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Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #119: Judy Van de Water, PhD –Maternal Autoantibodies and Autism

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Welcome to Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast, where we explore the science, stories, and ideas that are changing how we understand the health of women and children—with a particular focus on how the earliest environments of life can shape health for decades to come.

Today we are going deep into one of those earliest environments: the immune conversation between a mother and her developing baby.

My guest is Dr. Judy Van de Water, an internationally recognized immunologist whose work has helped reshape our understanding of the relationship between maternal immune function, pregnancy, and neurodevelopment.

Dr. Van de Water received her Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Davis, in 1978, followed by her PhD in Immunology from UC Davis in 1988. She went on to build her career in clinical immunology and immunopathology and joined the UC Davis Department of Internal Medicine faculty in 1999. She subsequently became part of the newly established UC Davis MIND Institute, where her research increasingly focused on the immunobiology of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Her laboratory has spent decades investigating a fascinating question:

What happens when the maternal immune system interacts differently with the developing fetal brain?

That work has included the study of maternal cytokines and chemokines, immune dysregulation during pregnancy, environmental influences on immune function, and—perhaps most notably—the discovery and characterization of specific maternal autoantibodies that recognize proteins important to fetal brain development.

This research ultimately helped define what is now known as Maternal Autoantibody-Related Autism, or MAR autism—a biologically defined subtype of autism associated with specific patterns of maternal autoantibodies.

And I think her work raises a much larger question.

What if autism is not one biological condition at all?

What if the behavioral diagnosis we call autism represents a final common pathway reached through multiple biological routes—genetic, metabolic, environmental, inflammatory, immunologic, or some combination of them?

If that is true, identifying those biological subtypes becomes incredibly important.

Because once we understand mechanism, we can begin asking better questions about risk, prediction, prevention, and ultimately more precise care.

Today we’ll talk about how these maternal autoantibodies were discovered, why they develop in some women, what the animal and human studies tell us about causality, the science behind MAR autism and MARAbio, and perhaps the biggest question of all:

If we can identify a biological risk pathway before a child is born, what do we do with that information?

Enjoy,

Dr. M

 

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #54 Repost – Doug Thompson, DDS – Teeth and Systemic Health

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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

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #118: Nicholas Kelly, RD – Hope, CF and an RD

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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

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #117: Kari Stubbs, PhD – Technology and Children

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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

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #19 Repost – Dr. Alessio Fasano – Intestinal Permeability, Microbiome and MIS

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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

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #116: Russell Greenfield, MD – The Art of Listening

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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

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #115: Michelle Chalfant – The Adult Chair


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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

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