Ep 166: How to effectively support and replenish your child's microbiome? With Taylor Soderborg MD PhD, Medical Director at Tiny Health

In this conversation, Taylor Soderborg MD PhD discusses her journey as a physician scientist and her focus on the microbiome's role in child health.  The discussion emphasizes the importance of optimizing microbiomes, their impact on health, and practical advice for parents to support their children's microbiome. Soderborg introduces Tiny Health, a company dedicated to microbiome testing, and explains the testing process and personalized recommendations for families. Taylor shares insights from ongoing research, including the impact of microbiome restoration on clinical outcomes, and emphasizes the importance of making microbiome testing accessible to families. 

Taylor is a licensed pediatrician with a PhD in microbiology. During her studies, she discovered the infant microbiome's role in the risk of developing obesity and liver disease, and has been obsessed with gut health ever since. After 15 years in academic medicine, she now builds bridges across all types of healthcare at Tiny Health. She is passionate about keeping people healthy and finding the root causes of health issues, while integrating different approaches to help set children up for lifelong wellness.

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

For more content from Dr Jessica Hochman:
Instagram: @AskDrJessica
YouTube channel: Ask Dr Jessica
Website: www.askdrjessicamd.com

-For a plant-based, USDA Organic certified vitamin supplement, check out : Llama Naturals Vitamin and use discount code: DRJESSICA20

-To test your child's microbiome and get recommendations, check out:
Tiny Health using code: DRJESSICA

Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.

The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hi everybody. I'm Dr Jessica Hochman, pediatrician and mom of three. On this podcast, I like to talk about various pediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge, not only as a doctor, but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. Hi everybody. Welcome back to Ask Dr Jessica. Today we're going to talk about the microbiome, and I'm joined by Dr Taylor soderborg. She's a physician and a scientist, and she's dedicated her entire career to understanding the microbiome. In this episode, we'll dive into how the microbiome connects to our overall health, and she'll share practical tips for parents on supporting their kids microbiome. We also discussed our company, tiny health, which offers personalized microbiome testing for families. Personally, I'm really excited about what tiny health is doing. Optimizing the microbiome could be a key part of high quality medical care in the future. And if you're interested, I've included a discount code for tiny health in the show notes below. And before we dive in, I also want to let you know that I'll be taking two weeks off for the holidays, so this will be the last episode of the year. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season filled with fun, joy and relaxation and one last thing, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a five star review. It's a small gesture that makes a big difference to help the show grow. Now on to today's conversation with Dr Taylor soderborg, it's so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So tell us about yourself in addition to working at Tiny health tell us what kind of a physician you are and your medical journey to getting here. Yes. So I started my journey through doing an MD PhD, so becoming a physician scientist, because I love helping families and I love working with children. But I also wanted to get to really root cause and figure out why health conditions arise, what we can do to reduce the risk of developing them. And so I really wanted to understand why, you know, how we can optimize health and childhood, just to help people have reduced lifelong conditions and have a better not only lifespan, but also health span. So I did my MD PhD, and I did my PhD in infant microbiome. I was really interested in how all the microbes in our gut influence our lifelong health. And then I went into pediatrics, and I was training in pediatrics, and I was working in the hospital, and I got to work with all these amazing families. And, you know, as much as I loved that, I knew I wanted to really focus on the microbiome. And I just knew that there was so much power harnessed in our gut health early in life, that if we could understand that better and optimize it, that that would be the way that we could really make a huge impact in lifelong health. And so while I was in my training as a pediatrician, I learned about this company that had fairly recently been created and developed called Tiny health. And tiny health is a company that does microbiome testing, and it's the only company that has reference ranges for every age stage phase of life. And when I learned about this, I just knew it was sort of like, you know, you have those decision moments in your life where, you know, if you wrote a biography, where would it start? And that would be sort of my moment where my biography would start, the moment that I decided to transition from being practicing, practicing physician to helping develop and work at this company that was bringing microbiome testing to the world, notably to infants and children. And so it was during my training phase in pediatrics that I decided to make this transition to tiny health to help bring this testing and understanding the results and interpreting them and helping people to act on these findings to, you know, bring that to parents and now also to other healthcare providers. So this is amazing. I love that you have combined all of your interests, you know, your research interests, your pediatric interests, into a field that has a lot, in my view, a lot of potential and a lot of potential benefit for children. I love that you are focusing on prevention. I think that is so wonderful because so much of medicine now we spend our money on trying to fix problems that we could have prevented in the first place. So I, I'm all for that mission. Yes, me, me too. And that's really how I became interested in the microbiome, because I knew if we could optimize this, we could reduce the number of kids who are struggling with chronic conditions. And you know, what is it? 40% of children now have a chronic inflammatory condition that's too that's too high, and then, you know, that's not even including and thinking about the rise in health conditions in adults as well. And so it's just, you know, that number keeps on growing. And so something is going on generationally, that we are just compounding health conditions on health conditions. And where can we intervene? And. Was the biggest question that I, you know, sort of my early career as like, Where can we stop these generational cycles of of illness and gets the microbiome? So I have some questions on that note. So first, people use this word microbiome a lot. Can you, in simple terms, explain to people what is a microbiome? Yes, okay. And I actually love this question, because, okay, when you hear the word microbiome, typically, what people are talking about are the trillions of microbes that live inside your gut. Trillions, trillions. Yes, it's like 38 trillion, I think is the the number we've landed on. And there are bacteria. There are microbes that live inside us. I know if that's like a new concept, that might be a little jarring, but they help us to, you know, set up our immune system. Know, Like, who should we react to? Who should we not react to? And so that's typically what people are talking about when they say microbiome. They're talking about all the bacteria in your gut. But I do like to highlight there's actually microbiomes all over our body, all over the world. So microbiomes are just referring to collections of bacteria or microbes that live in certain places. So we actually have a microbiome on our skin. So sometimes kiddos who are struggling with things like eczema that can be related to not only imbalances in your gut, but also on your skin. There's soil microbiomes that can help understand if our food is growing in nutritious environments. So microbiomes are all over our entire world. But when people say microbiome the biggest, most popular, most research area is the gut microbiome. Now, when children are born, when they come into this world, can you explain to everybody, do they have bacteria in their gut when they are born? Oh, my. So, you know, this is a little bit of a controversial question, so I won't go too much into the weeds. The general consensus at this point is that typically babies are fairly sterile, or they don't really have a microbiome when they're inside, when they're in utero, and then in the process of being born is when babies get exposed to those initial microbes. And so this is why there's, you know, a lot of research done on vaginal delivery or C section delivery, because that's going to really influence what are those first bacteria that baby gets exposed to. It sets the stage for what that microbiome is going to look like. So by and large, you get your microbiome in the process of being delivered, and then the other you know, other exposures you have early in life, how you're fed, what medications you may or may not be exposed to other family members. Those are all things that continue to determine what type of microbes are in your gut, in your gut microbiome, but that very first exposure is typically through the way that you are born and then subsequently, do you have any advice for parents to keep them exposed to a healthy microbiome? Is it rolling around in dirt? Is it eating food off the floor? What can parents do to help support a healthy microbiome? Well, one thing I do love telling parents is that if you do want a pet, notably a dog, that's a great way. So I've certainly had a number of a number of parents I've talked to say, Wait, can you tell my partner? Can you tell my husband this real quick that we have to get a dog? Well, that's decisions between you. But scientifically, you know dogs, pets are very helpful for reducing the risk of developing like asthma food allergies, because of its influence on the microbiome. I remember after we had our first kid, my husband, who's also a physician, we had read that Living with Dogs does help give a boost to your immune system. So I remember once we were walking in a park and we saw a dog, and he had our daughter, who was barely one years old, just pet the dog, and I said, Wait a second, ask the owner first, make sure it's a dog that's okay being pet. And then I think also the big part of it is you have to actually live with the dog for the benefits to be a parent. Yeah, it is petting random dogs off the street, exactly, exactly. I mean, we, you know, encourage petting friendly dogs is always great, and whatever exposure you can get. So even things like going and visiting farms or petting zoos, things like that, being in those environments, spending time outside. So they're really, you know, just even that exposure, as much as you're able to, you know, when developmentally appropriate, of course, but having house plants and having your kids help you with repotting and dirt and things like that can be very beneficial. And the good thing is, is, like, you know, in the first, especially, six months of life. Babies don't have a whole lot of jobs. They have to do. They they need to eat, which, Yep, great. And they need to be adorable. And there's no interventions needed for that. They nail that automatically. Then, you know, what are they eating? Breast milk, ideally, formula, if needed. So, but they're not having this overly complex diet. So the mic. Biome doesn't need to be complex in that phase of life. And so in that phase, it's really about like, do we have the right combination of bacteria that we need to digest that great breast milk, all the nutrients in there? It's a very simple, non diverse microbiome. And then around that four to six months, you know, whenever ready to start doing foods. You know, as we developmentally change, like, we start moving around differently, all of those different phases of life are really well mirrored in the microbiome. Like, the more you move around, the more foods you eat, the more your microbiome becomes complex to mirror that. Ideally, there's not much that it's needed to be done. It's all about getting on track initially, because once you're on track, all those developmental stages kind of naturally help the microbiome to diversify and mature and develop like it should. I always feel like kids are resilient and that they can tolerate an antibiotic here and there. It's okay, but it does. It does remind us that, you know, we want to use medications when kids really need it. We want to get them outdoors. We want to have them having a normal child. So I more want to remind parents that I think when they hear this news, oh my goodness, my I had a C section. My kids been on antibiotics, maybe they don't play outside enough that there are things that we can do, right? So totally, totally Yes. And I love this magic message, like, life happens, like, C sections happen, formula is needed. Like, it's so amazing and great that we have these interventions that allow us to get through these things safe and healthy. But you're right. The question is, how do we how do we build that resilience so that we can tolerate an antibiotic when needed, that how do we restore from a C section? And so really, it's all about knowing the strategies to build that resiliency that allows us to handle all the things that life throws at us. And so like, for example, one of the things that I love to share is a lot of times like C section was not in the plan, and that's how babies end up being born. Well, laboring can help introduce those microbes to baby. So even if baby is born by C section, if you labor it ahead of that baby does you know, depending on sort sort of how far they descend, they can get exposure to some of the microbes from the vaginal community, which is a key part of that, like initial seeding and development of the microbiome. So laboring amazing if you're mostly doing formula and just able to do a little bit of breast milk, oh, the contents of breast milk is so powerful that even a small amount of that can have huge, huge benefits. So it really isn't this, like, all or none? Like, oh, I didn't give birth vaginally. It's all over. Absolutely not. And then part of the reason why tiny health exists is that you can actually look at what's going on in the microbiome and understand, are supports needed? Are they not needed? We don't want to over supplement that actually can have its own set of consequences, and so, you know, how do we basically get kids on track to be able to just live their lives without that high level of like concern and scrutiny? I love that. So first I want to say I love that you mentioned that laboring is beneficial. There are other things that moms can do to help their kids microbiome. Because part of me always feels uneasy when we talk about how, how having a vaginal birth is advantageous for kids, because I look at the statistics in the hospital over the weekend, and oftentimes the C section rates are near 50% over the weekend. And so I don't want moms to feel guilty. I don't want parents to feel bad, right? Because number one is, you want to have a healthy kid. So if having a C section meant having a healthy baby, that's obviously number one, but then it's nice to know that there are things that we can do from that point forward. So thank you for explaining that absolutely. And I think this is really interesting what you're doing, because I agree that, you know, I'm not a fan of giving supplements just for the sake of taking a supplement, but if someone's truly deficient in something, or they're truly needing something, yeah, then I am on board. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, when I was talking before about how the early life microbiome, like early on, it's very simple, it's not diverse. And so what we really want to see in babies is this dominance of this type of bacteria called Bifidobacterium. It's just like the most amazing at digesting the great things in breast milk. It helps to establish the immune system. It's good for your gut lining. And so if you don't have that, then you can't, even if you're doing these great things, you can't really boost it. Or if you don't have enough of it, those unfriendly microbes can really take over. And so, you know, it's that sort of like understanding, do we have the microbes that we you know, that we ideally want to have in there, that are there to help support good microbiome development. And so if you're able to test and look to see, do we have that, or do we not have that, and then use that. Information to decide, should we use a probiotic, or should we not use a probiotic? Because another question I get a lot is like, Well, why don't we just have everybody on this Bifidobacterium probiotic? If it's like, so good for for babies, and that's because, you know, we need to honor the developmental trajectory, like, how the microbiome changes, like, you know, like I said, as you start to eat foods, or you start to move around, it's going to gently become more diverse, and you don't want to compete with that process. So it really is like, do we need to supplement? Kind of, for how long do we need to supplement? Did the supplementation work? And yeah, because honestly, like, one of the one of the most powerful recommendations I give to parents is stop using the probiotic you're using, we have the data to show it has done its job, and now we have, like, the strongest recommendation I can make is to not use it anymore, and I can't I can't know that until we have that information in front of us. So when should parents think about looking into tiny health how would that process work? When do you recommend parents reach out to you at what stage of their child's life, great question. So one of one of the things I deeply believe in the in this world, and I want to see in my lifetime, is that this type of testing is done for every newborn. And so I think every kiddo you know, probably between around two weeks old, should have this type of testing done so we can identify imbalances and help correct them before we start seeing issues and those types of issues that you know, there's so much data showing the relationship between the microbiome and eczema, food allergies, asthma, those are some of the most strongly researched conditions showing a causative role. The microbiome can help to cause those conditions. But we're also seeing more and more information come out about the microbiome and neurological development, ADHD, autism, and then even later on in life, there's links between the microbiome and Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis. So really, it's about identifying imbalances before we even start to develop those conditions. And so I really, really, really believe that every child should have this testing very early on in life to make sure that we are on track or take quick action again. It's a couple of weeks that it takes for the microbiome to change, if you know what, it needs to take some very quick, short action to help get it on track and build that resiliency and help build the immune system right from the beginning. So that is the ideal. The ideal is that this is checked in on and optimized, if needed. First thing, however, another great time to check in is when you do start to see some of these conditions popping up. That is that, and that is most commonly when people find tiny health because, of course, you're going to find things when you're desperately looking for a solution, when nothing else has worked. And so you know, Eczema is a really big one. Other families are we haven't slept one night since our kid was born because they're so uncomfortable and fussy and they can't sleep, or mom has cut everything out of her diet in order to continue breastfeeding, because every single food she eats is triggering. A lot of those conditions are rooted in a microbiome imbalance. The microbiome is really inflammatory, and so it's triggering inflammation all over the body. Sometimes that looks like eczema, looks like GI upset. It can look like food sensitivity, and that is a huge thing, that if you are struggling with some of those conditions, looking at the microbiome imbalances can be a huge, huge, huge benefit, because you're going to look at it at the root cause level, it's not putting band aids on just trying to dampen down the immune system. It's truly getting to what is causing this, these disruptions. So that's another great, great time to do testing, is when you want to address some of these symptoms and walk parents through the process. Do you send in a poop sample? What does the process look like to check a child's microbial right here, so you get this cute little kit right to your house, and it is no mess testing. I'm so glad you brought this up, because sometimes people are like, do I have to collect poop in a bucket? Because I don't know if I want to do that. And actually, it's just a quick little swab right off of the diaper, right out of the toilet paper, quick little swab. It goes right back in here. And then this is very stable, and so you don't have to worry about, you know, the bacteria changing things over, growing things dying off. This preserves it, and it includes a mailer, and you put it in the mailer, and you put it in your you know, my post office takes it right off my mailbox, or you can put it in any USPS, and it will get processed from there. So it's a very, very no mess testing situation, which is great because we don't need to add any any more challenges to change. Diapers. And then what happens? Parents get a report of their child's microbiome with various reference ranges. And then do you give them recommendations on what probiotics to take if they if they need a probiotic Exactly, exactly, so they do the sample. And then we do have some survey information that we collect to help better understand, you know, are you coming because of a certain condition, and that we can, you know, provide some additional recommendations based off of any symptoms they're trying to address, or health concerns that they have, and we also get some information about how kiddos were born, what medications they've been exposed to, how they're eating, or they have they started solid foods. And all of that information helps us to better understand the results. So you do the sample, you take a survey, and then you once you get the results, we have an online portal where you can view all of the results, and they're all tailored to the age of the person who went that tested based on the birth date that they provided for the for the individual. So everything is already age specific, and that includes the results, but it also includes the action plan recommendations. And so you can click in we have tons of information, you know, depending on your level of nerdiness, you can even click into the individual papers that we're referencing, like the published literature that we're that we're referencing. You can click on those links. And so the action plan is also provided for everything that's flagged as needing support or needing improving. We provide recommendations on how to do that. And so that might be probiotics, might be other supplements like prebiotics. It might also be diet. We provide very specific dietary recommendations, so we can actually even look to see like, what type of fiber your gut needs more of. So maybe you need more pectin fibers. So that would be things like apples with their peels on, or pears. And so we can help provide very specific dietary recommendations in addition to supplements. And then we also have a lot of lifestyle recommendations. So sort of like we talked about at the beginning, like getting into nature, time with animals, but we we really have worked hard to make that very tangible. So, like, we're not going to say, eat more plants, because Okay, great. Thank you. We all know that, but we're going to say, hey, aim for 30 different plants a week. Here is a chart that you can print out that has a rainbow diagram on it to make it fun and actionable and trackable. What amount of plants you're eating. Oh, we're going to tell you exactly these types of foods are the type of foods that would be best for your gut. And so we do really have very tangible action items to that are personalized and also help really bring this to life. And then also, with tiny health testing, you don't just get the actions for right then and there. You also get access to all of these guides, recommendations. So you're getting ready to introduce solid foods. We have a whole guide on recommend, on how to introduce solid foods from a healthy microbiome perspective. Oh, no, antibiotics happened. That's life. We have a whole guide on how to restore the microbiome following antibiotics. So you don't only get actions for like the then and there. You also get actions for supporting microbiome health throughout that whole phase of life. And so lots of information about well vetted products for eczema, for addressing the flares on the skin, probiotics that are not intended to shift the microbiome, but can be very helpful for symptoms from a microbiome perspective. So nobody's going to leave without something that they can do to help their microbiome, health or symptoms. What I love about what you're working on is, I feel like in the medical community, it's well established and well decided upon that the microbiome is really important. But I think what's tricky is there's not a lot of evidence to back up specific probiotic recommendations or prebiotics. So it's hard for me. As parents will ask me, Hey, my child, I'd like to give them a probiotic. I hear that it's healthy. I hear the microbiome is really important. What should I give them? And I want to give them advice that's evidence based or that's specific for them. So I feel like tiny Health offers that it fulfills that, that gap where you can actually see what's potentially missing and offer a concrete, actionable, helpful recommendation. 100% all probiotics are not created equally. They are not all intended to have the same impact. So knowing which one when for how long is so important, and that's why we also have this action plan, and why I'm also working to help teach more doctors, more healthcare providers about this as well and provide them with those tools. Because, like you said, it's no mystery at this point the importance of the microbiome, a really big question that a lot of parents and healthcare providers have is, well, what do I What do I do? I don't know what I can recommend that's going to be safe, effective. Active. And so the great thing about tiny health is that we provide that data that's never been available before, and then we also do a lot of vetting of all the products that we recommend, so we know that they're high quality. And then we also can look back at our own data and ensure, over time, that they are working in our you know, kiddos who resample with us, and so we're continuing to utilize our own ability to vet resources, as well as our own growing set of data, to just continue to provide the best recommendations to help optimize health. That's so helpful, because I feel like this is a burgeoning field. So we don't have all the answers right now, but I know it's so important to work on, so that we have good information for the future, something I think a lot about. And I don't know if you've heard about this, but the Amish population, I find really interesting, because what I read is that there is a very low incidence of eczema in the Amish population. But what they do do is they spend a lot of time outside, hands in the soil. They're around animals. And so people are trying to figure out, what is it about this population that they have a low incidence of very common childhood chronic disease, and so one has to think the microbiome is likely at play here, but we're not exactly sure how to replicate that environment. I find this area of medicine incredibly interesting because we see, as you're mentioning, there's staggering reports on how much chronic disease in children have increased over the years. I think kind of, one of the things you're hitting on here is there's so much amazing medical innovation, and we're learning so much. And when it comes to the microbiome, a lot of that is, how do we just restore what things used to look like. It's not that we need to come up with something entirely new. It's that we need to figure out how to restore our microbiomes how they used to be. And, you know, sounds like evidence by the Amish population, like 90% of kiddos are missing Bifidobacterium infantis, which by its name, clearly, it's a very key Bifidobacterium for infants, 90% of kids are missing that we we've seen, you know, people have done studies showing that the amount of Bifidobacterium over generations has continued and continued to decline. And so really, it's about, how do we ensure that we have the right microbes that we're supposed to have when they're increasingly disappearing in our society, and thankfully, we have the tools to look for that, and we do have products like great, you know, great probiotics, or great information on prebiotics and dietary actions that can help boost these things. But really it's about getting getting back to how our microbiomes should and used to be. Do you have any actual research that has shown clinical improvement when kids have replenished their microbiome in the way that you guys have advised, yes, we do, which I have to say is, you know, tiny health has only been around for a couple of years at this point, and we already have conducted and gotten results on clinical studies that We've done, because this is a hugely important part of tiny Health's mission to bring this data that we're collecting to help support the use of actions like this, testing like this, recommendations like this. And so hopefully, you know, we are going to we have this data which then we can bring to other healthcare institutions and say, look at how much this helps. And so we that is why, you know, from the very beginning it was, it's very important to us that we are contributing to this field of research. So we have a study coming out soon that I can tease a little bit. It's called the infant restore study, and we looked at the outcome of testing and providing this type of information to parents whose kids were born by C section. And then we did follow up testing, and we found that there was significant improvement in the microbiome community. And so the microbiome overall did look better. It looked less like the kid was born by C section, more towards a child who was born by vaginal delivery. And also, even though this was a very short study, just six months long, we found that even in that short amount of time, there was a reduced amount of eczema in the group that got their results and were provided with the recommendations compared to those who did not see their results and did not see any of their recommendations. We you know, we are already collecting that sort of immediate data and seeing very, very promising results, even in this very short time frame. That's really helpful to know, because to be honest, yes, it sounds really nice that the microbiome looks like you'd expect it to look in a with a healthy microbiome. But I think for a lot of parents and myself, we're interested in clinical outcomes. We want to see improvement in what they came you know, what they came to you for? So if your child's suffering, if the child's suffering from eczema, asthma, you know, and you do tiny health and you take, you follow the advice, what would feel really satisfying? If you see clinical improvement. So that's really great to know that you've seen some short term improvement with eczema, and that you have longer term studies on the horizon, and I get that you've only been around for a couple of years, so that's hard to do, yeah, but it's nice to know that it's on the horizon. Yeah, yeah. And you know, what was really cool about that study was it was showing, like before symptoms had even developed, that we were able to reduce them from even starting in the first place, and that only backed up. What I see on a basically a daily basis is kids who already have these conditions getting significant, significant improvement. We have a number of case studies on our website as well, really highlighting these individual cases where we've just helped so many families that were really just at their wit's end, nothing was working. They were on chronic steroids. So we have a ton of case studies showing that for families who are already experiencing these conditions that this type of testing really helps, and now we're developing the data to back that up as well and show more of that preventative role in In addition, I'm just so curious, how are you doing this? All like, how are you how are you marketing a product and then also having a robust research arm? Tell me how big is your team? I'm just curious. We are 22 full time and about probably 15 to 20 part time. That's incredible. Congratulations. Great leadership. Really great leadership in, you know, just not, not saying no. I mean, I think that part of we all believe so deeply in this mission that we it's like that we can't prioritize getting just the research. We can't prioritize just getting this to parents, or just getting this to practice, to healthcare providers, because we have to, like, we have to get it to parents now they need this now. We can't wait to educate practitioners, because we're seeing the data. We have to get this into their hands to help us reach more families, and then we can't wait on the research, because we have to work towards getting this insurance reimbursable and part of standard of care, because we need this to be available for everybody. So it's we can't not do all of it, because we believe so deeply, and we've seen the power that this does have. So I think it's just that, you know that mission that drives us all to just we have to get it done. Can you comment on any potential harms in taking too much you had mentioned that not everybody needs to take the supplements and for an extended period of time. What would the harm be that you can think of in taking a probiotic or a prebiotic for an extended period of time? Yeah. So this is a really important point. So the early life microbiome is very malleable, so it can change very readily, and so you undergo like a maturation process in the microbiome, from, you know, when you're born, until about age three to five. About age three to five, your microbiome becomes a little bit more set, like a little bit more of an adult microbiome. And so in those first couple years of life, the microbiome changes a lot. And so, you know, sort of a blessing and a curse, like it's very easily changed in both negative and positive directions. Now, what it should be doing is it should be going from very simple, not diverse to a very nice, rich, diverse microbiome. So how does it get from this not diverse microbiome to this very rich, diverse microbiome over the course of a couple years? So this is a very gentle process where you know your different exposures, like crawling around, or that phase where you start putting everything in your mouth, introducing solid foods, all of these phases gently diversify the microbiome, and then over the first couple years, that diversification then reaches adult form. And so you don't want to do this too fast, and you don't want to do this too slow. It's a very Goldilocks situation. You want that maturation to happen on a nice, gentle curve. And so when you are giving supplements early in life, you may be delaying that maturation, or you may be speeding it up. And so, for example, if you're giving that Bifidobacterium, that's so, so so good for babies to have a ton of early in life, if you are giving that but you're also introducing solids. It's really hard for that like gentle diversification that comes with solid introduction to compete with a high power, high quality probiotic, and that failure to follow that maturation is associated with increased risk of conditions like eczema, food allergies, asthma, and then, you know, conversely, if you diversify too early, that also is associated with eczema, food allergies, asthma, and so it really is, like, you know, being on that curve, which it's amazing for the most part, that have, like, once you get on that curve, typically, it. Follows that curve. It's just about making sure that you're on that right trajectory initially, and if there are disruptions getting back on that trajectory during that very delicate, sensitive time. And I'm just curious, on a case by case basis, have you gotten good feedback from customers? Amazing. This testing is truly life changing. And so I, you know, just being able to get to the root cause in help stop just putting band aids on conditions has been game changing for so many families. What about what about adults? Yeah, do you recommend this product for adults? And I'm listening to you, and I'm thinking, I have so many friends that have that have stomach aches or skin conditions. Can they? Can they benefit from getting a tiny health Yes, absolutely, again, because it gets to the root cause imbalance. A lot of our conventional approaches at this point are focused on just dampening down the immune system, but not actually getting to why it's so overactive in the first place. And that's like, it's, it's no fault of conventional medicine. That's what's currently available, is medications that will dampen the immune system to reduce symptoms of chronic inflammation. And so, you know, that's why we're so adamant about getting microbiome testing, you know, awareness, into more conventional practice, because what this testing can do is it can help to identify root imbalances that are triggering inflammation in the rest of the body. And so, you know, of course, health is multifaceted, and there's a lot of contributing factors, but the microbiome is one that in every single age we can look at, and we can provide recommendations to optimize. I do. I do want to emphasize this is something that's important to emphasize. We do not diagnose or treat at Tiny health so we are not going to we can't diagnose a condition and we can't treat it, but we do provide recommendations on optimizing your microbiome wellness, which is often at the root cause of a lot of symptoms. And so this is, this is not replacement for working with the healthcare provider. And you know, doing the things that you need to do again, things like antibiotics are necessary sometimes. You know, these immune suppressing medications can be very important for people with autoimmune conditions and inflammatory conditions. So this is in no way meant to replace that, but it is meant to provide insights that are are not being looked at by conventional medicine at this time. I think it's nice to know about other avenues, I think especially for people that are frustrated with chronic health conditions. It's just really helpful, I think, to know that there are other things that they can try that have potential to ameliorate their health conditions. Yeah, exactly. And all the recommendations are going to be available over the counter or are going to be food or lifestyle. So there are things that you can do in conjunction with your other healthcare recommendations. Also, we, you know, share your results with your provider. I would, I will talk to anybody's doctor and teach them about microbiome testing. But also, there's really fascinating data coming out about the, you know, centenarian microbiome, looking at the microbiome and people who live to be over 100 there's really fascinating data coming out where they can look at the microbiome import predict mortality. You we all want to live as long as possible, but we also want to be healthy while we do that. And you know, a lot of that comes back to the microbiome, because inflammation. Inflammation is just like the driver of so much disease, so many health conditions, like very grateful for our immune systems when we're sick, they help us battle those infections, but our immune system is also at the root of so much chronic health condition. And something that we're realizing plays a huge role in your health is this sub chronic inflammation, which, what does that mean? That basically means inflammation that's probably not super noticeable on like, a day to day basis. It would probably not really show up in your labs, or it's not something you would follow up on, but enough of this low level inflammation throughout your life, especially if it's starting in childhood. More of that inflammation over time can contribute to negative health outcomes way down the road. And so part of you know the immune system health is the microbiome. And so really, anytime you want to check in on that, is a great time to check in on that to make sure that your microbiome isn't contributing to inflammation in the rest of your body. So this leads me to my next question. Everything honestly sounds great. I'm on board, but I think the biggest roadblock for me would be, is it cost prohibitive? How much is this service to get your stool check, yeah, and to get advice from tiny health? Yeah? Great, great question. And right now, the cost for parents to do this is 249 and that in. Includes a test as well as a 30 minute consultation with one of our microbiome specialists who walks you through the results. Can help you to optimize your action plan so prioritize. You know, all the recommendations. What should I do first? Which of these, you know, products that you recommend? Can you walk me through the differences between those and so I it's, it's not an insignificant cost, but it can provide like, the value that you get from that is so huge. And then if you do find that more support is recommended, or you want to have continued support, you want to test other family members through membership, you can get, you get access to member only pricing, which can actually bring additional kits down to $169 for members. We you don't have to commit to membership right away. You can try it out, and you can always upgrade to more of that program level support, which is a little bit more intensive testing in a shorter amount of time with more coaching sessions. Or you can do membership, or the whole family can benefit from the member only pricing, and so the value of that well, well exceeds the 249 I would say. And I saw, I didn't look at it closely, but someone sent me an email with a code, so I'll make sure and put it in the show notes below, yes, yeah. And that's also, I mean, through amazing people like you, we also offer some some discounts as well. We're working very, very hard to make this as accessible as possible so that people can be invested in their lifelong microbiome health and not see this as a one time only. Out of desperation, testing, we really aim to be a part of like people's normal health check in their annual testing. And so we're really striving to be, you know, to make microbiome health a part of every family's annual testing. It's really interesting. I'm just so thrilled to know there's another avenue that parents can think about if they're struggling to find answers and solutions for their child's health. Yes. So this is great. I wish you the best of luck. I can't wait to see what else you discover. What else your research brings you in the years to come? Yeah, it's it's just the beginning, and the data so far is so incredible, from both just the individual level and talking to families, talking to practitioners, who say that this testing has changed their entire practice, their ability to help their patients. So from parents to practitioners. I mean, we've just seen such an incredible need for this and such an incredible benefit from it. So I am so excited to see where it goes. And I encourage everybody to be a part of this from the beginning. You could be in the know before, before microbiome testing was cool. I mean, it's cool now, but I have to say, the smartest doctors I know, the most Brainiac, I don't want to use the word nerdy, but the most Brainiac, research oriented doctors that I know are all into the microbiome. They all tell me that the future is in the microbiome. So thank you so much for sharing tiny health with myself and with my audience, and I wish you the best of luck, and I can't wait to touch base in the future. Yeah, thanks so much for having us today, and everybody come be a part of the the future with us. So thank you so much. So great to chat with you today, talk soon. Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr Jessica. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review wherever it is. You listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr Jessica. See you next Monday. You.