Meet Dr Joel Warsh
Joel Warsh is a Board-Certified Pediatrician in Los Angeles, California who specializes in Parenting, Wellness and Integrative Medicine. He grew up in Toronto, Canada and completed degrees in Kinesiology, Psychology and Epidemiology and Community Health before earning his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson Medical College. He completed his Pediatric Medicine training at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) and worked in private practice in Beverly Hills before founding his current practice, Integrative Pediatrics and Medicine Studio City, in 2018.
Dr. Gator has published research in peer-reviewed journals on topics including childhood injuries, obesity and physical activity.
He has been featured in numerous documentaries, films, summits, podcasts and articles including CBS, Fox, LA Parent, Washington Post, MindBodyGreen, and many others.
He is also the founder of the Parenting Masterclass Platform Raising Amazing which can be found at RaisingAmazingPlus.com
Dr. Joel Gator may be best known for his popular Instagram DrJoelGator where he offers weekly parenting and integrative pediatric support.
He is a consultant for high-profile brands in the health and wellness space.
Dr. Gator is married to Sarah Intelligator, an attorney, whose Holistic Divorce and Family Law practice is located in Beverly Hills. For almost 20 years, she has taught yoga throughout Los Angeles. Dr. Joel was given the nickname, Dr. Gator, by his peers after marrying Sarah Intelligator (yes that is her real last name) and the nickname stuck.
Dr. Gator is an avid athlete, foodie and traveler.
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Podcast transcript:
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Welcome to the show. Good to have you here.
Joel Warsh MD: Thanks for having me on. I’m excited to chat.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Yeah. I wish you had, uh, written this book, uh, several years ago, uh, when I was going through all this because we, there was a lot of guessing, right? There’s a lot of guessing involved in raising a child. Um, you hear a lot of things on the blogosphere and the podcasts and you know, everyone’s got something to say.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Um, but you. Our pediatrician. So you have studied and earned the right to say things. And, uh, I would love to hear your journey. So my audience understands kind of where you’re coming from.
Joel Warsh MD: Absolutely. So, you know, for me, I guess going back a little bit, I did all the regular medical training. I trained at a great, uh, Western program in Los Angeles, Jones hospital of Los Angeles, but while I was there, I got frustrated with the regular system, seeing everybody. Give out medications like it was candy, watching family members, friends go outside of the medical system and getting better.
Joel Warsh MD: And I really started to wonder what that was about. Why are people going to natural practitioners and getting better when they had been given diagnoses or on medications for a long time that were told they were never going to get better. Also back at that point, I met my now wife who is a very holistic minded as well.
Joel Warsh MD: So all those things kind of came together. Led me to start learning about integrative and natural medicine and that has kind of propelled me forward and and I started my career Practicing a little bit more integrative medicine trying to blend the best of both worlds together. So I’m not against modern medicine at all I think there’s some great amazing things that we have invented But I just feel like there’s a time and a place and there’s a lot of Um, a lot of room for integrative medicine, natural medicine, alternative care, and we’re not using it enough.
Joel Warsh MD: And so I try to blend those together. So that led me to open up my practice and really seeing how interested people were in this, which was very exciting. I mean, I really never had to advertise at all and it’s never been any issue. Lots of people always want to come, which is great and kind of, um, propelled me forward.
Joel Warsh MD: And then I started doing social media and that has grown really rapidly. So that has also shown me that people are really interested in this. But when you’re on social media, everything’s in small snippets. And really I wanted to dive in a little bit deeper. I’ve been seeing more and more parents stress out than ever.
Joel Warsh MD: And I’m also seeing more and more kids with chronic diseases. I mean, you know, you know, you know, chronic disease rates, Our skyrocketing, maybe 50 percent of kids or so have a chronic disease at this point. And those numbers are staggering. And so I thought that I needed to write something down. I need to get to parents when, when they were pregnant or when they had a young child, and let’s talk about all the things that are important that I hear in the office, but also talk about health and wellness and get ahead of things.
Joel Warsh MD: And, and really set the stage,
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Yeah, it’s again, it’s been a long time coming. A lot of these kids grow up being fed the wrong things, being given amoxicillin too early, repeatedly. And, uh, then, you know, it just becomes a downward spiral. And I, I was one of those kids at one point, you know, lots of antibiotics cause that’s what the doctor said.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Uh, now we know better. Uh, now we know a lot about vaginal birth versus C section. We know a lot about a lot. Um, but most people aren’t hearing this, right? I live in a bubble. Uh, you’re in that bubble now, right? But you live in a bubble and in Los Angeles, though, you know, well to do parents that, you know, no better come see guy like you.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: But I go outside of these circles and man, people are like, what are you talking about? Right? And so that’s why people write books. That’s why you went through this effort.
Joel Warsh MD: correct? That’s exactly true because I couldn’t even put it better. It’s like trying to get outside of the bubble and trying to get to the families that would not hear this information because most parenting books are written by therapists, they’re written by moms. There’s a lot of great books out there, but not really written by pediatricians, not really talking about health stuff.
Joel Warsh MD: And that is even why, when I’ve been doing the rounds and, you know, podcasts, I’m trying not just to go on health ones. I think it’s important to talk on health ones, but also to go on to influencers and celebrities and, and just. You know, regular old non health podcasts, because I think that the information has to get to the masses and we need to realize how big of an issue there is for our health.
Joel Warsh MD: So that way people start making. small changes and start taking health into their own hands a little bit. Cause we can, we can’t change everything, but we can change certainly some things.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Yeah. And listen, at, at the, you know, age of three, they are in our hands. Right. And, uh, it is up to us. And I really thought, and I know what it’s like to land on a book title. So, um, this is an interesting one. The book is called Parenting. at your child’s pace, right? At first I was like, wait, what? He wrote a parenting book.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: And then the, the, the sub, the subtext is the integrative pediatricians guide the first three years. So, but I really like how you open with the word parenting because parenting isn’t doctoring. It isn’t health thing. It isn’t Whole Foods shopping. It’s got us whole gestalt around what we do to set the table for them to live a healthful life.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: So tell me about, What drove you to to write this type of book and let’s get into what the book’s about
Joel Warsh MD: Yeah. So I think that the two biggest things that I’m seeing in the office are anxiety and stress for parents. So parents don’t believe in themselves. I feel like anymore, I’m getting more and more. Nervous parents coming to the office or just talking to me online and social media. It seems like there’s more information out there than ever and parents don’t know how to think through all that information.
Joel Warsh MD: I feel like to some degree it was much easier to be a parent a hundred years ago because you would just talk to grandma, you know, or your cousins or your aunts or whatever. Like, oh, well, what did you start feeding them with? Oh, you did that? Okay, that’s what I’ll do. But now there’s this fire hose of information and You look online and everybody’s giving you different advice and all the advice kind of leads to if you don’t do it this way Then your child’s gonna have these problems and it becomes very debilitating so really trying to help parents think through a lot of these big questions that they’re going to ask because Just like you said as a pediatrician a lot of what I get asked is parenting, right?
Joel Warsh MD: It’s not medical, I’ve been served. We see coughs and colds and those kinds of things, but we get a lot of questions about tantrums and potty training and how to start foods and what developmental milestones are, but you need to know how to think through those things and how to decrease your worry. And so a lot of this book really takes you through those big questions and in an integrated way, talks about both sides or the multiple different avenues, which you could do.
Joel Warsh MD: And then. Brings you back to the middle to help you make that choice. So that’s kind of one big aspect. The second big aspect that we talked about already was that health and wellness and getting to the foundations of health and really thinking through like, what are the big things that we have some control over like diet and sleep and exercise and stress.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: It’s funny you say that and you alluded to a metaphor without saying the word of a pendulum swinging, right? And this idea that you know, grandma would just told you what to do And then in a certain phase, like kind of the era I grew up in, um, grandma’s advice didn’t matter anymore. It’s what the doctor told you what to do, right?
Pedram Shojai, OMD: And my, you know, my pediatrician would give us amoxicillin and our dentist would give us candy on the way out. And, you know, their, their word was gold until people started getting chronic diseases and, you know, all the, all the modern issues started showing up. But then we entered, entered this really weird phase where Anyone working at Whole Foods can tell you what to do and, uh, people are just doing all sorts of wackadoo stuff and, you know, your kid’s like, you know, violently ill and you’re putting colloidal silver in their eyes or something, right?
Pedram Shojai, OMD: And so, you know, it became really untethered and so as this pendulum swings, uh, it’s, it’s lovely to have a conversation in the middle. Right? So what are the big things? What are the big things Joel that you found that parents needed to know about that you had to, you know, writing a book’s a heavy lift.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: So why’d you do it?
Joel Warsh MD: Uh, I did it because I, I, again, I see parents so stressed and I wanted to decrease that stress. I wanted to help people get into my mind and think through the way that I think about a lot of these issues because to me, a lot of them are not that stressful. There are so many options out there. And the way to think through most of these things is to gather information, synthesize it, and do what you feel is best for your child based on that information.
Joel Warsh MD: But I don’t see a lot of parents internalizing that and doing that. And so I really wanted to. Put that down to paper and run through the biggest things that, that I, that I see in the office and really run through the big issues. Like for example, baby led weaning versus pureed. So how do you feed your baby when they’re six months old and get a lot of parents coming in the office, they’re super stressed because they read that baby led weaning is the way to go because they saw some influencer posts about it.
Joel Warsh MD: And they were told that it’s good for your oral motor health. And if you don’t do it, there’s all sorts of bad things, but then the parents were their kids going to choke and they come into me and they say, well. You know, I don’t really want to do this, but I feel really bad about it. And then I remind them, you know, why do you have to do one versus the other?
Joel Warsh MD: Why can’t you do both? If you’re going to be super stressed, then is that really the best thing for you? And there’s also kids that have no food in the world. So what’s the real stress, right? You’re not, your kid’s not going to get into Harvard or not because they. did purees versus baby led weaning. And so bringing people back down into center and really bringing them back into balance and showing them both sides of the argument and helping people to feel comfortable making those decisions for themselves.
Joel Warsh MD: I think that is a really important skill that is really difficult these days because there’s so many competing voices that we almost get frozen in trying to make a decision because you don’t want to make the wrong decision when Almost any parenting expert out there says, you just got to do it. You just got to try.
Joel Warsh MD: You figure it out as you go. There’s no one way to do it. Um, and I think giving parents that permission can be really helpful.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: It’s funny when we did a 10 part series on conscious parenting, I could sum up the whole 10, 10 episodes and saying, your kid is watching stop being so crazy. Right? Like, like they’re watching us. They’re emulating our, you know, taking on our anxiety and all of it. Um, it’s hard. It’s really hard. Um, If you, if you end up choking your baby, that’s something you’ll never forgive yourself for.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Um, and on the flip side of that, grandma would say, they don’t die that easy, right? Like, it’s, it’s hard to, it’s, they, they are pretty dang resilient. So how do you go about having these conversations with the parents, right? Is it trial and error? Are you teaching them how to think?
Joel Warsh MD: I think it’s a little bit of everything, but you’re really trying to teach parents how to think through the issues and how to minimize their, I mean, it’s good. I want to remind people, like, let’s say for Google, right? It’s fine to Google. I think that’s okay. A lot of doctors say don’t Google. Well, I think it’s okay to be aware, but I also think that you need to be mindful of the way that things are presented in the world, whether it’s on social media or Google, like it can take you down a very dark path very easily.
Joel Warsh MD: So it’s, it’s okay to be informed because you can find out things you never knew. But at the same time, just because you have one symptom doesn’t necessarily mean you have that horrible thing. And I think taking that context, um, and then bringing that information together can be really helpful. Sometimes speaking to your doctor can be really helpful if you are worried about something.
Joel Warsh MD: But, but just like you said, kids are very resilient. And I think that, you know, We have a lot of anxiety. There’s a lot of anxiety and a lot of mental health concerns these days. And we’re imparting that upon our kids. And there is no perfect way to parent. Nobody knows how to do it until they do it, but we’ve been doing it for a long time and sometimes just reminding parents of how far we’ve come in society.
Joel Warsh MD: How many more safeguards that we really truly do have, how much safer it actually is to be a parent and you have. Access to emergency care. If you need it, you can, you can Google something. If you need it, we never had these things before, but we also never had safety standards. We never had helmets. We never had seatbelts.
Joel Warsh MD: We had mercury and everything. And, um, you know, cocaine was, was in, in regular products, right? Like we had all these things and that was the normal back a hundred years ago, but now we know a lot more. So it actually is a lot safer, but we just don’t always feel like it is. Uh, and, and so just maybe putting that into perspective sometimes can be really helpful for parents because We can do it.
Joel Warsh MD: We do figure it out and everybody doesn’t feel like they can do it until they go through it. We’re all nervous. I was nervous when I was a first parent. Um, nothing really prepares you just do it, but at least if you read, you know, read some good books, learn a little bit about what’s coming up, then you at least have some general idea of what’s coming and you feel a little more confident that you can tackle it.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: The word resilience comes up a lot, not just for children, but for adults, you know, building, building, uh, the elasticity of our stress response and our immunological response and all that. What are the strategies that someone with a newborn or expecting parent should be looking at now? to build resilience in the child, uh, so that they, they have less to worry about cause that’s what resilience does.
Joel Warsh MD: Yeah. I like to focus on the foundations of health. I think that’s really the, the easiest way, the most basic way to, to foster resilience in a child. So I, I start the book with the Dr. Gator smoothie, you know, it’s kind of a metaphor, a play on, on the magical smoothie, a lot of gurus, you know, air quotes, gurus, they go on a daytime talk show and they say, Oh, here’s the magical smoothie.
Joel Warsh MD: This, this cures everything. Right. And we all know that’s not really true. There’s no magical smoothie. I love smoothies and they’re great, but. We can all stand to eat a little bit healthier, but that’s not going to cure everything. What is going to foster resilience is focusing on those basic foundations.
Joel Warsh MD: So let’s start with a big scoop of the seeds being stress, environment and toxins, exercise, diet and sleep, and then throwing in some of the other major factors that we do on a daily basis, like getting outside, getting some vitamin D, spending time in your community, love, cooking, family togetherness.
Joel Warsh MD: These are the things that actually Build resilience for our children. And especially I try to focus a lot in the book on diet and toxins. I think those are the two, two big areas, but, but getting back to basics, getting back to the foundations to me, that’s what fosters the most resilience. And I definitely wanted to remind parents of this early from day one, because we’re, we’re so focused these days on quicker, faster, cheaper, and we lose something in that, which is.
Joel Warsh MD: Our health and, and we do have to, I think, be more mindful of some of these things and, and really get back to the basics and focus on, on reading labels and cooking a little bit more. And that is going to be the best bang for our buck in terms of resiliency and the things that we can do now, because we’re making those small changes, but those small changes add up.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Okay. So let’s fast forward eight to 10 years and we’ll swing back on the pendulum to early days. Um, they’re late for Kumon and the neighbor’s kid’s going to crush them and take their spot in college. So hurry up and eat. We got to go, we got to go, we got to go. And, and like the, the insane amount of pressure and scheduling that you see in the kids going into like fourth, fifth grade now and beyond, um, who the hell’s got time to, to cook?
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Who the hell’s got time for anything? And so how do you counsel families to slow the hell down when the, uh, downward bearing pressure from society is just so insane.
Joel Warsh MD: I think that’s a beautiful question. I think it’s a really wise question. I, it is not easy, right? At this, it’s not easy and everybody’s a little bit different and everybody, Will parent in their own way. I think just starting by answering that question, for me personally, I grew up in this mentality of, you know, going to college is so important.
Joel Warsh MD: You gotta work extra hard, you gotta do all the extracurriculars, you gotta do all these things. And, and I now, through reflection and through growing a little older, I don’t worry about those things as much. So I think it is important to, um, start to peel that back a little bit and obviously. Um, educational success.
Joel Warsh MD: Success. These things are important, but I think they’re a little bit less important than we we give credit for. And certainly based on where we’re seeing the mental health crisis, we’re putting too much on our kids, too much scheduling, too many activities, too much pressure. So I think that there is something to be said about.
Joel Warsh MD: Being a little bit more mindful of this and looking at it a little more globally and then minimizing some of those pressures that we put on kids. That’s kind of one half of it. The other half of it is I get it. Everybody’s busy. Everybody’s tired. And, and, and everybody has a financial stress in terms of what they can afford versus not.
Joel Warsh MD: But at the same time, you can look at the stats and the stats are that 50 percent of kids have a chronic disease. And if we continue to live in the way. that we are living. If we continue to do things like the average family does in North America, then those are the statistics. And if you’re okay with that, if you’re okay with having two kids and one having chronic disease, then I guess we keep living the way that we are.
Joel Warsh MD: But if you’re not okay with that, then we have to do something different. And yes, we might be busy, but we have to find the time to cook a little bit more. We have to find the time to read labels a little bit more. We have to find the time to do these things. And It doesn’t mean that you have to cook every single meal, but maybe you, you, you move forward based on where any family is.
Joel Warsh MD: So if you cook zero meals a week, maybe that means you cook one meal a week. If you cook two, maybe that means you cook three. If you, um, are buying some things packaged, maybe you buy a few more ingredients. Like everybody can move in a more positive direction. You make small changes and that may very well be enough for your kids to be healthy, but it starts by being mindful of the choices.
Joel Warsh MD: And if we are, Mindful of these things, then I think we will see, we’ll see ourselves moving back into a better direction because we’re obviously better at some things in medicine, right? Like people used to live till 40, so there are some things that we’ve done quite well and we do live longer, but now we’re seeing left expectancy go back down again.
Joel Warsh MD: We’re seeing chronic disease going up. And so I think. If you step back and you look at our health, we’re doing some things much better, but then there are some things we’re not doing as well. So we have to kind of swing the pendulum back a little bit and really be more mindful about our chronic health and our chronic disease.
Joel Warsh MD: And that comes from the everyday choices.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: So you said 50 percent of these kids. Now. have a chronic disease. So adults, you’re thinking heart disease, diabetes, kind of the usual, the usual things that are saddling our health care systems. What are these kids getting? What are the chronic diseases?
Joel Warsh MD: So they’re getting a lot of the same things, you know, which is scary, but you know, the big ones for kids are allergies, uh, eczema, autoimmune conditions, we’re seeing diabetes in kids now a lot more, um, mental health conditions, ADHD, autism, you know, all these things are, they’re on the rise, but diabetes is a great example, right?
Joel Warsh MD: I mean, type two is adult onset diabetes. It’s, Called that literally because it was all dealt onset diabetes and now the average age of onset is 13 One third of kids has diabetes or pre diabetes I mean it’s insane to look at those numbers and to hear that and to hear that a disease which really You didn’t find in kids like I was giving a talk on it a few months ago on diabetes and I was trying to look At okay, what were the numbers for the kids before right and you you can’t find it like, you know If you if you research it, it’s like well, there weren’t really a lot of cases Maybe there were some but it wasn’t really recorded You That is insane that you couldn’t find something like 50 years ago and yet now, um, you know, a third of kids have, have, have these kind of conditions or pre diabetes and the average age is 13 for something that you didn’t see in kids at all?
Joel Warsh MD: Like that’s That means we’re doing something wrong.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: So, is there, can we put our finger or at least a few fingers on the some things? I’m assuming sugary cereal is the devil. But like, what are the, what are the main culprits that are leading to this debacle?
Joel Warsh MD: Yeah, if I had to put my fingers on it, the two big ones would be food and toxins. So if we’re talking about food, then, you know, like you said, like sugar is one culprit. I think there’s no question about it. We have way, way too much sugar. Um, I’m not opposed to all sugar. I mean, there are natural, healthy sugars.
Joel Warsh MD: We’re not talking necessarily about that. We probably eat too much of that too, but, you know, if you’re getting your sugar from fruits and veggies, and you’re getting your sugar from Honey and maple syrup and these kind of places. I think that that’s okay But we’re having a lot of processed food a lot of added sugar, you know way more than we ever need So that adds up and to be an issue.
Joel Warsh MD: We have chemicals sprayed on everything, right? We’re getting our food from mass produced farms and mass produced locations. So you’re, you’re losing something when it’s mass produced, you’re not getting the nutrients that you need. And then they’re spreading all these chemicals. So how do we expect these little bodies to perform when the food they’re eating half the time isn’t even real food, doesn’t have the nutrients in it that they need.
Joel Warsh MD: It’s produced in some other country and flown across the world. And then you’re eating it two or three weeks later when It’s been sprayed six times with who knows what, um, all the way through. So to me, I think that’s one of the, one of the big issues. And then just being surrounded by so many chemicals all the time and the water that we drink and the air on our clothes, everything we put in our bodies, it’s just too much for, for all these little kids.
Joel Warsh MD: I mean, we’re, we’re very lucky as humans, right? We have great detoxification systems. We can handle a lot, but at some point everybody Falls off that cliff and, and, and really just can’t handle it. And I think a lot of the disease that we’re seeing is just different manifestations for each individual, each kid, of how it’s expressed for them.
Joel Warsh MD: Whether it’s in their brain and some sort of mental health condition, or whether it’s an autoimmune condition. You know, everybody’s different, but, but these, these chemicals and these toxins add up and the body just can’t handle it. And, and it’s never more clear to me than when you work with a child. Um, or, you know, adult works with a practitioner who changes up their lifestyle and those symptoms go away.
Joel Warsh MD: It’s not always that simple, but at least to me, there is a huge portion of this chronic disease epidemic that’s just lifestyle driven or mostly lifestyle driven. Of course, our genetics affects how we, you know, metabolize things and how we, how, how we’re affected by things. But it’s mostly our lifestyle and I think if we see those changes and for a lot of kids, there would be a massive shift backwards and we would see a lot lower burden of, of these diseases.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: So there’s things that you can obviously control on the front end, which is the inputs, right? As much as you can. I mean, you’re walking out on the street and there’s diesel fumes in the air. I mean, there’s, there’s, within the confines of your own home or your second skin, there’s a lot you can do. Uh, and then what You know, there’s, there’s a lot of controversy on, on how much is too much for detoxification for children.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: If it’s too aggressive, they have these nascent, you know, immune systems and detox pathways. How do you go about detoxifying a child? Do you not bother? Do you just clean up the inputs and let the body do what it does? Uh, you know, assuming they’re dirty, how do you clean them?
Joel Warsh MD: With for when I’m working with kids, I think it depends a lot on how severe their symptoms are. So certainly for a child who has more severe symptoms, you might be a little bit more aggressive for a child who’s, you know, generally healthy, but you’re trying to help them detoxify or, you know, to improve their health or make them more resilient.
Joel Warsh MD: I don’t think you need to be extraordinarily aggressive. I always start with the very basics of just thinking about how you detoxify in general, you know, poop, pee, and sweat, make sure those are optimized. Um, you’re almost never going to go wrong. If we’re. Helping your child drink more, right? So drinking a little bit more and peeing a little more, that’s going to be helpful.
Joel Warsh MD: Making sure that they’re pooping more, so getting a lot more fiber, maybe getting some magnesium, so they’re going to the bathroom a little bit more, and then sweating, so making sure we’re getting outside. You know, that’s an easy place to start for just about anybody. It’s very simple and doesn’t really cost anything.
Joel Warsh MD: So that, that is a great place to start. Then if you want to go further, I think it really depends on the symptoms and how old the child is. Um, we’re going to treat a baby a lot different than a teenager. And I think for a teenager, you can generally for detoxification, treat them pretty similar to adults in general, but for a young baby probably should not.
Joel Warsh MD: And it’s hard because with kids, there’s not a lot of research on any of this stuff, right? So you’re, you’re kind of just going with what makes common sense or what’s logical or what you have a comfort level using or trying. I mean, most supplements, you know, For kids if you use them on a small dose are going to be okay, but not because something’s natural doesn’t mean that it’s totally safe So I think we have to be cautious and that’s where it goes back to what the symptoms are I think if the symptoms are not very severe, you’re gonna do something more gentle.
Joel Warsh MD: You don’t want to Expose them to a whole bunch of chemicals and a whole bunch of supplements But for a kid that has a lot of issues sometimes you do I mean, I don’t always do that Sometimes you work with yeah, you know even more, you know, naturopathic practitioners that put kids on big pills Big, um, big supplement profiles and things like that.
Joel Warsh MD: But I think if you’re going to do that, you need to watch the blood work really closely and, and make sure that they’re, you’re not throwing things off. Cause I think you can pretty easily for a kid.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Yeah. You, you read about these kids that are born with high levels of mercury, heavy metals, things that, you know, should not be in their bloodstream so early. Um, and you know, most. practitioners that I speak with have no idea about pediatric dosing, right? At all. They’re just like, man, that’s sent them to so and so.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: And then so and so passes them on. It’s just, it’s very difficult to figure out to find someone who’s willing to take the risk and go there for a kid who’s showing elevated arsenic. But They’re, you know, seven months old. Look, what do you do there? It’s hard.
Joel Warsh MD: It’s very hard. I mean, there’s no guidelines, so it’s literally just your, your comfort level. I think some practitioners are much more comfortable, but, but that’s where, again, it’s like, well, what are the symptoms? If they’re very severe? Yeah, you can go to the hospital and they can, they can do detoxification, but how often does that happen?
Joel Warsh MD: That’s not the normal case. The normal case is the kid who has, You know, maybe they’re two or three years old and they’re having a lot of infections and you’re worried about it. You do some testing, you find out something, then what do you do with that information? Um, and luckily for most kids, they’re pretty resilient, like we said.
Joel Warsh MD: So we can slowly detoxify them. We can be more mindful. We can watch it. We can make sure it’s not going back up. Um, sometimes you can get some binders or other things to help pull some of those toxins out theoretically, and you can watch it, or you can just. help support their detoxification system. Make sure they’re, um, there again, they’re pooping and they’re peeing and you’re giving them all their nutrients and you’re boosting them up and maybe you’re working on their lifestyle because again, sometimes you don’t have to, you don’t have to do all the work.
Joel Warsh MD: You just have to support their body, give their body everything that it needs and then let it, Do its job and get those things out, but sometimes I just can’t do that if it’s too toxic and and that I’ve seen very often for kids where you don’t have to, you don’t have to figure everything out. You don’t have to do a heart, you know, very complex detoxification or something that you might see for an adult.
Joel Warsh MD: You can just, you know, Support them by giving them a better, helping them have a better lifestyle and eating more healthy and all those things. And then their body just does it.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Yeah. Yeah. Not, not as much as broken yet for them. Uh, one of the big things that I’ve seen coming up a lot for adults, um, curious as to how much you’re seeing with children and your look geo geo located in a part of the world that may or may not have as much of this mold. Um, some parts of the country are terrible.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Lyme disease other parts of the country, but mold is starting to become the big scary, you know, word around the circles. How much hyperbole, how much are you seeing real stuff?
Joel Warsh MD: I see, I mean, I see people that find mold in their house fairly frequently. I think that you definitely do that. My biggest question, I think always the question that pops up is just because you find mold doesn’t mean that’s, you know, um, a reason for symptoms. I mean, mold is everywhere, right? So there, there’s a, there’s mold everywhere, especially in places that are more damp, like you mentioned.
Joel Warsh MD: And so I would think that we don’t, we don’t, we don’t. Worry about mold enough. I think it definitely can cause symptoms for some people, but I’ve also many, many times seen people find mold and most of the people in the house are okay, but maybe one person is affected. So I think our genetics plays a huge role there in terms of how it affects us.
Joel Warsh MD: But I think we’re just at the beginning of really understanding, um, and really recognizing how much of an issue mold is, but at the same time, again, it’s everywhere, right? There’s this mold everywhere. So just because you find mold in your house, does that mean that’s that’s the cause of your symptoms? Or does that mean that you had some symptoms and now you found mold and you’re blaming it on mold and you’re, you’re working to improve it.
Joel Warsh MD: But a lot of the times what you’re going to do for mold is detoxification anyways, and those things are good for a lot. So, you know, if, if, if you get a net benefit at the end of the day for, for finding some mold and, and, you know, detoxifying and getting a healthier life. So I think that’s a good thing anyways.
Joel Warsh MD: So I, I, I, I think the short answer to your question is we should be mindful of it and not necessarily scared of it. It’s something we should definitely think about if we’re having chronic symptoms. If you have a child or you are yourself having chronic symptoms with no Uh, known cause. I would say it’s a reasonable thing to check, especially if you live somewhere that’s damp or you’ve had leaks in your roof or even places where there, there might be mold and it is worth to get somebody out to check.
Joel Warsh MD: It’s, it’s fairly inexpensive to check. Uh, not so expensive, not so inexpensive to remediate, but, but fairly cheap to check for it. So I think that’s a reasonable, uh, Um, thing to throw onto your list if you’re, have these symptoms that you don’t really know what they’re from.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Yeah, speaking of inexpensive versus expensive supplements. Uh, your average podcast listeners probably taking two, 300 worth of stuff because so and so said, take this. And so and so said, I do this. Um, and then now it’s starting to trickle down to our children. For me, it’s a complete pain in the ass cause my kids don’t swallow the pills.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: So I got to open them and do the whole thing and blend them in the mornings. And so I’m very specific and meticulous about what, how many of those dumb pills I’m going to open up for my kids every morning. Right. Um, It’s getting out of hand. I think they’re overprescribed, but that’s just my opinion. How much are you seeing?
Pedram Shojai, OMD: How much can these kids even tolerate?
Joel Warsh MD: That is another really good question. Most kids don’t tolerate supplements very well. Uh, I think that when you talk about supplements, I mean, to me, when people ask me, okay, should a kid be on supplements? Should a kid be on a multivitamin? My answer is no, I don’t think you should, right? I think you should be getting it from your food.
Joel Warsh MD: The problem is that we don’t get enough sunlight, so we don’t get enough vitamin D. We’re not eating very healthy, so we’re not getting the nutrients from our food. And then if you are deficient or. Um, are not getting enough of some nutrients, then yeah, maybe a multivitamin or some nutrients can be very helpful for you.
Joel Warsh MD: I think that’s reasonable, but it’s not a replacement for, for eating healthy. I think that, you know, for some kids it can be helpful, but putting them on 300 supplements is probably not a great idea. Kids don’t love these things. Nobody really does. And if you’re going to get something that’s going to taste good, Then oftentimes that means you’re losing out in the quality.
Joel Warsh MD: So there’s a balance there because you want to get your kid to take it. Well, then you take a gummy and then the gummy is probably not that good for them because there’s a lot of sugar. Um, and so you kind of go through those waves of what am I going to give them? They’re actually going to take it and how much benefit am I actually getting?
Joel Warsh MD: So I think it’s a, it’s a weight and you can use things if you need to. I’m a fan of if. I like supplements in acute settings. I think that’s a good reasonable thing to do instead of taking a medication. So if you want to do something for your kid who has a cold, then I’m not opposed to some of the things that have better evidence like vitamin C or vitamin D or elderberry or zinc.
Joel Warsh MD: I think that’s reasonable. I think if you want to take a multivitamin, that’s fine. But I don’t think you need to do it. Do you need to be on a probiotic forever? No, I don’t think so. If you want to take it for a few months to help with something, that’s reasonable, but forever, not so much. So to me, I think it’s, if you’re using it for a purpose that’s reasonable.
Joel Warsh MD: Um, and for a certain amount of time, but not just to throw kids on it, just like it’s a medicine. Cause then it just becomes the same paradigm and you just run into kids on 15 supplements and who knows what’s doing anything anymore. And probably it’s not doing anything if you run it for a long time anyways.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Man, I can’t even get compliance to have them pick up their Legos, you know, it’s, it’s a battle and so more supplements is, it’s just, it’s more work. Um, what are the couple things that you’re hearing out in the podcast universe that make you cringe as a pediatrician?
Joel Warsh MD: What makes me cringe as a pediatrician? Well, I think what really makes me cringe is hearing other medical practitioners telling people what to do. Um, I hear that a lot, you know, telling people what to put in their bodies, what to do, um, forcing people to do things in their practice. I’m saying that there’s only one, one way that’s correct.
Joel Warsh MD: You know, to me, doctor. Literally means to teach dosair means to teach in latin and that’s what the profession is and and you know Not just doctors, but practitioners out there, whatever whatever field we’re in we’re here to Teach people how to think we’re here to teach people how to think through issues and to inform people about the information so they can make the best decisions for themselves.
Joel Warsh MD: Sometimes that’s going to be the same thing that we think most of the time. Hopefully if you like your doctor or your practitioner, it’s going to be the same thing, but I don’t think we’re here to tell people what to do. And I see it way too much of that these days. Like this is the only way it’s my way or the highway do this or you get out of my practice.
Joel Warsh MD: Um, and I think that is, not the best way to go about things. We’re way too divisive. There’s way too much anger. There’s way too much telling and not enough teaching. And so what makes me cringe is especially with my profession, but a lot of other professions moving away from open, honest discussions about every topic to kind of closing things off and, and, Um, saying there’s only one right way and not letting discussions happen and really, really science worked the way it is meant to be.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: I, I love that answer. Um, the challenge with that answer is the same people in that guy’s clinic were trained to be told what to do. And you know, that, that white coat means you listen. And so the, the psychology of the patients in saying, well, you know, give me a pill to fix this or just tell me what to do is also why it’s very easy for a lazy doctor to go there.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Right. So how do we combat that?
Joel Warsh MD: I think it is about patients and families pushing back and asking questions and not just blindly following anymore. What, what doctors say. I mean, again, doctors are not bad people. Pediatricians are not bad people. These are people that are going into medicine to help kids, right? So not every, none of them are bad people.
Joel Warsh MD: There are very few of them are bad people, but I think that we have to recognize that. We don’t know everything. We have to have some humility. And I think we need to start having more discussions. And especially when it comes to online social media discussions, I mean, we have to stop the one side versus the other.
Joel Warsh MD: If we’re talking about, you know, natural medicine versus modern medicine, I mean, there’s just, Health and wellness. And I think we need to come together and find a balance. And I know that’s not easy, um, but I hope that the more that we talk about these things, the more that it gets out in the open, then hopefully practitioners are going to start to see some of the benefits of a lot of this other stuff.
Joel Warsh MD: And they don’t really have answers in their toolbox. I know I did it. And that’s what led me to integrative medicine. Certainly people reach out to me all the time to ask me questions and to talk about integrative medicine as practitioners. So I hope that. There starts to be a shift back towards health and wellness, but yeah, it’s, it’s tough.
Joel Warsh MD: I know it’s very tough in the medical system. I mean you only have a couple of minutes and it just, it just is what it is, but I hope that we’ll see a change in the long run.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Yeah. And it’s very easy on the wellness side. Right. Um, for me, I often joke with my, my buddies about this because, you know, Taoist priest and, you know, meditation, Qigong guy, and really all I need to do if I want to be, you know, rich and famous is, is pull a sword and wear a robe and, and, and play the part and people just follow you and dote it’s bullshit.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: I’m not going to do it. And, and so there’s a lot of people that take that quick path on both sides of that pendulum, right? And somewhere in the middle, um, you know, and what you’re saying, I have a lot of respect for is there’s, it’s, it’s in the gray, right? It’s not black. It’s not white. It’s gray. The dialogue needs to happen.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: And that’s where you, and again, that’s why you went and wrote a book. That’s why you’re out there on tour talking about all this stuff. So what are the things that. we need to be looking at that we’re not looking at in your assessment.
Joel Warsh MD: I would say the number one thing that we need to be looking at is reading labels. I think that Parents are not reading labels enough for their food or any products that they, that they purchase. If it, when I give advice, when I talk on things that people ask me like, Oh, what’s the one piece of advice you give?
Joel Warsh MD: It’s always to read labels. I think that’s the, the easiest, most bang for your buck thing that we can do. That’s really simple. You do not need a PhD to understand everything on that label, but you can definitely turn it over and look and see that there are words that you actually know what they are. If they’re long, chemically names, it’s probably not good for you.
Joel Warsh MD: And you know, if you’re buying a bag of chips, it doesn’t have to mean that you’re going to buy a broccoli. You can still buy the bag of chips, but at least you pick up the two bags. Maybe they’re the same price. You can look at the one with the better ingredients. You can buy the one with better ingredients.
Joel Warsh MD: And those little decisions add up. Then over time, maybe you start learning about some of the things on there. Maybe over time you start to, instead of buying the bag of chips, you buy something else. But we make one small step at a time moving in a better direction. And it just comes down to prioritizing health, prioritizing when we purchase, looking at the ingredients and realizing that These, these very small changes make a big difference.
Joel Warsh MD: And there’s a great study, I don’t know if you know the Harvard soup study, but it’s a really, really cool study where they took patients for a couple of days, five days and they gave them cans of soup. And then five days they gave them homemade soup and they were looking at the BPA levels in urine. And there’s, you know, of course, BPA in the, in the canned soup and the lining.
Joel Warsh MD: And the difference of those five days was a thousand percent. for BPA in the urine. And that was one of my favorite studies. I love to quote it because it’s so simple. It’s like five days and you get that much of a difference. Well, what does that mean for every single chemical that we’re consuming all the time?
Joel Warsh MD: And also, how much does it actually matter? It does matter. Just a couple of days of difference of making soup versus buying a canned soup. Those things add up. And just because you have a little bit of BPA, does that mean it’s the end of the world for you or your kids? No. But if you’re getting that every single day over 10 years, plus every other chemical over 10 years, is it going to make a difference?
Joel Warsh MD: I’m sure it is. We can only handle so much. And yes, that was BPA in your urine. But if it’s too much, it’s not going to be in your urine. It’s going to be in your body. Um, and, and that was such a very simple but brilliant little study that To be really illustrates that, yes, it matters. Your choices matter and you don’t have to be perfect.
Joel Warsh MD: There’s no such thing, but the little decisions make a difference. And if we add those up, then I think that’s the difference between a lot of these chronic illnesses and not having chronic illnesses. And that is why we’re at this point where so many kids have them versus not having them 10, 15, 20 years ago.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: You look at some of the stuff that’s happening, uh, for us, older folk, um, adults, endotoxemia, some are saying it’s 60, some are saying it’s 80 percent of the chronic disease we’re seeing is actually, you know, downstream from endotoxemia and lipopolysaccharides coming from the wrong bacteria in our guts.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: And, you know, you, you fast forward and you say, okay, well, how do I fix that? Um, one of the highest leveraged places that I’ve seen on On the diet side of that is eat the rainbow and eat a lot of ferments. Um, how soon can they start and how the hell do you get them eating vegetables?
Joel Warsh MD: I mean, you should be starting right away, right? I think, you know, when you’re talking about food, if you’re going back to day one, if you can breastfeed, breastfeed, I think that’s, It’s the first step in terms of building a healthy gut. Not everybody can or is able or wants to. And if you need to use formula, that’s, that’s great.
Joel Warsh MD: You know, I’m lucky that we had, we’re lucky that we have it, but you know, if you want to start from day one, ideally we’re having breast milk and parents are eating healthy too. I mean, what mom’s eating, uh, that goes into your body and certainly affects breast milk too. So I think that all matters. And then.
Joel Warsh MD: From day one as soon as you start feeding them around six months and kids don’t know anything But what you feed them and and certainly for those first few years you have a hundred percent control over what they eat They’re not going to parties. They’re not going to school. They’re not getting any other food So they really should only be exposed to good food at home meaning real real food Minimally processed as much as you can trying to avoid the sugary foods, you know real food like Cooking some carrots, peas, squashes, um, avocado, whatever, whatever it is.
Joel Warsh MD: I mean, they should be exposed to these foods from day one as much as you can. Yes. I understand kids are picky eaters as they get older, but they are only exposed to what you feed them. And, uh, for those first few years, as much as you can control it, I think we should control it and set them, set them up in the, you know, with a good stage of, of, uh, Balance rainbow diet.
Joel Warsh MD: And then, you know, again, as much as you can, I, again, I get it that kids are picky, but we do what we can.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Okay, so back to the title of the book, which is relevant for my next question. It’s called Parenting at Your Child’s Pace. I try to feed them snap peas and carrots, but they say they don’t like it. They want gummy bears. What do I do, Doc? Right? Like how heavy handed can you get? Like what do you, how do you negotiate that?
Joel Warsh MD: I mean, I think we have to remember that we are parents sometimes and we have to do what’s best for them. And certainly when it comes to our health, I mean, there are times when you, you negotiate and you give in to them. And there are other times where we don’t. And for something like, food, especially in those first few years.
Joel Warsh MD: I think we explained to them why we’re not giving them certain foods. We don’t have it in the house. We model it. Um, and, and, you know, if we’re going to eat those treats, it’s a special occasion. It’s at a party, you’re having a bite, you’re having a piece of cake. I’m not an all or none kind of person. So I don’t think you want to completely avoid all things.
Joel Warsh MD: So they don’t even know about it, but I think you can control it at home and you let them know this is the way that it is. So, yeah, I think we, we do have to. Um, be a parent sometimes and take back that, that power. I think that’s totally okay to do. Um, but we want to be mindful of our kids and focus on our own family and not necessarily listening to everything else out there and everything else that everybody’s telling us.
Joel Warsh MD: And that’s where the title comes from is really, there’s so much noise out there, but we want to parent at our, our child’s pace and our family’s pace. It doesn’t mean you should be. Um, permissive and just let them do whatever they want. I think it just means that you’re tuned into your own family and your own children, and you’re listening to their needs and then trying to meet those needs in a, you know, circular motion of, of, of listening to them and trying to figure out what, what they need.
Joel Warsh MD: And that kind of goes in a cycle, which we may not know where that’s going to be at the beginning, but hopefully we can, we can figure it out over time and keep figuring it out. But no, it doesn’t mean you have to give them gummy bears.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Yeah, yeah, and you know, that’s the first few years where you still have control. Then you put them on a school bus, or you send them off to sleepaway camp, and all hell breaks loose, so if you haven’t parented it right before then, um, you know, we, it was a wake up call for us. They were trading their healthy snacks away to get the, the, the crap.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Because we didn’t give it to them. And so if you’re a little too, uh, too heavy handed with it, then they, they end up craving it because they feel like they didn’t get what the other kids had. Right. Um,
Joel Warsh MD: Right. Well, yeah, and that goes back to being really the big concept of integrative anything is balance, right? You mentioned it before that pendulum and it’s like if you are too heavy handed then they don’t know about it And then they go off in the world and they haven’t learned about it So I think it’s also about teaching right?
Joel Warsh MD: I think you have to teach them about healthy versus not healthy So they understand when they go out in the world and they don’t necessarily want it and also they have experienced it So they’re not Um, you know going out there and trading all the time But the same time kids are going to be kids and they might trade their food every now and again That’s not the end of the world but I, I think that we’re teaching them about it and trying to help them to talk to us about it and not hide it from us as best as we can, and then again, kids are going to be kids, so we’re not going to stop at all, but if you’ve given them healthy food for four or five years before they ever see any of that other food, and then you teach them about it and they learn about it, they have a couple of bites here or there, right?
Joel Warsh MD: They’re probably still going to be just fine. You know, if they trade their snack every now and again,
Pedram Shojai, OMD: I appreciate that. Um, I appreciate the, the wisdom that comes with that because it’s very easy to freak out. It’s very easy to think that, you know, he had gummy bears. Now he’s going to have diabetes. It doesn’t happen with a single gummy bear. Right. It happens over years. So the book is called Parenting at Your Child’s Pace.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Um, is it available now? Okay.
Joel Warsh MD: it is available August 6th, so it’s, it’s pre order now. So you can order it right now. You can go to parenting at your child’s pace. com, um, and get it there or, you know, wherever books are sold, Amazon, wherever it might
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Excellent. Excellent. We’ll see when this gets released. Um, and make sure our folks know about it. If you know anybody who is. wanting to have a baby or just had a baby. That’s the sweet spot. Um, we have a number of people in our, our lives, my wife’s friends in particular, who, you know, started late. And so this is, this is upfront and center.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: And you know, some of this stuff is a little fading memory for me. And I’m like, Oh yeah, could have done that better. Right. And, and here we are, we’re both doctors. So, uh, it’s always changing. It’s always evolving. You gotta be quick on your feet. Uh, Dr. Joel Warsh, thank you so much, um, for doing the work that you do.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: And a website, uh, is it parenting at your child’s pace. com. Is that for you, for you as well?
Joel Warsh MD: Yeah, that’s, that’s the website for the book. And you can find me at Dr. Joel Gator on Instagram X, wherever.
Pedram Shojai, OMD: Excellent. All right. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Joel Warsh MD: Thanks for having me on.