[00:00:00] Carl Lanore: [00:00:00] welcome back. No video to confuse me today. They're doing the old fashioned podcasts that made us famous for over 14 years now, or close to 14 years. Welcome back to superhuman radio. Today is, uh, October 30th, 2019. For those of you listening to this show a hundred years from now and going, wow, they really knew what they were talking about.

[00:00:20] That data's for you. I'm still trying to get over my upper respiratory virus that I caught on the queen Mary too. Um, those of you who want to go on a cruise and you want to enjoy the memories of a cruise, I can save you thousands of dollars. Just go to your local hospital and lick the floor and then go home and be sick for two weeks.

[00:00:39] And that is your memory of the cruise. Anyway. important topic today. For those of you who've been listening to the show for any length of time, know about my fascination with a human breast milk. Because from an evolutionary perspective, human breast milk holds a lot of information for us. It's the only thing.

[00:00:58] In nature [00:01:00] actually created, designed and produced to be food for humans. Everything else. We've adapted. Certain plants killed us. We didn't eat those. Oh, grog fell over. Don't eat that. I ate this. It was okay. And so we adapted everything else to be food for us in our journey. But the only thing that was actually made to be food was breast milk.

[00:01:24] And so as a result, it's, it's both, uh, a remnant of selection pressure. Um, it is a, uh, driver, uh, of health and in babies. And my next guest probably knows more about this subject, uh, than anyone else. And I'm so excited to have dr Jackie Wolf on the show. How are you doing, Dr. Wolf?

[00:01:51] Yes, this is a real, you know, this is a topic that I don't understand why it doesn't get more attention. And I think part of the reason is that somewhere along the line we [00:02:00] made light of the idea that humans make food for other humans and thought that we were smarter than nature. And am I right about that?

[00:02:08] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:02:08] Oh yes, they're there. There's absolutely a history here. And it really, um, th the former companies for a long time really of not only mothers and consumers in general, they fooled physicians. Um, part of my research, I talked to a lot of physicians who were trained and practiced in the 1930s, the 1940s and the 1950s.

[00:02:31] And they tell stories about how just like. Drug reps knock on their doors today. The pedal pharmaceutical products formula reps used to knock on their doors and say, our product has iron added. It has vitamin D added. It's far better than breast milk. You should tell mothers to use our product.

[00:02:50] And not only that, but these doctors also talk about how this is all legal now, but formula companies use to sponsor fabulous trips for obstetricians and pediatricians. [00:03:00] Their wives could go, they would go. To go on cruises. You just mentioned to cruise. Um, and the only requirement of these fabulous vacations was that they had to spend 30 minutes watching a video about the formula company's product.

[00:03:14] So a lot of doctors for, for many decades, um, right before world war two, and right through the early 1970s really bought into the formula company's story about how. Scientific formulas as they put them, were much better than human milk.

[00:03:31] Carl Lanore: [00:03:31] Oh, you know, I listened to it. Part of me goes, Oh, so what else is new?

[00:03:36] A part of me is angry because of the trajectory of lives that would change. You know, I really believe that my generation, I'm a baby boomer. I'm 61 years old. We are plagued with autoimmunity because I believe that things in our early lives. Set up the trajectory of our immune system. And that could be a variety of things, including the fact that I was given formula.

[00:03:59] I wasn't [00:04:00] given breast milk. I was as a Syrian, uh, delivery, which I know you know about. We're going to have you back on the show just for that. But I, I mean, I, I, they, they dealt me the, uh, immune system balm hand at birth. No,

[00:04:15] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:04:15] you're, you're F you are absolutely right. We know so much now about the longterm effects of how we're fed as children.

[00:04:23] We used to think, I mean, doctors would even admit, even in the era that I'm talking about, Oh, yeah, yeah. Less snow can ward off a few respiratory infections while the baby is, is, uh, breastfeeding, um, less gastrointestinal upset. But other than that, it really doesn't matter. Well, that's not true.

[00:04:40] We know now that when babies are breast fed, it's not only their, their short term health, but well into adulthood. Just as you described, babies who are formula fed suffer in much greater numbers from obesity, higher cancer rates have more allergies, asthma. Um. Heart, [00:05:00] heart problems, cardiovascular problems.

[00:05:02] Um, and we know some of the reasons now too. We're beginning to slowly understand how human milk strengthens the immune system. Um, how your intelligence rates. Babies who were, who were fully breastfed, have much higher IQ at the age of seven and babies who were formula fed. I realize that's a controversial claim, but we are able to measure that now with MRIs that, that children who were breastfed have more white matter growth in their brains than babies who were formula fed.

[00:05:35] Um, so we're, we're beginning towards knowledge now, how essential it is for all mammals. You

[00:05:43] Carl Lanore: [00:05:43] know, as a critical thinker, this doesn't surprise me at all. It just goes to show that the majority of people will follow. You know, not their own thinking, but the thinking of others who present themselves as as being authority.

[00:05:56] So let's talk about, let's talk about the fact that this even [00:06:00] happened. When did

[00:06:01] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:06:01] I mean

[00:06:02] Carl Lanore: [00:06:02] surely as Hunter gatherers, women breastfed, they even carried a child on their hip while they were gathering. We know this, we know this because there was no alternatives and some animal husbandry came into the picture around 40,000 years ago.

[00:06:17] And maybe we were milking at that point in time. Could be maybe someone said, Hey, let's try giving it to the baby because maybe a woman wasn't lactating. They found out the baby didn't die. They were like, Oh, we could start using animal milk too. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry.

[00:06:34] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:06:34] Well, let me just point out here.

[00:06:36] There were, there were huge populations of humans who never domesticated animals at all. Um, native Americans. When Europeans invaded North and South America, native Americans had never domesticated animals. That's one of the reasons why they succumb to so many terrible illnesses that Europeans had already been exposed to.

[00:06:55] It had jumped the species barrier. Smallpox came from cows. [00:07:00] And to fulfill those. This came from cows and influence. It came from pigs and chickens. And that's why native Americans were so incredibly healthy and had no immunological experience with these illnesses. So, so really when you said 40,000 years ago, your telling your time is really way off.

[00:07:15] Domestication of animals is far more recent than we would think, and only a few human groups did it. Um, and let me, let me point out. That one of the reasons humans are able to so successfully populate the entire planet we live on is because we were able, as we migrated around, the, all of us originated in Africa.

[00:07:38] We all have a common ancestors that originated in Africa. But as we branched out and began to people the entire planet, so we, we could do that in very inhospitable environments, no matter how cold it was. For example, we brought our baby's food with us, our bodies, Manhasset. Their babies food.

[00:07:56] That's why mammals have been in humans. Among them have been [00:08:00] so uniquely successful in populating the entire planet. No one effects your

[00:08:05] Carl Lanore: [00:08:05] that fact. Now I realize is left out of Dr. Daniel Lieberman's book, the story of the human body that the fact that we made our own baby food enabled us to be completely portable to the environment.

[00:08:18] That is an amazing, that's an amazing revelation. I mean, I literally like, I thought to myself, wow, that is amazing. Without that, we can't move around the globe like we did to

[00:08:29] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:08:29] me. Exactly right. We always knew that our babies would survive. We always knew that wasn't a worry that we had. Babies would always survive.

[00:08:38] Carl Lanore: [00:08:38] So let's go back to the, uh, the 1800 for a second. So obviously breast milk, breastfeeding in public already wasn't a very popular thing. Maybe it was in the shanty towns, you know, and the, and the, the, the drag your areas where my people came from, but obviously people who were considered civilized, they weren't breastfeeding in public right.

[00:08:57] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:08:57] Well, frankly, don't know that I'm a [00:09:00] historian. I'm a historian of medicine, and I specialize in the history of breastfeeding practice and the history of childbirth practices. And the way we could know that is if there is archival evidence that shows that women were breastfeeding in public. Now I couldn't.

[00:09:15] And believe me, I, this is, this is a huge area of my expertise. I have looked in archives everywhere. I've led women's diaries, I've read newspapers, magazines. Doctor's papers. Um, how you have never found any kind of either positive or negative reference to breastfeeding in public in the 19th century.

[00:09:34] Um, and my educated guess is that means women simply did this feed in public. Now again, I can't point to facts that say that, but the fact that it wasn't discussed, the fact that it wasn't a phrase the way it is now, breastfeeding in public leads me to believe I've studied this enough to think that it wasn't an issue.

[00:09:54] Yeah, and let me get, let me give you a contemporary example because even the phrase breastfeeding in [00:10:00] public, which everyone in the U S understands what that means, and it's very controversial. In other countries, they would not know what you were talking about because it would kind of be like saying walking

[00:10:10] Carl Lanore: [00:10:10] and in public.

[00:10:11] Oh, he was breathing in poker.

[00:10:14] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:10:14] Exactly. Exactly. And there are photographs, wonderful photographs of women in South America. I mean, women who, who do breastfeed in public here are, you are almost always very careful to wear baggy clothes or to throw a blanket over their

[00:10:29] Carl Lanore: [00:10:29] babies first. Did you see any flesh.

[00:10:32] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:10:32] Right. But in South America, there's so many photographs of women who basically are wearing dresses and take the dresses off so that they literally are naked from the waist up, and they're walking down the street with a baby at their breast, and none one is even glancing sideways. People are so accustomed to women doing that.

[00:10:52] Breast feeding in public is not a thing. It's just. I mean more than breathing in public or walking in public.

[00:10:57] Carl Lanore: [00:10:57] So when did it become a thing here in the United States? [00:11:00] When did it become a thing here in the USA.

[00:11:05] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:11:05] If you, if you read about it, part of our conversation, breastfeeding reached its lowest point in 1972 in the U S when, when barely 21%.

[00:11:20] Of mothers initiated breastfeeding in the hospital. Breastfeeding initiation simply means breastfeeding once before hospital discharge. It's a very, very, very low bar. So when we talk about breastfeeding in this year's in rates, which in the us today is 82% of women initiate breastfeeding, it doesn't mean much because it's a, it's a very weak definition.

[00:11:41] Um, so breastfeeding reached its lowest point in the very early 1970s, and it wasn't until it started to rise again. Along with the women's health reform movement, the women's movement in general, um, the Bruce reform movement, um, women began to, you know, clamor for say, so [00:12:00] in their own, in their own health care.

[00:12:02] Um. Yeah, that's breastfeeding rates began to rise. Then that's when we, breastfeeding in public started to be controversial. That's when we first at least see the conversations happening in newspapers, in magazines and women being criticized for doing it. Interesting.

[00:12:18] Carl Lanore: [00:12:18] Interesting. Um, what about the, uh, the use of cow's milk?

[00:12:22] Early on, I had doctor. Daniel was his Daniel Schmid. It was on in 2006 he wrote a book called the story, the untold story of milk, and uh, Ron Schmidt, that's who it was. And it's an interesting story about how the distilleries got into the dairy business and they created swill milk by feeding the cows mash.

[00:12:44] And. That have allowing the cows to eat corn, I'm sorry, grass. And as a result of that, they developed mastitis and some large number of babies died on the East coast around 1910 or something like that. You recall this information.

[00:12:58] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:12:58] Yes. Well, let me let you tell a much [00:13:00] bigger story than that. So let me, let me tell the entire story.

[00:13:03] It's called the knock Wars in that era, as a large city, as you're kind of describing, fought this battle of trying to get Palatable little milk to children and women. Look is only part of the story. So, so yes, I'm, I'm happy to talk about swell milk, but let me describe what was going on with cow's milk.

[00:13:23] Um, this was an era when there were no pure foods was, um, we didn't have our first federal. Sure food law till 1906 and part of it was that was, that was the scandal over milk and over real milk in particular. Um, what was going on was because we hadn't, no pure food laws, dairy farmers really had a terrible product.

[00:13:47] Um. How has milk was shipped in large eight gallon vats, not individual bottles, large eight gallon vats. And the thing was, don't cover the VAT really, because it was a little more expensive both [00:14:00] to bottle it and cover it, but no, but if people were telling me, Oh no, it's good to have the milk open to the air, it, it kind of refines it.

[00:14:07] It purifies it. So the fact that it was open to the air like that, you know, and it had to be stripped. It took three days to get from a rural dairy farmer church. To an urban consumer. Think about what it takes to get us there. There were times we're not refrigerated, right? Think of what that's like in the

[00:14:23] Carl Lanore: [00:14:23] mill and the milk is open to the elements.

[00:14:25] So think of what's falling in it.

[00:14:28] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:14:28] Exactly. So the numbers start to look gray. So what was happened along the way would throw. How did white chalk into the milk to make it look white again? So that was one way the milk was adulterated and also just the fact that it wasn't covered up. Yes. All kinds of dirt and dust and plus it would spoil.

[00:14:48] I mean, we're talking about three days of travel without refrigeration. So Nope was not homogenized. Now, how much, and that homogenization simply means that that the fat [00:15:00] molecules in the milk are broken up so that when you buy home milk as opposed to skim milk, the queen is mixed in, but that was homogenize.

[00:15:09] The cream would rise to the top. And people would skim the milk off. That's the skim the cream. That's where we get the name skim milk, skim the cream off, sell it for more money, but then to fool consumers into thinking the look was rich with cream. Again, not only the powdered white chalk would be added, but plaster would be added to the milk.

[00:15:30] Oh my God, I'll wait a minute

[00:15:32] Carl Lanore: [00:15:32] and all, but, but in all fairness wasn't plaster back then. Just rice, a starch or something like that.

[00:15:40] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:15:40] No, no, I mean, then we're still urbanizing then. Yeah. So plus two really was, you know, uh,

[00:15:48] Carl Lanore: [00:15:48] it was the same stuff here. Yeah. Gypson car. Yeah, exactly. It was still a stolen me.

[00:15:53] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:15:53] Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, the backdrop to your question about, [00:16:00] about, um. Cows, milk, milk. Um, and not only that, let me, before I get to the swill milk part, let me tell you, consumers were understandably wary about this product. So what happened was, by the time the, the eight gallons deck factor, the merchant, everyone was really suspicious in the milk.

[00:16:17] So the merchant that the small grocer would stick a ladle, a communal ladle into the VAT, and people would come by with their individual bottles. Taste the milk first from the communal dipper and in that way, think of the diseases that were

[00:16:33] Carl Lanore: [00:16:33] spoken funny. She just walk up and spit in the VAT first and then started and then take a ladle full of Syria,

[00:16:41] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:16:41] Scarlet fever, tuberculosis.

[00:16:44] All of it was spread through this communal dipper system. Now you're right. Little milk was part of this huge scandal. Um, what would happen is, as you described, um, cows normally should be fed either grass or some kind of [00:17:00] whole grain. That's what they eat. But in large cities where there were distilleries, you could buy the fermented grain that was left over after the beer was made after, after the liquor with me.

[00:17:12] Right? Yes. In

[00:17:17] Carl Lanore: [00:17:17] fact, to this day, to this day, I know businesses that pay farmers to cart that away. You know, we have distilleries here in Louisville, Kentucky. They, the distilleries pay this couple farmers that cart that stuff way they pay him to take it and then he uses it to feed his animals.

[00:17:34] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:17:34] Well in that year, the distillers could make a little more money that the, the farm, the dairy farmers would pay them a little bit, way less than whole grain, pure green. And, um, the, the distillery slops would be fed to the, the cattle now, just like humans to become alcoholics. The kettle who had first would refuse this, except when they were finally starving, they would eat, it became addicted to this alcoholic fare.

[00:18:00] [00:18:00] The kids exposed to this, their tails rotted off. They had opened running sores. Um, so you knew what school kettle looked like. Um, you could identify them. Their milk was terrible, and yet it was much less expensive than. Milk that wasn't swill milk. So some mothers who were impoverished bought it and everything then describing became a national scandal, and every municipality began to conduct what was called the mill cores, trying to pass legislation very slowly because think of what it took.

[00:18:35] It took not only getting rid of the vet system, it took one thing right. No could be sold and sealed individual bottles. It took, while I was saying we need to pasteurize milk. It took a lot of thing. When gnocchi shipped, it needs to be refrigerated. Um, so all of those laws took up to 40 years to pass them off.

[00:18:55] Another big thing was testing cows for both end tuberculosis because [00:19:00] tuberculosis. With not native to humans. It originates in cattle. And it wasn't until people domesticated cattle that that terrible disease jumped the species barrier. So how's the head to be blessed path saying if cows test positive for both brides per silicosis, they need to be destroyed.

[00:19:20] So it took up to 40 years. In most cities to pass every one of those laws. And it wasn't until they were all passed, you could even look at infant death rates and see with the passage of each law, um, the death rate, we could down a little bit, a little bit, a little bit until milk was pure. And then suddenly infant diarrhea ceased as to be an issue that killed babies.

[00:19:45] Carl Lanore: [00:19:45] So infant diarrhea is a big problem. Is it still a problem today?

[00:19:51] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:19:51] It's a problem in developing countries in the United States in 1900 for example, 13% of babies died before their [00:20:00] first birthday. Let me repeat that. 13% that's a huge infant mortality rate, and more than half the babies died from diarrhea.

[00:20:08] Because of the milk supply that I was just describing. Um, babies have very meager water reserves compared to adults, and they can dehydrate very quickly. So when they get diarrhea, it is deadly. And that was an era when there were no antibiotics, no way to have intravenous drip to rehydrate babies.

[00:20:26] So if a baby got diarrhea, the death rate was 100%. Now in the U S we can rescue. Babies and small children, some diarrhea, but in developing countries, it's still the number one killer of babies. That's

[00:20:40] Carl Lanore: [00:20:40] amazing. I mean, I mean, because I think of diarrhea, like, you know, Calpec Tate. Okay, I'm done.

[00:20:45] Now go to work. Uh, but some babies are still dying at the, at the highest rate from, from that.

[00:20:53] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:20:53] Exactly. The number one killer of babies worldwide is diarrhea. And even American mothers can tell you if they have a two [00:21:00] year old, say, who gets get some kind of stomach flu and starts vomiting.

[00:21:04] Mothers get really frightened again, because children can dehydrates so quickly. Um, and often even a two year old in the U S today with a case of a severe case of the stomach who needs to get some kind of rehydration therapy often intravenous in order not to dehydrate.

[00:21:22] Carl Lanore: [00:21:22] I want to take our first break and when we come back I want to pick up right where, where we're leaving off.

[00:21:26] And I want to talk more about what happens when you convince the the moms in these developing countries. Cause I got to believe the reason that these babies that haven't diarrhea is because they're getting powdered formula or something to feed their babies with. They're not, they're not breastfeeding, right?

[00:21:40] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:21:40] Yup.

[00:21:42] Carl Lanore: [00:21:42] Okay. Stay tuned. We'll be right back with more supervision. Welcome back to super human radio. We're talking today with the doctor and professor. Jackie Wolf, you're talking about breastfeeding. You know, it just baffles me. White, all women don't breastfeed. And I, [00:22:00] and I, I know, I mean, I, I, they're all someone that women that have a hard time lactating, and so there's those obstacles.

[00:22:07] But why don't even try, let

[00:22:10] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:22:10] me interrupt you on that one. Say that a lot of women might have trouble lactating to certain cultures. Um, we have what anthropologists would call in the U S often as you're right, perceived milk insufficiency, not looking sufficiency, but the perception that they're insufficient.

[00:22:31] Because the truth is, as we discussed it, you know, it's a period beginning of the podcast. If, if the human breast, human female breast. Yeah, no, you're right.

[00:22:44] Carl Lanore: [00:22:44] You're right. You're absolutely right. And so, and so what you're saying is that a woman will be more likely to give up or even be inclined to give up if she doesn't perceive she's making enough milk because the reality is that she doesn't want to have to go through this anyway.

[00:22:59] Am I, am [00:23:00] I right on that or am I being crude?

[00:23:02] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:23:02] Well, now let me, well, let me say something, especially in defense of American women here, because first of all, we are one of only three countries in the entire world, not one of three Ruthy countries, one of three countries in the entire world that doesn't have paid maternity leave.

[00:23:18] And the majority of mothers today who have young with newborn babies are back into the workforce very quickly. So even the mothers want the friendly breastfeed. That's really hard. Um, with all the societal change that has happened since the 1970s with, with women becoming so prominent in the workforce and in the public sphere.

[00:23:39] Um, we haven't, we haven't given, we haven't yet. Yeah. And I don't know, and

[00:23:44] Carl Lanore: [00:23:44] I don't understand why either, and I'll be honest with you. I mean, I consider myself fiscally conservative, but the reality is that the husband benefits from that too. It's not like as though all we have to do this for women because they haven't babies, well, usually they haven't babies with guys.

[00:23:57] Number one, and there's a family involved [00:24:00] and there's a guy in the family who's going to be disrupted if his wife has to take off and they feel the financial burden of that. I mean, we can get all into the whole discussion about how we've stacked ourselves in debt today, but that's an aside. I don't understand that either women should be able to take off to raise their children and they, and we should come up with a truly reasonable amount of time.

[00:24:21] Maybe it's a year and a half, maybe it's two years, you know? And and say, okay, we're going to do this, we're going to do this. We, we, we put our money behind all the other stupid ideas we come up with.

[00:24:33] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:24:33] And you know what? Every other country in the world except LaSalle STO and, and, and um, Oh I forgot the other tiny other country.

[00:24:42] Um, uh, I think it's Guinea-Bissau actually in the United States. Every other country agrees with you. They realize what the countries especially cause the kind of generous maternity leave that you've, that you talk about, cause they realize 10 mothers to stay home. Well, keeping [00:25:00] in mind and taking care of their babies

[00:25:03] Carl Lanore: [00:25:03] because that child goes on to become a contributor and not a burden on society when they develop diseases earlier in life.

[00:25:11] And it's so shortsighted. It's so, so shortsighted that it baffles me. Um, yeah. But anyway, we could, we could, you know, talk about that for hours. But getting back to the topic at hand with the developing countries that are suffering from 13. Percent infant death from diarrhea. I got to believe they're not breastfeeding right.

[00:25:30] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:25:30] Well wait, let me point out first. So that's 13% rate was the United States in 1900 but you're right, I mean, and, and we should get back to that. Why weren't women breastfeeding in the U S in 1900 you know, I talked about how the lowest breastfeeding point was in the 1970s. Just to turn to animal milk and away from human milk began in the 1870s.

[00:25:53] So we, we can, we can talk about that. Um, after we talked about, let's talk about today in developing countries, because you're [00:26:00] absolutely right. Every different developing country has a different, uh, infant death rate. They are high. They are comparable to the U S in the night, in the, in 1900.

[00:26:09] You're absolutely right. I don't know the exact numbers in, they're different in every country. Um, but one of the reasons why, um, so many babies, it really is essential in developing countries that. Babies be breastfed because a lot of countries don't have potable water, which was the problem in the U S until the 20th century as well.

[00:26:31] Um, people are very impoverished in formulas, incredibly expensive. So when mothers are due for whatever reason, used formula, they try to stretch it by adding more and more and more water to it, which is not potable. So, so babies can get sick just

[00:26:47] Carl Lanore: [00:26:47] from the dirty water to microbes and others.

[00:26:50] Pathogens at the same time, they're reducing their nutritional intake at the same time.

[00:26:55] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:26:55] Exactly right. And it is, um, it's devastating. It's [00:27:00] devastating to the health of children. Now, what reason started, see this entire story that we've been talking about, it's all interconnected. So I talked about how in the U S.

[00:27:10] Breastfeeding reached its lowest point in the early 1970s and then the rate began to rise. As, as women, uh, were interested in health reform, we're interested in having a voice in their own health care wanted both that childbirth that was less medically invasive. Um, so the breastfeeding rates started to go up.

[00:27:26] It was also the environmental movement. People were talking about poisons in the environment, so people began looking at, you know, what does nature mean? What do more natural things mean? The breastfeeding rates that's going up and formula companies responded by thinking that the executives thought to themselves, and all this has been documented, um, thought to themselves, we don't want to lose our market here.

[00:27:48] We don't want our profits going down. Where can we find a market for formula? And what they did was very deceptive advertising practices in developing countries. [00:28:00] What they did was they hired women. To wear white uniforms that looked like nurses outfit. They were really sales women, but they would wait and they would find mothers who had just given birth and they would give them free formula samples and mothers assumed that these were medical personnel.

[00:28:20] These were nurses giving them this formula.

[00:28:24] Carl Lanore: [00:28:24] Exactly.

[00:28:26] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:28:26] They used the samples and what happens is, I mean, yeah. When talking about the physiology of, of mammals, milk, manufacturing, um, the more any infant mammal flux on its mother, it's all about nipple stimulation. The more an infant mammal sucks on its mother, the more milk that mother's body is going produce, right?

[00:28:48] So when you start supplementing with just a bottle of formula here and there, that's one less feeding, which means less milk your body's going to produce. So these mothers who use this formula. [00:29:00] Nope. Supply

[00:29:00] Carl Lanore: [00:29:00] started to dry up. Yeah. So actually

[00:29:02] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:29:02] it

[00:29:03] Carl Lanore: [00:29:03] actually makes them, it makes them dependent now on the, it causes a scenario where dependency on the formula kicks in because you're not producing enough milk now.

[00:29:17] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:29:17] How Cintas,

[00:29:19] Carl Lanore: [00:29:19] how sinister that is, sinister. That is a sinister act to dress women up in white. So they would be confused with medical personnel and have them push these packets of hollow nutrients on mothers and convinced them to start using them, feeding their babies. That is just, there's no other word for it, but sinister.

[00:29:39] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:29:39] Do you know what's interesting there? There's a class a I teach at Ohio university, and there's a class that comes out of the classics and world religions department that's called what is evil. And they have guests, uh, professors come in, uh, who work, you know, all of us are colleagues come in and, uh, students are trying to grapple for the whole semester.

[00:29:57] Are there objective standards for what evil [00:30:00] is? So they asked me to come in this year and talk. If this history that I just gave you about formula companies pedaling their formula among very poor mothers in developing countries, and that was the one thing, it turned out that entire semester students could agree was truly evil, objectively evil.

[00:30:21] Carl Lanore: [00:30:21] Yeah, I agree. So when mothers do, let's talk about, let's, let's, let's bring this interview towards, uh, an up step here. So let's talk about all the benefits of, um. Of breastfeeding on the, on the child, on the mother. But I wanna I want to start off with this interesting, uh, uh, point that we are all woke about the microbiome today.

[00:30:44] Everybody knows about the microbiome. They have their microbiome tested, they eating foods that are prebiotic because they want to keep the probiotics and blah, blah, blah. It's just go. And the truth is, we still don't know much about the microbiome, but we act like we do. But with that being said.

[00:30:58] Ah, we know. [00:31:00] And the next interview I do with you will be about to Syrian section. This play gone on, on our country, and perhaps even larger than that, and it's implications on future health of the offspring. But one of the things that happens during vaginal birth is the mother, the child passes through the vaginal canal, is said to be introduced to microbes that start to seed the immune system.

[00:31:22] Uh, but that's just one flash. Uh, the rest of those microbes. Are contributed by the environment, which, which is heavily tilted towards the skin of the mother. The baby continues to get microbes from the Ariola, from suckling and from the mother's skin. And then you said, and that's why it was customary in some countries that kiss babies because you wanted to impart your immune system on them so they would be protected against the things you already suffered from.

[00:31:50] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:31:50] Yeah, I mean kissing, you know, mothers are all in their baby's faces, you know, cooing and kissing. And yes, that's a cultural act. It's also a biological act. So [00:32:00] yes, there's this exchange of microbes. That's why elect, you know, a woman who was lactating, uh, the least likely person to get sick in a household is a nursing baby because a mother, you know.

[00:32:10] Reacts immediately to the environment. Her mature immune system begins creating antibodies and within hours it's at scrutiny in the milk and the baby is fairing and adult immune. Wow. Well, let me talk about the human microbiome for a minute, cause you're absolutely right. This is become, people are becoming more familiar with it.

[00:32:29] Scientists now estimates that we, each of us, every human being hosts up to 100 trillion microbes in and on us. So absolutely. Oh, Lauren and how we'll set of infants. That's how our microbiomes starts to be built. So it's very critical, you know, evolution has perfected this over endless millennia.

[00:32:54] Um. I mean, that's really a pretty cocky of humans to think that they [00:33:00] could improve so many hundreds, thousands, and millions of years. I see. I see

[00:33:05] Carl Lanore: [00:33:05] people on Facebook saying, Oh, well, you've got an increased bifidobacteria. It's like, can be a break. Nobody really. First of all, I'm a strong believer.

[00:33:13] That the microbiome is a remnant of your diet and your environment. And we see that when people switch to the kettle diet that have autoimmunity, their autoimmunity goes away. And when you, when they do test their, their gut microbes, they see us. A shift between Firmicutes and bacteria, DDS, that is, that is seen in healthier, less, uh, immune responsive people.

[00:33:35] And so if the, if the diet changes the microbiome, then we're looking at the microbiome. Like it's the cause of things. It just may be a mirror of what's going on.

[00:33:45] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:33:45] Yeah. Um, and you know, what you said is absolutely the case is that, um, the way the baby's gut microbiome was first seated is that when babies go through the birth canal, they're exposed to their mother's vaginal flora.

[00:34:00] [00:34:00] And so that baby's gut microbiome who are born vaginally as opposed to born by the Sicilian section is very, very different. Um. It was in a baby born by cesarean section is breast fed. Their gut microbiome is different for up to six months because they weren't exposed to their mother's vaginal flora.

[00:34:18] So, and then that's why a researchers theorize that babies born both by Syrian section. And are are babies who are formula fed. Um, they have much higher rates of travertine, much higher rates of asthma. Um, and we're beginning to think that our other autoimmune epidemic also is somehow related to our high current ISIS Syrian rate, which I hope we do talk about on that.

[00:34:43] Carl Lanore: [00:34:43] Yeah. No, I'm going to, I'm going to have you back on that, cause that, because look, I was a C-section baby. I got formula. My mother smoked while she was pregnant. She took Librium while she was pregnant. So the fact that that I'm having a, the fact that I can have complete thoughts to me is already I've already won.

[00:35:00] [00:35:00] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:35:00] I also am a baby boomer, and you're absolutely right. It is amazing that any of us survived the baby boom, because you know, you look at, one part of my research of course, was looking at at old medical journals that obstetricians read and some of the most prominent. Yeah. It's in obstetrics journals.

[00:35:18] Well, for cigarettes, the tobacco companies would advertise in obstetric journals and, and literally say, um, for your mother's, you're nervous. Pregnant patients have them smoke camel cigarettes and they'll calm down. So yes, that. It's an, it's a miracle that any of us born in the 1960s

[00:35:43] Carl Lanore: [00:35:43] so getting back to the, the, the, the breast milk and the benefits of it.

[00:35:47] So when a, when a child is breastfed, what are they, are they less likely to have certain disorders and diseases? And do we see that trajectory continue on later in life? And what are they.

[00:35:58] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:35:58] Yeah. Um, [00:36:00] Oh my goodness. I, I, let me just tell you, I mean, I can go on and on about this, but let me just tell you one amazing thing about, about human look before we get into the specifics of the kind of diseases that it can prevent.

[00:36:15] Um. Babies are born with very immature immune systems, and that immaturity persist for the first two years. So what nature has done is that it has, it has made an adult immune system at the complete disposal of every infant. Um, because basically human milk is so antibody rich. It really is a bio living, biological substance.

[00:36:39] And it's just one example. Um. Yeah. As adults, all of us have plasma cells live in our small intestine, and the purpose of the plasma cells is kind of to store the immunological memory of every time ingesting some kind of gastrointestinal pathogen, something that made their stomach upset. [00:37:00] Mmm.

[00:37:01] The plasma cells retain the memory of how to fight death particular, um, whether it was a bacteria or virus. And so the plasma cells in their immunological memory remained in a small intestine, constantly beveling things that that might affect our health. The only time plasma cells ever migrate from the small intestine is if a woman's lactating and the plasma cells migrate and her excrete it in her breast milk.

[00:37:28] So that babies, literally, that's why breast fed babies don't vomit. Don't throw up, don't, don't get gastrointestinal upset the way from the inside babies do because they share their mother's adult decades long immunological memory through those calls cells. That's just one example of what.

[00:37:51] Carl Lanore: [00:37:51] That's amazing. Now I know that it's a couple studies show that the IQs of breastfed babies are higher. Some people argue [00:38:00] that's the nurturing effect of the cuddling and so on, and others say that there's some sort of nutritional component. What other astonishing things have we now connected to or correlated to breastfed babies.

[00:38:12] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:38:12] Well, when we took on intelligence a little bit because I had the same reaction you described when I first heard that I was, I was listening to a talk in a hospital in Chicago on the South side. The chair of the pediatrics department at the university of Chicago was talking about the wonders of human milk and talked about how much more intelligent, breastfed.

[00:38:33] Uh, children are, um, that they could be measured with IQ tests. And I raised my hand and said exactly what you just said. I said, but to see you is that breastfed babies are held more by their mothers. It takes longer to breastfeeds than it takes to bottle feed. Maybe mothers are interacting with their babies more, talking to them more.

[00:38:51] Their eyes are closer because the breasts are, they'll help. Babies are held higher, closer to the mother's eyesight, maybe less further smarter. How would you [00:39:00] know that that's not the case? And what this doctor pointed out to me and the entire audience. He said the first studies that showed how much more intelligent, breastfed babies are, were preterm studies.

[00:39:12] Babies who were born very, very premature, very prematurely. Well, let, let me, and what's happened was all the babies in the. In this experiment were two weeks. Fuck. So if yes, then them randomized to get human milk by nasal gastric tube, the other half to get formula by nasal gastric tube. And this went on until they were stronger.

[00:39:33] So for about six, eight, 10, 12 weeks, depending on the baby's condition, they were fed by nasal gastric tube. And then afterwards, um, their mother's milk had dried up. Then they were all formula fed, and they discovered that the babies who were fed human milk by the nasal gastric tube, they too had higher IQ scores as older children.

[00:39:55] So they were able to pinpoint the human milk. And now we know for sure it's the [00:40:00] case because we've done MRIs on children's brains and we know that there's a lot more white growth matter in the brains of children who had, who were. Um, um, that's fed as opposed to children who were formula

[00:40:13] Carl Lanore: [00:40:13] sets.

[00:40:14] The Omega threes, and there's a lot of Omega three fats in a, in breast milk. Is it, you'll make it through,

[00:40:21] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:40:21] it's the Omega threes. It's the DHA is the chlorine. Um, all thoseF brain development and think about it. Can, you know, you've mentioned evolution a lot. What is it that has made us so successful as a species?

[00:40:34] It's our intelligence. We know we can't run particularly fast. We, you know, we're not particularly strong, but we are very, very smart. So for other mammals, their mother's milk, the ones who have to run away from predators, it's very, you know, at a very young age and can't be lying around for very long, or they're going to get beaten.

[00:40:53] Their mother's milk ex on muscle groups. Particular human milk X unblind [00:41:00] development. It makes evolutionary sense that that would be so,

[00:41:03] Carl Lanore: [00:41:03] yeah. And you know, it's funny, I don't want to sound like a pompous ass, but when you were talking about mothers who fell prey or doctors and mothers who fell prey to the idea that smoking a cigarette during pregnancy was a good idea.

[00:41:16] The reality is the most critical thinking women will read, probably repelled by the idea. They didn't believe it. Their mothers probably told them it's a stupid idea. And they believe that. But at the end of the day, it, I was thinking, wow, you know, the, at the end of the day, the the most effective evolutionary selection pressure comes down to intelligence.

[00:41:36] You know, and when I say intelligence, abstract thing, thinking, critical thinking intelligence, because there were mothers who went, OK, I'll smoke cigarettes. And I'm sure their kids were sick. You know, with fitting the herd. We don't have plagues today. We have chronic disease that's thinning the herd, younger and younger.

[00:41:52] But I mean, at the end of the day, it really comes down to intelligence. That's the most powerful, uh, arbiter of a selection pressure [00:42:00] really, really is. I'm going to take our last commercial break and when we come back, we'll wrap it up. Okay. Sit tight. We'll be right back. Stay tuned. Welcome back to superhuman radio.

[00:42:11] We're talking to dr Jackie. Wolf who has spent a, a, a career, uh, understanding, uh, both, uh, uh, the process of delivering babies as well as, uh, breastfeeding. And we're gonna have you back on for sure to do the C-section show. Cause that's a really important one, I think. And I've never done it before, so that's perfect.

[00:42:33] What, what, what should we be telling women today. Who feel, uh, from some sort of societal construct that they feel awkward about being in public and breastfeeding. Uh, T T like, like, it shouldn't even have to be a strong argument. It's like you have a baby. You want your baby to really survive and thrive where you want your baby just to like be burdened with diseases at some point in their life moving forward.

[00:42:58] What do we say to moms.

[00:43:00] [00:43:00] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:43:00] Well, I think we all have to ask ourselves, men as low as, as women, cause it's, it's men who are making women uncomfortable. I think about about so-called breastfeeding in public breasts. Um, really they have a, a preliminary physiological purpose. Breasts are to feed babies and um, women should be able to use that.

[00:43:23] Body part for what, it's what it's used for. And if a baby needs to be fed, the baby needs to be fed. I think, you know, this would take a cultural few change. There's no question about it. Um, to make women feel comfortable, but we really have to have a, you know, we're long overdue for a national conversation about, um, how can we.

[00:43:44] Hope mothers breastfeed if they choose to breast feed. Um, because we as a society haven't done much to help mothers out in that area.

[00:43:54] Carl Lanore: [00:43:54] I wonder, I, I would love to, have you seen any polls where a [00:44:00] new moms. Talk about their perceptions of breastfeeding and it says, you know, guys, look at me and I feel awkward, or, uh, or is there something else possibly contributing to it?

[00:44:12] There's a certain vanity nowadays, or maybe even. Uh, uh, cultural aesthetics and, you know, like, look, you know, you don't, I'm, I'm a powerful woman. I'm not breastfeeding a baby. I mean, is there any polls out there that take, give us more of a clear idea why women are not readily breastfeeding in public?

[00:44:34] Why it's even a term, why it's even a term.

[00:44:37] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:44:37] Well, I think it's obvious why it's a term. We've sexualized breasts to such an extent that we acquit somehow, uh, you know, exposure, exposing the breast, even if it's accidental. Um, when you're trying to, when you're trying to like that your baby the last sound to the breast to eat.

[00:44:54] Um, when you, when you equate that with, you know, somehow exposing your genitals. [00:45:00] Um, because again, we have sexualized. Right. So, so that's going to take a lot of work on people's part to, to understand. And I think, you know, I think if we can have a national conversation about maternity leaves, breastfeeding is such a big part of that.

[00:45:16] Helping women to breast fully breastfeed their babies would be such a big part of the conversation about paid maternity leave that, um, we can also start. To talk about the breastfeeding in public means. Let me tell you why. Breastfeeding in public is actually such an important act. Feeding, as it turns out, is not a natural activity.

[00:45:37] It's old wound activity among. That primates, not just among humans, but among nonhuman primates. We know that for example, chimpanzees or orangutans in zoos who have never observed another camp or another orangutan breastfeeding after birth don't know what to do with their babies after. Baby's born, but have done is they brought [00:46:00] in human mothers naked from the waist up to stand in front of cages after hours and breastfeed their babies in front of the new monkey mother, the new great ape mother to show her what to do.

[00:46:12] Okay. And sure enough, the April, then pick up the baby and put the baby to the breast. This is how we know that among all primates, breastfeeding is something that needs to be a deserved. It's a learned activity. So breastfeeding in public is an incredibly important biological act. We need to, women need to observe each other.

[00:46:32] Breastfeeding, learning how to do it.

[00:46:35] Carl Lanore: [00:46:35] That's amazing. And you know, to speak to the previous point, uh, as a country, we tend to be a very sexually repressive. It's why the porn industry exists, quite frankly. Uh, it's kind of a yin and yang type of a thing. The more extreme, extreme repressiveness, the more extreme.

[00:46:54] A pornography people look for and, and, you know, it's like, we need to get over that, you know, [00:47:00] frontal nudity and full nudity in Europe is no big thing. That's why when a woman breastfeeds the baby, no guys don't go, Oh my God, look, she's bruh. I mean, it's just accepted. It's just, you know, it's no big thing.

[00:47:11] Uh,

[00:47:11] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:47:11] we really. Yeah. It's by contraceptives are readily available to teenagers in Europe too, and they have lower teen pregnancy rates than we do. So you're right. I mean, when you can't talk, frankly, frankly, about sexual activity, when you're not comfortable with it, you have all kinds of results that you don't want.

[00:47:28] What

[00:47:29] Carl Lanore: [00:47:29] do you think the message is to your kids that you let them watch John wick or the new Rambo movie where people get killed every five seconds gratuitously. But then when a scene where a guy is about to have sex with a girl in a bed comes on, you and your wife freak out and you all wait and pause that Polaroid, you guys go upstairs.

[00:47:46] It's like what you're saying is making love is like the most disgusting dirty thing in the world. Oh, killing people. No big thing.

[00:47:55] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:47:55] Yeah. And what's interesting is, is that, is that it's really the adults who are [00:48:00] uncomfortable with this uncomfortable children learn to be uncomfortable with based on the cues from their parents.

[00:48:08] So yes, if parents could speak frankly to their children, we'd be so much better off. Yeah,

[00:48:12] Carl Lanore: [00:48:12] great discussion. Great information. And I will book you later this week and get you right back on for this Assyrian show. We'll look and see what your schedule looks like coming up in the next couple of weeks.

[00:48:23] Because I want

[00:48:23] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:48:23] to talk about great,

[00:48:24] Carl Lanore: [00:48:24] fascinating

[00:48:25] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:48:25] stuff. Tell you about breastfeeding and milk for hours and hours on end. There's no, I know.

[00:48:32] Carl Lanore: [00:48:32] I know. I know. And maybe we'll pick some specific I actually get a notification from, uh, from pub med on a Topics related to breastfeeding and breast milk, and I'll look and see what research looks exciting and I'll reach out to you for some of those as well.

[00:48:48] I want to keep this, I want to keep this as a regular topic on the show. I really do. I just can't believe that we turn our nose on an opportunity to give our children the one [00:49:00] thing for millennia made. In nature to be food for them, and we

[00:49:05] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:49:05] just end this by adding that is incredibly pleasurable.

[00:49:12] There's three activities that have to be pleasurable and wouldn't have kept doing them having sex eating. And breastfeeding. Yeah, it's very pleasurable to the mother. I realize, you know, people worry about sore nipples and definitely that happens, but it's because we're not educated enough in understanding how to present all those things.

[00:49:31] Those things shouldn't happen. Yes,

[00:49:33] Carl Lanore: [00:49:33] absolutely. Listen, thanks for being on the show, Dr. Wolf,

[00:49:36] Dr. Jacqueline Wolf: [00:49:36] and thanks for inviting me. I really

[00:49:38] Carl Lanore: [00:49:38] enjoyed it. I will talk again soon, and that's it for today's show. I don't know what we've got going tomorrow. I have to look at the calendar. I'm sorry. I've been a little behind on, um, our show schedules lately.

[00:49:49] It's been, I'm just going to blame it on being sick, but we'll, we'll talk to you more tomorrow. Thanks for listening today. [00:50:00]