The Healthy Baby Gut Guide

With special guest:

• Dr Vincent Ho
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

This has been going on for a long time and until now people have been unsure as to what should be done. We are talking about allergic reactions which range from coughing and sneezing through to anaphylactic shock and even death.

In his new book The Healthy Baby Gut Guide, Dr Vincent Ho shows us a way to turn back the booming allergy outbreak. At the moment almost one in five Australian children have allergies which take the form of eczema, asthma, hay fever and severe responses to certain types of foods, think peanuts.

Dr Ho tells us his passion for doing something about allergies arose when his own daughter became a patient. A parent feels scared and powerless when a child has an allergic reaction. And there is no shortage of advice, sometimes dubious about what should be done. At last there is some clear and authoritative guidance allowing a confident decision to be made about the good health of our children.

In his book Dr Ho presents sensible advice, an update on scientific discoveries and an approved meal plan in his engaging style. Speaking with us today we learn why the first 1000 days of a child’s life are so important if we are going to get control over allergies in later life. In fact Dr Ho goes back to the pregnancy and what a prospective mother can do to help her child. Some of the advice given by Dr Ho which is based on his experience and research may even seem counter intuitive at first but the explanations are so clear they become easy to understand.

In the course of talking with Dr Ho we find out the number of human cells in an adult. Whoever said 40 trillion gets the prize. But did you know that there are also 40 trillion microbes in a typical adult gut? And is it good for children to be exposed to some dirt? The answer to that question comes from Dr Ho.

This book can change people’s lives and we have a fascinating discussion around the topic of allergies in our life that will engage everyone even if you are not preparing school sandwiches as this program goes to air.

Dr Vincent Ho

Dr Vincent Ho is a clinical academic gastroenterologist and Senior Lecturer at the School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney. He is also a practising gastroenterologist. He has appeared on Michael Mosley’s Better Guts SBS program and is a frequent contributor to The Conversation, where his articles have been viewed over 5 million times.

Song selection by our guest: Happy by Pharrell Williams

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