Does Vitamin C really prevent colds?
Is it true that a teaspoon of honey can control a cough as well as cough medicine?
Is breathing in steam just as effective as taking decongestants?
As cold and flu season approaches, it’s important to know if there are alternatives to traditional remedies, and which ones work.
Alternative approaches to prevention of illness and health can be as simple as improving your diet, getting fresh air, exercise and making sure you get enough sleep at night.
To learn more about alternative and holistic ways to get and stay healthy, tune into SMG Radio and get health tips from Dr. Michelle Bender.
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Alternative Approaches for Prevention and Health
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Learn more about Michelle Bender, MD
Michelle Bender, MD
Michelle Bender, MD, FAAP, joined Summit Medical Group in 1996. Dr. Bender is Former Chair of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the Group. Dr. Bender is a board member for Intensive Therapeutics, a nonprofit, charitable organization that provides group and individual occupational therapy for children with special needs. She has been featured in New Jersey Family "New Jersey's Favorite Kids' Docs" listings and Millburn-Short Hills "Super Docs" listings.Learn more about Michelle Bender, MD
Transcription:
Alternative Approaches for Prevention and Health
Melanie Cole (Host): When you think of prevention and health and you wonder if so many of the products and advertisements that you see really work for some of these things; well, the answer is here today with my guest, Dr. Michelle Bender. She’s a pediatrician with Summit Medical Group. Welcome to the show, Dr. Bender. So, let’s start with colds and flu. Vitamin C, vitamin d, Airborne, zinc, Echinacea – there are so many products that they claim help the sore throat and help to ward off a cold at the first sign of a cold. Do any of these products work?
Dr. Michele Bender (Guest): That’s a great question. There are studies that show actually that Vitamin C in high doses, in the very beginning—the first day of a cold--can shorten the length of a cold. There are also studies that show that zinc, given in the first day of a cold, can help treat a cold. Those two things, when you feel a cold coming on – do drink your orange juice and you can take your zinc in any form that you want to take it. I think it even comes in some type of lozenge or some type of sucking candies or those kinds of things. As far as Echinacea, the interesting about Echinacea is, we used to really think that was also good to give in the beginning of a cold to ward it off, but studies, unfortunately, did not really bear that out. What it is helpful for, though, for some people seems to be in prevention. So, there are studies that showed that younger kids that are in daycare, if there are given a daily dose of Echinacea, seem to have less colds and less severe complications such as ear infections. If your young child is in daycare, you may want to consider a daily supplement with Echinacea as a preventive measure.
Melanie: How interesting. That’s great to know. What about if they get a cold? So, as prevention we talk about washing hands and Vitamin C and Echinacea and liquids, so now what if they get one? Are there some things that we can do to help their congested chest or if they’ve got a really stuffy nose or anything like that?
Dr. Bender: First of all, for the stuffy nose and the mucus, I think the most important thing is clearing with saline. You can use some suction with that. There are plenty of brands that you can buy like Little Noses. Some of them are drops. Some of them are sprays. Any of those types of things can be helpful. I like to also use, if you have a humidifier or a mister, you can put a few drops of eucalyptus or peppermint essential oil into your mister. I always recommend an essential oil and not one of the Glade plug-ins or anything that is really a chemical scent because those are not the same things. They do not come from the plants. They are manufactured in a factory by a chemist and they may actually be irritating. If you’re going to use something like that, I would recommend that you would go ahead and get the essential oil. There are also some preparations with elderberry, which is a plant which is known to boost the immune system. That can also help with the cough. The brand name is Sambucol. You can find that in the health food stores. That can also be helpful.
Melanie: So, now on to some other things. Even children experience reflux occasionally and they get a little bit of GERD or the food comes back up on them. Give us some really all-natural things that we can do to help stop some of that whether it’s sitting up, not eating late or even apple cider vinegar.
Dr. Bender: A lot of GERD in older kids probably does have to do with lifestyle and maybe diet related. We definitely want to avoid caffeine. We want to avoid soda and definitely, if your kid tends to be a gagger or a choker or have night cough or a refluxer you do not want to be drinking a whole lot of milk right before bed. Try to have your last meal a couple of hours before bed so you can be upright for a while and digesting before you lay down. For babies with colic and reflux, preparations with fennel can be helpful. So, that’s like Gripe Water. That can be helpful. You want to be a little careful because some Gripe Waters do have other ingredients. You just want to read your ingredients pretty carefully. You want to make sure there’s no honey as an ingredient for a child that’s less than age one.
Melanie: What about some behavioral disturbances? You mentioned sleep also as so important. Speak about the importance of sleep for our mental health for both adults, teenagers and kids.
Dr. Bender: I think that a lot of chronic issues in kids can be tied back into poor sleep or going to bed too late and not getting enough sleep. Kids that tend to have some behavior issues during the day, either daytime sleepiness or even hyper behavior can be related to staying up too late or not having good sleep. I think all the screens that we use now, not just television anymore, our phones, our iPads tend to actually wake the brain up and a lot of kids, even though they are getting in bed at a reasonable time are using their electronics late into the night and their parents might not even know about it. That, I think, is really affecting our daytime behaviors and leading to increase in our incidence of attention deficit disorder and just sort of school issues. I think that one of the most important things that people kind of don’t realize is routine. Routine is super important for sleep. We don’t want to use any electronics in our bed, don’t want to watch TV in your bed. In fact, you should not have a TV in your child’s room. I really believe that that is way too tempting and they have plenty of time outside their beds to use electronics. If we can get the electronics outside of the bed and really stick to a restful routing for the hour before going to bed, most kids will be able to fall asleep more easily. If they are having trouble falling asleep, there’s a few natural things you can do. Lavender scent is very good to help relax the body. You can use it in a bath. You can use it in an essential oil on the body, on the feet or even a drop on your pillow is good. If they are really having difficulty, another natural product they can use is melatonin. This is a hormone that’s made by the brain and it helps with Circadian rhythm and you can speak with your doctor about dosing but generally low dosing can help restart and help get a child back on track with sleep.
Melanie: It’s such great advice, Dr. Bender. So, in just the last few minutes give us your best advice for alternative approaches for prevention and health. Just when you’re speaking with patients, your best advice and what you tell them about achieving optimal health for themselves and for their children and why they should come to Summit Medical Group for their care.
Dr. Bender: I try to really talk a lot about also food as medicine. I think we’ve really gotten away from realizing how important what we eat is. I remind people that you don’t put leaded gas in your car you would not want to put that in your body either. You really want to limit your exposures to as many toxins as possible. That includes toxins in our foods. I do remind people if they want to check on how to get the best bang for their buck as far as buying organic, you can look on the Environmental Working Group’s website. They have a great website. They also have lists of foods that generally have a greater number of toxins versus less toxins. If you want to save some money by buying a non-organic banana because of the thick rind, that’s less likely to be toxic than the strawberry just as an example. It can also tell you about cosmetics and detergents and other kinds of products that you might be using that could be toxic in your environment. So, Environmental Working Group is great. At Summit Medical Group, I think that we’re working on getting more resources to be available for our patients to avoid using medications. We do have chiropractic and acupuncture and massage and other types of other alternative treatments. We have a behavioral health center where they do cognitive behavioral therapy as well to, hopefully, avoid using medications when other approaches are available. We try to give as much resources as we can here at Summit Medical Group.
Melanie: It’s great information. Thank you so much, Dr. Bender, for being with us today. You’re listening to SMG Radio. For more information, you can go to SummitMedicalGroup.com. That’s SummitMedicalGroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Alternative Approaches for Prevention and Health
Melanie Cole (Host): When you think of prevention and health and you wonder if so many of the products and advertisements that you see really work for some of these things; well, the answer is here today with my guest, Dr. Michelle Bender. She’s a pediatrician with Summit Medical Group. Welcome to the show, Dr. Bender. So, let’s start with colds and flu. Vitamin C, vitamin d, Airborne, zinc, Echinacea – there are so many products that they claim help the sore throat and help to ward off a cold at the first sign of a cold. Do any of these products work?
Dr. Michele Bender (Guest): That’s a great question. There are studies that show actually that Vitamin C in high doses, in the very beginning—the first day of a cold--can shorten the length of a cold. There are also studies that show that zinc, given in the first day of a cold, can help treat a cold. Those two things, when you feel a cold coming on – do drink your orange juice and you can take your zinc in any form that you want to take it. I think it even comes in some type of lozenge or some type of sucking candies or those kinds of things. As far as Echinacea, the interesting about Echinacea is, we used to really think that was also good to give in the beginning of a cold to ward it off, but studies, unfortunately, did not really bear that out. What it is helpful for, though, for some people seems to be in prevention. So, there are studies that showed that younger kids that are in daycare, if there are given a daily dose of Echinacea, seem to have less colds and less severe complications such as ear infections. If your young child is in daycare, you may want to consider a daily supplement with Echinacea as a preventive measure.
Melanie: How interesting. That’s great to know. What about if they get a cold? So, as prevention we talk about washing hands and Vitamin C and Echinacea and liquids, so now what if they get one? Are there some things that we can do to help their congested chest or if they’ve got a really stuffy nose or anything like that?
Dr. Bender: First of all, for the stuffy nose and the mucus, I think the most important thing is clearing with saline. You can use some suction with that. There are plenty of brands that you can buy like Little Noses. Some of them are drops. Some of them are sprays. Any of those types of things can be helpful. I like to also use, if you have a humidifier or a mister, you can put a few drops of eucalyptus or peppermint essential oil into your mister. I always recommend an essential oil and not one of the Glade plug-ins or anything that is really a chemical scent because those are not the same things. They do not come from the plants. They are manufactured in a factory by a chemist and they may actually be irritating. If you’re going to use something like that, I would recommend that you would go ahead and get the essential oil. There are also some preparations with elderberry, which is a plant which is known to boost the immune system. That can also help with the cough. The brand name is Sambucol. You can find that in the health food stores. That can also be helpful.
Melanie: So, now on to some other things. Even children experience reflux occasionally and they get a little bit of GERD or the food comes back up on them. Give us some really all-natural things that we can do to help stop some of that whether it’s sitting up, not eating late or even apple cider vinegar.
Dr. Bender: A lot of GERD in older kids probably does have to do with lifestyle and maybe diet related. We definitely want to avoid caffeine. We want to avoid soda and definitely, if your kid tends to be a gagger or a choker or have night cough or a refluxer you do not want to be drinking a whole lot of milk right before bed. Try to have your last meal a couple of hours before bed so you can be upright for a while and digesting before you lay down. For babies with colic and reflux, preparations with fennel can be helpful. So, that’s like Gripe Water. That can be helpful. You want to be a little careful because some Gripe Waters do have other ingredients. You just want to read your ingredients pretty carefully. You want to make sure there’s no honey as an ingredient for a child that’s less than age one.
Melanie: What about some behavioral disturbances? You mentioned sleep also as so important. Speak about the importance of sleep for our mental health for both adults, teenagers and kids.
Dr. Bender: I think that a lot of chronic issues in kids can be tied back into poor sleep or going to bed too late and not getting enough sleep. Kids that tend to have some behavior issues during the day, either daytime sleepiness or even hyper behavior can be related to staying up too late or not having good sleep. I think all the screens that we use now, not just television anymore, our phones, our iPads tend to actually wake the brain up and a lot of kids, even though they are getting in bed at a reasonable time are using their electronics late into the night and their parents might not even know about it. That, I think, is really affecting our daytime behaviors and leading to increase in our incidence of attention deficit disorder and just sort of school issues. I think that one of the most important things that people kind of don’t realize is routine. Routine is super important for sleep. We don’t want to use any electronics in our bed, don’t want to watch TV in your bed. In fact, you should not have a TV in your child’s room. I really believe that that is way too tempting and they have plenty of time outside their beds to use electronics. If we can get the electronics outside of the bed and really stick to a restful routing for the hour before going to bed, most kids will be able to fall asleep more easily. If they are having trouble falling asleep, there’s a few natural things you can do. Lavender scent is very good to help relax the body. You can use it in a bath. You can use it in an essential oil on the body, on the feet or even a drop on your pillow is good. If they are really having difficulty, another natural product they can use is melatonin. This is a hormone that’s made by the brain and it helps with Circadian rhythm and you can speak with your doctor about dosing but generally low dosing can help restart and help get a child back on track with sleep.
Melanie: It’s such great advice, Dr. Bender. So, in just the last few minutes give us your best advice for alternative approaches for prevention and health. Just when you’re speaking with patients, your best advice and what you tell them about achieving optimal health for themselves and for their children and why they should come to Summit Medical Group for their care.
Dr. Bender: I try to really talk a lot about also food as medicine. I think we’ve really gotten away from realizing how important what we eat is. I remind people that you don’t put leaded gas in your car you would not want to put that in your body either. You really want to limit your exposures to as many toxins as possible. That includes toxins in our foods. I do remind people if they want to check on how to get the best bang for their buck as far as buying organic, you can look on the Environmental Working Group’s website. They have a great website. They also have lists of foods that generally have a greater number of toxins versus less toxins. If you want to save some money by buying a non-organic banana because of the thick rind, that’s less likely to be toxic than the strawberry just as an example. It can also tell you about cosmetics and detergents and other kinds of products that you might be using that could be toxic in your environment. So, Environmental Working Group is great. At Summit Medical Group, I think that we’re working on getting more resources to be available for our patients to avoid using medications. We do have chiropractic and acupuncture and massage and other types of other alternative treatments. We have a behavioral health center where they do cognitive behavioral therapy as well to, hopefully, avoid using medications when other approaches are available. We try to give as much resources as we can here at Summit Medical Group.
Melanie: It’s great information. Thank you so much, Dr. Bender, for being with us today. You’re listening to SMG Radio. For more information, you can go to SummitMedicalGroup.com. That’s SummitMedicalGroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.