Advertise on podcast: Dr. M's Women and Children First Podcast

Today’s guest is Dr. Doug Thompson,  a 27 year veteran of dentistry since he graduated from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry in 1996. Dr. Thompson is a teacher, researcher and trail blazer in the field of modern dentistry. Today we travel down paths that lead to explanations as to why oral health is so important to systemic and truly whole human health. We look back in time and follow a timeline to the present-day research that says that we have scientific knowledge through laboratory study that the oral microbiome, the bacteria that reside with the oral cavity, as well as the oral system’s function has far reaching effects on the heart, the intestines, pregnancy and general metabolic health. Over the decades, Dr. Thompson realized that the science needed a portal to the masses and other dental professionals. Usher in the project called the Wellness Dentistry network circa 2015 which is an internet-based community of dentists with a keen awareness of how oral conditions affect whole-body health. It is a forum for Dr. Thompson and colleagues to use research to develop advanced practice ideas to thwart systemic health concerns that may arise from oral health dysfunction. On his website, Integrative Oral Medicine, Dr. Thompson states that he believes in an interdisciplinary treatment model that coordinates dental care with other medical practitioners for total body health care for his patients. He employs advanced DNA bacterial testing methods and other leading-edge dental science to enable early risk assessment and personalized treatment planning. To me this remains the future of all healthcare disciplines, collaboration, cooperation and patient centered. Let us dive into the oral cavity with Doug Thompson.   Enjoy, Dr. M

The Story We Cannot See For those that have not read Theo of Golden, do so. Quite an incredible read. There is a moment in Theo of Golden when Allen Levi introduces us more deeply to Ellen, a woman whose circumstances make it easy for the world to place her into a category. Homeless. Poor. Troubled. Someone living at the margins. But then we learn her story. And suddenly that category becomes inadequate. Worse, inappropriate. That is one of the quiet gifts of a beautifully told story. It forces us to remain with another human being long enough for our first judgment to become uncomfortable. For it to turn against us. For us to recoil against our prejudices. I have experienced versions of this countless times in the newborn nursery. A baby is born, and somewhere in the medical record is the story we have constructed about the mother. No permanent address. Limited prenatal care. Substance use. Domestic instability. Unemployed. Teenager. Medicaid. Social work involved. These things matter. As physicians, we need to know them. They may tell us something important about the risks facing a newborn. But they tell us remarkably little about love. Or lack there of. I have walked into rooms where a mother's life outside the hospital was extraordinarily difficult, yet there she sat holding her newborn with the same wonder I have seen in mothers surrounded by every imaginable advantage. She studies the baby's face. Counts the fingers. Asks whether the baby is eating enough. Worries about a rash. Pulls the blanket a little higher. And sometimes, sitting beside that bassinet, the distinction between the woman with everything and the woman with almost nothing disappears..... and a literature review. Dr. M

"Last week someone asked why I prefer books. My immediate answer was that I love their quiet, non-commercial nature. No ads. No hype. Just quiet wisdom with deep rewards for a focused mind. But today I realized something more profound: Each of my biggest life-changing moments came from a single sentence deep inside a book." (Sivers D. 2026) I still prefer to hold a book in my hands, the weight of it, the rough-hewn pages beneath my fingers, the quiet ritual of turning one page after another. Reading, for me, has never been simply about absorbing information. It is the privilege of living for a while through another person’s eyes. We borrow their world, their memories, their fears and joys, and somehow return to our own lives seeing them a little differently. And then there are the words themselves. Sometimes I stop not because of what happened in the story, but because of the way someone chose to say it. A sentence can be so beautiful that it deserves to be read twice. Perhaps that is what I love most about books. For a little while, the world gets quiet, someone else begins to speak, and I get to simply be in love with words. For me, the changes are not as profound as Derek noted in his response. (hit the link below to read his life altering passages) For me, most passages were more in line with philosophy and health. and more.... Dr. M

My guest today is Nicholas Kelly, a registered dietitian, speaker, and someone who has spent essentially his entire life navigating medicine from the other side of the exam table. Nicholas was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in infancy. That diagnosis meant growing up with a chronic disease that required constant attention: medications, treatments, nutrition, hospitalizations, and an intimate relationship with a healthcare system that most children never experience. But what makes Nicholas’s story so compelling is what he has done with that experience, a story that has inspired me. He ultimately became a healthcare professional himself, giving him the unusual perspective of being both clinician and lifelong patient. And through his TEDx talk, Healing Through the Human Experience, and his broader work, he has challenged clinicians to think more deeply about something that can easily get lost in modern medicine: What does healthcare actually feel like to the person receiving it? Our conversation moves well beyond cystic fibrosis. We talk about resilience, identity, nutrition, the evolution of CF treatment, the patient-clinician relationship, and the moments when healthcare gets that relationship right and when it gets it very wrong. We also explore what happens when a child who has spent his life being defined, at least partly, by a serious disease grows into an adult and begins to decide for himself what that disease will, and will not, mean for his life. Nicholas’s story is ultimately about much more than living with cystic fibrosis. There is an amazing story within the story about his mother. Listen and find out what she did for him. Beautiful. It is about living fully in the presence of uncertainty, finding purpose through adversity, and reminding those of us who practice medicine that treating disease and caring for a human being are not always the same thing. This is my conversation with Nicholas Kelly.   Enjoy, Dr. M

The Story Your Brain Decides to Tell Two people walk into the same room. One has been told that she is there to make new friends. The other has been told that she is there to determine whether the people in the room can be trusted. Same room. Same people. Same conversations. But perhaps not the same experience. That is the fascinating implication of emerging neuroscience exploring how the brain constructs the story of our lives. We tend to imagine that our senses work something like cameras. Light enters the eyes. Sound enters the ears. Information travels to the brain. Reality comes in, and we experience it. Except that isn't really what happens. The brain is constantly deciding what matters. Our goals, expectations, memories and beliefs create a frame through which incoming information is interpreted. This month's Scientific American article by Ingrid Wickelgren describes research suggesting that when people approach the same experience with different goals, their brains organize that experience differently. Their neural activity begins to reflect the narrative they are constructing. In other words, we don't simply experience reality. We edit it. This is even more complex because we all show up with epigenetic fingerprints of past experiences. Think about walking through an airport. If you are hungry, you suddenly notice restaurants. If you are late, you notice clocks. If you are angry, you notice people's energy and anger. If have a history of trauma, you notice similarities of past experience. If you have lost your child for thirty terrifying seconds, you notice every small person wearing a similar shirt. The airport hasn't changed. Your brain's response and perception has. Your orientation and current frame/goal determines which pieces of an impossibly complicated environment rise into conscious awareness. Neuroscientists have been circling this concept for decades. Marvin Minsky described mental "frames" as structures we bring to new situations. Rather than building our understanding of the world from scratch every second, the brain pulls up a model based upon previous experience and asks, essentially: What kind of situation is this? What should I expect? What matters here?..... And a section on maternal story and the default mode network. Dr. M

Today’s conversation sits right at the intersection of childhood development, technology, and a question that is becoming harder for parents to ignore: What might our children need to develop before we hand them a screen? My guest today is Dr. Kari Stubbs, who holds a PhD in education and has spent her career in K–12 education technology. And that makes her current work particularly interesting. She isn’t approaching this conversation as someone who is anti-technology. Quite the opposite. She understands technology, has worked within it for years, and sees very clearly where the world is headed. But she also spends her weeks talking with early-childhood leaders and school-district directors, hearing firsthand that children are showing up at school differently than they did a generation ago. Kari raised her own two children using what she describes as a brain-based approach to movement and development, during a time when screens still largely stayed attached to walls and desks. Today, she argues for something that sounds almost countercultural coming from an education technologist: protecting significant screen-free time during the first five years of life. Her argument isn’t that technology is bad. It’s that timing matters. Those first five years are when children are building many of the foundational human capacities they will carry into school, relationships, and eventually the workplace—things like curiosity, adaptability, creativity, self-regulation, and collaboration. And ironically, as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable, these deeply human aptitudes may become more valuable, not less. Kari writes about these ideas in her Substack, The First Five: Before Screens, and today we’re going to explore what the developing brain actually needs from movement, play, relationships, and the physical world—and what may be lost when screens arrive too early or occupy too much of childhood. Enjoy, Dr. M

Back To School Thoughts As summer winds down and the school year starts, our attention naturally turns to backpacks, school supplies, new clothes, sports schedules, and carpools. But getting ready for school is about much more than checking items off a list. It is about helping our children return to the classroom with the physical, mental, and emotional foundation they need to thrive. A few simple changes now can make the transition much easier. 1) Start With Sleep Summer has a way of pushing bedtimes later and later. Often 1 to 3 hours beyond when a school child should wind down. Begin moving bedtime and wake-up time toward the school schedule a week or two before the first day. Sleep is not simply downtime. It is when the brain consolidates learning, regulates emotions, restores energy, and prepares for the next day. Deep sleep is critical for cleaning the brain of disruptive chemicals. Younger school-aged children generally need 9–12 hours of sleep, while teenagers need 8–10 hours. A consistent bedtime routine and getting phones and other screens out of the bedroom can make an enormous difference. 2) Feed The Brain Children cannot consistently perform their best when they are running on highly processed foods, sugar, and caffeine. Build meals around real food: vegetables and fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, healthy fats, and quality proteins such as fish, poultry, and meat. Breakfast does not need to be elaborate, but including protein, fiber, and healthy fat can provide much steadier energy than starting the day with a sugary cereal or pastry. And remember the simplest nutrient of all: water. Send children to school well hydrated and encourage them to carry a water bottle when possible..... and back to school recipes. Dr. M

The Hardest Part of Medicine Isn't Making the Diagnosis Last week I wrote that one of the most healing words in the English language may be "no." I believed it when I wrote it. After today, I believe it even more. Today was one of the hardest days I've experienced in medicine in a long time. I drove home with a heaviness that is difficult to describe. Not because a child died. Not because I faced an impossible diagnosis. Not because science failed me. Not because of the many reasons medicine offers for struggle. I drove home grieving. Grieving for children who have no idea what is quietly happening inside their own bodies. Grieving for my own pain at being unable to convince certain parents to see this problem. Grieving because I can already see a future they cannot. Today marked the one-year follow-up for many of the children enrolled in our asthma pilot program. We built this program around hope. We invested time that most medical practices simply don't have. We spent hours educating families. We provided healthy food. We offered gift cards to encourage participation. We discussed sleep, movement, nutrition, inflammation, insulin resistance, and the remarkable ability of the human body to heal when given the right environment..... and a literature review. Enjoy, Dr. M

In this podcast repost, we rediscover the work of Pediatric Gastroenterologist Dr. Alessio Fasano from the Massachusettes General Hospital Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology. In this conversation, we discussed the research on Intestinal Permeability, Microbiomes and MIS, Multi Inflammatory Syndrome in Children . Dr. Fasano also directs the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center and is associate chief for Basic, Clinical and Translational Research. Under his leadership, investigators are studying the molecular mechanisms of autoimmune disorders including celiac disease, and other-gluten-related disorders. He has been named visiting professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He authored the groundbreaking study in 2003 that established the rate of celiac disease at one in 133 Americans. Widely sought after by national and international media, Dr. Fasano has been featured in hundreds of interviews including outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal; National Public Radio; CNN; Bloomberg News, and others. He recently co authored an excellent book with Susie Flaherty called Gut Feelings. I highly recommend you purchase and read this book. It is an encyclopedia of information regarding gut health, the microbiome and much more. Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Fasano, Dr. M

The Healing Power of Saying No Why the path to health often begins with restraint! Every major faith tradition discovered something long before neuroscience or evolutionary biology could explain it. Growth often begins with restraint. During Lent, people give something up, not because chocolate, wine, or social media are inherently evil, but because saying no creates space. Space for awareness. Space for clarity. Space to notice how often our impulses quietly run the show. We need this space to rise above habit and find purpose. Science is slowly arriving at the same destination. The ability to delay gratification, to tolerate discomfort, to choose tomorrow over today is one of the strongest predictors of long-term health, happiness, and success. Restraint isn't deprivation. It's training. Training to: To survive. To procreate. To teach. To Be.... and a literature review. Enjoy, Dr. M

Welcome back to Dr. M's Women and Children First. One of the recurring themes on this podcast is that the future of medicine won't be discovered through faster-paced healthcare alone. It will be discovered by slowing down, listening more carefully, and embracing a patient-centered approach that seeks to understand the whole person—not just the disease. Ultimately, the future of medicine begins with a better question: How do we truly hear a patient's story so that we can better serve the person sitting in front of us? Today's guest has spent his entire career helping answer that question. Our conversation today centers on one of the most overlooked aspects of healing: why so many people struggle to begin the healing process in the first place—and more importantly, how we, as clinicians, parents, and patients, can help that process finally move forward. Dr. Russell Greenfield is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and a Diplomate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine whose career has been dedicated to transforming healthcare from a disease-centered model into one focused on whole-person health. He has served as Medical Director of Integrative Medicine for major health systems, including Novant Health and the Weisiger Cancer Institute, held national leadership positions within the Veterans Health Administration's Whole Health Initiative, and continues to advise organizations across the country that are reimagining what healthcare can become. What makes Dr. Greenfield's journey especially unique is that he was one of the select physicians chosen to complete a residential fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona—the birthplace of academic integrative medicine. At a time when very few physicians were willing to challenge the traditional boundaries of healthcare, Dr. Greenfield immersed himself in a model that recognized nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, relationships, purpose, and environment as fundamental pillars of health, while embracing the remarkable advances of modern medical science. For me, this conversation is especially meaningful because many of us in medicine are asking the same question: How do we move upstream? How do we stop waiting for chronic disease to develop and instead create the conditions where health can flourish? Today we'll explore the art of becoming an experienced listener in service of the patient before us. We'll discuss why curiosity often matters more than certainty, why healing frequently begins long before the prescription pad comes out, and how understanding a person's story can unlock opportunities that laboratory tests and imaging studies alone may never reveal. Whether you're a clinician, a parent, or simply someone searching for a deeper understanding of health, I think you'll come away from this conversation with a renewed appreciation for one of medicine's most powerful tools: listening. Enjoy, Dr. M

Failing Them Why Are We? We are failing our children, the next generation. I have been spending an inordinate amount of time studying cellular biology and mitochondrial function in order to understand worsening disease trends. Thus, I want to revisit a landmark study that is one of the most comprehensive assessments of pediatric health ever conducted in the United States. Rather than examining a single disease or health outcome, Dr. Forrest and colleagues integrated data from multiple nationally representative surveys, mortality databases, and electronic health records encompassing millions of children to evaluate whether the health of American children has changed over the past 17 years. The answer was strikingly consistent: across virtually every major health domain, children in the United States are becoming less healthy. The investigators examined mortality, chronic physical and mental health conditions, obesity, functional status, sleep, puberty, physical symptoms, and emotional well-being between 2007 and 2023. Nearly every indicator worsened over time. "From 2007 to 2022, infants (1 year old) were 1.78 and 1- to 19-year-old individuals were 1.80 times more likely to die in the US than in the OECD18. The 2 causes of death with the largest net difference between the US and OECD18 were prematurity and sudden unexpected infant death for infants 12 months or younger, and firearm-related incidents and motor vehicle crashes for 1- to 19-year-old individuals. From 2011 to 2023, the prevalence of 3- to 17-year-old individuals with a chronic condition rose from 39.9% to 45.7% within PEDSnet, and from 25.8% to 31.0% within the general population. Rates of obesity, early onset of menstruation, trouble sleeping, limitations in activity, physical symptoms, depressive symptoms, and loneliness all increased during the study period." (Forrest et. al. 2025)... and literature review. Enjoy, Dr. M

Pain Do we listen to its signal? Pain: Your Body's Built-In Warning System Pain is one of the body's oldest and most important protective mechanisms. It isn't your enemy. It is a messenger. Imagine walking barefoot across your living room and accidentally kicking the corner of the coffee table. The sharp pain that shoots through your toe isn't there to punish you, it is there to protect you. Within fractions of a second, nerves carry a signal to your brain, telling you that cells and tissue have been injured. Your body immediately encourages you to stop what you're doing. Protect the area and allow it to heal. This is acute pain, and it serves an essential purpose for both protection and survival. The problem arises when we stop thinking of pain as information and begin viewing it as something that simply needs to be eliminated. Over the past several decades, this mindset has increasingly influenced modern medicine. Around the turn of the century, pain was widely promoted as the "fifth vital sign," emphasizing the importance of recognizing and treating it. While this movement helped address the undertreatment of pain, it also contributed, in some settings, to an emphasis on suppressing pain rather than understanding why it existed in the first place. From an evolutionary perspective, pain is not a design flaw, it is a sophisticated communication system. It evolved to capture our attention, protect us from further injury, and encourage behaviors that promote healing. When we focus solely on silencing the signal without investigating its source, we risk missing the very message our bodies are trying to deliver, and deliver it will. Pain is information Every pain signal is your body's way of saying, "Something isn't quite right." Sometimes the cause is obvious like a sprained ankle, a cut, a burn, or a broken bone. Other times the message is much more subtle. .... Dr. M

Welcome back to Dr. M's Women and Children First Podcast, where we explore the science, stories, and strategies that help children thrive and families flourish. Today, we're diving into something that affects every parent, every marriage, every friendship, and really every human being: our emotional triggers. Why do seemingly small moments sometimes provoke such big reactions? Why do we repeat the same patterns even when we know better? And perhaps most importantly, how do we become the kind of adults who respond with wisdom instead of reacting from old wounds? To help us answer those questions, I'm thrilled to welcome Michelle Chalfant. Michelle is a licensed therapist, holistic life coach, creator of The Adult Chair® model, and author of the bestselling book The Adult Chair. Her work has helped hundreds of thousands of people understand how childhood experiences shape adult relationships and how emotional healing doesn't require becoming someone new—it requires reconnecting with the healthiest version of ourselves. As a pediatrician, I spend my days thinking about children's physical health, but I've become increasingly convinced that emotional health deserves equal attention. The way parents regulate their own emotions becomes the blueprint for how their children learn to navigate disappointment, conflict, fear, and joy. In many ways, raising emotionally healthy children begins with becoming emotionally healthy adults. Whether you're a parent trying to break generational patterns, someone hoping to improve your relationships, or simply curious about why certain situations seem to push your buttons, I think you're going to find today's conversation both practical and deeply hopeful. Dr. M

Autism and Diagnosis Metabolites and Phenotypes In a brand new paper entitled. “Elevated Microbially-Derived Metabolites in Autism: A Possible Diagnostic Screening Test for a Distinct ASD Phenotype,” Dr. Flynn and colleagues investigated whether specific urinary metabolites produced by intestinal microbes could serve as predictive biomarkers for autism spectrum disorder. The study proposes that a large subset of children with autism may represent a biologically distinct phenotype characterized by markedly elevated microbial metabolites, which the authors term ASD-MDM (Autism Spectrum Disorder associated with Microbially-Derived Metabolites). The investigators analyzed urine samples from 52 children with ASD and 47 typically developing (TD) controls, ages 2–11 years. They measured microbial metabolites derived primarily from phenylalanine metabolism, tryptophan metabolism, and yeast metabolism. These were chosen because decades of autism, microbiome, and metabolic research have repeatedly implicated abnormalities in microbial metabolism of aromatic amino acids, especially phenylalanine and tryptophan, along with evidence of elevated fungal/yeast metabolites in subsets of children with ASD. The findings were striking. Children with ASD demonstrated significantly higher concentrations of many microbial metabolites than controls. Some metabolites were elevated by hundreds to thousands of percent, and in certain children concentrations were reported to be 100–1000 times higher than the highest levels observed in any control participant. Twenty-three of twenty-four measured microbial metabolites were higher in ASD participants. Ninety percent of the ASD participants (45 of 50) had one or more extremely elevated MDMs. Particularly notable were elevations in compounds related to p-cresol, p-cresol sulfate, phenylacetylglutamine, indole derivatives, and arabinitol, suggesting abnormalities in microbial metabolism involving aromatic amino acids and yeast overgrowth.... Also, Inflammation and Allergy. Enjoy, Dr. M