This year’s flu strain is making headlines.  While the media debates the effectiveness and safety of the upcoming vaccine for our children, we’d like to add to your toolbox with a few natural approaches to preventing sickness and boosting immunity!

The skin is part of the body’s immune system, responsible for three specific functions.

1. Barrier Immunity – the skin is a permeable barrier.  It is designed to keep out and move out stuff the body does need, like dirt, germs, bacteria and waste. Skin care ingredients that help create a stronger barrier include fruit butters (like Shea) and most importantly, probiotics.

2. Antimicrobial Immunity – the skin has natural antimicrobial and antibacterial properties that can defend against germs and bacteria on its surface. Skin care ingredients with known antimicrobial properties like thyme and orange oils can boost the skin’s natural protection.

3. Assistive Immunity – the skin helps the body identify, recognize and remember germs and bacteria for the rest of the body to be able to initiate a well-targeted immune response for both the first and future encounters. Skin care ingredients like flax, borage and primrose oils are rich in essential fatty acids which are moisturizing and essential to keep the skin from drying out. Colostrum is another wonderful ingredient that supports skin immunity.

The body’s immune system — its basic protective mechanisms — are dependent upon healthy skin. As a parent, your selection of pure, natural and organic baby skin care products, as well as adherence to healthy skin care rituals, is critically important to your child’s health.  Radiant, healthy skin not only looks great, but works to keep your baby’s body strong. With proper natural skin care, respect for the body can be instilled from birth and result in lasting health, grace, and confidence.

In the video below I discuss how to treat what I call F-Throat, or a sore throat caused by Fusobacterium necrophorum.  It’s an important health topic that you should know about, especially if you or someone you love is between the ages of 15 – 30.

If you haven’t watched yesterday’s video yet, you should.

What I call F-Throat, a sore throat caused by Fusobacterium necrophorum, is a common, important, treatable illness — but because it doesn’t show up on a strep test, it’s usually missed. Knowing about it could save a life. Find out why in the video below.

Click here now to find out how to treat F-Throat.

One of the best ways to keep your toddlers healthy during flu and cold season is to keep their hands clean. A good washing with soap and water is very effective in reducing the spread of contaminants that may make your kids sick. But frankly it can be tough to get our little ones to wash up, and even tougher to get them to scrub thoroughly and often enough to do get the job done – especially when you’re out and about.

Hand sanitizers, recommended by the Centers for Disease Control, are both a time-saver and hassle-reducer for busy parents. With a little squirt of gel, about 99.9 percent of the germs that cause illness can be history – even the H1N1 virus. These are a great advance for keeping families healthy.

Not all hand sanitizers are the same. Some depend on ethyl alcohol, some on the quaternary ammonia chemical benzalkonium chloride (sometimes labeled “Alcohol Free!” to imply that it’s safer), and some on Thymol, a safe, plant-based ingredient that gets the job done. Of the three types, I prefer Thymol for thumb-sucking toddlers, although I’m not opposed to using alcohol-based sanitizers on young children if that’s what’s available.

If you’re using any hand sanitizers on your little ones, I suggest you supervise. Rub the gel in thoroughly and keep your child in sight until it dries. Evaporation is your friend. If your child’s thumb starts moving towards the mouth immediately after application, don’t panic, but do try to distract him for a few minutes if you can.

For effective hand washing, I teach kids to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” or “The Alphabet Song” while washing to remind them to scrub long enough and hard enough to make a difference. Besides washing before meals, the most important times to wash are after sneezing or coughing, after using the toilet, upon leaving “high-risk” places such as doctors’ offices, daycare centers, playgrounds, etc, and always upon arriving home.

540 children in the US have died so far this year from known or suspected H1N1 flu. This tragic number is more than six times higher than in an entire typical flu year, and the current flu season may only be getting started. This tragic number is very low, however, compared to the more than seventy million children in the US.

Medications to treat H1N1 flu work better the earlier they are started. Many children who would benefit from these medications are getting them late or are not getting them at all. But the flip side is also true: many children who don’t need treatment are being dragged to clinics and ERs, creating cost, inconvenience, and risk for that child and for the community.

The simple tool at www.feelingflu.com* was designed to help you make the right decision for you and your child.

When you get the flu, whether it’s H1N1 (swine) flu or not, you want relief. It’s even worse when your little one gets sick and you watch him suffer. It’s understandable that we’d want to seek immediate care, especially with the news stories about the flu epidemic.

Most people who get the H1N1 flu – or regular flu – do not need an emergency room, a doctor’s visit, or anti-viral drugs. While it’s true that the flu can be serious and, in some cases, deadly, mostly the flu is mild (as opposed to dangerous – mild flu victims may still feel awful!).

Nevertheless, healthcare facilities around the country have been inundated with flu and cold sufferers.

Symptoms of the flu include a fever above 100.40 F along with cough or sore throat. Some people also experience runny or stuffy nose, body aches, chills, headache, fatigue, diarrhea or vomiting. (You should click here to watch a video on recognizing the difference between colds and flu.) If you think you have the flu, usually the best choice is to manage the symptoms at home, minimizing contact with other people.

Seek advice of a medical professional (perhaps a phone call vs. a visit, depending on severity) if someone with flu-like symptoms falls into one of the following categories that might benefit from treatment:

• Children younger than 5, and especially children younger than 2 years old
• People 65 and older
• Pregnant women
• People who have other serious medical conditions
• Otherwise healthy people who have severe flu symptoms

Remember, when treatment is needed, starting early is best. Err on the side of calling rather than deciding to just wait and see.

You might need to visit an emergency room if you experience any of the following:

In children

• Fast breathing or trouble breathing
• Bluish skin color
• Severe or persistent vomiting
• Not drinking enough fluids
• Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
• Flu-like symptoms that improve but then return with fever and worse cough
• Not waking up or not interacting

In adults

• Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
• Pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen
• Sudden dizziness
• Confusion
• Severe or persistent vomiting

This flu should not be taken lightly. Thankfully, great emergency treatment and supportive care is available. And most children who need to be hospitalized will recover completely. Seeking early care when needed improves the odds.

*www.feelingflu.com was developed by A.D.A.M., Inc. where Dr. Greene serves at the Chief of Future Health.

Even though the flu is less dangerous than many think and the flu vaccine less dangerous than many think, factory farming of animals may continue to promote the creation of serious viruses and bacteria that threaten human populations. Swine flu comes from pigs shoved together where the virus spreads and mutates, then escapes to spread in people. The avian flu comes from chickens. E coli comes from the factory farming of cows and ends up other places, such as spinach (and our dinner tables!). Salmonella? From factory farming of chickens, and on and on.

The growing, emerging illnesses that are scariest right now are growing because of animal agricultural practices. Here’s where your choices as a parent can really make a difference. When you choose meat and poultry products for your family’s table, look for keywords like  organic, cage-free, grass-fed and pasture-fed. You’re not only lessoning the risk that you’ll run into contaminated products, you’re also supporting sustainable agriculture practices that can reduce the illnesses that factory farming of animals can pose.

For more about choosing healthy food products for your family, check out my Organic Prescription, which lists the top 10 most important organic choices you can make.

How can you tell the difference between cold and flu? I recorded this video with A.D.A.M. to give you information that will help you determine the difference between the two.

How do you know if you have swine flu (H1N1)? There’s a great new online tool that can help you find out — and it’s free! Just go to http://www.FeelingFlu.com

We’ve all been hearing about the worst case scenarios regarding the H1N1 flu, otherwise known as the swine flu. We don’t know how bad H1N1 will be this fall, but it looks like it could be several times worse than the usual seasonal flu (which kills about 36,000 people a year in the US), but with this one children, college- and grad school-age adults, and pregnant women are especially vulnerable. Boys who catch H1N1 in particular seem to get a lot sicker than the regular flu, and children are the largest group of flu sufferers who end up needing hospitalization.

This year may be the most important year in recent history to get your flu shots. It’s important to note that this year we’ll see a regular flu shot as well as one for H1N1, which should be available this October. The regular flu shot may help some, by keeping people healthier and stronger overall, and reducing fevers that will keep people out of school or work, but won’t be a major help for the current strain for H1N1.

The data on the newest H1N1 vaccine look very good so far – but we don’t yet know the whole story. So far the H1N1 vaccine has not resulted in significant side effects, but I expect we’ll see some side effects emerge when larger populations are immunized. After all, if we gave enough people bananas or spinach we would see a few serious side effects and allergic reactions. I expect the benefits of the vaccine to still outweigh the risks. People will not get the flu from the H1N1 vaccine: unlike some other vaccines, this one is not a live virus; it’s bits and pieces that prompt to the body to later recognize and attack the flu virus. Some people will almost certainly have reactions to the vaccine, but it may be those same individuals who would be overwhelmed by the virus itself.

At this point, based on all that we know so far, I plan on getting both flu vaccines for myself and for my four children. For all shots, I prefer the versions with no added mercury as a preservative (the ones that come in single dose vials). – but this is a smaller issue than the risks from the flu itself. I’ll continue to keep an open mind as more data become available, and our understanding of both the risks and the benefits becomes clearer.

Infants under 6 months should not receive flu shots, but other adults in their home should. We should all be taking preventative steps to stop the spread of the virus, including…

1. Keeping babies away from people with fevers.
2. Keeping kids and adults with fevers home from school and work until the fever has been gone 24 hours.
3. Using hand sanitizers.
4. Using good sense when it comes to spending time in public places, especially if you’re not feeling good.

Although we as pediatricians are concerned about H1N1, there’s no reason to panic. The CDC has a plan for dealing with outbreaks, and the plan seems sound to me. Keep an eye on news reports from reputable sources to help guide you on the best way your family can stay healthy. I’ll post more here on DrGreene.com as soon as any major developments occur. We should know much more about what the fall will hold in the next 4 weeks or so.

If you think you may get pregnant in the next year, this may be the most important year to get a flu shot – and an H1N1 flu shot, when it becomes available. When pregnant, it’s generally best to avoid all medications unless the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. With this year’s flu season, this appears to be the case.

Swine flu hits pregnant women extra hard, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Compared to the general population, health officials are reporting a fourfold increase in hospitalization rates for pregnant women ill with the disease. Although the statistics are tough to measure because the numbers so far (thankfully) are so small, pregnant women seem to account for an unusually higher proportion of the complications and deaths from this disease. Flu season is still coming.

If you are already pregnant or think you may be pregnant, you should know that both the CDC and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend that all pregnant women get a flu shot because even in a regular flu year, pregnant women have a higher risk of severe disease from the flu.

Your body is working overtime to grow a healthy little baby (or babies!) inside you, and you want to do all you can to prevent infection and illness. This is the most important time to be taking regular precautions to keep yourself healthy, such as eating right, exercising, visiting your doctor regularly and avoiding contact with people who are ill. If you suspect you may have the flu, the CDC recommends an antiviral treatment within 48 hours.

Read more about staying healthy during your pregnancy with the series Eating for Two: A Guide to Mother’s Nutrition during Pregnancy

Think twice before picking up that remote if someone in your home has a cold! Researchers from the University of Virginia, armed with DNA swabs, did a CSI-like evidence hunt in the homes of 30 people with early cold symptoms. Where did they find the virus? The most reliable spot was on salt and pepper shakers, found on every single one tested. The virus was also found on 80 percent of bathroom faucet handles, 75 percent of dishwasher handles, 60 percent of remote controls, 57 percent of refrigerator handles and phones, 33 percent of doorknobs, and 23 percent of light switches. Next, the researchers tested to see if the virus would stick to the fingers of healthy folks when they grabbed a handle, answered the phone, or flicked a switch – 48 hours after the virus was left there. More than half the time it could be found on their fingertips. This is further evidence that the chain of infection often goes from nose to hand to object, then from object to hand to nose, mouth, or eyes. Cleaning you hands is one of the best ways to break the chain.

These findings were reported at the 2008 annual meeting of the Infectious Disease Society of America and the American Society for Microbiology held in Washington, DC. The University of Virginia team are leaders in the study of the common cold. Two years ago they showed that the cold virus survives in hotel rooms the day after people with colds check out, waiting for you when you check in.