You Have To Eat A Peck Of Dirt Before You Die

Allergy Development, NCLEX Review, and My “Diet”

A couple of months ago, my good friend told me about how her mother would suck the mucous out of her nose with her mouth.  At first, I was grossed out, but then I realized that it was just another example of motherly love.  Her mom was dedicated to keeping her healthy and happy.  On May 6th, The New York Times, published an article discussing the possible benefits of sucking on your baby’s pacifier and it reminded me of this story (1).  Babies or parents drop pacifiers all the time.  In the hospital setting, we advise our clients to rinse the pacifier under warm water or boil them.  However, this article references a publication in the journal, Pediatrics, that suggests that infants whose parents sucked on their pacifiers were less likely to develop allergies, eczema, and asthma.  The study was unable to determine if the parent’s saliva or behaviors towards germs were the cause of these effects.  This adds to the increasing evidence that some exposure to germs at an early age can benefit children in the long run and that being too sanitized can prevent the immune system from developing necessary tolerances.  There are many studies that show that the environment in which a child is raised affects their allergy development.  An example of such an article was also discussed in The New York Times (NYT) on May 2nd (2).  This article discusses a publication in JAMA Pediatrics that studied about 80,000 children and suggests that American-born children are at a higher risk for allergies (3). The NYT mentions that children who have two foreign-born parents have a lower risk of developing allergic disease.  I am an example of this phenomenon.  Although just living in the United States seemed to increase the risk, the exact reasons why are yet to be discovered.  I am excited to follow the development of this case.

Besides reading articles to help babies and their families, I spent yesterday preparing a study plan for the NCLEX.  There are sixteen steps to my plan that is based on the Kaplan Review Guide.  Taking into account the papers I have due for school and clinical rotations, this will probably take me a month to accomplish.  But I took the first step!  I watched Kaplan’s strategy videos yesterday and I was really impressed with how much easier it was to answer questions using their decision tree tool.

In the days to come, you will probably see me mention my “paleo” diet here and there.  If you are unfamiliar with the Paleo Diet, it is basically a diet in which you eat natural foods (i.e. grass-fed meats, fruits, and vegetables) and omit legumes, dairy, refined sugar, potatoes, processed foods, salt, and refined vegetable oils (4).  As you can see, Paleo can change your lifestyle.  As an Indian-American, a foodie, and a poor college student, I was not prepared to do this.  I started switching over to Paleo foods on April 1st mostly because I heard it was a great way to lose weight and because I read that it could help with my stress-induced reflux (the gifts of nursing school).  I also began taking a lot of group exercise classes and occasionally doing weight training with my boyfriend.  Since I have begun, I have incorporated many cheats: yummy free food, my parents’ home-cooked meals, when I am a guest for a meal, and if it is the first time I will try something.  Despite these cheats, my symptoms of reflux have disappeared (yay, no more vomiting in the middle of the night!) and I have lost eight pounds.  I feel a lot more energetic and am happy to be eating healthier foods and I plan to keep it up.  So far this week, I got my cooking fix by making 100% cacao cookies and stuffed bell peppers (5, 6).

Related Links:

1. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/why-dirty-pacifiers-may-be-your-childs-friend/
2. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/american-born-children-are-at-higher-risk-of-allergies/
3. http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1681064
4. http://thepaleodiet.com/
5. http://www.thepaleomom.com/2012/02/recipe-chocolate-cut-out-cookies.html (I modified by using 100% cacao.  I had purchased the cacao thinking it was the healthiest chocolate option, but there is no way to happily eat it by itself.)
6. http://paleopot.com/2012/10/paleo-sausage-stuffed-peppers/ (I modified by baking the stuffed peppers because I was too lazy to get the crock pot out.)