INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE

BY VICTOR S. SIERPINA, MD, ABFP, ABIHM, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Family and Integrative Medicine, UTMB Health

If you as a health professional are concerned about increasing rates of infertility, premature birth, children with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum and attention deficient disorders, obesity, and diabetes, you are not alone. Many scientists have determined these problems have been increasing rapidly over the last decade and longer.

No single causative agent has been found. However, factors such as brain injury, genetics, behavioral, environmental, and social problems all play a likely role.

A root to some these problems is likely to be traced to pregnancy, when our next generation is most vulnerable. For example, insecticides are essentially neurotoxins. Once they enter the food supply, and their

mother’ s bodies, it seems likely that their neurotoxicity may be a risk to a developing human nervous system, so much more complex than that of an arthropod. Studies of cord blood in newborns have shown over 200 xenobiotics and chemicals, and new to nature molecules that bathe the emerging infant. Do we really understand the impact of these on growth, development, and fertility?

Helping us to sort this out and promote healthier babies is a new book by the bestselling author of SuperFoods Rx, Dr. Steven Pratt. An ophthalmologist by training and current practice, Dr. Pratt has made an intense study of the benefits of lifestyle and healthy eating published in several popular books.

His latest work, SuperFoods Rx for Pregnancy: The Right Choices for a Healthy, Smart, Super Baby may seem a long stretch for an eye specialist but it is filled with practical and well-researched suggestions. Among these are the not so radical ideas that problems in the ability to conceive, to have a healthy pregnancy, and a healthy baby are primarily linked by several common causes: nutrition, lifestyle, and environment.

To put it elementally, we are living very different lives than our ancestors whose diet was mainly whole, home-cooked foods,

without the chemicals that are part of our contemporary environment. Meat and fish was farmed locally or hunted from the wild. Vegetables were gathered or raised in a less chemicalized setting. In the past, babies were all breast-fed and obesity in adults or children was rare. Parents and children were more physically active. Daily stress levels were very different.

Our environment has changed radically. Foods are now highly processed, pesticides and insecticides in them are common, chemicals from plastics disrupt vital hormonal pathways, and nutrient deficiencies alter expression of genes and increase birth defects.

Commonly used chemicals to manufacture omnipresent plastic products include BPA, PCB, and phthalates interrupt hormonal signals, essential to fertility and healthy babies. Some of these chemicals banned for decades, like PCB and insecticides like DDT, or heavy metal like lead remain in our environment as potent neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors.

So let me walk you through this book so you get a sense of the topics. Part 1, Before You Get Pregnant, has four chapters dedicated to help improving fertility, improving the newborn’ s environment even before conceiving, preparing your body for baby and a robust, pre-pregnancy

nutrition program. These chapters are heavy on lifestyle, healthy superfoods, and detoxifying the environment, including the uterine environment.

Part 2, While Baby Is in Your Belly further explores proper diet and lifestyle choices while pregnant and eating for two. This section has in depth nutritional advice including nutrient content of common foods, specific brand names for healthier and organic food choices, and excellent detail on environmental toxins, drugs, prescriptions medications, alcohol and their impact on the fetal environment.

Part 3 is cleverly called the The Fourth Trimester and supports the well-known benefits of breast feeding for both baby and mom. Sleep, post-partum depression, stress, and physical activity are all covered in a welcome and refreshing fashion.

As in the preceding sections, excellent coverage is given to physiology and scientific research while keeping it accessible to the lay audience. Still, it is great refresher for physicians, nurses, midwives, and others that work with pregnancy and offers the kind of language and specific suggestions that anyone interested in conceiving and raising a healthy child will appreciate.

Please see INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE page 14