Vanessa: Yes, I’d love to. And, look, I think like many health professionals, my story starts by accident. And so many people I’ve met have said the same thing that their journey into being a health professional was by accident. So, for me, my daughter, she woke up at the age of 2 with a swollen knee. It was red and it was hot and it was painful, and she was in a lot of pain. We’re away at the time, and we thought she just had done normal 2-year-old things, you know, running around, falling, tripping, you know, what kids do. We rushed back home a couple of hours, took her to the emergency care, and, of course, they said what we had thought, that she had hurt herself to just ice it and rest it.

What had happened over the next following couple of weeks was she couldn’t go to her daycare. She would wake up in the morning, screaming in pain, Andrew. It was traumatic for her and it was traumatic for us. She was in a lot of pain. And so here we are, as parents, taking her in and out of GPs, we’re in and out of the emergency department saying, “What is wrong with our child? Her knee is red and it’s hot and it’s swollen, and she’s in a lot of pain, and she can’t walk. What’s wrong?” So, what happened was she had about four weeks until we got to see a pediatrician, then quite quickly, they got us in to see a rheumatologist. And that’s when we were diagnosed or she was diagnosed, rather, with an autoimmune condition called JIA. And I remember distinctly sitting in that room saying to the rheumatologist “Isn’t arthritis something that old people get? Like, kids don’t get arthritis.” And she quite clearly said, “No, that’s, you know, my business. I work with children who develop these autoimmune inflammatory conditions.”

And so that’s where my journey began. So, with Millie, her trajectory was what the normal trajectory is for these children. So, it’s corticosteroids, it’s NSAIDs. After that, it’s methotrexate and biologics. And, for her, it was really challenging because she couldn’t tolerate certain drugs. And so that left us in a position where we were wondering what was going on in her gut because she was sick often. And so we were finding that, you know, why was she vomiting? Why did she all of a sudden have diarrhea? Was there a connection to the knee? And as you know, Andrew, the answer to this, it let me dive from a 10,000-foot diving board into this world of functional nutrition and functional health, and, of course, the gut microbiome. And here I am today.

Andrew: Well, let’s go back a little bit further again, though. What was your history? You were in the corporate world, right?

Vanessa: I was. Look, I’ve always worked in health. So, I have worked at very senior levels in government, in health. I’ve done a fellowship with the University of Sydney in health. So, I’m more from a health policy perspective. I’ve worked a lot around the social determinants of health, a lot around health funding, and also, quite a lot in regards to primary healthcare, and working through how do all the mechanisms of non-acute health work together. So, for my husband and I…my husband works in the health sector as well. We came at this journey having, I suppose, a higher health literacy base than many people. We kind of knew how the system worked. We had a fair idea of some of the language, but, of course, health policy is different to health practice, as you and I both know.

Andrew: So, that’s indeed my question. From your first…sorry, from your daughter’s first presentation, what was the level of her pain upon first noticing it and first presentation to then you said screaming in pain? Are we talking like an escalation over one week? Did the doctor that…forgive me, did the first medical professional that you saw have any inkling that it may be serious, or did you all think it was rather remedial in nature?

Vanessa: Well, we, as parents, we didn’t really know. So, we were under the guidance of who we were seeing. And clinically, I suppose the guidance is if there is inflammation in a joint that lasts more than six weeks, that’s where they look and, you know, do testing of certain blood markers, like your sedimentation rate, your CRP. They look for rheumatoid factor, anti-nuclear antibodies, and even the HLA-B27, but that testing usually doesn’t happen until after around the four to six-week mark. So, for her, she was in pain. She was more uncomfortable in the first instance. And then what we found within a couple of weeks was waking up in the morning, there was that stiffness, which about 70% of the kids complain about. They say they have a lot of pain and morning stiffness.

And depending on the child and where the arthritis is, and a lot of children, it is in the big joints. So, for her, it was in her knee. It meant that her knee was basically stiff. So, in the morning, she’s just dragging her leg along in order to get to where she had to get to. So, we would obviously pick her up, put her in a magnesium bath. So, magnesium is a fabulous mineral that a lot of these children are often deficient in, and they absorb the mineral, transdermally, when they’re in the bath, it’s warm. The bath gets their lymph system moving. So, for us, when we discovered that, Andrew, it changed our life. So, what it meant was I knew what time to wake her up, get the bath ready, put her in the bath. I knew she wouldn’t be functional until about 10:00 a.m. So, at about 10:00 a.m. that’s when we’d go off to daycare, and she had carers there who would pretty much carry her around if she needed to, if she couldn’t walk.

I had to reduce my hours. So, I went part-time. You know, it was one of the conversations my husband and I had. We had to do something because we don’t have family around, like so many families. All of our extended community are not where we are in Canberra. So, we had to make that plan as a family unit. And as a result, I went part-time, but it enabled me to be able to support her and her pain. So, when she was off at daycare, only two days a week, she was able to interact with children, with carers. I was able to have a bit of a break and also do things that I love with my work. But I knew she wasn’t in pain at that point when she’d got to school or daycare because she had had the bath, we’d had a nice relaxing morning, we’d played.

And that’s something I’d like to talk a little bit too today as well, Andrew, is about being present with our children when we are sick because often we get so busy doing things for them and helping fix them and, you know, cooking the meals and taking them to appointments, but sometimes we don’t have that space to be with them and play with them and observe them. And I found for her that really filled her cup up. So, if we could have a storybook in the morning, and a little bit of a play, and the play in the bath, it would help. And it makes sense, right? Because her adrenals…you know, because she’s heightened from all the inflammation. The work that we were doing in the morning would relax her vagus nerve and her adrenal state, and then she’d be able to go off into the world.

Andrew: But there’s so much more there as well. Like, I love the way that…and it’s a very important lesson I think that we all need to learn. And that is that the daily bath is, like, we’ll have a shower in the morning, which is really interesting, but not a bath. A bath is for the evening. But a bath for your daughter was for the morning, and that actually helped her to get on with her day and to give her some normality, some ease of her pain. I think it’s really interesting these ways that we need to think about flipping what we consider normal, you know, and just make them usable for our patients.

Vanessa: Absolutely, Andrew. Absolutely. And creating space for people to do that. So, many of my clients, they’re having two baths a day, these children. They’re having soup for breakfast. So, they’re now in this different world where we are saying, “Well, why not? Why can’t you have a really wholesome meal for breakfast?” And they’re reaping the rewards.

Andrew: So, let’s go through this. So, from zero to two weeks, it went from discomfort, stiffness, up to screaming in the morning, and then another two weeks of putting up with that till you saw the rheumatologist. So, we are dealing with a four to six-week window where patients, children are slipping through the sieve, the medical sieve or the healthcare sieve, and the problem with that is that when you’re looking at something like juvenile idiopathic arthritis, JIA, I get that it’s “only four to six weeks,” but that can still set up that child’s joints for permanent changes, permanent disability.

Vanessa: It sure can, Andrew. And, you know, the thing that really concerns me is there was a recent federal government inquiry into rheumatic diseases in children. And there were hundreds of responses, and guess what? I read most of them. And it was insightful for me to get more of an idea of what people are struggling with. So, they had parents write in, they had rheumatologists write in, I even put in a submission. And what I learned from that, Andrew, is we were actually really lucky and blessed to have got in within that six-week mark, which is a clinically-recommended mark. Most people across this country, most of these children, and I’m talking about two to four children in 1,000 children. So, it’s a lot of children, about 10,000 a year. It could be 6 months, it could be 12 months before they get in and have any treatment, which for me, it blows my mind, and it’s just not right, from an equity perspective in a healthcare system, which is universal in our country.

Andrew: Now, you were obviously lucky to have that background with health policy and how policy works, how the system works, but let’s talk about patient advocacy. Is it so broken that we actually need patient advocates? Because I hear time and time again, people who they’ll just accept what a health professional, I’ll leave it that gray, a health professional says to them because the health professional knows best. Well, no, you get good and bad mechanics. You get good and bad accountants. How do they know that they’ve got a really good health professional that’s got them or their child’s best interests at heart and are competent in that? So, looking at these or going back in time to these submissions, what were other patients’ stories? What were they finding about not just their journey, but the outcome, the prognosis for their children?

Vanessa: Look, the first part to that question is we don’t have enough pediatric rheumatologists. So, in Canberra, I believe like at the time there was part-time traveling pediatric rheumatologist. I believe that in certain states, there’s none, no pediatric rheumatologists. So, you have to travel, and, of course, the issue is compounded. You and I know this, Andrew, in rural and remote. So, if you live outside of a capital city in Australia, you are disadvantaged when it comes to things like this. And I do have a client who lives in the bush, who travels a long way to see their specialists. Now, telehealth has obviously helped that, but with something like JIA, the clinician actually, from my understanding, I’m not a clinician, but does need to see the joint and does need to inspect, you know, what’s going on with the child, obviously. There’s bloods and other factors at play. But, you know, I was the only submission that spoke about nutrition. So, I’m not sure if that surprises you or not, but I wanted to put…

Andrew: It’s sad, actually.

Vanessa: …on paper. Yeah. And look, everyone who comes to me says their health professionals dismiss nutrition. So, they’ve never had anyone say, “You should look into it. It’s important,” let alone the gut health. They never bring up gut health with their practitioners. So, I felt like I needed to create space to start that conversation. And I know we’re 10 to 20 years off that becoming mainstream. And I’m okay about that, but I wanna be a bit of an advocate in that space. With regards to the submissions, look, there were people, Andrew, who had…so if you’re diagnosed with JIA as a child, and then you carry on to have arthritis as an adult, you still have JIA, that’s the diagnosis. So, it doesn’t change to rheumatoid arthritis, it just continues.

So, there were some people who wrote in, who were older age, who had JIA, and said they wish they had have had these biologics and methotrexate, and all these drugs because they have permanent joint damage. There was one story of a lady whose child had lost its eyesight. It’s called uveitis. And it’s very common with a particular subset of JIA called oligoarticular, and especially if the child is ANA-positive, if they have the anti-nuclear antibody turned on. So, you know, reading them, it was devastating. And I suppose for me stepping back saying, “Okay, how am I going to show up in the world with regards to this message?” It really is too pronged. Like, firstly, we do need to get these children seen by the appropriate professionals in a quick amount of time around…

Andrew: Timely manner.

Vanessa: …they say in six weeks, but sooner is better. Absolutely. So, we can try and work out what else is going on with them, if they need corticosteroid injections, or whatever, in the first instance, get that inflammation down and test their eyes. We’ve gotta be testing their eyes because once they’re damaged, they’re damaged.

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely.

Vanessa: I honestly think the second part of this is saying, “Okay, it does take a multidisciplinary approach. Already, physios are quite heavily involved because of, you know, we’re dealing with joints. Quite often, you know, the ophthalmologist is involved because we’re testing eyes, but nutrition is not discussed. So, you know, for me, I’m coming at it from the two levels. I think, firstly, the kids need to be seen. They need to be diagnosed. They need, you know, whatever treatment to help prevent permanent joint damage and disability into the future, and organ damage, and eye damage. But the second fold of my mission is, like I said, let’s try and elevate this conversation about not only nutrition, but also the gut microbiome because there’s some really interesting science, specifically, Andrew, on JIA. But it’s that translation from research to policy. I’ve worked in this space for a long time. It’s 20 years. That’s how long it takes. So, if we can speed that up a bit…

Andrew: So, 10,000 people a year times 20, 200,000 people that have to suffer long-term poor prognosis from JIA until we get policy changed. That’s what it really boils down to. Vanessa, let’s just go through, if we’re talking about how we can raise this conversation, let’s give practitioners some skillset so that they can help identify at least some of these people. What sort of symptoms do we need to be aware of? We’ve mentioned obviously pain, redness, swelling. So, let’s go through the five, you know, cardinal signs of inflammation. But when should somebody suspect that it might be JIA over, you know, lupus, Ross River fever, rheumatoid arthritis, physical tissue injury? There’s so many other arthropathies that you need to differentially diagnose from.

Vanessa: Yeah. Look, it depends on when they’re coming to you, right? So, if they’re coming to you in the first instance. So, for some children, it’s also muscular, so where they’ve got muscular soreness and tenderness. And I would be asking them questions around when do they have pain? So, is it in the morning, or is it, you know, obviously after sport. A lot of kids can get pain. But, you know, generally, our children shouldn’t be feeling pain. Like, we’re built to exercise and do things. The challenge will become is with growing pains and things like that. But, you know, for me, if in doubt, I always will get them referred on because, you know, in the meantime, I’m obviously helping them. So, Ross River fever may be part of the root causes. So, we may be saying, “Okay, yes, you’ve got Ross River fever, or you’ve got some other infection,” and that may be part of the causes, but if we can’t mediate that and get that inflammation down in their body, depending on their age, personally, I don’t wanna be responsible for permanent joint and damage and disability in that child going forward. So, I will refer quickly.

Andrew: Yeah. At least for a diagnosis, and then, hopefully, get them back for treatment because orthodoxy won’t even consider diet, nutrition, you know, not even things that might elevate their immune response. Actually, there’s something that we need to be aware of if we were, let’s say, heroic with…and I don’t like this quick, you know, sort of…it’s almost a glib word, but immune “stimulants,” but let’s say immune-modulating nutrients and herbs. Do we have to be a little bit judicious with these or can we go quite heroic with things like vitamin C, vitamin D, and certain herbs like, Echinacea, let’s say?

Vanessa: Well, there’s some really good research on vitamin D and JIA. So, I’m glad that you brought that one up, Andrew. So, the research shows that for a…they did a study of children who had aggressive disease, and you guessed it, they were low in vitamin D. And when they supplemented them, their disease and their pain reduced. So, vitamin D is definitely something to look into. Another one is polyunsaturated fatty acids. So, making sure that the omega-3 and 6 is in balance. But before I get too much onto food, Andrew, it’s interesting that AIHW, the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare released a report just recently on food and what kids are eating. And 8.5% of children are eating the recommended amount of fruit and veg. So, as a nutritionist, the first thing that I’m really…and parents are 6.1, adults, a 6.1% of adults are eating two serves of fruit and five serves of veg.

Andrew: Wow, that’s insane. Like, to us, it just seems…it’s kind of like saying 10% of people sleep at all. It’s weird. It’s this strange notion of no vegetables in your diet. Isn’t that weird? It’s sad.

Vanessa: It’s very strange. Yeah. You know, I couldn’t find the number for you, but when you take out potatoes, for the kids, their number drops through the floor. So, kids are mainly eating potatoes. So, you know, that’s also where we need to start saying, “Okay, are these children eating the rainbow of colours?” So, if you Google rainbow of colours on Google or fruit and veg, you’ll get a beautiful picture. And often I’ll take the family through that and say, “Where are our colour deficiencies?” You know, we know the polyphenols are really bright colours, we know the pomegranate, the cherries, red grapes, you know, they’re all very powerful for the immune, and not only their immune health but the bacteria in their gut. So, I often just…rather than delving straight into specifics, I try as much as I can to take a step back and say, “I’m gonna meet this family where they’re at.”

They’re a spinning top, the parents are overwhelmed, they’re confused, they’re lost, and they’re probably not eating the right amount of fruit and veg. Like, that’s usually my hypothesis, and it’s usually right. So, I take that step back, and then what I do is I bring in what I know about the research. So, I know the vitamin D, I know the omega-3s are powerful. For a lot of children, taking out starch can be really important because often they got Klebsiella in there which loves starch, and we know that Klebsiella and Citrobacter, and some of those bugs are autoimmune creating and sustaining. So, again, I just work out steps and I say, “Okay, for the next two weeks or month, if this family could do these steps, you know, what would be the best that I can ask for them because wholesale change can be way too much?”

Andrew: Right. So, what you were talking about there, smacks of Professor Alan Ebringer’s work with ankylosing spondylitis, and indeed, I think it was one of his patients who set up with him. It’s a website called kickas.org. So, it looks like kickas.org, but with one S. But indeed, Alan, who is just this lovely, very humble, timid gentleman, first elucidated this cross-reactivity with the bacteria and the genes, the HLA-B27, right? So, it’s now been expanded…forgive me, it’s now being expanded on to include other bacteria, not just Klebsiella. So, where are we heading with that? Where are we heading with diet foods? We’ve spoken about vegetables, for instance. And I remember podcasting with a gentleman, let’s keep him nameless, but who developed a protocol that was purely veg and no fat, which I had a real hard time understanding, no anti-inflammatory fats, like fish, for instance. There was no animal products in there at all. What’s been your experience with these increasing the vegetable intake? How do you find a balance? What works with your patients? What works with people and families?

Vanessa: Yeah. And I know what you’re talking about there because we actually did that program and my daughter got worse, and I was like, “What’s going on here?” And I think, you know, when we do a GI-MAP on our clients, we’re getting that unique information, we’re getting that feedback. And really interestingly, Andrew, when I look at the GI-MAP and I look at the research around JIA, most often it matches. So, what the research shows that these children have low Akkermansia, usually, the GI-MAPs that I run, the kids have none. So, below detectable limits. So, there we go. Yeah. And we know Akkermansia is really important. Like, it’s a creator of, you know, short-chain fatty acids. It’s really important. It feeds off that mucosal layer of the gut lining. So, we build that up. So, we build that up with polyphenols, largely. And for my daughter, I remember going to a specialist, we took her to get a second opinion, and I said to him, “Why when she eats raspberry is she better?” And he was like, “I don’t know.” I said…

Andrew: Very interesting.

Vannessa: “…Two hours or so after she eats raspberries, she runs around like a maniac, and she appears to be in no pain.” And he’s like, “I don’t know, I don’t know, but keep doing it. If it’s working, keep doing it.” Now, I know.

Andrew: I love that comment, “I don’t know, keep doing it.”

Vanessa: Yeah. So, he was really supportive. He was like, “I don’t know what you’re doing with the nutrition, but just keep doing it because it seems to be working.”

Andrew: Okay. But what about other kids that you might have treated or come across? What’s been their experience when they increase the polyphenols in their diet? Are there any specifics that you go, “this is awesome,” ginger, for instance?

Vanessa: Yeah. Ginger. Yeah, kids are hard with ginger. Pomegranate’s good because they’re interesting. Usually, is painful for mum and dad to peel and do all the…you know, get it ready, pomegranate juice.

Andrew: There’s a trick on YouTube.

Vanessa: Is there?

Andrew: There’s a trick of how to cut it on YouTube. Yeah, I’ll send it to you.

Vanessa: Yeah, please do. Because, yeah, I need that, to share that. And, look, we see within…you know, it’s probably quicker, but, you know, we don’t run the gut test every month. We run it every three or four months. We see it increase in that period of time. So, it’s very responsive. And, you know, what the other research shows is they’ve got low short-chain fatty acids, and that they’ve usually got an overgrowth of yeast and opportunistic bacteria, and some of those ones that I mentioned before. So, when we are looking at the GI-MAP for these children, and then we look at the research, you say, “Okay, well, the research is saying that, you know, this landscape predisposes and exacerbates juvenile arthritis in children, then why are we not looking at the gut? We need to be looking at the gut.” And the children that I work with, they start to regain their health. So, a lot of them are, when they first start working with me, constipated. And so once we start, obviously, bringing in the appropriate fibers for them, get their motility going, for some children, it is working through bringing in bitter foods as well, which can be a challenge. Dandelion tea is a good one, Arugula or rocket is difficult, that’s my big tip.

Andrew: And like as an adult, isn’t that really interesting? I love rocket. Get me some nice peppery rocket, you know. Oh, tell me. That was gonna be my next question about…we’ve spoken about the polyphenols, which obviously are bound in many foods, not just fruit, but also vegetables.

Vanessa: Oh, of course.

Andrew: But there’s also a whole host of other chemicals in vegetables, particularly the Brassica group of vegetables. You’ve mentioned, you know, that there may be issues with these because kids are hypersensitive to this bitter sort of principles. Do you actually have successes in getting kids to eat broccoli? Broccoli sprouts, what about broccoli sprouts, alfalfa sprouts?

Vanessa: Broccoli sprout’s powerful. And they’re easy to grow.

Andrew: Do you have successes?

Vanessa: Yeah, absolutely. And I think if the parents are comfortable in growing them, that the kids are more interested in eating them. So, broccoli sprouts, you can actually just go to your local Bunnings or whatever your store is, and you can buy a kit to grow broccoli sprouts, and basically, just put the seeds out and water them. And I’m not kidding, it’s within days, they sprout, and then you just eat them straight off this little contraption that they’ve built. So, it’s quick, they’re getting a good dose of sulforaphane. The sulphur is obviously very important. The big thing with kids is trying to work out what their preferences are. So, a lot of these children are often what we call picky. That’s what the parents usually call them, picky, but it’s usually because they’re nutrient deficient. And we know that kids who are low in iron, zinc, and magnesium, and other minerals, their taste buds are not working, and they’re more likely to be picky.

So what I get them to do is think about foods, like you said, broccoli, and putting a cooked piece, you know, that’s maybe steamed, maybe a raw piece, or maybe a piece that’s been stir-fried or something like that, and getting an assessment from the child as to what they prefer. And what I’ve found is, you know, yeah, often kids will gravitate to something where the parents will be completely surprised and shocked. They’ll be like, “I didn’t think my kid liked broccoli at all.” No, actually, your child loves it raw.

Andrew: Yeah. It’s less bitter.

Vanessa: And the facts with raw is…yeah. And if you cut broccoli and let it sit for 20 minutes, it releases more sulforaphane, so it’s actually better for your health. So, them eating raw is, you know, not a bad thing.

Andrew: Yeah. Great. Okay. So, you mentioned sulphur, let’s go through some of the supplements that you might use to support kids. So, I’m wondering if I have this right. Please correct me. But I’m wondering if, do you stratify it to prioritize it using things like, say, deficiencies first, then maybe anti-inflammatory second, then possibly, rejuvenative type therapies last, or do you mix them up? How do you prioritize therapy?

Vanessa: Look, it depends on the child. Usually, when they come to see me, they’ve got a shopping list of things that they’re taking based on what the parents have read online, or they’re in these Facebook groups, so they’re taking a whole truckload of things. So, what we do is in that first session, try to work out. And I think as a practitioner, I really want to encourage you to create that space for these parents. And if they’re older kids, because like I said, I’ve been there. I was a spinning top. I was in and out of professionals, and really, there was no one who just created space for me. So, don’t underestimate the time and the effort of doing the full family history, the child’s chronological history, getting a list of all these supplements that they’re already taking because I guarantee you, they will be taking quite a few and helping guide them based on your experience around what’s gonna be best. And in that session, you work through, do they need organic acid testing? Do they need the GI-MAP? I’ll often also run a hair test, depending on what’s going on for that child. But, you know, what I’ll do is work through… Well, with the hair test, I find out what their mineral levels are and also where their adrenals are. And a lot of the kids are at the exhaustion phase of, you know, first floor on the hair test, which is frightening. Children should not be at that level.

So, the hair test usually comes back really quick, and the gut test is five weeks. So, if I can get a picture within two weeks going, “Okay, this is what we are dealing with,” then I can, you know, readjust the plan within a couple of weeks to support them while we’re waiting for the gut test. But usually, what I’d bring in is, you know, depending on their age, I’d work out the dose for Saccharomyces boulardii, glutamine, magnesium in the bath is fabulous. You know, obviously, I look for some of those classic markers on their nails to see, do they have white spots? You know, if they’ve got a lot, then I will look at zinc, vitamin D, as we spoke about, fish oil. If they’re vegan, you know, I can get them a vegan fish oil. I’ll be less likely to delve into probiotics until I know exactly what’s going on in there, for no other reason, but they’re spending a lot of money, and that’s the other thing. So, I want it to be as targeted as possible. And depending on their diet, I may bring in a multivitamin. So, really trying to help not forever, but trying to help them increase their levels, so then they’ll be able to try new foods, may bring in some bitters. Again, you know, you have to take a bio-individual approach depending on the child that’s in front of you. Obviously, curcumins are powerful anti-inflammatory, which is something…

Andrew: Acceptance. How do you find acceptance with curcumin, compliance?

Vanessa: Yeah. Yep. Fine. I think by the time people get to see you, they trust you and they will do what you say. It’s getting them to see you. So, because they know they’re going to have to make changes, particularly, nutrition, but once they’re there, they’re compliant. Absolutely.

Andrew: Yeah. But do you encourage them to cook with things like turmeric so that you reference in stir-fries and things like that, where you just add more and more and more and more, like it soaks it up?

Vanessa: Yeah, it does. It’s also an oxalate, so we’ve gotta be careful. So, again, I’d look at, you know, what’s happening with that child and assess, you know, do I think it’s a bit of a oxalate overdrive of too much of what’s going in, you know. And a lot of kids, they’re all they’re eating. Well, the parents are thinking they’re doing the right thing, but they’re eating green smoothies for spinach, and, you know, all of these heavy oxalate foods, which are not organic. And so then that glyphosate pathway is blocked, you know, and I see it often, you know, kids have got the urgency, you know, we see it in adults, but it’s the same in kids. So, I will be careful with the amount of turmeric, if I’m a bit worried, but, yeah, they’re putting it in… And we put it in porridge, quinoa, oats, you know, all sorts of things. And the kids, we just call it yellow or gold porridge, you know, and they don’t know any different really, they’re taking it…

Andrew: Yeah, I was wondering if you might have any hints and tips about how to hide the taste? To me, it’s not horrible, but it’s different. So, it’s gonna be a different taste. And I guess with porridge, that should be fine. I also am wondering about…you mentioned the glyphosate pathway. So, we’re talking about, you know, a herbicide, and it’s not necessarily direct poisoning of it itself, which there is data on it. But my issue is, what does it do to the bacteria in your guts? With the…is it the shikimate pathway? So, what is…

Vanessa: Shikimate pathway

Andrew: …high glyphosate doing to the bacteria in your guts, which is robbing you of a normal bacterial milieu and possibly setting you up for, you know, these other pathological bacteria, the Klebsiella, the protease, things like that, or Citrobacter, I heard you mention, but certainly, robbing you of the breadth of bacteria in your gut?

Vanessa: Yeah. And it brings us back to…now may not pronounce this right, Andrew, the Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, did I say that right?

Andrew: Faecalibacterium prausnitzii.

Vanessa: I never knew becoming a nutritionist…

Andrew: I’m weird.

Vanessa: …I had to learn Latin. So, I’m just saying, like, I’m learning. But what we know with that bacteria…

Andrew: It’s German.

Vanessa: German, there you go, okay. I need to learn German now. Is in the research, they’re showing that a decreased level has a link with JIA. Now, what I’m seeing on the gut tests is kids have less than detectable limits of that bacteria, and what we know is that bacteria produces the shikimic. Did I say that right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Andrew: Shikimic.

Vanessa: Shikimic. This is a whole new world with all this language, to me. And it can protect against inflammation. So, I think what we see is these, you know, biochemicals complicated with all the pathways, it’s the same here with the bacteria. So, if these children don’t have this particular bacteria, I’m thinking that there’s issues down the line with oxalates as well. So, I haven’t looked into that research, but it’s just something that I’ve observed recently. So, I think it does come back to stopping and taking a step back and looking at that whole child and saying what’s going on with them.

Andrew: Right. I make the…that’s not correct to say that. Forgive me. I accept what you say. I don’t know how to say it. My mind has gone blank, about…I fully agree with what you say, how’s that? With regards to vitamin D and autoimmunity and how quickly it can act. And indeed, if you’re thinking about the research on vitamin D, the problem with getting orthodoxy across the line with vitamin D for anything other than bones is that you may have a deficiency, but if you engage treatment, does it change outcome, right? So, for instance, if you are giving vitamin D for heart disease, you are not going to see that outcome for years, possibly decades, but with autoimmune disease, it’s quick. You know, you correct a vitamin D deficiency and that autoimmune cascade, if you like, dampens. And I won’t say it finishes, but it certainly dampens. We know this from lupus. So, you know, I think it’s just a really salient point that you make about vitamin D and how important it is. Can I ask though, with regards to other supplements that you might think about, you mentioned sulphur, have you ever used things like methylsulfonylmethane? Have you ever used things like glutathione? What about collagen? There’s things whirling around in my head about possibilities, but I’m wondering when it might be the best time to instigate these treatments?

Vanessa: Glutathione, look, our body, as you know, makes it. So, we can help support the child. And it’s usually easy for them to take as a spray. So, yeah, depending, again, on what’s going on, glutathione can be an excellent one. You can also get patches for children, glutathione patches. So that can be also something that’s pretty pain-free for the kid.

Andrew: Oh, wow.

Vanessa: Yeah. And then collagen. So, look, my preference is with food. So, getting them to have bone broths, veggie broths, you know, in the first instance, to build that up, but you could most certainly bring in collagen. I suppose what I’m trying to do is work through in the first instance, where am I gonna get gains? And where…based on the family history and the chronological health history that I’ve taken, also learning about their stools, and their mood, and their sleep, their adrenal state, how they’re functioning at school, and their family, where do we need to go first?

So, yeah, collagen favours. And again, on their age, you know, if you got older kids, they’re gotta buy into it.

What I will just say on the vitamin D, so if you are listening and you do have a child who has JIA, I don’t want you rushing out and, you know, filling them up with vitamin D because vitamin D can antagonize other minerals. So, I had a client recently and they were having 5,000 international units. When we ran her hair test, her potassium’s through the floor, and she’s wondering why she’s so exhausted because it antagonizes. So, you know, first step was getting her to back off a bit and get into the sun. You know, if we get into the sun for 10 minutes before midday, it’s hard in winter, but easier as we warm up, that can really, you know, help the storage depending on where you live. If you’re higher up in Australia, you’ll be getting a better dose. So, yeah…

Andrew: Canberra in winter, just thinking.

Vanessa: …that’s kind where I start. Yeah. No way am I sitting out there with no shirt on, no jumper on.

Andrew: Let’s just wrap it up, but a couple of quick questions. And if I can be presumptuous, how’s your daughter doing? And can you take us through maybe a couple of just brief case histories, if you like, of how children have fared with treatment?

Vanessa: Yeah, for sure. So, she’s doing really well. So, she was very fortunate to be symptom-free quite quick. So, when I discovered this world of functional nutrition before I finished my uni studies or anything like that, I just started implementing. And so she became symptom-free pretty quick. Within six months, her swelling had gone down. She’s now almost 7, and she run, jumps, skips, hops, climbs, does everything, comes second in 400-meter running races, ice skates, rides a bike, is in great health. The one thing that I will say though is we took her off gluten, and we never tested…we tested the celiac gene, but we didn’t test the IgA. So, with these children, I want you to really stop and say, “Look, if I’m asking a child to stop having gluten, I need to say to the parents, get tested, get it all sorted because down the track it’ll be much harder.”

So, where we’re at the moment is gluten doesn’t work with her. She’s got the gene, I’ve got the gene. I don’t eat gluten. I haven’t for 25 years, but I’m not diagnosed celiac. So, you know, I’ve just gotta reconcile that. My husband and I have said, “Well, we don’t have the biopsy, but we’ll live with what we’ve got.” And a lot of children with JIA have celiac disease. So, I really want you to keep that in mind when people are coming to you. And, yeah, some of the kids that I’m working with, I suppose, you know, I’m taking a whole of family approach. So, usually, mum and dad have got some health things going on as well, and usually, brother and sister. And so what I’m finding is everyone in the family is getting well, which is good.

I had some kids the other day where they said, “You know, we want to see Vanessa.” And so we joined a Zoom, and we went through the deep breathing. So, I got them to breathe like a rainbow. And these two beautiful boys were like practising their deep breathing. And at the end of the session, one of them said, “You know what, the food’s not that bad. I thought because we were taking out this and that, and this and that, and eating all these veggies, I thought it was gonna be disgusting.” But he’s like, “We’re really enjoying it.” And I think, you know, in my program, I’ve created a hundred recipes, which are family-friendly because this is the way we lived and it was difficult. And what I’ve tried to do is create this program where people can, you know, not only do the beautiful restorative practices, which we know are very healing, but also nourish their bodies with beautiful food.

So, yeah, the kids quite interestingly are loving it. Some of them don’t like my muffins because they don’t have sugar in them. So, one of the mums, the other day messaged me saying, “I really need your help. We’re gotta come up with another option.” So then what I do is head into the kitchen, or I’ve got a chef who I work with and I just say, “Look, let’s come up with something.” So, often it’s cooking up apples, you know, reducing apples. And we know when we cook apples, we get pectin, which is beautiful for the gut, especially, if we cook it with a bit of black pepper and cinnamon. And so, we’re working on a recipe of muffins with apples in them. So, wish me luck, Andrew.

Andrew: I’ve got the perfect recipe for you. It’s by Mike Ash.

Vanessa: Right. Send it to me, please.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s a great gut rejuvenated recipe, and it’s like it’s not keto, it’s not FODMAP, not low FODMAP at all, and yet it rejuvenates the gut in IBS and other gut inflammatory conditions. But, Vanessa, you’ve spoken now. You’ve said you’ve a program, where do people get your program from? What’s your website? Where do they get it?

Vanessa: Yeah. Great. It’s thehealthygutnutritionist.com. And what I’d suggest is I offer a free discovery call. So, this is huge, what you’re going through. So, book a discovery call, you and I can have a conversation about what’s happening in your world and to work through if I’m a good fit to come into your…I call it your cheer squad, into your team to be a good support for you. And if it works, then, yeah, you’re more than welcome to join my program.

Andrew: I love it.

Vanessa: So, it’s, yeah, www.thehealthygutnutritionist.com.

Andrew: .com.

Vanessa: .com, yeah. Just to confuse you.

Andrew: I love your work. And, like, I get, I totally understand and acknowledge that it came from desperation about trying to help your daughter. I get that. But what you’ve done is just blossom this into not just helping yourself, but helping others. Wonderful. So impressed. Loved podcasting with it. It’s fantastic. And I’ve learned so much, by the way, about, forgive me, the vitamin D, antagonizing potassium. I never knew about that. Thank you so much. That’s awesome. Thank you so much for taking us through this on “Wellness by Designs” today. Vanessa, we’ll be definitely hearing much more from you in the future.

Vanessa: Oh, thank you, Andrew. It’s been wonderful connecting with you today. I’ve really honoured this space that you’ve created for these parents and the children who really need to hear this. So, thank you.

Andrew: And thank you, everyone, of course, for joining us today. This is such important information, and you can catch up on all the other podcasts and the show notes to this podcast on your favourite podcast app, and, of course, the Designs for Health website. I’m Andrew Whitfield-Cook. This is “Wellness by Designs.”