#410: Reversing Burnout: Turmeric, Gut Health, and Circadian Rhythms Explained With Shivani Gupta

Welcome to Longevity. I'm your host, Natalie Nidom. I'm a nutritionist, a human potential and epigenetic coach, and I created this podcast to bring you the latest ways to take control of your health and longevity. We cover it all from new technology and ancestral health practices, personalized interventions, and a very special interest of mine, peptides and bio-regulators. Enjoy the show. Hi, I'm Natalie Nidom your host, and we are back. Now, inflammation doesn't usually announce itself loudly. Quite often, it's just a whisper. My guest today, Dr. Shavani Gupta, learned that the hard way after watching her grandfather's health unravel before her eyes and realizing that most of it was preventable. That moment set her on a path through Ayurveda, modern research, and eventually a PhD focused on turmeric and chronic inflammation. In this episode, we unpack why inflammation is at the root of so many age-related issues, how mental stress creates physical inflammation, and what daily rhythms like sleep and movement have to do with longevity. Now, if this is a topic that is as exciting to you as it is to me, you're also going to want to get your hands on Dr. Shavani's new book, The Inflammation Code. Next off, we'll thank a couple of the fabulous sponsors that make the show possible, and then we're off. January makes you want to detox, but not hate your life. Listen up. Most people think detox means suffering, but the truth is your body already knows how to detox. All it needs is the support. When your liver is overloaded from alcohol, from sugar, from inflammatory foods, it stays stuck in survival mode instead of performance mode. This is where complete liver complex by level up health comes in. January is a great month to introduce this supplement so that you can support your liver's natural detox pathways. 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It's a food derived sperm-deen supplement that gently signals your cells to turn their clean-up and renewal systems back on. I take it as part of my bedtime routine. No fasting required. Plus, it's amazing for sleep. Primedine isn't synthetic sperm-deen. It's derived from concentrated Japanese wheat germ and includes naturally-curring cofactors plus a prebiotic that supports your body's own sperm-deen production. It's rigorously tested, clean, and designed for long-term use. And for the gluten-free folks out there, they have a gluten-free primedine available for you too. Now, if you want to support resilience from the inside out, head on over to OxfordHeltSpen.com forward slash BioNAT20 and use code BioNAT20 at checkout. Discount is valid on one-time purchases only. Welcome to the show, Dr. Shavani Gupta. It is, well, it's just a total pleasure to finally be recording this episode. First, Sarah, thank you for having me. This is long overdue. I mean, what? You first gave me, you first gave me, and I'm not going to say the name of the product. I don't want, we're not going to talk about it yet. But you first gave me your product for my dad when his back was really bad. And I'll never forget the call I got like two week, a week or two later going, wow, this made me feel better. This made my pain go away. And of course, my mother, my mom's a bit of an addict of your sleep gummies as a my. So anyway, but what we're talking about today, well, we'll be related to what my, to my dad's experience, but we're really going to be talking about inflammation. And that is your, what we call your zone of genius. So thank you for being here. And thank you for taking the time because I know you're on a book tour right now. Yes, for sure. Well, it's always awesome talking to you, Nat. You're the best. Well, you know, we are part-time roomies when we travel together. We're just so nice. When we room together, I was like, I'm getting to stay with the ultimate biohacker. This is going to be so much fun. And it was so fun to see you pull out your different tools for sleep and everything. I learned so much in the process. I learned plenty from you too, as you pulled out your bags of herbs and and teas and, you know, it, anyway, you guys you'll learn, you'll figure it out. We're just having a moment here. So let's, let's go back to your health story because and actually I would, in the book, I think that it goes back beyond even your own health story. Yeah. When this, when this whole, this whole issue of inflammation and the body really became real for you. When it, it was, it, was it, was it that moment with your grandpa? Yes. You want to talk about that a little bit. That was such a, such a beauty, I, such a hard story, really. Yeah. I flew into India like I used to do every year or every other year to visit my grandparents and visit my cousins and India is a second home to me. So I would land and be like, Oh, this is home. And I got to my grandpa, parents home and my grandma was like, come, come say, hi to your grandpa. He's here. And I thought, that's weird. You guys should be asleep. It's the middle of the night. But okay. So I go in and I'll never forget. I stopped at the door and in the middle of the room is my grandfather in a hospital bed. His eyes are glazed over. He has a pipe up his nose and he's missing a leg. So wait, you had no idea? No. They had told us there was an accident. You know, he wasn't well. Things were just, you know, he needs to get better. No one was clear to me. I was still a kid. I was between like high school and college, right on high school years. And they don't, they didn't want to scare us. But what's horrible is you should inform people so they are prepared and they're and they run. Like we would have run to India. I had we know what was happening. So I walk in and I go to touch his feet. There's one foot because when you're in a new touch feet to get blessings and show respect, he couldn't speak. He couldn't communicate, but he kind of nodded at us. And I left that room thinking we are in big trouble. This is all horrible. Like who's going to reverse this? This is going to be really hard to reverse out of because my dad growing up had already reversed my grandfather's Parkinson's, diabetes, my grandma out of her quadruple bypass. So I knew that with the right tools, biohacking tools and I or the game plan, you can win at health. But this group called my family in India had just let this keep going way too far. And what was this? What was going on with your grandfather? I mean, you know, he this where he was at that point was because of an accident. But but beyond that, like what what was going on with you? Everyone was diabetic in my family. Every single grandparent, every single adult across both sides is diabetic. And so decades into their lives, just letting that uncontrolled diabetes exist and inflammation and everything else. We were seeing those last and stages of that Parkinson's Alzheimer's dementia ran across all the grandparents, heart attacks, stroke, quadruple bypasses. They were all ticking time bombs. And so with my grandfather, we had reversed the Parkinson's and diabetes symptoms and everything. But when we sent him back to India, they all reverted back to their original diets, sweets and fried foods and whatever they wanted to eat. And in India, when you're successful, you're served hand in foot. So nobody gets up, no one walks, no one exercises. I don't even walk to the fridge. Yeah. We don't walk to the kitchen. The kitchen is dirty, plays and the cooks are managing it. So it's interesting. This culture of success, there means sedentary. And they're finally learning since pandemic that the opposite is true. Actually, you need to walk for hours a day, yoga, panayam and exercise, or we don't have true health. And that's a new concept, I think, to India that's just coming online in the last few years. Would you think it's new or do you think it's coming back? Because I, you know, like when and there's a lot that I want to unpack about what you said a minute ago, like that whole reversing Parkinson's thing is intriguing to me. But the don't you think that traditional Indian culture would have been healthier than modern day Indian culture? For sure. Any day of the week, because it was more farm based and it was more active and people actually did things physically. But as we've hit modern industrialization, there's so much convenience. Everyone just drives everywhere. There's no walking. So before yes, there were these more ancient practices, the self-care tools from Ayurveda, the yoga, panayam. And so now just coming back to that is life changing. I can see it in my family now because they do walk yoga, all these things. So they're actually, that's so interesting, right? Because I've always thought of traditional Indian culture as being you know, more prone to health in the sense that you have Ayurvedic medicine, which is thousands of years old. They're, you know, the ethos, right? Would be one of self-regulation and peace, the yoga, the breath, all the things that you're describing come to us from Indian culture. And yet what's probably happened, I guess, is this transition through into modern life. They've so many people have just lost contact. Well, also the system called it switched. So there was a period where once British occupied India, then all of a sudden it was the Western medical system is correct, English is taught. So it was a big period where everything Western became the mode. And then until they lost the touch, yeah, it's all been turning back really hard into let's look at naturopathic, homopathic. Let's really look at Ayurveda again and bring the practices in that always worked for us. So it's, it's fascinating to watch. Like I've been invited by so many people to go back to India and teach Ayurveda because they're like, we need someone trustworthy to teach Ayurveda. I'm like, okay guys, all calm. That's fine. That's amazing. Okay, so let's talk about reversing your grandmother. We're a little off topic, but I'm curious about this. You talk about your dad. So is your dad a doctor? No, my dad was an engineer and he just watched what I watched, which was his family and his parents devolving into horrible diseases. And he, with an engineering mind, anytime he saw a problem, he's like every problem is solvable. You just have to break it down into pieces and do your best research. So he was actually pretty obsessed with doctors and help. Everyone he met with, he just picked their brains and learned. So it's funny that I now have a podcast and get to do that. And so he created what I consider the first biohacking suite. And I still remember it. I was in middle school. He built it in the family room. He bought what was previously probably the precursor to the power plate. So I remember him making my grandparents a vibrate. I remember green juice fresh, cold, cold, cold pressed green juice being made in the house boxes of supplements. And he was researching. He's like, you need vitamin D. You need vitamin A. This is what these vitamins do. So he looked at it as, okay, we have to reduce their cholesterol. This is bad. We have to completely eradicate this diabetes. They need to lose weight. They need to get healthy, build in every practice he could get him moving, get him walking higher, a trainer. He did everything. And they looked so good and healthy and vital again when he said, okay, we're complete. I've reversed everything. My grandfather came from India, unable to hold a cup with his jaw. So he was not independent enough to eat by himself. So he was, so he'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's. Correct. And his gate wasn't like, he was too frail. So he had a cane, but he didn't want to use the cane. So we were very scared about a fall with him. And by the time we sent him back to India, he was walking perfectly fine. And he was eating independently. So he'd improved. Yeah, he had a group. He had a functional. Yeah, yeah. To be able to think again and function again and run your company again and not be this extremely debilitated Parkinson's patient was really huge. Wow. That's amazing. But okay. So now fast forward goes back to India and he has this crazy bike, motorcycle accident, right? I mean, it wasn't even an accident. It was that he was not, anyway, you explain. I could say and tell it, but you tell. He was heading to a meeting to me with someone. And in India, you have these things called three wheelers. So it's like one wheel in the back, one wheel in the front, two in the back. And he was so diabetic by that point with so much neuropathy, his foot started hanging off the side. And he didn't even notice that it was cutting into his own foot. So it harmed him. It took him time to tell the driver, please stop. He ended up in the hospital. Whatever happened to that foot leg must have been infected and so damaged. And they chose to amputee. Well, with diabetes neuropathy. Yeah. So then everything transpires. So the next morning I woke up and my sister and I go downstairs to have breakfast. They're cooking breakfast, doing all these things. And we are going to go say good morning and namaste to our grandfather. And someone walks out of the room and says he has passed away. And my sister and I were like, what? How did this happen? He was just healthy last year when he sent him here. My father wasn't with me. And I was just like, this is, it was the worst moment. And I thought, you guys have no idea how to reverse disease. And this is ridiculous that I am losing grandparents. He lost his life and vitality. All of us lost him because no one here respects what diabetes and disease means. And I'm going to find a way for everyone to understand that this was all preventable. And that's your moment. Yeah. Well, it's a big moment. And how old were you at the time? I must have been like 10th grade. Yeah. Yeah. So you were young. Okay. So fast forward. When did you figure out for yourself? Because you know, now you're 10th grade, you're like, okay, I'm going to solve this. You go back home, you go through school, you do all the things. And then, is did you go into, did you study Ayurvedic medicine right out of college? What did you, how did that journey happen? So I went to college for business. My parents were in business and they were like, let's keep this girl focused. If we leave her to her own devices, she'll be a yogi in the mountains of India. So keep her on a lane. So I end up in business school. And of course, I'm still trying to find my lane. And I found something called social entrepreneurship. A professor of mine put me in this class. He says, you belong in this class. Obviously, you're a doogitter. Let's put you there. And then I found my people, like people who want to impact the world by creating great things and reduce our burden on the planet. So that was kind of my thought process. But I went to India and college and was so sick, I'd get so sick in India. The doctor thought we should hospitalize me. And I was sitting in that doctor's office, sick as a dog, no one knew what to do with me. And the doctor goes, I have this prescription for you. You should take these 13 medications. And I looked at him and a voice in me screamed and said, no. And that voice was so loud. I looked at him and said, can you dumb down your probiotic a couple of notches? I was not explode my gut again. And what are those other 12 meds for? And he goes, those are for your symptoms. And my mind was like, no, you guys have screwed this up too many times for my family. Everyone in my family is typically on 10, 12 medications. So I immediately said, no, we're not doing this. I'm not taking anything you give me. And that's when I made the decision. And I told my parents, we're in the land of yoga in Ayurveda. I need to go study this. I need to find a different alternative path for my health because none of this is working. And that's when they were like, okay, sure. They were very burnt out entrepreneurs by then. And so we went to West East, South India, we detoxed. And I said, you know, this is it. This is ancient wisdom. This is pure truth and wisdom. Look at everyone in these centers. They're here because they reversed all their diseases. And if we're going to take this wisdom and bring it forward, none of us have to suffer the way my family suffers. Like this is what it needs to go West. How come none of us in America have heard of Ayurveda? That's weird. When I chose to study it, go much more in depth for two at a slay. All these people like put me into Ayurveda schools in India, taught me, poured their knowledge into me. I started going to conferences, planning whole conferences on Ayurveda. And then I did my masters in PhD in it. Wow. That's that's crazy. So all right. So then when did you realize because this is great, right? You're moving along, you're getting traded in Ayurveda. But you get to a point where you're like, I'm not just stressed and tired. I'm an inflamed. So this this this kind of moment of where inflammation really crystallizes for you because that's your sweet spot. Yeah. Well, post kids, I had plantar fasciitis and I didn't know what it was. I just thought every morning I'm walking on glass and someone needs to stop breaking glass in my house. And so I started having these daily pains. I started having been pain. I had gained 40 pounds with my first kid. So I went to orthopedics and I was like, Hey, you know, how do you fix this? And they're like, Oh, that's just verisidus. You're just having like inflammation. We'll fix it for you. And they said, all you need to do is take NSAIDs, high dose 24, seven for 10 days. And this was I was still in my master's hadn't studied to work yet. And I did it. I took it. And right afterwards, I had such severe stomach aches. And I told them, I went back to the hotel. What did you do? Do you understand? I've studied Ayurveda. I put a lot of time and money into a healthy gut. That's my entire life is to have a gut and immune that works. And they're like, Oh, those are just side effects. Don't worry about it. And I got so angry. I was like, this system is broken. The fact that you can all day, flippantly give us medication and not recognize that the side effects can be catastrophic to some of us means you don't understand. There are much better options on the table. And when I was in my master's class of herbology at the time, the professor was explaining ginger is anti-inflammatory. You have all these amazing herbs and spices. They're super spices that do all these things. And when they got to turmeric, I was like, that's it. If I just took turmeric and it worked and I wanted inflammation, then every time I've thrown my back out and taken all sorts of drugs for that set of times, when my knee hurts, my feet hurt, I get pains and aches like everybody else, then I can have a natural tool that doesn't harm my gut, doesn't harm my whole body. And so that was where I decided to go deep into my studies on turmeric. I did the PhD on turmeric purely over that reason because I thought, how can you try to solve one problem but you're causing harm on the other side? Oh for sure. Aren't there studies that show, I just remember this from when I was in school, aren't there studies that compared turmeric to NSAIDs and showed that turmeric, like the right turmeric supplement, is as effective as NSAIDs at reducing pain and inflammation without poking holes in your gut? Exactly. We have plenty of studies. We have double-blanch placebo-controlled trials that you'll get all day long that curcumin is as effective as NSAIDs. So that's the easiest category to say unequivocally. When we go to orthopedics, chiropractic, anyone for our pain, they should say, oh you have pain, you can take turmeric for that. And that's my whole dream. It's just to train doctors to say, you can take turmeric for that. I'm not trying to take away their existing toolkit. I know they love their existing toolkits, but I have trained a good set of doctors to say that phrase so that the patient then considers it and takes both because patients nowadays know this thing has side effects, this thing is natural and usually want to get off the solution side effects sooner. That's been my whole body of work for a decade now, it's just that switch. But what's cool is curcumin has a lot more studies now. Like so many have come online. British medical journal published a study saying curcumin is as effective as PPI's with less side effects and less harm. So when you go GI and you go to take a PPI, you could take this instead and it's unequivocal. It's a double blind placebo control trial in the British medical journal. And let's explain to people at PPI's are just for people who don't know what PPI stands for. So this is for people when you go into the doctor GI and you're taking like, prevesit and all these medications to calm down your acidity, those when pump inhibitors. Yeah, exactly. So when you're taking these, you're trying to calm down the gut, try to turn off certain processes. And when it comes to curcumin natural solution, it's going to go in there and cause the same solution but without the harm. So will it shut down? So because the proton pump inhibitor actually shuts down the production of acid in the stomach, which you know, I think, I mean, from what I've read and learned, is sometimes the opposite of what people need. Sometimes people are not making enough digestive enzymes. And so they're getting the the acid reflex, which is what they get the PPI for because of of an insufficiency of digestive enzyme, which causes the food to just sit there ferment and then they get the reflex. So when it when we're bringing turmeric into the picture, so obviously it's anti-inflammatory. So it's going to help to calm the inflammation. But is it actually enabling the restoring the body's ability to produce enough stomach acid or good question? I mean, we know that curcumin is supportive to the gut microbiome. We know that it helps with healing leaky gut. It's supportive to the gut lining as well. We know that it's anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-firal. So it has that positive effect on its anti-canadida, anti-hpilory. So a lot of the bad gut bacteria it removes while leaving the good bacteria in place. I have not specifically read about its impact on digestive enzymes and stomach acid. So I haven't read that. But I have seen that everything that we want to happen in the gut positively it is doing. So without shutting down your production of your own enzymes. That's really interesting. I didn't realize that it could be used for that. That's really cool. So in the inflammation code in your new book, which is by the way, guys, one of the most beautiful books. It's a gorgeous book. Shavani, if you're on YouTube, Shavani's holding it up now. Euphraim inflammation as the true root cause behind a huge percentage of chronic diseases and accelerated aging. Which we know in flamaging has become one of the 12 homerox of aging, right? So if you had to rewrite the standard stories that most doctors tell about aging and disease, what would you change first? What would you what would you shift in that story? You know, I know that we are aging and I know that we have a cellular decline. I've read all about it. I presented on Tumoric at A4M, one of our longevity conferences and I pulled so much science on it. But what people don't realize is inflammation is this low grade fire, force fire, happening inside of us, wreaking havoc, causing damage. But the problem is the fire alarms are turned off. We're not really hearing the signals. And they start really quiet. So for so many women who are my clients and who I work with, they're saying, you know what, I just have some brain fog. Can't remember things, can't recall information as fast. I've got some aches and pains, not a big deal, but I wake up really stiff and I'm tired. And I want to sit down more fatigue starting in the afternoon. They're tired. They don't want to get up and do as much. Maybe it's frequent headaches. Maybe it's digestive issues, gut, you know, feeling discomfort. And so unfortunately, when we go to the doctor and we complain about these things, they say, look, there's nothing to do for you. You're fine. Your numbers are hot. Yeah, the labs look good are normal. Yeah, your lab are normal. You know, your cholesterol is a little high. Your A1C is a little high. They typically aren't even testing our CRP to see our inflammation levels in our body. We have to ask for that kind of test. We have to beg for a vitamin D test because it's more expensive test to do. So we're asking for things, but we're the results we're getting are showing some elevated levels, but not enough to really have alarm about it. But the problem is, those are all indications of inflammation. And we're just taking them lightly. We call it inflammation and we think, okay, well, it's just not a big deal. So what I think is if we just start paying attention to, all right, these are adding up to issues. We know there's a forest fire brewing in almost all of us. We know three out of five people are affected or disastrously affected by inflammation and chronic inflammatory disease. Then why wouldn't we, when we're talking about longevity and health, go back to the root. The root is inflammation. We just don't want to do the work oftentimes or we don't know the work to put the anti-inflammatory plan in place. So my homework is always understand what the issue is. And then let's break it down into the pillars of health that we can bring in to win an inflammation. I mean, there's got to be places where conventional medicine is getting inflammation right. Obviously. And I think it's maybe it's when the fire's burning a little hotter. So yeah. So where do you think it dramatically underestimates the impact? Is it this in this kind of low grade inflammation that you're talking about? That doesn't really bring any alarm bells? I think so. I mean, when I've gone with women to the endocrinologist, the endocrinologist will say, you know, you are not full-blown Hashimoto's yet. When you are, I have a medication for you. Until then, just wait. Because you're going to end up here anyway. And I'll raise my hand and say, okay, you know, is there anything she can do to change in her diet that will prevent this pathway you're talking about? They're like, no, there's nothing to change. It is what it is that numbers are trending that way. And that's where I get really enraged. Because I do think that there's a much bigger education component that we should bring in earlier on. But yes, you're right. I mean, I'm in a big family of physicians. They are wonderful at surgery procedures, treatment when we've got the real big serious stuff and we need the big guns. There's no question there. I've had a family member in the hospital this week. Thank God for modern medicine and modern hospitals. They are incredible. But I think in this milieu, this like mixture in chaos, where most of us live, we're starting the stack up. But we may not catch that it's inflammation. So even for myself, when I start to say, you know what? Maybe this is just aging. That's my sign. I immediately stop and go, no, no, no, there's no aging. You're only in your mid 40s. Yeah. You change something. What did you change? Is your sleep bad this week? Is it that you're not moving enough? Have you missed working out and walking in nature? Where did the diet change? Did you have way too much fun last week? Again, like where's where's the change? Are you not taking your supplements? So I think it's about going down our own checklist consistently and asking where was there a shift? And where do I need to bring it back? Because according to the ancient wisdoms of Ayurveda, we're not meant to live on any extreme. We don't need to be, you know, the biggest crossfit bodybuilders, all of us. We don't need to be the leanest vegans ever on earth. Like there's a beautiful happy medium. And we are also bio individual, like an Ayurveda, I teach elemental design that we each have our own constitution. Yeah. But where do we need to evaluate where we're at? And then adjust from there. Yeah. No, I love that. So for someone who's like crazy busy, yeah, you know, we've got a busy midlife person. What do you think? You know, what are the simple daily rituals? Like maybe three simple daily rituals that they could start that might really move the needle for them. My number one is sleep. We know sleep is when we clear inflammation. And Ayurveda taught us the circadian clock and that we are all circadian beings. We must live on our circadian clock if we want to swim downstream with life and have an easy time of it. If we want to fight and go upstream and defy the circadian clock, that's our choice. But that's what causes dis ease. And so in Ayurveda, I would focus on sleep first. And on that circadian clock, 10 to 2 on the clock is what we call the bitha time of day when the fires come out to clean and clear everything. And so if you sleep 10 to 2 on the clock, that's when you're going to clear out inflammation, clear the lymphatic system, clear the lymphatic system. If you are not sleeping 10 to 2, if you are like an 11 o'clock midnight post midnight person, which many people are, you're just giving up your body's time frame to best clear out inflammation. So can you sleep as free? Sleep is easy. Maybe it's not easy for some. But trying to move your sleep clock back as close to 10 as you can is the first piece of homework. And if that's hard, I totally get it. I go through seasons where I push bedtime to 11. But then I don't wonder why I'm dealing with inflammation symptoms. So one of those things, so I'm a big believer and take whatever tool you have to take. So I have a ritual. I have a progesterone. I have my deep sleep tea. I have my sleep gummies. I have a heating pad. I take a hot shower. I go through the song and dance to guarantee that whatever sleep I am going to get, even if it's at 11, maybe I sacrificed one hour of detoxing. But at least that sleep is going to be deep. It's going to be good. It's going to be high quality. And I know you talk a lot about sleep. So your audience probably knows a ton about sleep. But sleep would be the first step. And this is interesting, right? Because in traditional Chinese medicine, they break up the clock a little bit differently. But still, it also speaks to that clock and different things happening at different times. So, okay, so tend to is inflammation clearance time in the body, in the brain, wherever. What happens after two two a.m.? So then after two a.m., you can still get sleep. We call that the more vatta time. So we need sleep. Sleeping sleep your two seven two to six two eight, whatever you're going to do. But when you are in that sleep state, it typically is a lighter state of sleep. So it's not what we consider that detox time. Right. So it's not your deep sleep time. It's your more REM sleep. So, but you just mentioned vata. So what happens with what is vata and what what happens during the hours of vata sleep? Vata time of day is what we call the air and ether time of day. So in that time of day, everything is lighter. Everything is about more movement. So you're going to have more like movement in the mind movement in the body. So two to six during the daytime is when we consider imagine two to six in the afternoon, you're less focused. You're going to do your less deep work. You can do like your light tasks lighter easy to do things. In the same way, you're just not expecting the deep sleep to happen in the two to six window. Okay. All right. So it's a little less specific than tcm because tcm assigns different times to different organs. Like it's it's very, very specific. So you've created elemental design as a way to translate iorvedics, out of your vata's dochas into a modern personalized blueprint. So for someone who lives by data wearables, you know, they've got their actually my or ring is recharging right now, but they've got their wearables. They've got the data, the lab reports. Can you, are you able to explain the elemental design as something as tangible as a biomarker? Do you think? Or can you put it in those terms a little bit so that people can line it up? For sure, because I love the wearables too. I love the data and understanding we can get on ourselves right now. The way I explain elemental design is this is an ancient understanding. In iorveda, we teach that you are born with your constitution. And I took the ancient dochas and I renamed them elemental design because we're in modern day life. I can't throw too many Sanskrit words at all the people, but actually let's let's talk about the three dochas. Maybe let's explain the foundation that the elemental design came from. For sure. So a vata person is made up of air and ether. And this person tends to be leaner than anyone else in their demographic. leaner, lighter, taller or shorter than anyone in their demographic. This is someone whose personality is like air, air ether. So it can be their physical appearance can be dry and brittle. Their personality can be kind of like a beautiful breeze on a beautiful day. Just a beautiful balanced thing. Could be like a ceiling fan always in motion and never ever stops. Could be like a tornado. That's also wind energy, but could be kind of all over the place and really strong and agitated. Take that understanding of that element and now apply it to the person. A vata person is this joyful, creative light being who loves to run around and be in motion. This is someone who never wants to be stuck sitting down because they have so much momentum and energy. This is someone who personality wise is so joyful always creating new things, always running after the next new idea. Physically, they can have a tendency towards insomnia, constipation and anxiety. These are the overdrive things that can happen. If you're too dry, you can be constipated. If you're racing like a ceiling fan or tornado, anxiety, all these kinds of things they have disrupted light sleep. If you're a vata person, you also tend to not eat all day. You're so light, you can just keep running around. Green juice, coffee, some celery, you never need a meal. It's a classic vata thing that by the end of the day, they're like, wow, I didn't eat today. That's so weird. I'm tired. And you need to feed them and ground them again. If you're a vata person, the homework is eat three square meals a day, add in healthy fat, ground that energy and balance that energy. Because vata people start so many things but often have so finished them. They look kind of flaky or they feel frustrated with that. And so that template is so important to understand if that's your original constitution. Because then you can learn how to really balance yourself. And then to have the level of groundedness that supports you in your constitution. And then we teach about it that is fire with some water. So this is someone who's medium-bodied tends towards reddish skin, reddish hair, tends towards early graying in their hair. This is someone whose personality is fire. So ambitious, passionate, sharp, organized, go getter. There are people who have big fires in their digestive fire. So big appetite, they get angry if they haven't eaten. This is someone who has to eat their three meals a day or you don't want to know them. This is someone who loves hot, oily, spicy foods and fried foods. All the foods that they shouldn't want to have. And this is someone who can just run a hundred miles a minute, but when imbalanced, they're like a volcano. They erupt, they explode, they take their ingrown on everyone around them. They're very fiery. So tend towards inflammation, heartburn, these kinds of things that we were talking about. And so my homework for pit that people is cool your jets and treat yourself like a nuclear reactor. So all summer foods are very cooling to the nervous system. You'll see pit does are constantly trying to reach for sugar because sugar has a cooling effect on the inside. So when people say to me, I'm a chakaholic, I'm a sugarolic, I'm like, no, it's just your soothing anxiety and stress with sweet things. And so pit does do that a lot as well. And that's like one of the simple things you can do is coconut water, cucumbers, right? Anything that's cooling and soothing to the system. And then the last one is gaffa. Gaffa is earth and water energy. So this is very mother earth. This is someone who's sturdier, stronger, can lift heavier than the rest of us. They have round features, around face, round eyes, oily curly hair, oil, oilier skin. This is your person who's so grounded and loyal and loving to everyone around them. They're the best friend who takes care of everyone else first. In a woman, it's this grandma caretaker energy. They want to feed and love everyone. In a man, it's a very mountain grounding energy. They're very one thing at a time. So one step at a time, they're even when they're speaking, it's one thing at a time, one decision at a time. And so with gaffa, some of the things that hold them back health wise is a sluggish metabolism or congestion that water element. They can be, if they're imbalanced, they have depression. They feel stuck. They feel low. That's kind of the tendency of that earth water energy. When balanced, they're just the most loving kind human on earth. Right. So gaffa people, the homework is warm cooked meals. And even though the trend right now is protein shakes and salads and let's get raw in, that's actually the worst for gaffa. We need them to eat cooked, easy to digest meals. They get the deepest lumber. So this is your crew who sleeps eight to 10 hours in the deepest sleep on earth. So our goal is to get them, get them have their sleep. But as soon as they're up, get their energy moving so that they have that energy for the day to get going. And then once they finish their day, you know your gaffa when you sit on the couch and you cannot get off the couch again. Right. So in Ayurveda, we teach that you are all made up. We're all made up of a primary and a secondary, those shall constitution. Nice. Can be balanced in all three. But once you know your primary and secondary, it's about getting yourself back to home because oftentimes life, trauma, different changes in our lives can shift us out of being balanced with our main constitutions. And we just want to walk ourselves home. So we feel like our our most balanced aligned self. If you've accepted bloat cravings and that post meal crash after reading is your new normal, I'm challenging you to feel better. And I'm giving you the cheat code, the just thrive gut essentials bundle. It pairs to clinically proven superstars, just thrive probiotic and digestive bitters. Just thrive probiotic is the only probiotic clinically proven to arrive 100% alive in your gut. 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Visit just thrive health.com forward slash not 20 and save 20% with promo code not 20. See the difference for yourself or get a full product refund. No questions ask. That's just thrive health.com forward slash not 20 code not 20. You have a worksheet in the book. Is it in the book where people can sort out their own dosha? So let's go back to the original question there. So are we able to use this elemental design kind of like as part of our mix of biomarkers that we're looking at in a regular basis? Absolutely. I think it informs. So for example, I have an aura ring and I am a pitta, but I have a vatamine and most of us in modern day life have a vatamine. So on any given kind of area and flaky area like a vatamine is always in motion and imagine social media is the perfect creator of a mind that's just always in motion and never just pauses and stops and just absorbs the peace and stillness. And so what I think is it's if you understand yourself better, then you can use the same understanding and apply it to the biomarker tools. So as a pitta, I just want to eat all the time. So I should wear a CGM because then I can watch what my behaviors do and self correct much faster. I have a tendency towards a vatamine. So as soon as sleep is disrupted and I can see it my aura ring, I can understand, okay, what am I going to do to calm my vatamine? That might be the source. It might be more journaling. I mean more locks in nature. I can give myself the right homework quicker because I have that self-knowledge and understanding that I may not have had before. Yeah. And I wonder if once you put it in the context of a person's elemental design, there's less beating yourself up over stuff. There's maybe, you know, there's a bit more acceptance of saying, okay, well, this is my nature. How am I going to work with my nature to kind of get the best out of myself, right? And so to that end, when you're working with a client, when you're mapping their elemental design, what are the biggest aha moments that they experience when they start to get an understanding of this kind of underlying programming that's influencing their health or their, their, you know, what might be, what elements in their lifestyle might be putting them at odds with their biology? It's fascinating. So when you sit across from someone energetically, you could tell what their constitution is once you start to understand these. So sometimes I'll sit across from a vatamine and I'm like, oh my god, this is that tornado energy, how do I settle this person? It's not easy. I'm a pretty grounded bit. And so I have to sit there, just slowly start unfolding with them, like what are the changes we're going to make? And how do I get leverage with them to make those changes? The fuzzers are usually going so fast inside of themselves. You have to kind of catch them and say, look, I'm, I'm going to ask you for just one homework and avocado a day. I'm asking for a gig in your day, just asking you to eat a real breakfast. Let's not run out of the house fasting. Let's consider just like, so you have to really baby step them in. But once they start, I have had clients who feel grounded, centred, they can focus again, they're productive again, they finish their work, they can do big launches in their companies again, because they understand they're all over the place. ADHD unfocused, unable to sit still energy was really tied to the diet they were on that they thought was great because we're not right now like do one meal a day. That doesn't apply to a vatva, a vat that moves their meals. Now the guffa crew, that's a great idea. Guffa needs to do everything they can to move that metabolism, move that energy. They can tolerate the bigger fast compared to the rest of us. So that's where it's really cool. And then when you have guffa people sometimes, they're like, yeah, the whole world says, I need a side hustle, work all night, work all day, run around. And if you show guffa, look, you are actually the most grounded human out of all of us. You are the magical friend and family member who keeps the world together, you're the glue. Once you sit down in the evening, that's it. So you honor what your day is and then honor yourself, honor how you are, honor that your sleep is the most important thing. And they have such peace with that once they understand it. Because before it was a battle of why can't I get myself up? Why can't I do more? It's like, no, honor your true nature, honor your gifts. So so in a corporation, your guffa would be your chief operations person maybe or yeah, because they're the ones that are keeping the wheels on the bus. They're the ones that are making sure everything's working properly. Exactly. And they want to stay behind the scenes. They want to stay in the office. They don't want to be forward facing. So that's why when I meet podcasters, I'd say I'm sure of this because I've been on hundreds of podcasts. Over 90% of podcasters are bitters. Am I a pitta? Yeah. I think I'm pitta with some kaffa. Yeah. Yeah. It's just interesting, right? Who wants to go on camera and teach and has the like a tip, the personality for it kind of like the fiery will bring that aspect of themselves into camera. It's more fit that personality. Sometimes but that. But guffa is like, I want to work behind the scenes. Don't put me on camera. Don't put me out there. I want to keep all systems running beautifully. And that brings me the joy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about kaffa then maybe. I mean, I don't know. Well, I have to do that. I have to do the thing. You handed me the question error and I haven't done it yet because I'm too much of a pitta. I'm running around too much. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Let's move into mental inflammation. The hidden driver behind burnout and the dreaded brain aging. So you talk about mental inflammation. You write about it and it's not just stress, right? You're talking about cognitive overload and self pressure. And how that actually causes inflammation in the brain. You want to talk about that a little bit maybe? For sure. So I was writing the book. I got to the end. I taught all my pillars of IRV. I was like, let's fix their Katie and clock. Let's all learn how to detox green IRV. They're letting me IRV. If diet, let's learn how to fix our guts and adjust our digestive fire. Let's all learn the natural remedies, mindful medicine chest. I teach all the spices you can use in your life. It's amazing. I was so excited about it. All the spices, which are cultures used, but not everyone's culture brings in like heart of mom and coriander and cumin and fennel and fenugreek and I just love all the cinnamon. I just love all the spices. Obviously. I get really excited about people using them. I need to create like a cooking class series now and just teaching people how to use spice. Anyway, let's stay on topic. Maybe that'll dovetail with brain inflammation because I'm sure that spices can be helpful. But let's define mental inflammation in a way that kind of helps people to think about, oh, maybe that's an issue for me. For sure. So I got through all those topics and then at the end, I was finishing the book and I was about to talk about stress. So okay, guys, we can win at inflammation, but our stress alone will cause this physical inflammation at a level that we still can't win at our health because I'm part of the biohacking longevity space. I love it. I buy all the things, but we're going to freak out and stress out all day about what we're not doing for our health. That is a baseline chronic stress that we're putting on to ourselves. Life itself can cause a lot of stressors. And from the Ayurvedic perspective, one piece we forget about is this concept called, ahma or this toxin residue that exists inside of all of us. We're living in modern day life. It has environmental toxins. So we have this toxin burden and we have a life that's oftentimes so stressful. We're knocking out our own digestive fire, which we call ugly. And so what we're left with is we're pretty depleted people. And then when life's stress has come along, they can have such a significant impact. It's like this mental inflammation overload of life is causing the physical inflammation overload that we're dealing with that's causing our chronic diseases. And so that's where I decided to coin that term. It came to me mental inflammation because I think people underestimate that the stress alone will cause all your diseases. We think of stress as just stress. But if we're not doing things to build our resilience, our digestive fire to detox the systems that's not carrying these burdens, then of course mental inflammation will have that much more of a toll. And I've seen that many times. People have gone through divorce and then found me. And I'm like, you produced an autoimmune condition in that moment of severe stress. The next time you go through severe stress, I need to just simultaneously say, this is horrible. And I'm going to take care of myself physically, mentally, emotionally, so I don't generate a disease in this time. I'm going to come with a pathway in my life. My hair falls out. I'm like, oh, okay, that's my body responding to stress. That's the physical repercussion to the mental stress I went through at that time. And so my hope is everyone reads the mental inflammation chapter and understands we have so much opportunity to build stress resilience in our day. We can build a self-care rhythm according to our circadian clock. We can pick up little habits like my addiction called T time is me time, where we pause and have tea as an anchor throughout our day. But it's really an opportunity to pause, tune in, check in, ask yourself some basic questions. How am I doing today? And sometimes I find myself stressed out, hungry, tired, burnt out, and I'm like, oh, okay, what are you going to do about it? Go walk in nature for five minutes. That's a free simple antidote. Or do five minutes of breath work as you're driving. Listen to yoga, peaceful music or spiritual music or whatever calms your nervous system down. And keep practicing the regulation techniques until those become second nature. And then that's the state we're living in. So we're not creating inflammation. Yeah, you can almost imagine that that piece, that self-regulation piece, the calming piece, that's the part that I think a lot of people are missing. Like they've got their diet dialed in, they're they've got their they've biohacked their sleep to death, they've got the supplements. And yet, and they they're like, okay, I got it. I've nailed it. And then is it possible that they could still be suffering from this mental inflammation because that one piece hasn't been brought in? Correct. Just yet. Correct. And the ancient wisdom said, taught us yoga is a sister science to Ayurveda. So meditation is part of what we teach pranayam, deep breathing techniques is what we teach. I mean, so much of what we're teaching is calm down, collect your piece and hold that piece. But oftentimes in the space, like you said, we're completely bypassing that part. Have you heard of a of a comedian, she's Indian, her name is Zarna. Yes. Garnagarg. Yes. Yeah. Did you see her? Have you seen her bid on yoga on how the West has taken over yoga? Yeah. Oh my god. She's so funny. And I'm just going to share this quickly. She talks about how, you know, I see all these Westerners in their $200 yoga tights with the holes in them and their bag and this and they're rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing to yoga. And she turns around and looks at the audience and says, let me tell you something. If you're rushing to yoga, you get you're doing it wrong. And it's so, I didn't see that. Like it's you saw this like in and that first of all, it made me laugh out loud obviously because you can see her and she's rushing around the stage. She's hilarious. But but it it really gets to the center of of where, you know, modern life and these these traditional practices that are so imbued with wisdom and value and modern approach comes in and takes it and turns it into something that is going to cause you mental inflammation. Correct. Correct. I do that too. Sometimes I'll rush to yoga because it's on Sunday mornings. My favorite thing and it's like 830 and I'm pulling in the parking lot at like the classes in 830. Yeah. I'm blessed at 830. I'm pulling in the parking lot full speed. Hit the curb. Run in. I'm like, guess what? You need yoga more than ever. And your job was to show here up here 30 minutes early and breathe in nature before you walked into yoga. That's how you need yoga right now. But I agree with you. We're in this modern day life where we're kind of jamming self-care in. We're jamming in health and we're doing it in a way that is so such the counter pose or the antithesis of what it is we're seeking. And that's why I wrote the book. I wanted everyone to understand it's simple. It's free. It's make the space to walk in nature. Nature is the ultimate biohack. Move in nature. Breathe in nature. Mother nature will give you everything. And even though I own a supplement company and I teach a lot about turmeric, I don't want you taking turmeric forever. You shouldn't need to do that. The goal of IRV that is to show you a daily preventive lifestyle. And the goal there is body, mind and spirit and alignment. So you can have that just by bringing in a rhythm. That rhythm of, oh, I do some moving in nature in the morning. I do my tongue scraper every day and I clear the toxic burden out of my body. I have tea a couple times a day with powerful herbs that heal me. I do dry brushing and move my lymphatic system and up-young massage, which is so grounding to my energy. I sleep because I honor sleep as my most important gift to myself. And then we have a completely different experience of life. That's my goal is how to bring the joy back to health and wellness. So it feels like ritual. It feels like an honoring of self. It feels like a gifting to self because lately it started to feel like torture. Or a job. Yeah, exactly. Like a really a tough job. Okay, so let's move into turmeric because that's your PhD. So turmeric and super spices. You know, so we, we, in your work, it's like taking this ancient remedy that has so much wisdom around it and bringing it into an evidence-based tool. You've built this research-based supplement line around this one Ayurvedic herb, which is, so now is turmeric considered an herb or spice because it's a root. It's a root. It's a rhizome. So it's called a rhizome. They actually don't call it herb. And then we call it a spice because we dry it into the spice. Okay, great. So when you did your research, you know, what did it reveal about turmeric that even you didn't fully appreciate before you dug in? Like was there something? Because you obviously went into turmeric saying, okay, this stuff's amazing. But what did you learn when you when you really did your deep dive that you were like, who would think? You know, the number one thing that I fell in love with was immune support. I historically was someone who was sick all the time. I took antibiotics all through high school, all through all the years and damaged my gut so badly. So Ayurvedic, that was my number one tool to heal the gut. But I underestimated the power of turmeric as a powerful antiviral, antipyrial antifungal. And so there's a whole big crew of humans with myself who use it, very strategically as our antiviral support. Anytime anyone's coming up with a cold or a sneeze, I just double down on turmeric. And I have not gotten sick, not going to for years. Like the last five years, the colds and stuff that everyone suffered with, I did not get. So I felt very lucky on that front. Then secondly, I really loved it for neurocognitive support because I saw Parkinson's dimension, these things in my family, family of all diabetics, I realized, okay, if we can support and protect the brain, then we're all smart people, we're all productive, we're trying to do great things in life. How is it that the last quarter we lose our brain capacity and ability to really manage our lives independently? That was to me catastrophic because my grandparents were titans, they built great things. And how could you lose that? So curcumin has a powerful effect in Alzheimer's because it has an effect on tau tangles and BDNF and amyloid plaques. It has a powerful effect for neurogenesis and it has a powerful effect on neuro inflammation. So to me, curcumin knows how to cross the blood brain barrier and get in there, protect me and create new brain cells and reverse any of the damage I've done just living life. So that's exciting to me. Wow, that is exciting. There's so much confusion on turmeric between the powders and the capsules. Like, is it from the root extract or do we want a full spectrum formula? Do we things like absorption enhancers like black pepper? I mean, people get all bent out of shape about black pepperine. Like, is it bad? Is it good? So what are the biggest myths you want to just kind of squish right here? So number one, everyone's juicing turmeric in the yoga world, especially. They're like, I juiced my turmeric. I'm like, that is so great for you that you can swallow, burning turmeric and ginger shots. I can't see that. I'm always like, this is the most painful of noxious health habit I've seen. But some people do feel better if it's from it. They're like, I feel better. My joints feel better. So is there evidence? Is there actual, is there a reason why you shouldn't juiced turmeric, do you think? You know, in ancient India, they had fresh turmeric and they didn't use it. They just chose to pickle it occasionally. They used it as a garnish, a radish, but they didn't use it as a food source. It was a very heating food. They took it and dried it into the spice because that was a much more concentrated form to use. And then they use that in all their cooking. And so I've always leaned on trusting the ancient traditions for how they've used things. And I take that dried kitchen culinary spice. I am India. And so we use it in all the dishes we cook. And they did find in India, that's where the interest for turmeric came from, was they were like, why do people need to have less Alzheimer's? Oh, it must be curry. It must be their spice. So then the science on turmeric exploded. But when you take turmeric the spice, only three to five percent of it is the curcumin oil, which we have to date studied to be the most effective part at reducing inflammation. So when people tell me, oh, I sprinkle turmeric on my chicken. I'm like, that's great. A sprinkle is not going to do anything because you need that three to five percent at a higher dosage. Now, if we weren't living in a society where we knew how inflamed we were, the kitchen spice should be enough. And I do think for the eons that we used to work, it was enough. But now we're in a new time period. And we are chronically inflamed and we know it. So that extract, a lot of times now, we're extracting it and putting it into supplements. But the problem is the labels are confusing. Supplement companies really vary in their quality. And how you extract matters. And so the supplement world at this point is really built for high profitability. You make the supplement for a few bucks. You sell it for 20 bucks on Amazon. You make the money in between when I'm getting. What's the turmeric? I'm not saying junk because you have no idea of the potency or the quality or really what's in there at all. They're saying up to a third of supplements on Amazon do not even have what they say they have, which is really scary to me. And that go for a big box retailer or something. Well, over 50%. There's saying doesn't have the active ingredient. And so when I studied turmeric and my dream was, okay, let me show orthopedics that they don't have to give me my n-sets. They can say you can take turmeric for that as well. Then I really needed to build something for such a high potency. So there are turmeric supplements and supplements in general built for the functional medicine space, integrative medicine space. And these very high quality supplements go after efficacy. So in my case, I extracted curcumin at a 95% grade standardization. That's what you should look for on a label. And then you can add black pepper or a healthy fat for absorption. In our case, we actually extract to mimic mother nature and reach above the 97% line. And so that one thing we did made it very expensive and ingredient, but it caused the thing that I wanted. It caused everyone to say, whoa, I actually feel that. I feel different. This is amazing. And so that was really exciting to me that we have that potentiality to have that level of potency. And then I added turmeric back in because turmeric with its extract has a synergistic effect. And then black pepper. So you added full spec like the full turmeric root. Yes. Oh, I love that because there's other components in there that work with the curcumin ointes, right? Exactly. You have tumourones, you have the oils inside of turmeric, you have benefits inside of turmeric. And we also know, I learned this in my PhD and found it so interesting. There are non-curcuminoid tumouric benefits. Yeah. So it's not like the plant is garbage. The plant is phenomenal. We just know in this moment called 2025, 2026 that this one extract can do so much. And I hope in my lifetime, I get to learn the other cool extracts we can pull from it and learn from and impact people's life. Okay, great. So let's talk about the black pepper, though, because this is one of those things that people will come to blows over. Some people will claim that, oh my god, black pepper is going to destroy your, what is it? Your liver or your gut? And then it is very often a component, a key component of some of these supplements. Do you want to talk about why you chose to use it? Sure. So I chose black pepper because I worked in the lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, where the scientists discovered that black pepper increases the absorption of turmeric by 2000%. I studied in his lab in high school, had no idea that I would go fall in love with the same plant 20 plus years later. And I saw that science and research happening in front of me in a big lab. And if you and I sat down and talked about how all the herbs from IRV that all the phytobotanicals have such power, and he's the fact that we could find black pepper to do this. And I saw the research happening there. I thought it was so compelling. Now, we also have wonderful science that healthy fats, liposomal, curcumin is effective in the body. And there's a whole crew people who are like, I am not touching black pepper. I want the liposomal. What's good about healthy fat with curcumin is it will cross the blood brain barrier and give you those effects as well. So what I tell people is I didn't feel comfortable dealing with liposomals. I was worried about it aging. I was worried about oxidation. Even with fish oil, I have those concerns like, am I going to give you something that's truly self-sale stable and healthy? Or will it be inflammatory? Because I can't fully control it shipping in the heat you keeping in the heat all these issues. So to me, I air it on the side of safety and went with black pepper. And then I say take it with a meal so that you get those benefits with healthy fat. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, that makes sense. In your experience in research, the black pepper is not a negative. No. No. I mean, it's four milligrams black pepper extract. I need to eat more red chili powder that would blow a hole into my gut. Then I could ever do through black pepper in my supplements. Like, there's no way I've seen this guys. Shavani travels with her own hot spice. I agree. All right. So what about turmeric in the context of a person's elemental design? Are there in the three dojos? Are there people that should maybe have more turmeric or less turmeric? Does it work differently for the different dojos? It actually does. So, vata is always running a little cold, a little dry. And so any warming spice is beneficial to them. The turmeric, the ginger, all these things aren't great for the vata crew. The gaffa crew also, they need that rev up of metabolism and gut digestive fire. So the warming spices, turmeric, ginger, all these are good for them. The bit the crew needs to be a little careful. We're all fiery. We're already running hot. Like, I run hot as a human and have to turn the air down constantly everywhere. So in the summer, when we might be out in the heat more, we should watch our turmeric intake. And if we're going to really rely on it for pain and inflammation and immune support, all these things, have it with something cooling. So that's your yogurt, coconut water, a cool turmeric salad, exactly. A salad. But when people tell me, you know, a lot of people understand that in Ayurveda, we look at what's heating and what's cooling in terms of foods. I always say, look, we're living in modern day life. I live in an air conditioned house with an air conditioned office with an air conditioned car. So generally, we're mitigating for it. But yes, we should watch out. Because as a bit that, I'm going to take it because of my inflammation, tendency towards inflammation. But do I need to make sure I'm hydrating electrolytes and other things to mitigate the warmth? Yes. So you've said, and I honestly also believe as a nutritionist, although I didn't specialize in this fight in Ayurveda like you, that spices are nature's pharmacy. And so, you know, and then even simple kitchen habits can rival complex protocols. So how would you guide people? And this is where I think you want to your next iteration. Maybe your next book is a cookbook. But how do you want a guy? How maybe can we help guide people into this? And ease people who are not used to using spices into incorporating these powerful spices? And what would be the maybe let's what would be the core of the spices you would encourage people to take on? You know, my number one would be I'm not going to start with turmeric. I always start with turmeric. I would start with cumin. Cumin seeds to me are amazing. I'm going to put the point where I want to travel with cumin as well. So when you keep up cumin seeds and ghee or oil or butter, you're going to release the aromas and start to release their benefits. So in Indian cooking, we let them start to dance in the pan. And then whatever else you're cooking, you start cooking on top of that. And it has so many benefits. We call it a pre-digested. So it helps you better digest anything you're going to eat. Because sometimes we're eating green beans. Sometimes we're eating kidney beans. Any bean you're going to eat in life, cumin seeds will help you digest it better and not get gas or bloating after or any discomfort. So that's my number one. Because if you're going to cook anything hard to digest, meats, vegetables, anything, cumin seeds are great. It's used in Mexican cooking. It's used in Indian cooking. Is cumin ground cumin also good or just the seeds? Ground cumin is also good. We typically don't grind our cumin. We like the whole seed form. You know, it's interesting. The Indian kitchen and the Ayurvedic kitchen keeps all spices in their whole form. And we grind them small batch and then we use them. But sometimes that's a lot to ask from people. Like these are extra steps and extra work. But I keep a whole fridge called lentils and spices. And then we put them in glass jars and then we grind them and then use those glass jars for a couple weeks, a week or two. And then we do that whole process again. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That is that is that is better approach. But you know, if you think about it, people will have herbs and spices in their in their cupboard. And I'm guilty of this too for years. I know. I know. And don't realize that those all the a lot of the kind of official compounds are gone. Yeah. Like basil, thyme, rosemary, these are not my normal spices. So they'll just sit there for five years and all look good. That's a waste shavani. You're not going to get any benefit. And they're powerful. Like the aromatics are very powerful. But that all that power has dissipated over the years. That's really interesting. Okay. So what would be the top three super spices for longevity that using people should start to think about how to incorporate. And turmeric is going to be at the top of the list. I'm giving you that one. Thank you. Perkman, my number one always for sure. Because it's my most studied and most favorite right behind it is ginger, which is totally cheating because they're sister plants. They may have similar effects. But I love that ginger is so good for digestion. We want great digestion. We want great absorption. Sometimes we're not even absorbing our food. We're health nuts. But if the gut has leaky gut and inflammation, we're not getting the benefits. Even though I invest a lot in organic fresh local all these things, we want to make sure your gut health is on point so you get those benefits. So ginger having ginger tea in the morning can ignite that digestive fire. We use ginger a lot in IRV though. My number three cumin is like an ultimate hack. So you absorb and benefit from your food. My favorite. My number four would be cinnamon. Cinnamon is pretty ubiquitous right now. We use it a lot. Sayalon cinnamon. We know it's safer to the lead issues. But it helps with blood sugar levels. It is anti-inflammatory. It is antibacterial. So a lot of these things we're looking for from a super food you can get from cinnamon. And then because a lot of us do crave sweets, it can turn things sweet. So you can take your green tea over it and turn it sweet or whatever it is you're eating and get the craving fixed while also benefiting your blood sugar levels, which is good. Love it. My Ioravetic teacher in school used to talk about it. And I don't know if people actually do this. I think it would be pretty intense. But he would talk about taking a bolus of ginger before the meal. Correct. We get the digestive juices going. Yes. It would be pretty intense just saying. I mean, maybe you might put that in a shot glass with some water and shoot it back. Totally. We do teach that because ginger will just turn on the fire. So if someone like has a lack of appetite, maybe someone's had a surgery or or been sick and you're trying to bring them back to vitality, one way to do that is use ginger open up that fire and then get you craving the meal or eating the whole meal and back to digesting properly. You don't wake you up. I'll tell you that. Okay. So now on a more slightly more cautious note, is there anybody who should be careful with curcumin? Is there a certain medic if there are certain medications like are there any cautionary notes that people should keep an eye on? Absolutely. So anyone who is on a blood thinner do not take a potent curcumin supplement. That's problematic. Curcumin is a vasodilator. It does increase blood flow in the body. So we love that for hair skin and nails. We love that for ED and these sexual dysfunction. Curcumin is a very good support to add on that toolkit. Wow. But if you're on a blood thinner, don't touch turmeric. You really do have to talk to your doctors. And then secondly, if you have a history of kidney stones, it's also something to watch out for. And then if you have low iron, keep an eye on it as well because it's thinning to the blood. So sometimes my doctors sit down with me and they're like, are you OD on turmeric? No, I'm normal on my turmeric, but then we have the whole conversation around low iron as well. So it can cause low iron or in the presence of low iron, you'd want to stay away from it. In the presence of low iron, you want to watch your consumption. Okay. All right. So maybe use a little less of it. Yeah. Let's talk about the looking ahead a little bit as we're closing up. So if we're going to look ahead 10 years, what breakthroughs do you hope to see and how mainstream medicine understands and treats inflammation, particularly in the context of women's health and midlife? You know, my dream is, like I said, every doctor's office you walk into for any issue, for them to say you could take turmeric for that and just open up that possibility in the patient's eyes because typically we're going to the doctor, we're saying, oh my gosh, I have low energy, brain fog, everything's going off culture. They're like, oh, you have something I just, I just means inflammation. So as we're talking about huge conversations around parimenopause symptoms, menopause symptoms, aging, how women are more affected by Alzheimer's. We know insulin resistance is going up, insulin sensitivity is going down. We know weight gain around the middle is tied to all that insulin resistance and inflammation. I think the super spices, especially turmeric, have a key role. And so as we have so much science getting published, it becomes irrefutable that Western medicine should mention this opportunity, this idea of like, hey, there are natural tools here. They can be an adjunct support on top of what I'm going to recommend because I know in Western medicine, they have great tools, they're going to recommend them. But what if they also opened up that other door and working with orthopedics, for example, I have orthopedic offices who've cut their opioid use in half. They just by saying that one statement, you can also take turmeric, pre-imposed surgery, you can also take turmeric for that joint pain. And so that's my dream is, is how do we keep creating these micro shifts that eventually become a macro shift? Yeah. All the entire system of medicine. And once we do it domestically, how do I do that globally? How do we take all of Western medicine across all countries and say, let's turn off our natural alternatives. The patient wants them. They just need your stamp of approval that they can take these. Right. You mentioned pre-surgery, but you also mentioned that turmeric can be blood thinning. So I think it bears mentioning to the audience, if you are going in for surgery, turmeric might be one of those supplements you want to stop. Where is it like three days or a week before? Kind of think to be safe. But but after surgery, it would probably be great, right? Because you're outside the window. Yeah. Like three, four, five, six days, depending on your doctor, that's where we can shift out of opioids, pain killers into turmeric. Right. And if it's blood thinning, would it be, is there any evidence that it might help with clotting, an inappropriate clotting? Or is it not that strong? It's a good question. It's so nuanced, we don't have the data on it. So that's why I go doctor by doctor. And each doctor has their own comfort level. It's interesting to watch because they'll start seeing the repercussions and they're like, yeah, of course, it's part of my protocol for every night. Yeah. I go at seven days, we are starting turmeric and we are winding down. Okay. So I think the message there is talk to your doctor because, you know, it is, it's powerful. It might be just a spice or just an herb, but it is, it is very powerful. Okay. So if you could have medical students read just one chapter of the inflammation code, which one would it be? Oh my gosh, that's so hard. I would make it, I would make it the elemental design chapter because that intro chapter explains the entire philosophy around personalized medicine. I or be the original creator of personalized medicine looking at the person in front of you and really understanding where are they coming from in a constitution sense because once you understand that, then everything else you can customize from there. Yeah. Okay. I love that. All right. Couple of quick fire questions to bring it home. So one habit you wish everyone would stop in midlife if they care about longevity. I would say trashing sleep. We have a habit of pushing sleep saying I've got more work to do, more emails, social media. I just have more and more and more to do, but that more and more and more is causing an inflammation pile up in the system and then you have to go stop your life and chase the inflammation. Got it. Perfect. One tiny ritual that delivers a surprisingly big anti-inflammatory win. In Ayurveda, we teach about using a copper tungst vapor. It's a small thing that you'll buy one time, but by gently scraping the tongue, you're actually clearing all the organs of your body and detoxing on a daily basis. And so clearing that lymphatic system is also supporting us at winning an inflammation. I love that. And guys, if you don't know this, in Ayurveda, the tongue is a, you have a map, there's Ayurvedic maps of the tongue where every major organ is represented on the tongue. And that's what Shavani is referring to. It's actually really cool. Is that, do you talk about that in your book at all? Do you have that map? I didn't put the map in, but I do talk about how we need to massage those organs gently, detox them, clearing oral health is supportive of the gut microbiome and that communication. So yeah. I know the answer to this question. What's the super surprise you take to a deserted island? As if you could have any other answer. They would have to be terrific. I'm the big 100% to remember. And then one belief about aging, you'd love our audience to just hit delete on today. We believe aging is inevitable. We believe that aches and pains and joint pain and stiffness is inevitable. We believe that we have to just lose function and freedom and sovereignty as we age and all of that is BS. I consider aging in that way optional. We can win it inflammation here and now today and keep our sovereignty, our freedom, our brain power, our gut health, our vitality all the way till the end. Love it. Love it. All right, Dr. Shavani, where can people find your book? Where can they get their hands on this amazing supplement? Guys, there's two different formulas. One is much stronger than the other. And where can they find you? So the website for the book is theinflammationcode.com. They can find me at shavanigopth.com. My name SHIVANI and at doctor.chavanigopthan, Instagram and socials. And then my supplement company is Fusionary formulas, F-U-S-I-O-N-A-R-Y formulas.com. And we made the special code, NAT15, just for your audience, to give them 15% off. I love it. Thank you. And actually, there's one thing I forgot we forgot to touch on is that in the book, there's a 21-day program that people can follow, right? So it's not just, you know what I love about this book, is it's not just a book for the sake of a book. It actually is very actionable. And so that 21-day program is it just in the book or is this a program that you're offering people that they can then do? It's actually just for the book people. So we have a whole page ready for them. When they get the book, they get the program. And then they get to apply this to themselves. I wanted to take all the wisdom, put it in video form. So you can listen to it while walking, driving, wherever. But you see for yourself how I apply this lifestyle. And then you can make it actionable immediately. I love it. Oh, so there's an actual video program. So people can tap it. And so what's the link for that or is that in the book? It's in the book and it'll be with they go to theinflammationcode.com and order the book, then they're going to get all that information. I'm amazing. Dr. Giovanni is always a pleasure. Thank you. I'm going to go find my tumor. I can see how old it is. And thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Hey folks, just a quick reminder that all of the information presented in this podcast is for information purposes only. No medical advice, no diagnosing, no treatments suggested here. Before you try anything that you hear about or learn about here, make sure that you check with your medical provider.