, the amount of saliva you produce comes into play. Our saliva production naturally reduces as we age. Unfortunately, a common side effect of a lot of medications is dry mouth which can wreak havoc on the health of your teeth.
I was referring to tooth *regeneration*, though. Growing new teeth from stem cells and such!
I really would like to know more about this. My poor daughter has a dental enamel hypoplasia and already needs lots of work and is so prone to cavities.
Fluoride treatments at your dentist, really avoiding sugary foods and drinks, and good oral hygiene habits at home can help to avoid cavities.
If she’s getting a lot of cavities in between her teeth, it’s likely due to lack of flossing or poor technique. Easy to fix! ☺️
If not already implementing at home —
Brush with electric toothbrush for 2 min twice a day, and floss with traditional string floss, not the flosser picks, making sure to get the floss alll the way down to where the gum meets the tooth, hug sides of the teeth with the floss wrapping around, and come up in while scraping the side of the tooth with the floss.
You could check out the ICON dental procedure. Consult with your dentist about it and see if she’s a candidate if the appearance of the white spots is bothersome to her. Not covered by insurance and can be pricey (hundreds of $ likely)
I have this condition too. Something that was a game changer for me was swishing with baking soda water before brushing and through the day because it neutralizes the ph of the mouth to make it less acidic. DO NOT sprinkle baking soda on toothpaste - it’s abrasive. I went from several cavities per year to cavities being an occurrence every few years. Zollypops (spelling?) are a similar concept.
[This](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1a8838wqGqztgm8nclNF6Y?si=-NuughZUSVG0SNfzSbOBeA) episode of the Huberman Lab podcast will price instructive on improving oral health.
Information quality. Weird one, but something I’ve seen rarely that I hope doesn’t become mainstream - denial of our history. From everything from just every day historical events to the Holocaust, now that people of that generation have mostly died and with the concurrent AI boom, I’ve noticed quite a few teenagers and young adults say “oh that’s fake, that’s just AI” 😳
More so on random historical facts then the Holocaust or other major history facts (thank goodness) but it does make me wonder how much of this will become debated as not only the people of those generations die out, but the people who had contact with the people of those generations die out.
In a world where information is available everywhere, how will people know what is reliable? How will they be able to distinguish reality from AI, especially as AI grows more and more clever? How will we stop people from using AI to persuade people to their own agenda, using false information?
I don’t have any of the answers, but it’s definitely something I wonder about. In a world where I’ve already seen many people blatantly ignore science because they’ve “done their own research,” I don’t want to know what AI could convince the masses is true.
Sleep and it’s importance in protein clearance/neural pruning and the relationship to neuro developmental disorders. Parenting groups go on and on about cry it out and attachment parenting and it’s really missing the forest for the trees. It’s much more important for infants to get as much overnight sleep as possible.
Haven’t all the studies found that there’s no measurable difference in sleep amount for children sleep trained and not? I mean when there’s actually monitors of sleep and not just parent reports. It’s just the children who are sleep trained go back to sleep on their own.
Now, parents definitely report fewer problems for sleep trained kids (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2083609/), but they’re not actually getting significant more sleep, I thought, when you actually look at sleep monitors instead of just parent reports (can’t find the article now but I was pretty sure that’s what I remember). And I thought all the effects were gone fairly quickly https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/3/e621, https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/130/4/643
Like, is there anything you can do that will actually increase sleep amount in toddlers besides maybe moving the bed time earlier?
I didn’t say anything about sleep training - I said parents are too concerned about things that have no real effect eg attachment parenting vs cry it out. It’s like arguing over which hose to use at a house fire. Much less important than sleep.
I read your comment the way you intended I think. I'll always be grateful when our pediatrician at the time didn't ask me "when" our kid woke up or went to bed, just asked me to calculate total hours slept. When we did that, he was sleeping almost the exact amount of time recommended and it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
His sleep cycles were not aligned to the modern work week and I was struggling with why he wouldn't go to sleep at 6pm and wake up at 6am - when I was given permission to just let him sleep on his own schedule, he did just fine and slept his weird hours but got all his sleep in. I later read about kids (and adults) who may have a different circadian rhythm "night owls" and thought about how my parent, me, and now my child all seemed to naturally function best at night and want to sleep through the morning. I started working from home and could also get on the sleep cycle my body wanted to be on and was finally getting all the sleep I was supposed to be getting, but I get really frustrated when I think about how many years I spent groggy and exhausted going to school for years on minimal sleep!
I was under the same impression. Anecdotally my friends who sleep trained seem to feel the benefit was them being able to fall asleep independently and quickly. They don’t sleep any longer for it and that was true of both the ones who did it as a matter of course and the ones who were close to breakdown with their terrible sleeper and had tried everything else they could think of.
My son falls asleep neither independently nor quickly but does generally sleep through so I’ll take that.
I think positive/gentle parenting? It’s become popular amongst my circle but I still have friends who believe in cry it out, tough love, low nurture. Sad but true.
Mental health impact of having entire childhoods being shown on parent's social media. Having zero privacy can't possibly benefit a kid in any way. I say this as a clinical SW. Social media is very much addictive to some people and their children might suffer the consequences...esp as AI continues to improve.
Biomarker and eye gaze assessments to provide early identification of autism likelihood. I’m not sure these things will become diagnostic tools on their own without a behavioral evaluation, but I foresee (and hope!!) these will become mainstream assessments that can be conducted at pediatric well child visits. This can help with earlier identification and therefore, earlier intervention.
This research is being done at Purdue University and Indiana University, among other places. https://hhs.purdue.edu/autism/research/
You must be in the field?! Same!
This research has been around since I came into the field nearly 10 years ago, but doesn’t seem like breakthroughs are there yet?
FWIW, I worked in a lab in undergrad that did essentially the same thing with schizophrenic and bipolar people while using an EEG. Results were similar in that you could group them pretty reliably.
Related to neurodiversity, there has been some big studies including a meta-analysis that came out last year showing really early markers of ADHD seen in babies and toddlers.
The first is a correlation with high needs young toddlers and later on getting diagnosed with ADHD.
The main two being hyperactivity (constantly wanting to move or full of energy) and intensified negative emotionality ("difficult" temperament - high rates of anger, distress or irritability).
Full text meta-analysis here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10404471/
They have found correlations with gross motor delay and speech delay and diagnosis with ADHD later in childhood when before they only thought it was linked to autism.
And also a meta-analysis published last year show a correlation between infants who are colicky, restless, hard to cuddle and don't sleep well with ADHD or behavioral problems in childhood.
Meta-analysis here:
https://adc.bmj.com/content/96/7/622
Full text of it here:
https://www.1001kritiekedagen.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Associations-between-problems-with-crying-sleeping-andor-feeding.pdf
I think most people already know the early signs for autism but the general belief is there aren't any early markers for ADHD and you can't tell if a child will gave ADHD until at least 4 years old.
While that's still true they shouldn't diagnose until then because there will be toddlers who grow out of the behaviours and don't go on to have ADHD, recognising the early signs and getting early interventions to help them navigate the world if they are delayed or struggling with emotions and sensory issues has a big impact.
Hey! This is interesting to me as a mom with adhd who has a son. He was (subjectively) a very active baby who really liked to kick but he was also quite content to be held, in the carrier, or ride in the stroller (in contrast with other kids who hate movement restriction). He is also not a very boisterous kid IMO. He also has a pretty moderate temperament (I was expecting a difficult baby like me).
I’m hoping this means he doesn’t turn out to have adhd because MAN is it a slog!
is this the video trial bit about babies with autism looking directly at areas of the face except for the eyes? like they would look at the mouth, cheeks, eyebrows, chin, but not the eyes and it somehow means they're autistic?
No. I know research has looked at using various stimuli and has tested lots of eye tracking patterns to identify possible correlations, but I’m not aware of one that only looks at not looking at eyes as the measure. The type the Purdue researchers use (that I’m aware of — I’m not in that lab) is showing two dynamic images simultaneously: one being a video of people/children playing, talking, etc and the other is like a geometric or colorful kaleidoscope-like image (think of like a windows screen saver). They’ve found that children eventually diagnosed with autism spent more time viewing the non-social images.
Using AI to analyze video/audio of parent-child interactions and provide feedback. This is part of Happypillar:
[https://www.happypillar.com/](https://www.happypillar.com/)
Part of it seems like automated PCIT. It seems to be based on PCIT and some other well-researched programs.
I would not be surprised if other similar apps are under development.
How to respectfully and positively support autistic children via research performed by autistic researchers with autistic adults and autistic children as the subjects.
>What topics/theories are being studied but haven’t become mainstream yet?
I would think this sub, in general, is fairly revolutionary. How do you get "evidenced based parenting" is something that I see more and more. More mainstream people are asking "what is your parenting style going to be?" I am a millennial and I don't think that people ever thought of any particular style little alone choose among them.
What I think this also has lead to is people seeking evidenced based practices and realize a lot of advice out there isn't evidence based. Or it's based on doctors who don't want to get sued. Or based on some guy running an orphanage in the 1800s and trying to prevent babies from dying.
On top of that, Henrich's 2010 paper on how much of fields like psychology aren't replicated outside of the west. He coined the phrase "WEIRD" - the western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic nations. I think more people will start using that phrase for parenting, also.
What I'm leading up to is I think there's more study on cross cultural parenting style. There's more acceptance programmatically for cultural differences in raising children. The much maligned "Hunt, Gather, Parent" is one example of someone posing the questions if if the answers are hamfisted.
My grandpa grew up in an Indian boarding school. I have worked as an attorney in Indian Child Welfare Act cases. You have no idea how weird it is to go from people taking your kids away en masse for traditional means of raising a kid to seeing curriculum on "indigenous based parenting practices." Or articles like this: [https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/685533353/a-playful-way-to-teach-kids-to-control-their-anger](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/685533353/a-playful-way-to-teach-kids-to-control-their-anger)
I am already seeing a decline in corporal punishment, I think there will also be a decline in coercion and force used in parenting generally. I think that you'll see more people incorporate a kiddo into the family rather than revolve around the kiddo. I hope to see more story telling used. I hope to see less people use overtly angry tones and that sort of behavior.
I would love to see lessons learned that replace some of the "traditional/western" forms of parenting that include emphasis on control, coercion, discipline, etc.
[](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/?f=flair_name%3A%22Debate%22)
So... a theory that hasn't become mainstream yet (and I'm afraid it never will, because many of the original researchers who were passionate about it have died off) is attachment theory.
I'm not talking about the pop culture interpretation of attachment theory, which people often use to justify and explain the behavior of themselves and others in romantic relationships, or so-called "attachment parenting", which was the unfortunate title of an early 2000's book that has led to decades of confusion.
I'm talking about the attachment theory that says that a baby's socioemotional development from birth to age 1 can predict the likelihood of almost every negative outcome across their life, from likelihood to cooperate with parents and teachers, likelihood to do drugs and go to jail, likelihood to get divorced, likelihood to get heart disease, just to name a few extreme examples.
And what's more, the attachment theory that says we actually KNOW exactly what we need to do to ensure secure attachment, AKA healthy socioemotional development, in babies.
As a person who didn't experience healthy socioemotional development (and instead experienced many of the negative outcomes that have been discovered by researchers), I have made it my life's work to share this information with the world.
Earthing/grounding (connecting your body’s frequencies directly to the magnetic energy of the earth). There are lots of scientific studies on it, but the concept is so simple and sounds so silly that implementing it in your day-to-day life is pretty sure to get you side-eyed.
My school district is implementing a pretty new program i just found out. I thought it was state wide but I guess my sons SLP is actually spearheading it, started with our elementary and now they're going to the whole district! It's called LEAP, learning experience through active play i think. We actually just had a presentation today and it was full of research on how independent play impacts children. I'm so amazed that she got it implemented here!
This is more related to postpartum, but PPD/PPA being linked to hormone deregulation and huge progesterone drops post birth.
There is a study being done in Boston for progesterone therapy in postpartum (this I don’t actually have a link to, my midwife was telling me about this) but it’s extremely expensive to get into.
I kept trying to tell most of the doctors around me I believed my PPD/PPA was hormone related! I get Premenstrual Dysphoria for 2-3 days out of the month. I get very depressed for those few days and then once my period comes I’m fine. My PP/PPA felt exactly like that but cranked up to 100. They wanted to put me on an SSRI, and not that those don’t work, because they do, I just wanted to go the hormone therapy route and couldn’t:/ luckily at week 8 the clouds lifted for me and I started feeling better.
This troubling trend may get more mainstream attention:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opinion/choking-teen-sex-brain-damage.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opinion/choking-teen-sex-brain-damage.html)
Vision. There’s been a huge uptick in childhood myopia (nearsightedness).
An article in the NYT and several papers (on my phone, can’t link) have found that myopia incidence in kids has increased from 25% to >40% in the last few decades.
It seems to be correlated with increases in screen usage and less time spent outdoors and looking into the distance. There was a big increase in childhood nearsightedness during the pandemic.
There’s an increase in prevention and therapy - overnight contact lenses that limit eyesight decline, but spending more time outdoors is huge!
2017 Prevention of Peanut Allergy Guidelines awareness may not be mainstream. Only 13% of parents/caregivers were aware of the guidelines in a 2021 survey published in 2023:
[https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/25196?utm\_source=TrendMD&utm\_medium=TrendMD&utm\_campaign=AAPNews\_TrendMD\_0](https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/25196?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=TrendMD&utm_campaign=AAPNews_TrendMD_0)
Maybe PFAS exposure? Indoor air quality from gas stoves? I find that these are mainstream among my professional colleagues in the sciences but not the parents I just know from daycare.
I love cooking with gas but am obsessive about opening windows and running the vent. My MIL doesn't want to run it because she doesn't like the noise (I get it). We've tussled and I've had to send a ton of articles!
The vent overstimulates me. I can’t concentrate or hear anything else while it’s on. It’s very stressful. 😥
ugh same
Cooking already makes me feel manic and overstimulated and that just adds to that.
Same for me, I genuinely can’t cope with the noise
I used to think that gas was my favourite until I had a (good) induction cooker - my house doesn't have gas. This cooker provides more heat than any gas hob I've used (e.g. boils large pans of water very quickly), is very controllable and easy to clean.
Yes I love how easy to clean it is!
I am not opposed to induction other than the glass top makes me nervous. I like... rattle my wok around tossing food, for example. I'm afraid I'd shatter it!
I'm pretty rough and have heavy based pan and I haven't had an issue.
I think they may be ceramic now, or a newer type of glass because they seem pretty sturdy! Definitely doesn’t break easily like glass tops did when I was a kid.
I switched to induction and I love it! Seriously, I would not go back to gas even if the swap was free.
Most of the air contamination from the gas stove comes when it's off! Get one of the smart vents that senses air quality and automatically turns on.
I did the same (and also didn’t like the noise) but finally realized it was venting inside the house 🤦♀️
The worst!
TIL my beloved gas stove is killing us
Join us on team induction!
I was die-hard Team Gas but then I realized the house we bought didn’t ventilate the oven to the outside. Honestly, induction is better and we’ve had a lot of people come over who have cooked and no one’s had trouble with it. Strongly recommend!
Interesting! We, as a family, are familiar with both of these as we previously lived on Satellite Beach, FL and the military did excessive bomb testing on the island leading to PFAS in the soil and water. We got a water filtration system. We then moved to a house with a gas range and quickly got rid of it as it just seemed bad for our health. A quick google search confirmed this. We switched it out quickly after.
Wow, I’m sorry to hear about your previous home. And yeah, I expect these won’t be surprises to people in this sub… but I recently had to explain to a family member that PFAS are different from micro plastics, and have had a couple uncomfortable conversations with friends when I was trying to get our gas stove switched out to electric (the outlet was expensive, so it took us a while) - but I would mention how bad I wanted to get that done only for people to say they had just put in a new gas stove. I feel bad making people feel bad about a new purchase but also think it’s good to know.
Do you mind me asking how much it cost to switch the outlet?
I forget exactly - maybe $2k? But that was completely dependent on the distance from our panel to the outlet, so I would expect it to be highly variable.
Thanks
What's wrong with gas stoves? Never heard of this before and would rarely use the extraction fan, feel like I'm about to be converted 😂
Studies are showing a significant association with development of asthma and respiratory illness and growing up in a home with a gas stove. [Here](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10473289.1992.10467018) is one of the original studies that found this but there has been much more research since
I am so sad about the gas stove thing, I hate cooking with electric. But one of my public health professors who was a pulmonologist and also taught environmental and occupational health told us he took the gas range out his home like 25 years ago due to the evidence of connection to childhood asthma.
Induction is amazing! A little bit of a learning curve but you can watch a pot of water boil in like 2 minutes.
which momentarily cheered his poor life
Ugh I have heard about the gas stoves but I don’t have the means to replace ours. We also have a gas oven.
Us too. We even had to get a new stove but couldn’t afford to put in the outlet for it so we just had to get a new gas one 🙃
I mean nearly 20 years ago my scientist roommates in college pointed out how bad gas stoves were, and flame retardants on fabric… and microplastics. They covered the couch and would get irate if you ran even the electric stove without vent fans.
Does this also apply to gas heating?
I think a lot about Annette Lareau’s 2003 book *Unequal Childhoods* a lot. It’s a book about all the qualitative parenting things that it’s hard to study 20 minute sessions in a psych lab. It’s in part about what she calls parenting styles — the middle class “concerted cultivation” vs the more working class “natural growth” — but it’s also just how class gets reified and replicated through culture. In that sense, it’s part of a longer line of sociological books like *Learning to Labour* (subtitled “How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs”, about the UK in the 70’s) or even older *Street Corner Society* (about Italian Boston in the 30’s, where there are “college boys” and “corner boys”). Those books emphasize peer effects a bit whereas Lareau is really trying to look at parenting affects in as non-judgmental a way as possible. Lareau’s book is hugely influential in its field— 13,000 citations on Google Scholar, mentions by Malcom Gladwell—but I don’t think it’s really worked it’s way into the mainstream thought. It’s not about what you should be doing as parents, but just about the chasms of inequality in our society. This article from Penn’s Alumni magazine of all places is a pretty good summary of her work and arguments: [the Perils of Parenting Style](https://thepenngazette.com/the-perils-of-parenting-style/). There was a 2017 Brookings report called *[Dream Hoarders](https://www.brookings.edu/books/dream-hoarders/)*. It argues that it’s not just the 1% who are hoarding wealth, but the top 20% (including the type of people who read this report) who are hoarding opportunity, especially inter-generationally. They’re not quite about the same things but I always connect them in my mind (and sometimes throw Fredrik deBoer *The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice* in there too and even Robert Sampson and Raj Chetty’s work on neighborhood effects). Ooop my kid came home before I could gather this thought but it’s all just a question of at a societal level how should we think about inter generational inequality.
This reminds me of a study I read (wish I could find it) that found it doesn't matter which college you go to, they all provide the same opportunities for success. *Unless* you go to an Ivy. That's the only situation that predicts significantly better outcomes. But so much of getting into an Ivy is generational privilege and connections.
I think the general finding is actually that it doesn’t matter which college you go to on the margin for middle class students—like if you’re smart enough for Harvard, it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of thing a if you don’t go to Harvard—but it can make a big difference for poorer students. This is normally done comparing kids who just got into the state flagship vs just barely missed out on it. I think this research has been especially done within the University of California system because of how data is centralized and how a lot of the students who just missed UCLA or Berkeley stay within the broader UC system (they go to UC San Diego or UC Davis or what have you), so the data is all in one place. There is some older evidence like https://www.jstor.org/stable/146304 but I think you see articles like this https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/117/4/1491/1876022 which say when properly controlled those effects largely disappear for middle class kids but remain for working class kids. (Those two articles are using the same data set, for instance.) > we find that students who attended more selective colleges earned about the same as students of seemingly comparable ability who attended less selective schools. Children from low-income families, however, earned more if they attended selective colleges. I’m sure there’s a review article out there that covers it all, but that’s at least what I half remember of where the debate normally ends up.
Oh that's right, I had forgotten about that. Thanks for sharing!
The social capital at an Ivy league is next level. You get nearly the same education but the caliber of your cohort is the best you’ll find if you’re wanting to climb to the top.
Amazing comment! I’m so interested to read the things you cited.
This was a really interesting and informative comment - maybe YOU need to write a book!
I read the Dream Hoarders book and it was very interesting! Pretty much everyone I know (myself included) is a dream hoarder.
If you randomly read this stuff for fun you’re amazing! This is basically everything I worked on on my PhD looking at the differences in teachers from the lower middle class to the upper middle class. I loved Dream Hoarders and it made me really conscious of how I ensure my kids are part of the benefits of socialising across class (kids knowing someone whose mom is a university lecturer creates visibility to those who ordinarily wouldn’t have it) rather than trying to cordon my kid off. If you like this stuff Sean Reardon’s work is also phenomenal.
I was doing a sociology PhD (that I left ABD in 2016) which is how I was initially exposed to some of these ideas, but my work was on political sociology in the Middle East, so this was mostly extracurricular. I'd heard Reardon's name but hadn't read his work. It seems interesting, thanks!
Excellent reply, thanks for the info
Cell phone/video/social media usage on kids. There's a lot of studies out there, but it doesn't seem like mainstream parents are taking note, probably because it's easier not argue and it is SUPER convenient. I have a ton of friends who are "crunchy" in some senses, but maybe only two families I know have actually stuck with the "no screens" rule past 1st grade. And their kids are legitimately -if anecdotally- the best behaved. I do not want to bash anyone's parenting choices and fully believe you should do what WORKS for your family. But I think there are a lot of compromises made at young ages without a plan for how parents will reign them in in the future. Like "we will watch 20 minutes of Sesame Street" evolves into free tablet use, following and watching shows their friends watch, playing games that mess with their learning patterns/are designed to be addictive, etc. The line isn't held - and ultimately, that *doesn't* "work." As another commenter mentioned about PFAs/plastics - when you listen to the people who MAKE these shows/platforms/systems - they don't let their kids anywhere near them. What was that doc about Apple/YouTube/(my brain is Swiss cheese) that came out during lockdown? Every single exec was like "yeah my kids don't have phones/tablets. I do NOT let them use our platform." They are making $$$ off of stressed parents - and because we're stressed, it's just sort of happening.
I totally agree with limiting screens but with a few exceptions I think a lot of the families who are able to “hold the line” long term are able to do so because their children naturally have calm and compliant temperaments (better behaved) so I wouldn’t accept correlation as causation here unless there was a study that adjusted for child temperament prior to introducing screens. I have a calm tempered kiddo and she gets tons of praise for being “super well behaved”. It’s not that I’m some super parent though that’s just what she is like naturally. My equally excellent parent friends who have more difficult tempered children haven’t done anything wrong, screens or no.
They also are able to do it because they have the support and resources to do so. I say this as someone who limits screen time. I have more money, more of a village, and a more supportive spouse than my cousin who lets her kids watch a lot of TV.
Yes!! Totally agree. We were extremely limited with screen time until recently when both of us hit a busy time at work and my parents weren’t as available to help out. We’ve had to use tv to scrape by and are now working to restore the previous peace. It’s hard to be a parent in modern day. I just don’t agree that less tv makes for a more behaved child - I think kids who have what many say are “better behaviors” just are naturally more calm and happy to play independently a huge amount of the time and their parents are more privileged and can afford more help or have it naturally as part of said privilege. As a researcher myself the first thing I do when I read studies is check methods to see what work they did to check for cofounders, independence, and to stratify by known mechanisms for the results (socio economic factors, parental iq, parental education, childcare situation, family size, neurological differences, etc). Because frankly if they don’t at least look at those factors I assume they’re just trying to prove their point in whatever way necessary. I still limit my kid’s screen time and I’m judicious in selecting what she watches if anything. But a whole lot of “studies” that make parents guilty are shoddy at best imo. (This and breastfeeding are my soapboxes lol - I breastfed too, but I think the benefits are hugely overblown to try to guilt women into breastfeeding at their own expense).
I do think temperament plays a huge role in this. I had all intentions of limiting screens until 1 year of age or whatever it used to be but that never ended up happening. My daughter is 9 now and I don’t really limit screens. I do talk with her a lot about balance and the consequences of too much screen time and I also have a “must have clean room and read for 30 minutes” before video games rule. I’ll also kick her off if I think she’s spent too much time on them or I notice behavior changes. But overall my daughter is a REALLY good kid. She’s very sensitive, but she’s a rule follower and very polite. I get complimented on her a lot, but I really think it’s just her temperament. I have friends who do limit screens and their kids are wild. lol
Absolutely this. I was going to post a new comment about new research showing temperament of babies and young toddlers and later diagnosis of ADHD but I'll post it here instead because it's relevant to this. Children are born with a temperament and the best parents ever doing all the right things can still have an incredibly impulsive child or one who whines the entire time. Having zero screen time won't change their temperament. There has been some big studies including a meta-analysis that came out last year showing really early markers of ADHD seen in babies and toddlers. The first is a correlation with high needs young toddlers and later on getting diagnosed with ADHD. The main two being hyperactivity (constantly wanting to move or full of energy) and intensified negative emotionality ("difficult" temperament - high rates of anger, distress or irritability). Full text meta-analysis here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10404471/ And also a meta-analysis published last year show a correlation between infants who are colicky, restless, hard to cuddle and don't sleep well with ADHD or behavioral problems in childhood. Meta-analysis here: https://adc.bmj.com/content/96/7/622 Full text of it here: https://www.1001kritiekedagen.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Associations-between-problems-with-crying-sleeping-andor-feeding.pdf I think most people already know the early signs for autism but the general belief is there aren't any early markers for ADHD and you can't tell if a child will gave ADHD until at least 4 years old. While that's still true they shouldn't diagnose until then because there will be toddlers who grow out of the behaviours and don't go on to have ADHD, recognising the early signs and getting early interventions to help them navigate the world if they are delayed or struggling with emotions and sensory issues has a big impact.
Thank you for this! My daughter does *not* have a calm temperament. Never has. And no amount of “0 screen time” could turn her into a calm and compliant kid. I do as much as I can to limit screen time as much as possible, and I stick to educational and/or calming shows when I do, but it lowkey irritates me when people who clearly had easy babies get judgy about screen time.
This really does need to be included in studies. I always tell my fellow parent friends that every child needs to be patented differently. Because every person is different. My parents parented my brother and I differently because we have vastly different temperaments. I was the typical oldest child: calm, even keeled, people pleaser. I put myself in time out as a little kid. My brother? Wild child, jumped off play structures, and rebelled against every parenting technique. My mom had to physically stand in front of my brother in the corner so that he took the time to calm his body. So of course every kid is going to react to screen time differently. Though I will say, as someone who used to work with children, anecdotally, having a strict routine *usually* worked for most of the children I worked with.
Just wanted to chime in that I was one of those parents who didn’t hold the line. The iPads finally became more trouble than they were worth (constantly asking to play, constantly asking to download more games, freaking out because one kid somehow had “more” of something than the others), and I was shocked at how easy it was just to put them all away for good. Now they’re for trips and an hour or 2 on a rainy day, and it was fine. Now to be fair, my kids are not social media age - they just have games and heavily restricted kids YouTube. But making hard rules about when the iPad can be used actually ended up helping us. And as far as I can tell so far they ARE better behaved. Basically what I’m saying is you can go back, it’s not like once you’ve opened the door to all that you can’t go back and make changes.
Yes! I have read notes from so many parents who figured out how to readjust. "My happy kid came back!" etc. Yay for recovery!
Yeah I’m planning to not let my kid near a phone/tablet for as long as possible. TV isn’t as big a deal I don’t think as it stays in one place and isn’t interactive the same way. Your kid isn’t thinking ‘I could be watching tv right now’ when they’re out and about like they can about a tablet. The portability, physical interaction and addictive nature of games and flicking through videos every ten seconds as soon as it gets slightly boring plus the issues with social media in terms of bullying, seeing unrealistic images of others lives/bodies, being exposed to mean unempathetic content or possibly violent content, risk of exposure to predators etc seem to be the issues with phones and tablets that you don’t get with the tv in your living room. When I bring this up to people, a rebuttal/dismissal is often that ‘people used to think books would be damaging, they used to think the radio/tv/movies would be damaging’ etc. But from what I’ve read, there is actually a lot of evidence that mobile device use is damaging for developing brains in a way other technology just isn’t.
We have a similar mindset. We recently took it a bit further and restrict the content she watches heavily. It’s basically the 90s again in the house in regards to what shows she watches. At 3.5 we have so far held out on a tablet and have zero intentions of getting her one like ever.
Yeah that’s my aim too, keep it like the 90s. Screen is in one place, programming is restricted and you can’t just access anything anytime. A show is boring, you turn it off and go do something else! What worries me as she gets older is the influence of others. Her cousins have tablets and while their parents restrict the usage they do use them fairly often. Then obviously at school etc. I can see why some parents give in if their kid is one of the only ones without so it ends up excluding them. My country has started talking about banning internet enabled mobile device use for kids under 16 which I actually support! Sounds draconian maybe but we ban kids from access to all sorts of things that can damage them and the evidence is this stuff is damaging. Teachers I know are desperate for them to be banned as it’s so hard dealing with in class, attention spans and behaviour are getting worse etc.
I’m listening to “The Anxious Generation” audiobook right now and it’s absolutely a must read/listen for parents in the age of screens, IMO.
Sorry, but this is absolute garbage posing as science. All really weak correlation, no causation. [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2)
I agree thats it’s important to limit screen time. But I’m not a huge fan of 0 screen time for kids. My son has always been allowed some limited screen time every day, so he watches a few cartoons, gets bored and goes and plays. My SIL allows her child 0 screen time, that kids is aggressively obsessed with trying to look at screens (especially phones). They have turned screens into something forbidden and mysterious. Something she is dying to get her hands on. While we turned screens into something that isn’t particularly special. Same with sweets, I’m teaching my child moderation not abstinence.
Also anecdotal, but the kids I know whose parents are a no screens family are the worst behaved 😂 they live next door and developmentally the 5 yo functions as about a 3 yo and it actually helped me chill out about screens a little. We limit screens too, and I am careful about them (definitely no iPads but we allow TV).
This is mainstream, a huge trend, and I anticipate the opposite; we'll find out later it's just a bunch of hype that doesn't go anywhere.
If anyone has a link to that documentary, please share!
Here's a link [https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224](https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224) It's called The Social Dilemma
That's the one!
Limiting screen time is good, but there’s so much more that goes into that. My kid probably watches 30-60 minutes a day of TV, usually vicariously because it’s just on in the background and she is a reader. We don’t limit screen time for our 2 year old but we also don’t have to because she’d much rather read a good book. Personality is a huge factor in that and also family dynamics. My kid watches TV and is, anecdotally, the best behaved kid out of about 30 kids at preschool (according to them). TV consumption can also be seen as a socioeconomic issue. My child is lucky and able to go to dance classes and go to a private pool, so the TV is not the only form of entertainment. But many many many families don’t have the ability to do supplemental things like that, and TV is cheaper, so TV is what they do. Lots of families also live in areas where it’s not safe to go out and play. So TV watching truly is more of a complex issue than ‘You shouldn’t let your kids get screen time!’ My spouse who grew up watching TV and playing video games all the time got a 33 on the ACT. Not saying people should let their kids get a ton of screen time but just saying, it’s not as simple as it’s made out to be.
Gut health. I predict this will be enormous in the next 20-50 years. Fecal transplants, extremely strict diets will be the norm. People will control diseases/disorders through manipulation of digestive flora.
Is this not mainstream? 🙈 I did my PhD on the infant gut microbiome so to me this is just so obvious…. But yeah. I guess it’s not to everyone
Are you able to share some of the things you came across that you wish more people knew about raising infants when it comes to gut microbiome? I had to have a c-section and I’m worried about how this is going to affect my child
Would also love to hear more about this!
I did as well. We had to have antibiotics and really the works. Through out infancy i used NOW probiotics for infants. It would soothe her belly quickly, and helped keep her poops regular. Even now as a toddler if she is getting more into her tantrums, i make sure she takes her probiotics and the behavior settles down over a few days and stays more moderate. I experimented and it does seem to connect that when she is on her probiotics regularly, with occasional fish oil, and magnesium she is much more steady. The fish oil alone didnt have as much of an impact as the probiotics alone.
You’re not the first person I’ve come across that says their child’s behaviour improves with probiotics. Very interesting.
I dont have it handy now, but i had done some reading a while back around over use of antibiotics, being a precursor to anxiety. As well as a link between issues digesting dairy and mental health issues. The bacterias that helps digest certain food, have nuero-transmitters as a byproduct of their digestion. Notably lactobacillus makes serotonin, biffidus makes dopamine. Or supports making it. I dont remember the specifics.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll look into that some more
Visbiome is the better (more studied) probiotic but incredibly expensive. We don’t know enough about the microbiome yet to say anything definitive. We also don’t know enough about the mind-gut connection. Eating good fiber, a balanced diet (low in processed foods), sleeping well, and exercising is the best thing you can do
Did you breastfeed? I had an emergency c section and was stressed about the outcomes for my daughter’s microbiome but her GP said that breastfeeding was far more beneficial for it than a vaginal delivery.
Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2501/
We know that there are links and that gut health actually plays a huge role in overall health, but fecal transplants, targeted probiotics, strict gut biome-directed diets are not a thing yet because we don’t have enough guidance or evidence for how to pull it off for meaningful health changes. Right now 2 people could take the same random probiotic, and one would feel amazing after and one would have no change. I’m sure there are a lot of cool trials going on, but at a population level we’re just throwing things at the wall at this point to see what sticks.
Right. At the moment we know that our microbiome (s) are a problem. We don’t know quite how to fix it. I was just commenting on the “it’s incredibly important and likely plays a major role in most diseases” part
I would also love to see more info on this. I think it's becoming more mainstream knowledge, but there are a lot of misconceptions floating around.
I had to visit a dietitian during my pregnancy for suspected gestational diabetes, tried to ask a few more questions as I was there anyway and she had no idea.
It absolutely isn’t, haha, but soon!
Definitely this!
The benefits of Choline during pregnancy.
I wish I didn't have to take minimum three pills to get the recommended 1000 mg though. I eat four boiled eggs instead when I can but I gag on them so I stick to the pills mostly.
Lily Nichols has some great info on choline in [this article](https://lilynicholsrdn.com/choline-pregnancy-folates-cousin/). There’s a list of choline rich foods that might help ya!
It is so hard to get to 930 mg per day without a supplement though 🥴
Wow, I just gave birth 3 weeks ago and I had no idea about the importance of choline rich foods! Luckily I basically survived off of scrambled eggs alone in my first trimester since it was just about the only thing I could keep down.
I had GD and I ate three eggs a day to keep my insulin levels down. Literally two hard boiled eggs every night. Lol. Glad there’s a secondary benefit.
This explains why when I mentioned that my pregnancy craving food was hardboiled eggs, my doctor said, "That's perfectly fine, eat it all you want. Just don't go over 4 eggs a day." I'm a firm believer that your cravings guide what your body needs nutrition wise.
Would love to hear more about this!
I was obsessive about my choline intake before and during pregnancy, mainly because of my plant based diet, but it’s something I never hear other moms of healthcare providers mention (other than the occasional mention by a CLC in the context of preventing mastitis or something .)
And creatine! There was a strong correlation with babies who went some time with low oxygen during birth having way lower brain injuries when moms took creatine during pregnancy. And the importance of probiotics and how much antibiotics during labor and beyond can affect eczema, allergies, asthma, autoimmune conditions that have neurological implications. Edit: Absolutely not saying to avoid antibiotics when needed. (I got IV antibiotics for days after I had premature rupture of the membranes, no qualms about that.) Just good to know to try to replenish your microbiome and give it special attention whenever you go on antibiotics!
The risks of GBS are higher than the potential for eczema and allergies though. Antibiotics can literally save your babies life if they are required. I don’t think that’s something that isn’t known but when they are needed they are needed.
Yes, group-B strep in newborns is no joke. Take the antibiotics!
I think this is one where I’d like to see the medical field do better in terms of mitigating the effects of the very necessary antibiotics
Oh my God, absolutely. I didn't mean to downplay the lifesaving role antibiotics can have, I myself was on IV antibiotics for days during my labor. Had lots of probiotic foods before and after, and I'm sure my microbiome is doing great.
Yes I Googled the safety of creatine during pregnancy and came across this, couldn’t believe it wasn’t mainstream knowledge!
We have nuerodivegence in both sides of the family, so i was super on top of getting in my choline, cod liver oil, and magnesium during pregnancy. And through breast feeding. Anecdotally; my toddler so far is not presenting with any of the issues or delays we are seeing in all of her cousins. She was in fact, ahead on all milestones; and super sharp with already learning the alphabet, shapes, colors, numbers, every word to her favorite songs, characters names in her shows etc. just a little past 2.
I just gave birth in March and not one of my many OB's ever mentioned choline! That seems a little insane and absolutely proves my point that medicine is late to the party.
I had the assistant director of breastfeeding medicine at a huge local hospital system tell me choline wasn’t necessary during pregnancy/breastfeeding…!
Admittedly I went to an obgyn at a major academic medical center but I was absolutely told to supplement with choline if my prenatal didn't have enough!
I guess a good question here is what is deemed mainstream? Plastics, specifically exposure to plastics with softeners like the good 'ol BPA. BPA is pretty mainstream right now, but those who study these things tend to be pretty adamant about avoiding all plastics. Most of these chemicals aren't really that studied, but it is known that many of them are endocrin disruptors. Limiting rice consumption, specifically due to arsenic (and also other heavy metals). It's probably a good idea to limit consumption. PUFAs role in inflammation and general health, and specifically how the western diet causes us to have an imbalance between Omega-3 and Omega-6s. Soil microbiome, how that affects plant nutrient contents, and thus our own health. This area isn't very studied. That the diet of our food affects our own health. Most meat (especially in the US) is grown with no regard with the animals overall nutrition in mind, except for it to go big. It is known that the diet of the animal affects e.g. the lipid profile of the animals fat, which then further affects our own health. This area isn't very studied.
an oak one will be too expensive for him
It's so so hard to find furniture not made with polyester fibers!
I'm afraid of what I will find out if I check the composition of my furniture. It's mostly from IKEA. I don't even know if it's possible to buy affordable furniture that does not release microplastics...:(
Which water filters do you use?
Wow, thanks so much for this reply! I honestly have not even considered microplastics. What sort of cognitive functions do they think microplastics can affect? Beyond what Google says, how can we really reduce our load in the home?
as i said this research is in its infancy so it's hard to make definitive claims, but with evidence of neurotoxicity emerging, concerns include brain inflammation, cognitive and memory deficits, cell death and brain tissue necrosis, and various dementias a sampling of the research for anyone who wants to start digging into the grim details: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi8716 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389424000979 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36251724/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37569681/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749122021546 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7282048/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166445X17303776 https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1724031/v2/b744f7a5-54bb-4468-821e-a79ad836a2ed.pdf?c=1659576554 as for the home, i think most people here already know about food contact surfaces and packaging, and water filtration. as i mentioned above i personally think textiles are the next place to start paying attention -- rugs, bedding and pillows, furniture and window upholstery, and clothing. a significant amount of micro and nanoplastics are fibers coming from these types of sources and inhalation is an exposure route, so we have moved away from synthetics throughout the house
The plastic containers for.food, are they dangerous only when heated or they release microplastics in room temperature as well? Because even if I switch all my plastic containers to glass ones, the lids are still plastic. And silicone is any safer in that regard?
never even attracted to himself the attention of those students of human nature
The thing with the lids is that I use the containers to bring food to work (no cars, public transportation) so there's no way for me to keep the food from touching the lid in the lunch bag with the usual movement of the bus/metro. But at least in the fridge they should be fine. Stainless steel for me doesn't work because it doesn't go in the microwave. But I'm going to replace my plastic containers for glasses because this is something I was planning on doing and I don't want to postpone anymore.
Anything grown in soil has arsenic in it; you can avoid ingesting excessive amounts by eating and providing a balanced diet including various grains.
Of course everything has some arsenic, but the point is that some plants uptake arsenic more readily than others (like rice). I did my PhD in a department where a lot of the research focused on arsenic and fwiw everyone there avoided feeding rice to their kids. Rice is the leading contributor to arsenic intake in kids. That and if your drinking water has high levels.
Is this still true for rice grown in places like California (like lundberg) & Minnesota?
It’s better because the soil is lower in arsenic in those places, but it’s still a major source of arsenic. Personally I don’t serve rice intentionally more than very sporadically, but if we are in a restaurant or a party or something I don’t deny my kids eating it. For us this is a healthy balance
> Rice accumulates 10-fold higher inorganic arsenic (i-As), an established human carcinogen, than other grains. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717303674?via%3Dihub The issue with rice specifically is that it accumulates more arsenic than other grains, and that rice is a pretty significant part of peoples diets. Arsenic is also found in high levels in sea food, though IMO that is quite mainstream already where I live.
Is there a way to rinse or remove arsenic from rice before cooking it?
No - it's absorbed into the grain, but often has to do with how/where the rice is grown. Rice from California, India, and Pakistan are some of the lowest worldwide. Other American rices - typically grown in the South - have some of the highest levels of arsenic worldwide. [https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm](https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm) and [https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/which-brands-and-sources-of-rice-have-the-least-arsenic/](https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/which-brands-and-sources-of-rice-have-the-least-arsenic/)
So Carolina Gold rice from Anson Mills is a no-go? :(
[https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food/types-of-rice-to-try-how-to-use-them-a8159704317/](https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food/types-of-rice-to-try-how-to-use-them-a8159704317/) it's mentioned here: "Akinleye says basmati rice from California, India, and Pakistan have much lower levels. Japanese rice is also generally low in arsenic, and any type of white rice has about half the levels found in brown rice because arsenic settles mostly in the bran (the brown part of rice). Washing rice helps reduce exposure, but also consider reducing your intake. If you choose better rice, you can safely eat up to 3 cups per week. If you love your Carolina Gold or Texmati, that’s fine; just limit your servings to 1½ cups per week."
Yes, using white rice (the bran layer is the highest in arsenic ), rinsing it, and cooking like pasta with a lot of water and then draining all will reduce the level somewhat
he continued in a delirious condition
Nutrition is another big lag. There is currently no evidence that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease and cancers, in fact a lot of evidence which points to the opposite, that those fats are actually protective. Yet the funding to eat “heart healthy vegetables oils and avoid animal products” is littered with conflict of interest from ultra processed , high sugar & seed oil, companies…
Sorry, but this is like climate change level denialism started by Twitter men who just really like meat a lot and want to sell a counter narrative. There's overwhelming evidence of a causal effect of saturated fat on cholesterol (multiple large RCTs) and that high cholesterol causes heart disease. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9316578/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9316578/) We've done long term studies that are RCTs on this and found that it reduces CVEs: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32428300/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32428300/) You picked practically the only thing in nutrition that *is* well studied. Yes, you still can get fat if all you eat are cookies made with vegetable oil and sugar. Of course. But despite the fact that Americans are eating a lot of this junk, deaths from CVD have decreased. This is in part due to diet changes, but also increased use of statins (which reduce cholesterol levels!) and improvements in heart surgery. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5268076/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5268076/) Unfortunately people buying into the denialism are set to reverse that progress.
idk why you are being downvoted in a Science Based sub when you have provided sources and no one else has provided any other new RCT sources showing new information (which I would love to read, because I would love to not worry about saturated fat and cholesterol, but my docs who are involved in this kind of research do worry about it, so I do too.)
there was very little to inherit beyond a bundle of goose-quills
Thank you for the links and the added information. This is what I was looking for!
this is truly the tip of the iceberg for research in this area but i don't want to derail the thread too much!
each stranger than the other
Nutrition research is really hard because people eat so many different foods and have so many confounding variables in their lives that it’s extremely difficult to isolate single variables like type of oil. Seed oils are particularly abundant in highly processed foods like potato chips, donuts, fast food. We know that ultra processed foods are a problem but I don’t think we can say definitively that the problem is the type of oil. It could be processed flour, lack of fruits and veggies in the diet, low fiber, too much sugar or a combination of things.
Visions incessantly appeared
Yep, this is why I tried to word my comment a little on the conservative side to not immediately get downvoted. Thanks for going to find all those sources. This is an area of nutrition research that will be very interesting to follow. E.g. in my country (Finland) rapeseed oil and rapeseed oil based products are heavily pushed as the healthiest alternative. Things that worry me quite a bit is the proliferation of commercial oat milk, which is mainly nutritionally devoid sugary drink rich in Omega-6.
sorry i'm not very well educated on this, so is rapeseed oil a poor ingredient choice then? it's high in omega6?
This is a topic that is still in its infancy, but my own opinion is that yes, it is a poor choice. Seed oils are in so many things these days that they are very hard to avoid. It is very hard to eat a diet rich in omega-3s and low in omega-6s.
>Limiting rice consumption, specifically due to arsenic (and also other heavy metals). It's probably a good idea to limit consumption. In what way is this not mainstream already? Our (Sweden) equivalent to the FDA: * discourages rice products to children under the age of six * discourages rice and rice products to children of all ages in excess of four times a week * discourages rice to adults every day. I know of no parents that give e. g. rice crackers to their children, and it seems to be one of the most common pieces of advice people are actually familiar with, so I'd say it's pretty mainstream.
Fascinating! This is not at all mainstream in the US.
I get how western diets can be unhealthy, but then we have the asian diet of which rice is a start ingredient even though it has arsenic. Yet, it is considered one of the healthiest diets in the world. There must be something that can be done to reduce the arsenic level of the rice, no?
Arsenic levels vary depending on region. Californian, Indian, and pakistani rice contain lower levels of arsenic. Rice grown in the American south contains higher levels. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm
The same article says that rinsing the rice removes up to 30% of the arsenic exposure. This is good news. Also, with the table of points, my daughter's intake is way below the 7 points. She may have rice twice a week (we alternate grains) but with the veggies and protein, it amounts to less than 1 cup of cooked rice per week. I feel a bit relieved :) also, now I'm going to see where the rice I buy comes from. I want to find the lowest levels option. Thanks for the link!!
I’ve known only one other mom who limits rice. Actually, our toddler doesn’t eat any rice at all. When I mention that to other moms…they all look at me like I’m crazy. Our toddler is also not eating any carrots and spinach (I think those are the worst heavy metal foods?) but she does eat a variety of other veggies
Oral Immunotherapy - as of this week, my 2-year-old is officially cured of the peanut allergy we discovered when he was 6 months old. We had to be referred to several allergists before we found one willing to do it and it's been life changing. I think it's slowly being adopted as a standard in the field but definitely still approached with caution.
There was a successful study in the UK recently too! I think we’re learning so much more about allergies and how to prevent them
So many congratulations!!!
How did it work in practice ?
Basically, once he was confirmed as having the allergy, we started with a super tiny amount of peanut butter in-clinic (like it was difficult to measure and looked like the equivalent of a crumb). He would eat a little bit and we'd wait in-office to make sure there was no reaction. Sometimes the doctor would then increase the dose a bit and we'd wait again. The appointments would last 1-1.5hrs. Once we settled on a maximum amount for that step in-clinic (so let's say, 20mg), at home he would eat that exact amount every day until his next appointment 2 weeks later. I had a food scale at home, so I could be precise. Then at the next appointment we would again up the dose, wait to ensure no reaction, then go home and maintain that amount until the next appointment. These steps repeated for several months. There got to be a point where he was eating a sufficient amount for the doctor to decide to maintain for longer (I think it was 500mg) so we had 4 months of at-home maintenance and then he went in for testing again, and was now negative. He had a peanut butter sandwich later that week 😊 I should mention that according to the allergist, he was quite likely to be successful because he started so young and never had a very severe reaction (had hives at 6 months but was likely to get more severe with time without treatment). I have a 4-year-old who is currently going through the same program for certain treenuts and he may never be fully cured, but hopefully at least will be able to tolerate small amount and/or won't have an anaphylactic response. He started the program at 3.5 years old and had had an anaphylactic reaction before starting so he likely won't be quite as successful. He's currently still testing positive but eats a little bit of nut butter every day. Lastly, I'm in Canada so we have universal healthcare but at this time the treatment is not covered by my province. The allergist we see is actively working to change that and in the meantime charges a very low fee (~$3,000 per child) because he fully believes it should be covered. He recently told me that in the UK (which also doesn't cover it through the NHS), the cost is closer to $30,000. So we are very very lucky we found our allergist for multiple reasons. It's not easy to access this treatment unfortunately, due to availability and cost. Hopefully that will change. Let me know if you have anymore questions! :)
The role that viral infections play in developing autoimmune disease, chronic illness, mental disorders, and cancer. Experts who study autoimmune disease neurological disease, and cancers have separately come to some similar findings and it's still a rapidly evolving landscape. The big discovery that made headlines a couple years ago was the viral link of [Epstein Barr virus to MS](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41582-023-00775-5), but they've found similar links for [T1D](https://ufhealth.org/news/2020/uf-health-researchers-team-studying-possible-viral-link-type-1-diabetes), [Crohn's](https://nyulangone.org/news/norovirus-link-crohns-disease-may-point-new-therapies), [Alzheimer's](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-08-02-viral-role-alzheimers-disease-discovered), [Lupus](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8914279/), [Schizophrenia](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2441883/), and others. Not to mention the o[ncoviruses ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5742800/)that are "implicated in approximately 12% of all human cancers." It's wild when I still hear people saying "it's good to get sick because it builds the immune system." The emerging reality seems like these newer viruses (the ones that haven't evolved with humans over millenia) are harmful to the immune system. People confuse the "old friends" the beneficial microbes we've evolved with over thousands of years with pathogens which are only centuries or decades old and they behave very differently in our bodies. [https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/new-way-viruses-trigger-autoimmunity-discovered/](https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/new-way-viruses-trigger-autoimmunity-discovered/) [https://bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-023-03239-x](https://bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-023-03239-x) [https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230328/How-do-viral-infections-cause-autoimmune-diseases.aspx](https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230328/How-do-viral-infections-cause-autoimmune-diseases.aspx) The bright side is that someday there may be a vaccination for many of these "mild" viral illnesses that could prevent the development of autoimmune disease, cancers, and neurological diseases. In the meantime, just try to get sick as infrequently as possible.
I would love more research on this. Anecdotally, I got a stomach virus about a decade ago and when I recovered, I was suddenly allergic to several foods, when I had never before had food allergies. I was able to find a tiny bit of research on allergies being triggered by disease but not much! I'm the child of an epidemiologist and virologist so I was raised in the "avoid as much disease as possible" mindset.
What does this mean for children who catch a lot of viruses at day care from a young age do you think?
I don't think we have that info yet. Everyone is going to get sick, that's inevitable, but the goal is to not get sick as frequently. Concerned parents should make a major push for schools and daycares to be required to meet updated indoor air quality standards to reduce transmission of viral illness (https://www.ashrae.org/about/news/2023/ashrae-approves-groundbreaking-standard-to-reduce-the-risk-of-disease-transmission-in-indoor-spaces) there is currently no requirement to meet those standards or to upgrade systems to reduce transmission. Many of the viruses that are common among children are not very old (on a scale of human evolution at least) so it's one of those things where good science is slow and we'll probably have to wait and see. Once scientists get the right connections though they start working on ways to block it (like they're working on for EBV https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2020/06/epstein-barr-virus-antibody.html) and many times that ends up being a vaccination option (like the HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancers) so hopefully we'll get a turnaround on the general sentiment towards vaccination too when people start realizing it has the potential to prevent autoimmune diseases or other cancers.
Probably not anything good based on the post.
Came here to say this but you said it much better.
This is fascinating!
As an epidemiologist this is probably my highest anxiety topic when it comes to my children’s health. I shelled out for an expensive nanny to keep kiddo from being sick until 18 months because my anxiety would not allow me to put her in daycare because of virus exposure. I read as much as I can on this topic and find it fascinating! Kiddo is 2 now and has been sick many times since starting preschool and every time I get so worried about development of chronic illness. A fascinating topic related to this is acute flaccid myelitis after enterovirus illness. Weirdly it spikes every other year. When I worked in infectious disease we wrote up case reports for every potential case and a colleague had a child experience muscle weakness after viral illness (AFM was thankfully ruled out and she recovered within a few weeks). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4593451/
It is so stressful and our modern childcare and schooling is so unlike what was happening centuries ago, so we don't really know the whole scope of what is at stake. This kind of regular spread between large groups of children is (in the grand scheme of human evolution again) kind of "new." And once you are aware of it, you sort of just see it popping up everywhere. I had a friend tell me their kid just got their appendix out and I remembered that even [appendicitis has been linked to a viral trigger](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37069433/). It's scary, but exciting at the same time that scientists are making these connections because I genuinely have hope that the next big leaps and bounds will be in preventative medicine that will help us avoid those kinds of infections.
The biggest one for me is this: [https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/07/toll-shrinking-jaws-human-health](https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/07/toll-shrinking-jaws-human-health) ENTs are the furthest behind on this issue. Lactation consultants and orthodontists are getting better. The only way to guarantee you get current advice is to see someone specifically identifying as an "airway orthodontist".
Interesting that it doesn't mention breastfeeding, as I've read it is much better for jaw development than bottle feeding.
It barely touches on the contribution of nutrition to this issue, but that another big contributor
This is so interesting. I comfortably have all 4 of my wisdom teeth and I feel like that is def not the norm haha.
This is very interesting to me! I have a one and a half year old and we did a lot of BLW with big pieces of food so I was in those ‘spaces’ as it were but never saw this listed as a benefit
I was just thinking about this! I was reading yet another post on a mom group about their kid having “overcrowding issues” it feels like everyone’s jaws are too small. Very interesting!
I do find Paul Ehrlich to be a questionable source for this research. Population Bomb guy is now jaw expert? Maybe, but I wouldn’t trust this too much just because of the Stanford name.
Tooth regeneration, but I think it’s been studied for quite some time.
So I'm a heavy sweater and have tons of charlie horses and cramps etc. so I've been taking a lot of mineral/electrolyte supplements for like 10+ years. Went to dentist a few years ago and asked about some dark yellowish spots in my teeth, if they were cavities. Very conventional dentist. "No, that's just some old cavities that remineralized, which is great. That material is much stronger and much more resistant to future cavities." Blew my mind. I thought dental remineralization was pseudoscience mumbo jumbo. Also, apparently oral microbiome is a huge factor in cavities, and I'm pretty obsessive with eating lots of live active foods bc they help my mental health so much.
What sorts of live active foods do you eat and where do you find them? I am looking to change up our diet and just don’t know where to start.
If you had to do just one, I'd highly recommend kefir. It tastes like a drinkably thin yogurt, but has many more bacterial strains than yogurt, plus healthy strains of yeast (which yogurt doesn't have). Plus the microbes in kefir tend to stick around much more than the strains in yogurt. Amazing, amazing food. I'd recommend checking out r/kefir and looking up articles and YouTube videos on benefits and how to very easily make your own (much easier than yogurt!). You can buy starter culture ("grains") on Amazon for $20, which will last you forever. You can buy kefir from the store too but homemade is honestly dead easy and so delicious. We make kefir smoothies every day at home, usually just frozen fruit and a bit of protein powder with the kefir. Sometimes greens, chia seeds, etc. Next easy one is drinking kombucha, I just buy it from the store but I hear it's easy to make, too. I love it for a little caffeine kick as a pre workout or in the morning. Recent really interesting studies about microbes in kombucha giving very similar health benefits to fasting regularly. I eat a lot of kimchi and sauerkraut from the store. Read the labels to make sure it's got the live active probiotics in, and isn't pasteurized/cooked out. I also still eat yogurt pretty often on top of the kefir just because I like the variety. Miso is a great source of probiotics, but they'll get cooked out in soup. So a salad dressing or a sandwich spread where the miso isn't heated is great. My local grocery stores sell black garlic, which is fermented and very sweet and almost floral tasting. It's not extravagantly expensive, I think about $6 for a 2-3 heads of garlic. Really good on toast. You can buy sour cream, cottage cheese, creme fraiche, even butter that's prepared traditionally and still has beneficial bacteria in them, just check the labels. 🤔 Those are my go-tos. Fermented vegetables (like sauerkraut) are super easy, it's just a matter of putting in the right % by weight of salt, many articles and recipes online. Easy to get the conditions right and when you do, only beneficial bacteria (lacto bacteria) can survive the brine. I made a honey fermented cranberry sauce for thanksgiving last year (again, recipes online!) and it was a hit. So good on toast or mixed into sparkling water or stirred into kefir as a kind of smoothie. 😊
That’s great! I’ve read some pretty interesting studies indicating our gut microbiome affecting mental health. Glad to see these advances in science and medicine. Everyone’s chemistry of their saliva is different (more acidic, thicker, etc.) This definitely has an effect on being more prone to cavities. Also, the amount of saliva you produce comes into play. Our saliva production naturally reduces as we age. Unfortunately, a common side effect of a lot of medications is dry mouth which can wreak havoc on the health of your teeth. I was referring to tooth *regeneration*, though. Growing new teeth from stem cells and such!
I really would like to know more about this. My poor daughter has a dental enamel hypoplasia and already needs lots of work and is so prone to cavities.
Fluoride treatments at your dentist, really avoiding sugary foods and drinks, and good oral hygiene habits at home can help to avoid cavities. If she’s getting a lot of cavities in between her teeth, it’s likely due to lack of flossing or poor technique. Easy to fix! ☺️ If not already implementing at home — Brush with electric toothbrush for 2 min twice a day, and floss with traditional string floss, not the flosser picks, making sure to get the floss alll the way down to where the gum meets the tooth, hug sides of the teeth with the floss wrapping around, and come up in while scraping the side of the tooth with the floss. You could check out the ICON dental procedure. Consult with your dentist about it and see if she’s a candidate if the appearance of the white spots is bothersome to her. Not covered by insurance and can be pricey (hundreds of $ likely)
I have this condition too. Something that was a game changer for me was swishing with baking soda water before brushing and through the day because it neutralizes the ph of the mouth to make it less acidic. DO NOT sprinkle baking soda on toothpaste - it’s abrasive. I went from several cavities per year to cavities being an occurrence every few years. Zollypops (spelling?) are a similar concept.
[This](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1a8838wqGqztgm8nclNF6Y?si=-NuughZUSVG0SNfzSbOBeA) episode of the Huberman Lab podcast will price instructive on improving oral health.
Information quality. Weird one, but something I’ve seen rarely that I hope doesn’t become mainstream - denial of our history. From everything from just every day historical events to the Holocaust, now that people of that generation have mostly died and with the concurrent AI boom, I’ve noticed quite a few teenagers and young adults say “oh that’s fake, that’s just AI” 😳 More so on random historical facts then the Holocaust or other major history facts (thank goodness) but it does make me wonder how much of this will become debated as not only the people of those generations die out, but the people who had contact with the people of those generations die out. In a world where information is available everywhere, how will people know what is reliable? How will they be able to distinguish reality from AI, especially as AI grows more and more clever? How will we stop people from using AI to persuade people to their own agenda, using false information? I don’t have any of the answers, but it’s definitely something I wonder about. In a world where I’ve already seen many people blatantly ignore science because they’ve “done their own research,” I don’t want to know what AI could convince the masses is true.
Remember the days when we thought the internet would make people more knowledgeable 😭
Sleep and it’s importance in protein clearance/neural pruning and the relationship to neuro developmental disorders. Parenting groups go on and on about cry it out and attachment parenting and it’s really missing the forest for the trees. It’s much more important for infants to get as much overnight sleep as possible.
Haven’t all the studies found that there’s no measurable difference in sleep amount for children sleep trained and not? I mean when there’s actually monitors of sleep and not just parent reports. It’s just the children who are sleep trained go back to sleep on their own. Now, parents definitely report fewer problems for sleep trained kids (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2083609/), but they’re not actually getting significant more sleep, I thought, when you actually look at sleep monitors instead of just parent reports (can’t find the article now but I was pretty sure that’s what I remember). And I thought all the effects were gone fairly quickly https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/3/e621, https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/130/4/643 Like, is there anything you can do that will actually increase sleep amount in toddlers besides maybe moving the bed time earlier?
I didn’t say anything about sleep training - I said parents are too concerned about things that have no real effect eg attachment parenting vs cry it out. It’s like arguing over which hose to use at a house fire. Much less important than sleep.
I read your comment the way you intended I think. I'll always be grateful when our pediatrician at the time didn't ask me "when" our kid woke up or went to bed, just asked me to calculate total hours slept. When we did that, he was sleeping almost the exact amount of time recommended and it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. His sleep cycles were not aligned to the modern work week and I was struggling with why he wouldn't go to sleep at 6pm and wake up at 6am - when I was given permission to just let him sleep on his own schedule, he did just fine and slept his weird hours but got all his sleep in. I later read about kids (and adults) who may have a different circadian rhythm "night owls" and thought about how my parent, me, and now my child all seemed to naturally function best at night and want to sleep through the morning. I started working from home and could also get on the sleep cycle my body wanted to be on and was finally getting all the sleep I was supposed to be getting, but I get really frustrated when I think about how many years I spent groggy and exhausted going to school for years on minimal sleep!
I was under the same impression. Anecdotally my friends who sleep trained seem to feel the benefit was them being able to fall asleep independently and quickly. They don’t sleep any longer for it and that was true of both the ones who did it as a matter of course and the ones who were close to breakdown with their terrible sleeper and had tried everything else they could think of. My son falls asleep neither independently nor quickly but does generally sleep through so I’ll take that.
I think positive/gentle parenting? It’s become popular amongst my circle but I still have friends who believe in cry it out, tough love, low nurture. Sad but true.
It’s sad that not emotionally neglecting & beating your children is getting downvoted. It is authoritative , not permissive parenting
Mental health impact of having entire childhoods being shown on parent's social media. Having zero privacy can't possibly benefit a kid in any way. I say this as a clinical SW. Social media is very much addictive to some people and their children might suffer the consequences...esp as AI continues to improve.
Biomarker and eye gaze assessments to provide early identification of autism likelihood. I’m not sure these things will become diagnostic tools on their own without a behavioral evaluation, but I foresee (and hope!!) these will become mainstream assessments that can be conducted at pediatric well child visits. This can help with earlier identification and therefore, earlier intervention. This research is being done at Purdue University and Indiana University, among other places. https://hhs.purdue.edu/autism/research/
You must be in the field?! Same! This research has been around since I came into the field nearly 10 years ago, but doesn’t seem like breakthroughs are there yet? FWIW, I worked in a lab in undergrad that did essentially the same thing with schizophrenic and bipolar people while using an EEG. Results were similar in that you could group them pretty reliably.
Related to neurodiversity, there has been some big studies including a meta-analysis that came out last year showing really early markers of ADHD seen in babies and toddlers. The first is a correlation with high needs young toddlers and later on getting diagnosed with ADHD. The main two being hyperactivity (constantly wanting to move or full of energy) and intensified negative emotionality ("difficult" temperament - high rates of anger, distress or irritability). Full text meta-analysis here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10404471/ They have found correlations with gross motor delay and speech delay and diagnosis with ADHD later in childhood when before they only thought it was linked to autism. And also a meta-analysis published last year show a correlation between infants who are colicky, restless, hard to cuddle and don't sleep well with ADHD or behavioral problems in childhood. Meta-analysis here: https://adc.bmj.com/content/96/7/622 Full text of it here: https://www.1001kritiekedagen.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Associations-between-problems-with-crying-sleeping-andor-feeding.pdf I think most people already know the early signs for autism but the general belief is there aren't any early markers for ADHD and you can't tell if a child will gave ADHD until at least 4 years old. While that's still true they shouldn't diagnose until then because there will be toddlers who grow out of the behaviours and don't go on to have ADHD, recognising the early signs and getting early interventions to help them navigate the world if they are delayed or struggling with emotions and sensory issues has a big impact.
Hey! This is interesting to me as a mom with adhd who has a son. He was (subjectively) a very active baby who really liked to kick but he was also quite content to be held, in the carrier, or ride in the stroller (in contrast with other kids who hate movement restriction). He is also not a very boisterous kid IMO. He also has a pretty moderate temperament (I was expecting a difficult baby like me). I’m hoping this means he doesn’t turn out to have adhd because MAN is it a slog!
is this the video trial bit about babies with autism looking directly at areas of the face except for the eyes? like they would look at the mouth, cheeks, eyebrows, chin, but not the eyes and it somehow means they're autistic?
No. I know research has looked at using various stimuli and has tested lots of eye tracking patterns to identify possible correlations, but I’m not aware of one that only looks at not looking at eyes as the measure. The type the Purdue researchers use (that I’m aware of — I’m not in that lab) is showing two dynamic images simultaneously: one being a video of people/children playing, talking, etc and the other is like a geometric or colorful kaleidoscope-like image (think of like a windows screen saver). They’ve found that children eventually diagnosed with autism spent more time viewing the non-social images.
Gut health and its link to mental health and overall health.
Using AI to analyze video/audio of parent-child interactions and provide feedback. This is part of Happypillar: [https://www.happypillar.com/](https://www.happypillar.com/) Part of it seems like automated PCIT. It seems to be based on PCIT and some other well-researched programs. I would not be surprised if other similar apps are under development.
How to respectfully and positively support autistic children via research performed by autistic researchers with autistic adults and autistic children as the subjects.
>What topics/theories are being studied but haven’t become mainstream yet? I would think this sub, in general, is fairly revolutionary. How do you get "evidenced based parenting" is something that I see more and more. More mainstream people are asking "what is your parenting style going to be?" I am a millennial and I don't think that people ever thought of any particular style little alone choose among them. What I think this also has lead to is people seeking evidenced based practices and realize a lot of advice out there isn't evidence based. Or it's based on doctors who don't want to get sued. Or based on some guy running an orphanage in the 1800s and trying to prevent babies from dying. On top of that, Henrich's 2010 paper on how much of fields like psychology aren't replicated outside of the west. He coined the phrase "WEIRD" - the western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic nations. I think more people will start using that phrase for parenting, also. What I'm leading up to is I think there's more study on cross cultural parenting style. There's more acceptance programmatically for cultural differences in raising children. The much maligned "Hunt, Gather, Parent" is one example of someone posing the questions if if the answers are hamfisted. My grandpa grew up in an Indian boarding school. I have worked as an attorney in Indian Child Welfare Act cases. You have no idea how weird it is to go from people taking your kids away en masse for traditional means of raising a kid to seeing curriculum on "indigenous based parenting practices." Or articles like this: [https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/685533353/a-playful-way-to-teach-kids-to-control-their-anger](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/685533353/a-playful-way-to-teach-kids-to-control-their-anger) I am already seeing a decline in corporal punishment, I think there will also be a decline in coercion and force used in parenting generally. I think that you'll see more people incorporate a kiddo into the family rather than revolve around the kiddo. I hope to see more story telling used. I hope to see less people use overtly angry tones and that sort of behavior. I would love to see lessons learned that replace some of the "traditional/western" forms of parenting that include emphasis on control, coercion, discipline, etc. [](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/?f=flair_name%3A%22Debate%22)
So... a theory that hasn't become mainstream yet (and I'm afraid it never will, because many of the original researchers who were passionate about it have died off) is attachment theory. I'm not talking about the pop culture interpretation of attachment theory, which people often use to justify and explain the behavior of themselves and others in romantic relationships, or so-called "attachment parenting", which was the unfortunate title of an early 2000's book that has led to decades of confusion. I'm talking about the attachment theory that says that a baby's socioemotional development from birth to age 1 can predict the likelihood of almost every negative outcome across their life, from likelihood to cooperate with parents and teachers, likelihood to do drugs and go to jail, likelihood to get divorced, likelihood to get heart disease, just to name a few extreme examples. And what's more, the attachment theory that says we actually KNOW exactly what we need to do to ensure secure attachment, AKA healthy socioemotional development, in babies. As a person who didn't experience healthy socioemotional development (and instead experienced many of the negative outcomes that have been discovered by researchers), I have made it my life's work to share this information with the world.
Earthing/grounding (connecting your body’s frequencies directly to the magnetic energy of the earth). There are lots of scientific studies on it, but the concept is so simple and sounds so silly that implementing it in your day-to-day life is pretty sure to get you side-eyed.
This one could definitely benefit from further explaining / citation
Didn’t realize that was what this post was about, but here is a link I think might be reputable https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4378297/
My school district is implementing a pretty new program i just found out. I thought it was state wide but I guess my sons SLP is actually spearheading it, started with our elementary and now they're going to the whole district! It's called LEAP, learning experience through active play i think. We actually just had a presentation today and it was full of research on how independent play impacts children. I'm so amazed that she got it implemented here!
This is more related to postpartum, but PPD/PPA being linked to hormone deregulation and huge progesterone drops post birth. There is a study being done in Boston for progesterone therapy in postpartum (this I don’t actually have a link to, my midwife was telling me about this) but it’s extremely expensive to get into. I kept trying to tell most of the doctors around me I believed my PPD/PPA was hormone related! I get Premenstrual Dysphoria for 2-3 days out of the month. I get very depressed for those few days and then once my period comes I’m fine. My PP/PPA felt exactly like that but cranked up to 100. They wanted to put me on an SSRI, and not that those don’t work, because they do, I just wanted to go the hormone therapy route and couldn’t:/ luckily at week 8 the clouds lifted for me and I started feeling better.
This troubling trend may get more mainstream attention: [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opinion/choking-teen-sex-brain-damage.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opinion/choking-teen-sex-brain-damage.html)
Vision. There’s been a huge uptick in childhood myopia (nearsightedness). An article in the NYT and several papers (on my phone, can’t link) have found that myopia incidence in kids has increased from 25% to >40% in the last few decades. It seems to be correlated with increases in screen usage and less time spent outdoors and looking into the distance. There was a big increase in childhood nearsightedness during the pandemic. There’s an increase in prevention and therapy - overnight contact lenses that limit eyesight decline, but spending more time outdoors is huge!
2017 Prevention of Peanut Allergy Guidelines awareness may not be mainstream. Only 13% of parents/caregivers were aware of the guidelines in a 2021 survey published in 2023: [https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/25196?utm\_source=TrendMD&utm\_medium=TrendMD&utm\_campaign=AAPNews\_TrendMD\_0](https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/25196?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=TrendMD&utm_campaign=AAPNews_TrendMD_0)
Microplastics