Our children and adolescents are facing an epidemic of chronic disease and mental health disorders like never before. It is imperative to understand the underlying root causes and opportunities for successful interventions that do not relegate children to a lifetime of polypharmacy and poor longterm health. And most importantly – opportunities to identify preventive measures at an individual and public health level that will truly allow children to thrive.

Leaky gut and gut dysbiosis have long been identified as an underlying factor in many chronic conditions, yet it is only in the last 2 years that metabolic endotoxemia and leaky brain have been elucidated as major contributors to several pediatric neuropsychiatric conditions – including post-COVID Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), PANS/PANDAS, ADHD, and OCD. Understanding the underlying pathophysiology for Leaky Gut and Leaky Brain in children provides us with new therapeutic possibilities and opportunities for healing using an integrative, functional medicine, whole child approach. In addition, understanding the most common roads that lead children to Leaky Gut and Gut Dysbiosis offer opportunities to create microbiome resilience to prevent these devastating outcomes in the first place.

During this lecture, participants will learn:

• The foundations of microbiome resilience in children
• Implications of gut microbiome disruption for the future of our children’s health
• The pathophysiology of intestinal permeability, gut dysbiosis, and metabolic endotoxemia underlying pediatric neuropsychiatric conditions
• The most common factors that disrupt children’s gut microbiomes
• How to use integrative and functional medicine tools to restore children’s gut microbiomes for lasting healing (hint: it’s not just about probiotics and glutamine)
• How to optimize Vagus Nerve function in children for microbiome resilience and restoration
• What we must do as a society to support a lifetime of microbiome resilience for our children

Practitioners will learn practical, actionable steps to bring home to their practices on Monday to help their pediatric patients and families to move forward to whole child wellness.

Learning Objectives:

1. Review the pathophysiology of leaky gut and endotoxemia, and implications for leaky brain and subsequent neuropsychiatric disorders in children.
2. Identify the major modern contributors to gut microbiome disruption in children.
3. Develop the understanding of how to optimize gut microbiome resilience in children.
4. Discuss an integrative, evidence-based approach to healing gut dysregulation, optimizing Vagus Nerve function, and restoring whole child wellness.