How to Handle Misinformation in the Baby Space with Unbiased Science Podcast hosts Jessica Steier, DrPH, PMP and Andrea Love, PhD

Katie Ferraro (1s):

Hey guys, Katie here. I. hope you're enjoying the podcast and learning a lot about how to do baby-led weaning safely. I'm gonna be giving away some free Nomi Highchairs to three listeners, but I wanna ask you a favor first. I know you're super busy, but if you have two minutes, will you kindly leave me a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts? Because reviews are everything for helping other parents find out about the podcast. And I read every single podcast review you write and I love and appreciate your feedback. And to say thank you for the reviews, I'm gonna be giving away a brand new Nomi highchair to three randomly selected reviewers if you submit your podcast review on Apple Podcast before midnight on Sunday, January 29th.

Katie Ferraro (40s):

Now the Nomi is hands down my favorite highchair for baby led weaning. It has an adjustable foot plate and seat that don t require tools to change. And, you guys know baby's feet resting flat on that solid foot plate are so key for facilitating a safe swallow for your baby. So, if you wanna win one of the three Nomi Highchairs that are up for grabs, all you have to do to enter is leave a written review of the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast on Apple Podcast. And in your review, just be sure to drop your Instagram handle as your name on the review so that I can find you on Instagram and DM you when you win. If you've already left a review in the past, you can update your old review with anything new like that you have to say and then you'll automatically be entered. Heads up Nomi gets to select the color of the winner's height chair because their stock is limited, but I promise you'll like it.

Katie Ferraro (1m 23s):

This is like a $500 highchair and our way of saying thank you for listening. Your ship to address has to be in the United States and all new podcast reviews submitted now through Sunday January 29th are eligible. So head to Apple Podcasts and search Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy to leave your review and get entered to win one of those three brand noon Nomi Highchairs I. hope you win. Now let's get on to the show.

Andrea Love (1m 45s):

Sometimes, especially in those situations where hormones are going out of control, you're already stressed and anxious enough, you're already going to doctor's appointments really frequently, you know, you've got this information overload and social media just really exacerbates it. And they're actually been some recent studies that suggest that taking periodic social media breaks can really alleviate a lot of health related issues. You know, aside from psychological.

Jessica Steier (2m 9s):

When we say bias, we're talking about certain biases that can impact research, design and analysis and interpretation. And so we are evaluating, okay, what not only what studies are out there, what are the best studies?

Katie Ferraro (2m 22s):

Hey there. I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby-led weaning. Here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast, I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weaning. What do you guys do when people start spewing bogus info about raising your baby? I mean I for one know that like some days if I hear one more person say, oh I don't like baby-led weaning cause it looks dangerous. I mean I feel like I'm gonna explode. Like despite the fact that all the research points to the fact that there's no higher risk of choking with baby-led weaning than with traditional spoon feeding.

Katie Ferraro (3m 7s):

We're like all in our respective ways dealing with lots of info in the parenting space and a lot of that is just flat out made up. So my guest today are the hosts of the Unbiased Science podcast, Jessica Steier, who is a doctorate in public health and Andrea Love, she's an immunologist and a microbiologist. She's got expertise in infectious disease immunology, cancer immunology, and autoimmunity. So you can like imagine how she feels about all the pseudoscience regarding immune enhancing everything that's out there these days. And today on the podcast we're gonna be chatting about how to handle misinformation in the baby space. The way I structured this interview was, I went through a lot of their podcast episodes on the Unbiased Science podcast, kind of pulled out the topics that they've covered and discussed that have a infant feeding bend to them.

Katie Ferraro (3m 50s):

I'm gonna have them summarize like what's the bogus claim, what does the science say about different things that maybe of interest to you since you're moving your baby to solid foods. Things like in food intolerance testing for babies, vitamin and mineral supplements. And then we're gonna have a very spirited discussion about leaky gut syndrome. Like for real, why are so many influencers and pseudoscience folks like co-opting intestinal permeability and trying to convince us that we all have leaky guts. So with no further ado, here's Jessica and Andrea from the Unbiased Science Podcast talking about how to handle misinformation in the baby space.

Jessica Steier (4m 25s):

Thank you so much Katie. We're excited to be here.

Andrea Love (4m 28s):

Thanks Katie for having us.

Katie Ferraro (4m 30s):

Okay, I am a huge fan of your podcast. I am so excited about the chance to chat with you about how to handle misinformation in the baby space, but before we get started, could you each give a brief intro and then tell us how you came to host the Unbiased Science Podcast together?

Jessica Steier (4m 44s):

Hello, I'm Dr. Jess Steier. I have a doctorate in public health with a concentration in health policy evaluation. So basically in a nutshell, I'm a data scientist that specializes in evaluating the impact of health related policies and programs. Andrea?

Andrea Love (5m 1s):

Hi, I'm Dr. Andrea Love. I have a PhD in microbiology and immunology and I specialize in basic sciences and translational research with a focus on all things related to the immune system. Primarily things like infectious diseases, but also things like cancer, immunology, and autoimmunity.

Katie Ferraro (5m 21s):

Okay, and before you guys were both like PhD level colleagues, you were like friends from the dorms in college, right?

Jessica Steier (5m 28s):

Oh yeah, we did some partying together during undergrad years at Stony Brook University. That's where we met. Andrea was in the honors college. I was in the Wise Women in science and engineering program. Kept in touch over the years thanks to social media and bonded over our shared frustration in particular with the anti-vax movement, but a lot of other, you know, pseudo-scientific claims and misinformation swirling online and then covid hit and we felt sort of a moral obligation to team up. You know, we have different, but very related scientific areas of expertise and so we joined forces and we have two distinct, as I said, but related perspectives on science and in healthcare and we've been able to sort of make sense of the pandemic for folks and then now we're super excited to be venturing into other territory and covering a variety of other topics that have nothing to do with the pandemic.

Katie Ferraro (6m 26s):

Ok. Do you guys have day jobs or is this like your full-time gig?

Andrea Love (6m 29s):

Oh yeah, we have day jobs. So I work full-time for a biotech company. I'm a a national director of a team these days. I also have a couple of other side hustles. One of which is going to be announced very soon. And yeah, so squeezing the podcasting, in squeezing the very active social media presence that we have.

Katie Ferraro (6m 51s):

When do you have time to read all the comments? Really?

Jessica Steier (6m 55s):

Yeah, no. Oh god, while we're crying and rocking back and forth on our beds, no. And I'm the CEO of a small business, a data consultancy that I actually run with my former professor when I was a doctoral student. So that's a whole other story. But yes, this is what we do in our spare time and most of our stuff is unsponsored and uncompensated. So we're just really passionate about this and are volunteering our time.

Katie Ferraro (7m 19s):

Okay. So it Jessica, I have a master's in public health but I'm a dietitian. I did like maternal child health, public health, international health stuff and I like every statistics class I was like, oh my god, why do I have to be here? And you're like the most normal data analyst statistician person I've ever met. I was like, if you were like my professor, maybe I would've been better in my stats and like epi stats classes, but like that was not my jam. And to this day it's like my downfall, I just don't like numbers like well it's kind of important.

Jessica Steier (7m 45s):

You know, that's so funny because those were obviously my favorite courses, biostats, epi and it's so funny that you say that. Thank you for saying that. And I actually taught epi and biostats to clinical students who are PA students, physician assistant students, and I heard the same thing. Like you're surprisingly normal for a, for a data nerd. So anyway, thank you for that.

Katie Ferraro (8m 6s):

Alright, so one thing I'm sure our audience can agree on is that from like the second you find out you're pregnant or you're gonna have a baby, suddenly everybody who's ever had a baby or has a baby or is even like held a baby is instantly a child rearing or childbearing expert and they wanna like heap advice on you, some of which is right and most of which is wrong or their opinion. So any tips for new parents on how to handle this influx of info?

Jessica Steier (8m 29s):

Oh my gosh, I remember 2016 I had my first child, my son and you're so right. Everyone was an expert, everyone was giving me advice and of course everything conflicted with what everyone was saying and I had no clue. I was riddled with anxiety, tripled. And it's like you're the most vulnerable you've ever been in your life about to embark on the most important thing you've ever

Katie Ferraro (8m 51s):

And then they're like, let me tell you the worst birth story ever. You're like oh my why?

Jessica Steier (8m 55s):

Yes, it's all very fatalistic and terrifying. So I don't know. My advice would be to pick, you know, one or two trusted resources and for me I was very fortunate. I have a very close relationship with my mother who is a, a master's in child developmental psychology, which was helpful. And then my best friend is a pediatrician so I had my people, but it's hard to sort of drown out the noise. But that would be my advice, you know, try to focus on a few trusted sources and make sure that those people like know their stuff. You know, it's sometimes I feel like it's tempting to listen to things you see on social media because people could be so convincing, but just be aware of credentials and areas of expertise and choose carefully.

Andrea Love (9m 39s):

And I would add, you know, obviously you're going to have your obgyn team involved in your pregnancy and birth and all of that and obviously they're going to be a really great resource and you know, if people are saying things that are, you know, conflicting with kind of science or medical advice, you know, that often is a red flag that you know, maybe that person isn't giving you the most appropriate suggestions.

Katie Ferraro (10m 4s):

I remember when we were pregnant with our first and I like get people send you books and I'm like, I could read a book, but I love my husband, I've never seen him actually finish a book. And I was like, do you wanna like read any of these books? And he's just like, I feel like when it happens I'm just gonna let like my instincts kick in. And I was like, you know what, that's one way to go. Sometimes just like bury your head in the sand, which you kind of wanna do, it's like it's information overload. You get an email every day like what fruit your baby is the size of these days and it can be overwhelming and then you hear like the worst possible story. So I love those suggestions of like find people who know what they're talking about and you don't need a ton of them. You need like maybe one or two of them and to know the basics.

Andrea Love (10m 39s):

Yeah, sometimes especially in those situations where hormones are going out of control, you're already stressed and anxious enough, you're already going to doctor's appointments really frequently, you know, you've got this information overload and social media just really exacerbates it and they're actually been some recent studies that suggest that taking periodic social media breaks can really alleviate a lot of health related issues. You know, aside from psychological. So you know, if things feel overwhelming, just take a step away from social media, or maybe mute those, you know, moms to be, your dads to be Facebook groups that you're a part of for a little bit.

Katie Ferraro (11m 15s):

Find a friend who doesn't have TikTok. Yes, fabulous.

Jessica Steier (11m 19s):

And Katie, I was just gonna say I wish you were around when I was having my first honestly because I think like you're a perfect example of a great, trusted, evidence-based resource for for new parents. So bravo to you and it was really applause.

Katie Ferraro (11m 35s):

Thank you, I appreciate it. We're all kind of in the same boat, which is like there's so much misinformation out there, you're sometimes like why am I even doing this? It's just like a drop in the ocean. No one actually cares if you have a credential or 25 years experience doing this cause you're not a blogger. I mean, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about, you know, where we're getting our information from when it comes to important science-based topics in a second. Can we talk about credentials for a minute? I mean, cause I know it varies from scientific field to field as personally as a college nutrition professor, I know like in week one of every intro to nutrition science course I've ever taught, we always talk about how to identify nutrition misinformation and it usually involves like someone's wearing a white lab code and they have a nutritionist certificate from some diploma mill and they're gonna spill the tea on the diet secrets doctors don't want you to know like that sort of stuff.

Katie Ferraro (12m 17s):

What do you guys advise new parents to look out for when they're trying to figure out if the info that they're being fed or pedaled is legit or bogus?

Andrea Love (12m 24s):

Yeah, I mean I would echo a lot of that sentiment Katie. You know, when they find information online, you know, try and identify the the original source. Is it from an accredited body that is, you know, has the expertise to speak on what they're speaking about? Is it coming from some random person that you can't even vet who they are because they don't have a presence? Is it someone who's published papers, who works in the field or who's affiliated with a accredited institution, medical provider, university? I think one of the things that gets very confusing is that there are a lot of publications out there, a lot of different journals out there and not all of them are of the same quality, but you can often find them all on a repository like Pub Med.

Andrea Love (13m 7s):

So it simply saying find a Pub Med paper is not sufficient. You have to look at the quality of the journal, but also the authors themselves because a lot of times, you know, we've seen it during the pandemic people without any relevant expertise in a given field. We saw psychologists posting papers about viral infection and things like that. You have to make sure that those things line up, right? So if you're looking for advice on raising a child, feeding a child, birthing a child, you know, make sure that it's someone that has the expertise and also the, the data, the references to kind of support those claims that they're making.

Katie Ferraro (13m 40s):

So I have a true confessional, like I didn't know that about like the journals that were less reputable. Like I said, I have a master's in like the, the research stuff. I was like this is not for me. Like gimme all the babies, I'll feed them. But like we have had researchers on who've, quote on quote researchers, who have published stuff about baby-led weaning and after I interviewed them I'm like, well that episode's never gonna see the light of day. They don't know what they're talking about. And I'm like, how did you get that published? Then you look at the journal, oh it's not that great and you're like, you don't actually know anything about you didn't, you didn't talk to the right people. Your lit review sucks. I'm like, I'm not saying it's easy, but it looks like kind of easy to publish some bogus stuff sometimes.

Andrea Love (14m 8s):

There are definitely some journals out there that are like paid to publish and you know, I get solicited by them a lot, you know. And it's not even like I'm working on a manuscript. It's like they're just looking for things to bulk out their, their journal and yeah, I mean people will take advantage of that because it gives them an air of credibility, it gives them something to put on their CV or you know, so on and so forth. And so for the general public it's really hard because if you don't have the background of how to like suss out what's real and what's not, what's credible and what's not. It can be really, really hard to navigate.

Katie Ferraro (14m 40s):

Well if you don't have the time to like read JAMA cover to cover every freaking week, like, I mean like take it a step down. Like what do real life busy parents do if they can't go read all the legit peer review publications?

Jessica Steier (14m 50s):

Well, so Katie as sort of, I don't know, a fun anecdote, that's sort of what inspired the name Unbiased Science podcast and oh my goodness, do we get heat for this all the time. Because of course there's no such thing as not, no one is ever completely unbiased, but the goal of what we're doing on social media and and via the podcast is to critically appraise the available evidence. And so we're looking for things when we say bias, we're talking about certain biases that can impact research design and analysis and interpretation. And so we are evaluating, okay, what not only what studies are out there, what are the best studies, you know, what were, what was the control group?

Jessica Steier (15m 31s):

Who was enrolled? What were the inclusion criteria? You know, things like that. That's really what we're looking at. And so just to echo everything that you said, the other thing that is sort of a, a red flag for me, Andrea, I think you alluded to this. Is when folks set outside of their area of expertise, they are still experts, but in a completely unrelated area. So I'm a data scientist, I am not a clinician, I should never be talking to people about diagnosis or treatment of something. And so I think it's important to look for credentials but also make sure that the, you know, what that person is telling you is a match for their credentials and not just like an appeal to authority because they have doctor in front of their name.

Andrea Love (16m 13s):

Yeah, and, and I think to go with that and you know, I'll wrap up after that, but you know, there are accredited research and medical organizations really in every scope of health and science, right? So look for those organizations if you don't know where to start, you know, ACOG, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, great resource for all things related to pregnancy and birth and women's, you know, reproductive healthcare and American association of pediatricians, you know, all of those organizations. They often have high level statements or high level guidance for a lot of these common topics that come up day to day. And if someone's telling you something that's in a direct conflict with that like that, that should be a sign that maybe you need to go, you know, talk to a few more people to get the full story.

Katie Ferraro (16m 58s):

One thing I think students are oftentimes surprised by is like .org doesn't necessarily mean it's legit and like in nutrition, like say what you will about the government stuff, but like if something in nutrition is published on a government website, like you can pretty much believe it. Like we talk about like okay, you know, the nutrition recommendations for infant six to 12 months. A lot of times they're based on animal study extrapolations, there's definitely limitations, but like they don't have some like subtle angle where they're trying to sell you extra iron so you go buy all the iron supplements. Like really this is how much iron your baby probably needs at six to 12 months. But on the .org side, I think a lot of people are just like, oh well they're just a non-profit so they totally just care about me and all the info I read there is going to be legit. Could you share a little bit about how maybe a .org might have some other alterior motive besides helping you?

Andrea Love (17m 41s):

Yeah. So I mean like websites that are.org often don't have a lot of restrictions in terms of what they can publish. You know, there could be a non-profit organization, there could be for profit organizations, there could be people that purchase a domain, you know, to make it look credible beyond just like a .com because they're not a government entity. And it can have that air of credibility again because you're like, oh, it's an organization, So it's probably reliable. And I think, you know, I was even taught that in I think elementary school and like the advent of the internet and initially it was that way, right? It was government, organization and then, you know, there was edu sites which were your universities and then there was .com and that was kind of like the, the hierarchy. And, and nowadays that's not the case.

Andrea Love (18m 21s):

So you know, even if you're going to a .org site, just be wary, you know, see if there are any sort of conflict of interest disclosures on the site, see where the funding is coming from, you know, see who's on the board. See if those board members have a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. And, and that can kind of help you dissect out, but it's, it is a lot of work. It can be really challenging.

Katie Ferraro (18m 42s):

And that's like half your day right there. That rabbit hole you're gonna go through like, oh, this is interesting. You save good money from this commodity board, that supplement company. And then here you are telling me that this is your infant feeding advice. I mean we've had those issues too. It it sometimes it's actually kind of hard to tell from the website.

Andrea Love (18m 56s):

Oh yeah. In my prior life, I did Lyme disease research and Lyme disease is an area that's rife with misinformation and there are a lot of, you know, faux organizations that pretend to be accredited, you know, Lyme research associated organizations. But in reality, and the websites are very polished, it looks really legit, but in reality they're promoting fallacies and and myths and misconceptions. General public doesn't know that, you know, they're not feeling well. They're going to look for something about Lyme disease resources, they come upon it and they think it's real and same, same is gonna be true for a lot of these topics. And it, yeah, it's really time consuming. It's really hard. I would say like my general like suggestion for people, you know, if someone's promoting a supplement, you know, that's something that I typically am wary of because we know that supplements typically do not have regulation by the FDA and, and those are all kind of for-profit commercial products.

Katie Ferraro (19m 47s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Jessica Steier (19m 58s):

If I could just jump in for one second. Just on the flip side, the .govs the government entity. So I, I don't work for the government, but in a past life I was a consultant for the New York City Department of Health and for the NASA County Department of Health, so local government. I can only tell you that if you're adding a comma to something that goes on a government website, the amount of eyes that have to have to review it, I mean it is so carefully reviewed and scrutinized before there are any changes, before anything is publicized. So, you know, I, I know there's a lot of deification of, of government in, in general, but just I would remind people that you know, not to dehumanize those organizations. There are human beings, there are scientists who work for these government agencies and a lot of care goes into it.

Katie Ferraro (20m 43s):

A review board to change a comma. Yes. We're actually working on some infant feeding curriculum that we're rolling out at the government level and it is a whole different ballgame. I was like, this is the most vetted piece of content I've ever done. You know, if you're ripping off content like, like we are to stay relevant sometimes in the parenting space, I'm like, this is not going through like the peer review process that it would be, but like you wanna change something in your curriculum that you're, you know, the Department of Public Health is using, your WIC program is using. Oh my gosh, well I'd like to see 15 references that support that. Like this is amazing. I wish I had literally this amount of time to do that for everything that you put out there. You guys do though. Oh my gosh, I love to go read your show notes. I'm like, these chicks are just like reading journal articles all day long. I literally don't know where you get the time to do it.

Katie Ferraro (21m 23s):

And like I said, I've probably listened to every one of your podcast episodes. I am partial to the ones that have cross over to the infant feeding space. So I wanna encourage everyone listening to definitely go follow your show, but like, can we do a rundown of some of the infant feeding related topics that you guys have covered? And then if you can just summarize what we need to know on the topics, kind of like a hodgepodge if you will. Yeah. All right. I wanna start with Dr. David Stukus. He was on your podcast talking about food sensitivity testing. We've had so many parents telling us things like my baby is dairy intolerant, and even though we've literally had every leading pediatric allergist on the show, including Dr. Stukus, parents are still hearing like we should just go test for food intolerances in our babies. So what are your thoughts on food intolerance testing, like in general, but then like anything specific to babies?

Andrea Love (22m 4s):

Yeah, so first of all, we love Dr. Dave Stukus. He's, you know, a phenomenal clinician, you know, expert in in pediatric allergy and immunology. He does a great job of debunking a lot of those misconceptions that circulated. And you know, the first thing is to understand that there are very distinct differences between allergies, which are immune system related inflammatory processes where basically your body is reacting to something that's typically benign in an inappropriate way and so it leads to the production or the secretion of a particular type of antibody called IgE, which activates particular cells called mast cells and they release, secrete histamine, which is very inflammatory that can lead to those anaphylactic reactions.

Andrea Love (22m 47s):

It's a very rapid response after, after consuming or interacting with something that we would call an allergen. And to most people those allergens would be, they would never elicit really anything, but in some cases it can be a very serious, potentially life-threatening reaction. That's very different from an intolerance, which is a gastrointestinal issue. And so that's usually related to the lack of, or the mutation of an enzyme required to digest a certain molecule. So a great example is lactose intolerance. And so this is a situation where humans don't have the enzyme lactase. So anything that ends in ASE is an enzyme, it's a protein that breaks down molecules.

Andrea Love (23m 28s):

So lactase breaks down the sugar lactose, which is found in in animal dairy products. And if you have lactose intolerance, you'll have GI symptoms. Bloating, maybe diarrhea, nausea, things like that after you consume products that have those molecules in them. And it's not an immediate response, but it's typically in a relative short period afterward. And then there's this kind of gray area that people are calling sensitivities. And there are a lot of companies now that are selling what they call food sensitivity tests, which have these panels of 50 to 100 different molecules that are in various food products that you can test to see if you're sensitive to them. And they're marketing it as well, it's not an allergy because you're not having this instantaneous reaction.

Andrea Love (24m 13s):

It's not mediated by this IgE inflammation. And it's not intolerance because that's a gastrointestinal thing, but it's this like in-between space. But the problem is, is that they're using the wrong science. They're measuring a particular antibody called IgG, which is a type of antibody that our immune cells produce after exposure to anything. It's what we call an antibody of tolerance. So all these tests are telling you is that once upon a time, or even recently you ate some wheat or you ate some eggs or you ate some dairy. It tells you nothing about whether or not you're sensitive to it, which is not a clinical medical diagnosis and it tells you nothing about, you know, an allergy.

Andrea Love (24m 54s):

And so people will take these tests a lot of times at home and then they'll be like, oh my god, 25 things came up on this test. I need to eliminate all of them for my diet and I need to go get allergy testing and things like that. And so in reality, that's not what you should be doing. If you do have a suspicion of a true medical condition, you should go seek a specialist, a clinical allergist and immunologist and they have clinical criteria to diagnose true allergies and true intolerances. And it's not using kind of these direct consumer tests but the same is true for kids, right? You know, so what's gonna apply to adults is gonna apply to babies. And the fear is even greater there, right? Because parents are experimenting with the food exposure.

Andrea Love (25m 35s):

You know, when should I feed my kid avocado? When should I feed them banana? When's okay for peanut butter? You know, all these things. And there was that previous school of thought that oh well we should hold off exposing kids to all of these things that have higher prevalence of allergies so they don't develop allergies, but in reality, because you make those tolerance antibodies. There's data that suggests that you know, not delaying exposure, you know, following your physician's guidance on that can actually reduce the likelihood of developing an allergy. Because once you're exposed to it, you're less likely to actually react inappropriately to it.

Katie Ferraro (26m 9s):

And those recommendations, which are at this point 20 year old recommendations, it's also important to point out, are based on absolutely no science. Correct. The recommendation to withhold egg until one and peanut until two and fish until three, which every single day parents come to me whose pediatricians are still telling them that, I say go get a new pediatrician because that's 20 year old data. And now we do have much better data that shows us that the early introduction is actually what helps prevent food allergy down the road. And you mentioned like the difference between allergy and intolerance, like when we're talking about food allergy, we're introducing these potentially allergenic food proteins. It's the protein component of the food. The intolerance is gonna gonna be to the sugar lactose O S E. If it ends in ose it's a sugar and parents kind of lump them all together.

Katie Ferraro (26m 49s):

Well if it's not one, it's not the other. You can see how this area for food sensitivity testing, it's very rife for corruption because, well I didn't say it was an allergy and I didn't say it was an intolerance, it's this other thing in between.

Andrea Love (26m 60s):

Right and you know, there's a lot of other factors at play, right? Like you can't just say, oh well I ate this food and my stomach was upset, therefore I have a food sensitivity. There's so many things involved and it's really hard to isolate a singular molecule, eliminate just that molecule from your diet. You know, say, oh well I don't have any stomach upset after eliminating that one molecule because there's no way for you to just take away that one thing and then reintroducing it. It's because it's this gray air, because there's really no science to to back it. You know, these companies are, are trying to sell people a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

Katie Ferraro (27m 31s):

And when you start talking about IgG versus IgE, people's eyes glaze over and they're not listening. I love Stukus on your podcast cause he's like breaking it down. These tests are not validated. They don't have to prove anything. It's like a supplement. Until your product starts harming people, then and only then, would someone actually look what's in it and be like, oh, maybe we shouldn't sell that to people. Like, you don't have to prove efficacy. You only have to not hurt people and yet wasting a lot of people's money, I would argue it's hurting them.

Andrea Love (27m 59s):

Yes, right.

Jessica Steier (27m 60s):

It's the wild west and just, I, I think you're right. I think people's eyes just glaze over when they hear IgG and IgE. So I just wanna reiterate what Andrea was saying is that, if there's IgG, you could literally just be telling someone that they've been exposed or that there's a tolerance, you know, to those foods that, that you're testing for. So totally bogus. We do not, to answer your question, we do not recommend. They're preying on parents who obviously just wanna do right by their kids. And if your baby is, you know, fussy or something's going on, you know, you're gonna run and try to do anything you can to help them, but I don't need to tell you Katie, of course there could be so many other things going on. So you have to go talk to your clinician and figure out what, what's the root cause.

Katie Ferraro (28m 42s):

Okay, next up micronutrient supplementation. So I'm a dietitian. My gig is infant feeding. I want parents to be aware of the importance of iron as part of the weaning diet, but I don't want them to be obsessed with it like so many are. And so many parents worry, my baby's not gonna get enough iron from foods. So they start self-diagnosing iron deficiency and they wanna start supplementing like willy-nilly or going overboard on fortified foods. Any thoughts about micronutrient supplementation without a diagnosis of deficiency in infancy?

Andrea Love (29m 11s):

Yeah, so I mean there are no data to support it, you know. And in fact the micronutrient supplements, whatever dietary supplements. Really all dietary supplements are not, again validated by the FDA for safety or efficacy. And more than that, most of the testing that's even done are in adults. So there's really limited data about the safety in particular infants. Typically those would be advised against unless explicitly prescribed by a pediatrician or by a clinician for a diagnosed medical issue. You know, typically you're going to have better absorption of micronutrients from food products because of the way that they are bound to each other in molecular structures.

Andrea Love (29m 51s):

Different vitamin companies or different supplement companies manufacture these molecules very differently. So you could think that you're consuming a hundred milligrams of, of iron, but there's, you know, numerous different compounds that contain iron. Some are just excreted really quickly in your urine, some can interfere with other things you're consuming. Some require other molecules present to aid in absorption. And so bioavailability is something that's really important. You can't just assume cause you're eating a supplement that that molecule, that that substance you're consuming is actually gonna be available to your body for use. And that's why, you know, whole foods are diet based micronutrients are typically recommended over the alternative.

Katie Ferraro (30m 37s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back. Okay, what about leaky gut? I literally had a parent on a parent call yesterday. Mom was convinced her baby had leaky gut syndrome. What is the deal with leaky gut? Why is everyone talking about it? Real or fake? And where do babies fit in?

Jessica Steier (30m 60s):

The TLDR is that it's not a real thing and that, you know, there, obviously there could be real things going on, but leaky gut ain't it, but Andrea get into the weeds. Andrea's the details gal.

Andrea Love (31m 11s):

So basically a lot of these pseudoscience medical conditions basically take a term that has real meaning in the science world and kind of co-opt it, right? So, you know, there's a thing called intestinal permeability, which basically means that all the cells that line your intestine have little gaps between 'em. These are called junctions and there are proteins that kind of anchor them together. You can think of it like railroad tracks, but people have basically created this medical condition where your gut is leaky and so toxins and food particles and bacteria are like seeping through the cells and the intestine and it's causing toxicity in the bloodstream and all sorts of symptoms like brain fog and fatigue and headache and lethargy, and they're self-diagnosing and they're taking these supplements to kind of alleviate it.

Andrea Love (31m 57s):

And so the TLDR is yes, not a medical condition. It's become a very fad, like pop culture diagnosis to explain away like all of these very generic symptoms that could be attributed to a lot of different actual medical issues. So my recommendation is if someone is telling you something about leaky gut syndrome, don't listen to them. Go to a trained medical professional. If there are valid symptoms, definitely a diagnosis is an order, but leaky gut is not gonna be the diagnosis.

Katie Ferraro (32m 31s):

Oh, thank you. Okay. For my own personal knowledge, who writes your guys episode titles? I love them. I think they're so funny. I laugh out loud all the time. Is that you guys?

Andrea Love (32m 40s):

We do, and it's, and it's mostly Jess, you know. She's, she's been very witty. Like the very first one is there anti antibody out there. That was like all me. And then I was like, oh, we should have puns for all of our titles. And then sometimes it gets really hard to like be creative depending on the topic.

Jessica Steier (32m 56s):

Yes, and you know, we know that science isn't always sexy for people. And what people don't realize is that science touches our lives in a million different ways. And so we're trying to make it appeal to people who maybe would normally be turned off by just, you know, straight scientific terms and, you know, topic titles. So yes, so we have a little fun with it. We draw from popular songs of the moment, things like that. We draw our inspiration there, but we do it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Katie Ferraro (33m 24s):

I have like a lot of topic suggestions, but then I'm like, I feel like you gotta come at you guys with like a really good title. You're not gonna listen to it. "Does Acupuncture Get The Jab Done?" was a personal favorite of mine. I, no, I just think they're fabulous. I, I love them. You guys are so entertaining. I appreciate you doing all the research and I know that whenever I listen to your episode, especially like if it overlaps with infant feeding, I'm like, Ooh, that's a good idea. We should explore that topic more. I can just pop right into your show notes. I can see all of the references for the articles that you guys cite. We do the same thing too. No one reads our show notes, so different problem.

Jessica Steier (33m 58s):

I, I don't either.

Andrea Love (33m 60s):

I'm like, go to our database. Go to our database.

Katie Ferraro (34m 3s):

Oh my gosh. No, it's amazing. I'm like, oh my gosh, they've done all the legwork for me. Any final tips on dealing with misinformation in the baby space for our parents who are listening?

Andrea Love (34m 11s):

I was just gonna say, you know, and Jess obviously has the firsthand, you know, experience on both sides, but I was gonna say, we get that it's super exhausting and really challenging, especially in the era of rampant social media misinformation. And it's not your fault if you fall prey to something and we know that the intentions are always good, you know, you wanna take the best care that you can. And, and that's why misinformation in the baby space is so effective because it, it's preying on the emotion, right? It's, it's using that appeal to emotion, the fear mongering, the implication that you're harming your child in some way. And that can be very effective when you're really vulnerable. So, you know, I think sticking with trusted resources, sticking with accredited medical institutions, making sure that there are legitimate sources affiliated with whatever information you're consuming.

Andrea Love (35m 1s):

That's gonna be the first step in the right direction.

Jessica Steier (35m 4s):

And if you're here, if you're, if you're listening to the podcast, then obviously you're doing something right. You've identified a trustworthy source of evidence-based information. I just, again, I put myself back in 2016, I was, you know, when, when I was about to give birth to my son and it was just so overwhelming. There was so much information. And now to live in a time with social media and just information overload. Again, I think my best advice is just pick a couple of really trusted resources, kind of drown out the other noise and be very wary and cautious of anyone trying to sell you something. And any really, like inflammatory black and white statements, it's often not, you know, something very rarely will either save a life or kill you.

Jessica Steier (35m 49s):

You know, there's often shades of gray. So just be wary of, of that type of language. And if you're spidey sense is tingling that, that someone's trying to sell you something, they probably are.

Katie Ferraro (36m 0s):

Oh, thank you guys so much. Where can our audience go to learn more about your work and your podcast?

Jessica Steier (36m 4s):

So you can follow us on Instagram. That's where we're most active @Unbiasedscipod. We're also on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. We're kind of dipping our toe into TikTok, but we're,

Katie Ferraro (36m 18s):

Oh, enemy territory. You guys are doing it.

Jessica Steier (36m 21s):

Oh. But yeah, but it's, it's an ugly, ugly place. So I think our home is really Instagram, so that's where you can find us and our podcast airs every Wednesday on all major podcast platforms.

Katie Ferraro (36m 34s):

Well, I, hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Jessica and Andrea from the Unbiased Science podcast. I'm gonna link their podcast as well as the specific episodes that were related to our conversation today. That'll be in the show notes for this episode, which you can find right where you're listening to this podcast. Or if you go online to BLW podcast.com/ 302. And Unbiased Science podcast is on the AirWave Media Network, as are we. If you like Podcasts about food and science and using your brain, check out some of the other podcast options and offerings from AirWave Media. They're online@airwavemedia.com or online at BLWpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you guys next time.