110. Dr. Josh Axe: The Hidden Connection Between Faith, Emotion, and Aging

What if the key to living longer and feeling younger has been hidden in ancient medicine all along? Long before supplements, peptides, or wearables, healing was about restoring balance through food, movement, belief, and nature. Today, those same principles are being shown by modern science to protect your cells, extend your healthspan, and reverse root causes of disease. In this episode of EXTEND, I'm joined by Dr. Josh Axe and we explore how ancient healing systems like Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine intersect with today's most advanced longevity research. We dive into the biology of faith and mindset, how chronic stress and emotion impact gene expression, and the connection between gut health, inflammation, and aging. We also discuss how to bridge natural and modern medicine, the surprising role of peptides and stem cells in regeneration, and why true longevity begins with the everyday habits you practice, not just the protocols you chase. Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNS, is a doctor of chiropractic and natural medicine, a clinical nutritionist, and the co-founder of Ancient Nutrition. He is also the host of the podcast The Dr. Josh Axe Show https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-josh-axe-show/id1700689487?utm_source=chatgpt.com and the bestselling author of Ancient Remedies and The Biblical Diet. We Also Discuss: (00:04) Traditional vs. Western medicine and where real healing happens (08:51) Ancient nutrition and the science of longevity (14:31) The emotional biology of healing in Eastern medicine (25:55) Biblical health codes and the roots of longevity (38:06) Mold toxicity, early signs, triggers, and recovery (52:26) Illness, purpose, and the path to healing (01:12:38) Regenerative therapies using peptides and stem cells (01:27:59) The future of wellness through ancient wisdom and modern science Thank You to Our Sponsors: Timeline: Go to timeline.com/drshah https://timeline.com/drshah to get 20% off your order. Function Health: Learn more and join using functionhealth.com/drshah. The first 1000 get a $100 credit toward their membership. Visit www.functionhealth.com/drshah or use gift code DRSHAH100 at sign-up to own your health. Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram:@darshanshahmd https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Dr. Josh Axe: Website: www.draxe.com http://www.draxe.com Instagram:@drjoshaxe http://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe YouTube: www.youtube.com/@DrJoshAxe http://www.youtube.com/@DrJoshAxe

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What is the biggest factor in how you age? Isn't actually your genetics or your supplements, but it's actually in your emotions. Modern science is now finally catching up to what ancient medicine has known for centuries, that your thoughts, your faith, your feelings, and your emotions actually can create measurable changes at the cellular level. Chronic fear, anger, trauma, these can all drain your mitochondria, and gratitude and belief in the faith can actually restore your mitochondria. And we're going to talk all about this in today's episode of Extend. I'm joined by one of my most favorite people, Dr. Josh Axe. I had the pleasure of going to Nashville to meet with him, and we did a pod swap where I was on his podcast, and he was on mine, and we dove deep into the doctor that he is

• 1:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  and how he founded Ancient Nutrition many, many years ago. And he did this to explore the hidden connection between faith, emotion, and aging. So, we're going to be diving into how Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine align with modern longevity science, how emotional biology influences inflammation and gene expression, and how to bridge the natural and the modern medicine to get deeper healing. You know, I really believe that modern medicine can only take you so far, and we've actually had the technology for centuries in ancient medicine, Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, that can really accelerate this healing power and ability of our body. So, if you've ever wondered why mindset and spiritual health matter as much as nutrition and peptides,

• 2:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  this conversation is going to completely reframe how you think about longevity. Here's my friend, Dr. Josh Axe.

• 2:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  This week marks the one year anniversary of the Extend Podcast. It's hard to believe we've already released over 100 episodes featuring some of the greatest minds in health and wellness, from Dr. Jeffrey Bland to Dr. Mark Hyman and many others. These are all pioneers in functional medicine and advanced longevity and leaders in mental health and human performance. It's been an incredible honor to have these conversations and share them with you. If you found value in what we're doing, please share the podcast with your friends and family. We're currently in the top five for medicine and often reach the top 50 for health and wellness. Let's keep spreading this knowledge and helping people live longer, healthier, and more fulfilled lives.

• 3:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Dr. Axe, it's such an honor to have you on the podcast. And for people that are watching this on video, I'm in your studios in Nashville. Thank you for having me.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  That's right. Welcome. Well, thanks so much for having me on the show, Dr. Darshan. I appreciate it and excited to dive in today.

• 3:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So this is a big honor for me, actually, because 12 years ago now, when I was going through my own massive health struggles and learning how to get healthy, your videos really helped, you know? And I'm a doctor, trained in Western medicine, and I had no education on the science of things like nutrition and gut health and detoxification. I learned so much from you and I still do. So it's just incredible to be here with you and to talk about all of this.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Well, I'm so honored, well, vice versa. I, you know, I know I had you on my podcast and I, you know, in, yeah, your background is just amazing. And so I appreciate all your wisdom as well. So I love to be iron, iron sharpens iron for each other. So yeah, thanks so much.

• 4:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you. Yeah. You know what? One of the things I really love about your message is that you don't ignore all of the history that we have in medicine. You kind of bring it into your thought process. You talk about it a lot. And like, where does that come from in your life?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I think one of the things I'm always incredibly conscious of, and this is true with health, but it's true with, I think, everything in life is, I want to know what the truth is. And so for me, I found that I'm going to find the greatest Truth via looking both at today, the past and the future. And so I really try and think about one, and there's actually a Bible verse that reminds me of this. And Jesus said this, by their fruit, you'll recognize them. And so I like to look at different people. I like to look at different systems and say, which one bears the greatest fruit? And that's how I'm going to decide what truth is. And so when I went and looked back at how long people were living in the Bible. When I went and looked back at Chinese medicine in Asia and like even Japanese medicine.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  I thought, well, Japan has the longest lifespan today. They're the healthiest country generally, Okinawa. What sort of medicine do they practice? When I started going back, you know what I learned? They practice a type of Chinese medicine called Kempo. Like that's what that's, that's a still big part of their medical system today. And Ayurveda, that's another one there. So, so when I go and look at what are some people in groups that lived a really long time? Why do they live a long time? And I found again, the people of the Bible, I found Ayurveda, I found Chinese medicine. There's a lot of truth there. Here's the other thing, amazing thing is I went and tried them myself. And I also realized that Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, for example, they're based off of millions of individual case studies.

• 5:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. Millions and millions.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And now listen, somebody could argue with me that they're, you know, it's not a double blind placebo and it's not to the standards of Western medicine today. But I would also argue, one of the unique things about those medical modalities is there was not a bias there and they weren't being influenced by a pharmaceutical industry. And so for me, when I am deciding on what sort of protocol to create for a patient, I'm in simultaneously or together, I'm trying to say, what does Chinese medicine and Ayurveda teach us? What does the Bible teach us? But also what is the latest scientific literature? What, what can I learn from Dr. Darshan Shah and Andrew Huberman? And what can I learn from the latest, you know, the, the most advanced researchers today?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  And I try and take all that information together and then create my protocols for hypothyroidism or cancer, autoimmune disease, based off that information. But you know, I really think Chinese medicine, for example, I think if I had to Pick one system to operate on to help somebody heal. It would be at the very, very top of my list.

• 6:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  I, I think it's a, I, I think, I think they are incredibly accurate at diagnosis, you know? Like I'll, I do tongue diagnosis with patients, so I do blood work. But I also will have them take a picture of their tongue.

• 7:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Interesting.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  And I will, because that really allows me to know herbal diagnosis, what herbs to recommend even better than most standard blood tests.

• 7:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah, so interesting. Yeah. Because back then they didn't have blood tests, right?

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So they only could look at the inside of the body through the orifice.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Which is the mouth, right?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. Wow. Yeah, you know, I, I, um, my dad practiced Ayurveda. And what he told me and what I believe is incredibly powerful is in India. Ayurveda happened first, obviously, it's an ancient form of medicine, and then the Western medical system came. And it wasn't like a either or, they worked together.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yes, right.

• 7:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So when you get really sick, you go to the Western medical system. But your Ayurvedic doctor is sometimes bringing you into the hospital, there with you the whole time. And then when you get distressed from the hospital, they're there to again, get you healthy and keep you healthy.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Well, you know, this, this is what medicine should be to me. When they say that mainstream medicine is primary care. I actually, in a way, think it should be secondary care.

• 8:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  And, or, or emergency care.

• 8:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Well said.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  And so it's like, hey, if, if I am, you know, if I have something minor going on. Is it better for me to take a vitamin or an herbal extract? Or is it better for me to go and take a really strong, an antibiotic? I, I, I mean, you and I both know, they're much better off taking the probiotic, taking the vitamin D, taking the zinc, building the body that way. And then if they get pneumonia, okay, we're going to get you in the hospital, we're going to get you to take a doctor, we need to take the antibiotic. But the problem is, is like, kids are going in to their pediatricians and it's like antibiotic, antibiotic, antibiotic. ADHD medication, steroid. And the reality is. 90% of the time, none of those drugs were required. You could have been taking echinacea, you could have been doing things natural with zero side effects.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  But now, because you've taken all these antibiotics, you've destroyed your gut microbiome. You've called this microbiome dysbiosis. And now, your chance of getting a secondary infection or a chronic illness goes up dramatically.

• 9:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. And it's just like, you know, in the United States, I think this is, this country is the most guilty of this. And we've completely separated the two systems, right? And there's some history behind that, the Flextar report, if you're familiar. I mean, basically, it destroyed anything that did not have like a randomized controlled trial behind it. And you talk about this a lot, is like, these trials, a lot of them are flawed. They're influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, they're trying to sell the pharmaceuticals. And we've completely disconnected traditional medicine from the new system, right?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  You know, there's this great study, it was actually a study on studies.

• 9:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  And I'm forgetting the journal name, I typically know, but it's not coming to me right now. But people who look this up, and they basically found that when you read the headline of a study, and you look into the study, 51% was their numbers, 51.2% of studies, they said are flawed, and they're not accurate. If you think about that, that around 50% of studies, when you're reading the results, they're not accurate. That, I mean, that's, that's a lot. And that's really, you know, can create a lot of deception for people and a lot of misunderstandings. And here's an example of this, people know this to be true. You know how many studies show that beef is great for you? There, but it's about 50/50.

• 10:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  About, I mean, I mean, or even, or dairy.

• 10:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  You know, there are, and they went through this study and said, well, because a lot of times, they're not saying, is it grass fed? Is, or finished, is it organic? Is it slaughtered the right way? I mean, there's a number of things there versus, so people are just saying beef. Well, what beef do you mean? You know, and so, and so there's a lot of these headlines saying, red meat causes heart disease.

• 10:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Well, red meat, is it elk? Is it bison? Is it beef? Is it grass fed? Like, tell me about the history of it. So, so that's where I think people could really see, okay, and eggs is actually one of the biggest ones. It was like, you know.

• 10:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  All over the place. Yeah, when the WHO put out that warning, that red meat caused cancer.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, when you really look into the studies that they based that knowledge on. The red meat that they were studying was packaged and processed red meat.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so that's not the kind of meat that I eat. I'm looking for grass fed, you know, well raised, responsibly raised beef cattle.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 11:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And like, and I eat it lean and I eat it like, it's completely different. I'm not eating hot dogs and burgers.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That are processed.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Well, and the other thing to think about, you know, I think when I went and read some of the studies that the American Heart Association was quoting from like the seventies, they were feeding rabbits red meat. But you think about our body's physiology compared to an herbivore of a rabbit, it's not the same. So, so there are all of these different types of issues that you can run into.

• 11:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, there's, there's, it's so nuanced and I think we're given, I mean, the egg thing that you mentioned is so, it's so hilarious almost, right? Like you and I both grew up in a time where one day Time Magazine, the cover is, don't eat eggs, you're gonna die.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And the next few years later is like, eggs are the best thing ever.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Or butter, margarine butter.

• 12:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. Exactly. And it just goes to show you that, you know, there's so much ancient wisdom that we're ignoring in favor of like the studies now, but the studies are just always contradicting each other. And like you said, 50% of them are wrong. I also notice when I read the headline of a study and the conclusions, and then you look in the data, the conclusions they've made are completely opposite sometimes what the data shows.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  It's wild.

• 12:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's wild, right?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. Yeah.

• 12:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How does someone like sort through all this?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I, I, I think, I think one, people need a guide. And then so maybe part of the question becomes, well, how do you pick a guide? And then how do you learn from that guide? And so I'll just share for myself, you know, one of the things that I always tried to do, and again, this is this principle I talked about earlier, buy your fruit, you'll recognize them. Who's a physician?

• 13:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Uh huh.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Who really knows what they're talking about, who's seen great results in their own life, their family's life, their patients, and they're not seeing side effects later on. And so, so, so that's what I would do. You know, I think a lot of times people are online on social media looking at like, hey, what's the latest influencer trend? Is it eating a whole bottle of Tylenol? Or just as bad, maybe not quite as bad, but pretty bad, drinking a whole bottle of apple cider vinegar. Like, that's not good either. It's gonna rip your stomach apart and your whole esophagus. So, um, so all that being said, I think that you really wanna, and listen, I try and do this like in my marriage. Chelsea and I look at who are some pastors we really trust, priests, rabbis, like who are people we really trust with great marriages? Who have sound advice? Let's learn from them.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Who are some people that we have who have, uh, you know, again, um, in our faith? And again, same thing with, I mentioned great marriages, but the same thing with your health. It's you wanna recognize and find, and that's why people listen to your podcast. They said, okay, Dr. Darshan Shah, he was trained at Mayo Clinic. He understands natural medicine. He is recommending these advanced therapies. We see his patients, they're reversing autoimmune disease, they're reducing inflammation, they're losing 50, 100 pounds. So I would say, and you know, and, and there's a, uh, there's a psychologist I like, and he's studied a lot of this. Like, how do you just discover the truth?

• 14:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  And here's what he said, go and find the five people or 10 people leading their field that are getting really great results.

• 14:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, yes.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  And then start writing down, what do they all have in common? Oh, they all recommend first and foremost to get off my butt and start moving and start walking daily. Oh, they're all recommending vitamin D. Oh, they're all recommending this. And that's, and, and he, so that's how he suggests you find truth and wisdom, or who are the most, you know, wise people? And what do they all recommend in common?

• 14:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's such a great kind of structure. And I love what you said about the finding the fruits. Just look at their results, like what are they achieving for their patients? And I think, once you see that and you, you understand that they are actually practicing what they preach themselves to, on their own bodies, that, that, that also makes a big difference. And, you know, you and I probably both know doctors that are. Incredibly unhealthy themselves, right?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  There's a problem there. There's a mismatch.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  There is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think most people are gonna, um, yeah, the doctors I respect most. This and anybody that has a high level of integrity, they're gonna practice what they preach.

• 15:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely. So I feel that you've done a lot of deep research into ancient traditions and ancient medicines. And you reference Chinese medicine a lot. And also, there's a form of Japanese medicine you mentioned, Kempo, is that right? What are they doing in Kempo?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  So they are, uh, again, it's really just an extension of Chinese medicine. And here's how this works. They use something called the five elements.

• 15:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  And this is like the three doshas.

• 15:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  But they have five.

• 15:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Five, right.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  And think about it as the first personality profile. Now, we have the big five. It's so funny how they're like, a lot of times these numbers match up and how, and how people differentiate or create categories. But it was laid out, and they use things in nature again during that time that made sense. Now to us, it might sound silly today, but they would say, what element, metal element, fire, water, earth? But it was basically a way of saying, okay, we're looking at your body shape. We're looking at your constitution. We're looking at, here's another one. We're looking at the emotions you tend to experience when you come into conflict. And in Chinese medicine and in Kempo Japan, they believe that most disease is rooted in not what you eat, not your movement level, not, those things are big contributors.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  But primarily, it's due to the emotions you experience that are negative most regularly on a regular basis.

• 16:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  So they would say that the emotion of, and think about how true some of this is. If you have a lot of anxiety, or let's say a child has a nightmare, they can wet the bed. Well, okay, they wet the bed. So what that fear, what does fear affect? The adrenals, the bladder, the reproductive organs?

• 17:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  You know, I've had patients who've had this, and you've had the same thing. I've worked a lot of women with infertility and helping them get pregnant. And one of the things they'll say constantly is, I got pregnant when I stopped trying. Did this fear anxiousness around, I'm trying to get pregnant. And then they're like, you know what, I'm not gonna, and then they were able to.

• 17:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  So we know that the emotion of fear, according to Chinese medicine, according to Kempo. It it affects the reproductive organs, the kidney and bladder. Anxiety, you get anxious. Your blood pressure can start to creep up. That affects the heart and cardiovascular system. Worry, we've heard people say, ah, I feel like my stomach's tied knots when they're just worrying, obsessing over something. That affects the upper GI. If you have had trauma in the past or or grief or depression and there's something that's happened in the past, maybe you're living with guilt and shame or hurt from the past, but you've not been able to move on. They would say that affects your immune system, primarily the colon and the lungs. And the last one is the liver and gallbladder.

• 17:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  That's tied to anger, resentment, bitterness and unforgiveness. Actually, unforgiveness is an interesting one.

• 18:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  They would say that that is resentment towards somebody that they did in the past. So that affects two systems, your detoxification system, your lung or your your liver, your gallbladder and your lymphatics, and it affects your immune system. And they believe that's a primary driver of cancer is those two systems when you're someone's living with unforgiveness. And so, so, so there is a deep emotional root tied into here and most people have one chief emotion that they tend to. So you come into conflict. Do you get angry? Do you get anxious? Do you get fearful? Right? And for people to be able to determine what is that emotion that I experience that's negative on a regular basis and now becoming aware of it? When did it start? And then being able to combat that with diet supplementation, of course, mind shifts,

• 18:50Speaker 01

  you know, changing your mindset on things, growing spiritually and and in character. All of those things will help people heal and function function better.

• 18:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow. I mean, it's so, I think intuitive for people to under to know that their emotions are connected with their physiology, but then we just completely separate them when you see a healthcare professional, right? That we don't even talk about your emotions, right?

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I do a lot now because, you know, we talked earlier about how, you know, I believe that that regulation between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is a huge part of poor health.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Huge. Well, you know, you say that and I think I think that I think that Western medicine proves this, you know, when when I think about root causes of why people get sick, I would say hormone. The two hormones that are the most, that are the driving factor is cortisol and insulin. You know, and cortisol is that hormone that's being released typically when you're getting in that too sympathetic of a state, right? Not that there's not some other ones popping up, you know, like adrenaline and things, but overall it's going to be very high up there. And so I think that for most people, again, the number one reason they're sick is emotional issues. The secondary reason is poor diet and what's happening with insulin, but we also know cortisol impacts insulin.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  But I think those are the two driving factors. And I think that that really aligns with what, you know, Chinese medicine teaches and in Japanese medicine. And when we're looking at how do we shift and change things in the body? The biggest recommendations in Chinese medicine are first, let's focus on your lifestyle. Let's shift your lifestyle and your daily habits, the way you're living. Secondarily, let's change your diet. Let's recommend some herbs and then let's do some holistic treatments like acupuncture. And then another big one they have for this emotional regulation is qigong. It's really training your body and how to breathe properly while doing certain movements. That's incredibly powerful.

• 20:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah, incredibly puts you in a parasympathetic tone as well.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 20:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And, uh, you know, it's so, I feel like, um, people in the United States unfortunately don't have access to this, right? And so there are great practitioners now of Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, but and you talk a lot about this on your podcast as well. But how can just the general public, how can give more access, more knowledge around some of these ancient traditions and how to use them?

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say, you know, I get this question a lot. There are not a lot of books on this.

• 21:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I know. There's not a lot of them.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  I wrote, wrote a book and I don't want to say it's the best one out there because they're probably better. They get more into the, the deepness of it. But I wrote one that I tried to, I, I wrote for patients and for people, it's called Ancient Remedies. And that gets into some of these ideas that I wrote about years ago. There's another book I love by Paul Pitchford. It's called Healing with Whole Foods. That's a really good one. The more philosophical one, again, if you're into sort of this philosophy, it's called the web that has no weaver. That's probably the most popular in that.

• 21:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No Weaver.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the TCM, so it kind of shows you the interconnections of the organ systems and and that idea there. So that that would be, that would be one. But really, I think it's reading articles. I think seeing an acupuncturist is greatly beneficial, has tremendous benefits for your health. And and what acupuncture does, I think it's so funny, like I grew up in a, in a really, I had great parents.

• 22:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In Ohio, right?

• 22:06Speaker 01

  In Ohio, great parents, Christian household. But my mom was sort of one of these moms that was like, if it came from China, it was the devil.

• 22:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  I'm over exaggerating a little bit, but it was like, you know, the words like Chi and Yin and Yang. It was like, what is that? That's like new age or something like that. So, but it's funny, when I started learning about them, like, it's just a different language, you know? And they're explaining things actually in a way that's much more understandable. And even practical, when you're practicing medicine to help people get well. I mean, like the idea around, like Chinese medicine, here, here's, this is over simplified, but this is, this is how most people should think about it. If you want to heal, the way you heal is you change your internal environment. You're not sick because of genetics. You're not sick because of some outside thing. You're sick because your internal environment is not well. Think about it as a garden bed, right?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  You need sun, you need certain types of microbes in the soil, certain nutrients, like that's what you need. And so in Chinese medicine, they would say, okay, internally, your body typically doesn't have one thing that makes you sick is it's not enough Chi. Today, that's just mitochondrial ATP. Your body doesn't have enough cellular energy. Okay, your body is too yin or yang. That's hormone balance. You have too much progesterone or estrogen. Is there an imbalance there? And then you have, is your body too cold internally or is it too hot? Is it too damp or is it too dry? Is it too much movement called wind or too little movement called stagnation? And they just look at those factors and recommend herbs and lifestyle changes and other sorts of

• 23:43Speaker 01

  medical treatments in order to bring the body back into balance. So for instance, hypothyroidism in Chinese medicine is a Chi and Yang deficiency. Chi again. Chondra is low, low cellular energy, yang is, your body's not anabolic enough. It's not regenerating enough. So we'd know in Western medicine, okay, what is the number one qi and yang boosting herb in all of medicine today? Or at least in Ayurveda, ashwagandha.

• 24:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ashwagandha, right?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  And then in Chinese medicine, they would recommend maybe something like a ginseng or a combination of herbs typically together. But well, okay, we know that works. And so, but my, my, my point there is, is that it's really simplistic, but it's, it's really effective.

• 24:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  And it's even more effective when you combine that with Western medicine and all, all the things that you practice today.

• 24:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's such a great point because all of this exists. This exists for millennia, right?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And we, we all have it available to us. It's like you said, it's hard to find great books on it. I'm so glad you wrote one, but there are practitioners of Chinese medicine, Ayurveda out there that you can find in most local communities. I think the hardest mental leap people have to make is to give it a try, right?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  That's right. Agreed. Yeah, yeah, well, acupuncture, the way it works is they believe that, and they're right, is that different organ systems are tied to different muscles and different tendons and ligaments and areas of the body. And we know this, for instance, like if somebody has a heart attack, they get pain in their left arm.

• 25:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  If somebody has a gallbladder attack, it's the right shoulder, right? So there's very specific areas of your body that are tied to organs. And those are channels that they knew thousands of years ago in Chinese and medicine and Ayurveda. And they're part of these acupuncture lines. But what they do is when they put a needle in an area for acupuncture, they're stimulating the area which will cause more blood flow to go to that organ. That's all they're doing is bringing blood, oxygen and cellular energy to the organ and to allow it to function better.

• 25:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So interesting, right? So what I love about you too, is that you have all this deep wisdom in the ancient modalities. But you also have incredible knowledge in all the new stuff that's coming out there. Things like peptides and stem cells and all of this. And when you're talking to your patients, how do you kind of take them on that journey from the ancient wisdom to what's new?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Well, well, one, again, I just try and create these sort of similarities of saying, again, like I did, like, what is Qi? Well, it's ATP, it's cellular energy, right? So, so it's this thing here. And so I think just educating them on those things and, and showing the validity of both, because I think if you and I have patients who are sick, they're going to benefit the most when you can bring both these things in together. I think, I think in most cases. And so, and, and sometimes I just decide to speak someone's language. Sometimes I'm not really getting into the ancient medicine because that's not a language they speak or even want to learn about. They just want to get well. So I'm just, you know, I'm recommending, but, but I do, I always do try and educate people as much as possible. Like when I write out, like, hey, here's the five supplements I want

• 26:42Speaker 01

  you to take. Oftentimes I'll put next to it, both the Western and the Eastern idea of, hey, here's how this is working. So ashwagandha. Well, hey, we know that this is a, you know, it's been shown in studies to help regulate thyroid hormones and support TSH and T4 levels and, and, and, but it's also for qi and yang booster, you know? So, so, so I try and do both. But, but again, I just try and speak people's language, whatever, whatever that is.

• 27:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. So, yeah, I want to talk to you about some of the news, but before we do that, I really don't want to miss talking about your latest book, which is right here, the Bibliodiet. Yeah. And, you know, I went to Catholic school when I was a kid, read the Bible.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In Catholic school. And there's so much wisdom in there. Obviously, it's one of the most read books on the planet.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It has so much knowledge in there. How did you pick apart the health advice in the Bible and put it together for people?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Well, one, I was really blessed to grow up learning about the Christian faith.

• 27:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  So, so one, I generally have a knowledge, and listen, of course, there's many people have much, much greater knowledge theologically than I do. But I did really grow up with it. And then I did everything from like, I was in youth group, I've taught youth group, I've led growth groups over the years, been involved with a lot of pastors in churches. I've taken theological courses myself. So I've really spent a lot of time studying the Bible, reading the Bible, understanding the theology of the Bible. But then doing it with the lens of health and mind. And so here's really what the Bible teaches. By the way, I think the Bible is the greatest health book ever written. Because really, it's dealing with spiritual, emotional, mental issues. But also, it really dies deep into farming. And there are verses in the Bible and Leviticus that talk about, here's what to do if you have mold issues in your home.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  I mean, it really is getting in depth there. So when we

• 28:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I read that. They tell you, like, you know, clean your house. And then if your house can't get clean and you still have symptoms, you burn your house down and take the

• 28:40Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 28:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Take it out, to take it to out of town, right?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 28:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Something like some of that effect, right?

• 28:44Speaker 01

  That's exactly what it is. It's like the third time, if you clean it and it comes back, you burn it. Yeah. And at the time, they're living in tents, right? Because it was Israelites in the desert. But yeah, no, you burn it.

• 28:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But it's great advice, actually. You can't live in a house that you can't get rid of the mold.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 28:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They knew this for centuries.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's amazing. It is absolutely amazing. You know, so I, so going back, here's what I think the Bible teaches dietarily. Now, here's something else amazing. Jesus, two thirds of all of his parables he taught were about food and farming.

• 29:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  So, so there was a lot of, obviously, there's a lot of that information in the Bible. And if you would go, anybody who reads the Bible and they go through with like a, like a magnifying glass, you'll see so many health in food references in there. But the Bible starts off in the Garden of Eden. By the way, we start off in a garden in the Bible. And then it says, in eternity, heaven is here on earth. It's in a garden city. So Genesis, the first few books we read about being in a garden, Revelation 21 and 22, the last two books of the Bible, we read about being in a garden city. And so, so I think that's important to note. Now, when we're in the garden, early with Adam and Eve, they're, they're herbivores. They're eating fruits. They're only eating perennial plants. So they're eating probably fruits and nuts and, and certain other types of vegetation, and that's what they're eating.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  And then the curse happens. They're banned from the garden. And that's when we, that's when we start to see modern farming practices, such as growing grains and some of those sort of foods. So now we go from the perennial plants where you're just tending a garden to now we're tilling the soil and we're actually doing modern agriculture. From there, we have the flood. And then we see there I think it's Genesis six, three, where after God floods the planet, he tells Noah, he said, I will never flood the earth again. And then he also tells him this, he says, now you can eat the things that creep and crawl on the ground. You can eat animals. Yeah. And then from there, we see the food laws of Moses, like eat meat. And then we see in the food laws of Moses, where he says, basically, eat this, not that, right?

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Don't eat pork, don't eat shellfish, these are bottom feeders, they store toxins. By the way, modern medicine shows this today, I mean, the number one carrier of parasites is pork. Right. So, so, you know, and then shrimp and shellfish, again, they're called the, you know, the, the scum of the sea. I mean, they're, they're not great either. So we see that, and then we see them recommending certain foods. And then I would say the kind of next step beyond that is when we see Jesus and the disciples and Paul in the Bible saying, eat to glorify God, not that that wasn't talked about in the Old Testament, but there was more like eat from the heart. And, and he's even saying things like, listen, you know, there are certain instances where you don't want to eat that's sacrificed, or eat something that's bad for you, but if something's put in front of you that may not be the healthiest thing,

• 31:23Speaker 01

  there are times, there are things even more important than how, there are things even more important than your physical health. Like, like, like saving somebody's soul and loving them and helping win them to eternity, right? So that's the sort of progression that I saw in the Bible. And then also, you know, one of the things is I, as I wrote this book with Jordan Rubin, The Biblio Diet, we really looked at like, what does the Bible teach about longevity and health? Because there's people quoted, of course, there's Methuselah living nine hundred and some years, but, and some of the belief there is after the flood, the environment changed because it never rained till then. Yep. Something changed, we know that there was likely, likely dinosaurs, maybe even, now that could be pre-humanity, or during those early days, we know they're referencing though behemoth and other large animals,

• 32:07Speaker 01

  but something could have changed there, but my point is, it says in the Bible, man's days will be 120. That's what it says there. And so looking at, well, what are the foods they ate? What did they do on a regular basis? And we see a lot, the most referenced foods in all of the Bible, number one is red meat. If you look at the, the reference of also sort of, you know, lamb and beef and those sort of things, extra virgin olive oil. Sour dough bread, raw milk, honey, and then fruits are referenced a lot. Pomegranates and figs are referenced probably the most. I think pomegranates is number one, and I mentioned olives there. And then there are herbs like saffron, you know, a number of herbs, cumin, cinnamon, casha are referenced there. But, but, but you know, when I went through and looked at it, these are some of the world's greatest longevity foods.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, pomegranates, for instance, allagic acid converts to urolithin A. It's, it's incredible.

• 32:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's incredible how long this knowledge has been there. And it's like, kind of right in front of us, but also hidden, right?

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Very, very cool. Yeah, pomegranates, urolithin A, for example, like now we know, like this is now incredibly well researched to improve mitochondrial health.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And they talked about in the Bible.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, here's another cool principle that's in sort of this Asian medicine.

• 33:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Is if a food looks like an organ, it helps heal that organ.

• 33:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Really?

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so they call it like supports like. This is also true with glandulars and organs. Uh, but for instance, walnuts, if you have a whole walnut before you crack it open, it looks like a head. You crack it open, there's a left and right side. It literally looks like a brain. It's high in choline, it's high in vitamin E, it's high in omega three fatty acids, all of these things that are amazing for the brain. A coconut looks like a head. It's full of medium chain fatty acids that are good for the brain and head. A heart, it's red, it has four chambers. Tomatoes are high in lycopene. Beach, you cut it, it looks like blood.

• 33:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  High in nitric oxide boosting compounds. Celery, looks like your bones, very alkaline, very good for bone density. There's so, so many. I mean, there's so many, uh, figs look like testes. They would see the little sperm in there.

• 34:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yep.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Or the little seeds look like sperm in Roman culture that was consumed for fertility. Olives look like ovaries, avocado like a uterus, onions like a cells. So that's a principle in Chinese medicine. If you want to help heal an organ or promote longevity for it, eat the food that looks like the organ. And also there's flavors that help tonify or strengthen organs like sour and bitter are more for liver. Right. Mildly sweet, like cinnamon and sweet potato, that's more for upper GI issues. And then last thing here, I think organs and glandulars are the same. If you want to support your liver, eat liver. You want to support your heart, eat, eat heart.

• 34:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Yeah. It's a really interesting way of thinking about, about diet and great, great for people to try. And, and I mean, all the foods you mentioned are incredibly healthy anyway.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 34:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So why not eat that way?

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Um, so. You know, they said in the Bible, one twenty, right?

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Humans have lived to one twenty. And we know that, like, last year, I think the oldest living person had died and they studied her and she was one hundred and seventeen years old.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 35:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  There's some people that have lived to one twenty.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What do you think is happening in the future here? Do you think we'll ever break through that barrier of one twenty?

• 35:17Speaker 01

  When the Bible gives the exact number one twenty, I think it's also important to understand that the worldview of the people at that time. And that is to say, now, do I think it's one twenty? I generally think it's one twenty.

• 35:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I agree.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  But do I think that the one twenty of the Bible doesn't mean somebody could live to be one twenty-one or one twenty-two? No, I mean, there is a lot more, the meaning of their words at the time and the way there's a gender, there's a more richness and a flexibility in some of that, the way that I understand it. So again, I think the number's pretty much one twenty, but I think it could give a few, take a few days. Now, let me say this, do I think maybe we could get to the point where somebody's kept alive? Maybe they keep somebody's tissues and brain alive and active to a hundred fifty. But the Bible, from a definition of living, probably wouldn't consider that living.

• 36:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  So, so all that being said, no, I think, I think that's, I think that's accurate and I don't think that's going to change until the end of time.

• 36:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, no, that's, it's a good point. And I think, you know, there's a lot of talk out there in the longevity spheres about living to two fifty.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  I see these people, I mean, listen, what's his name? Brian Johnson and Dave Asprey and some others are like, I'm living to one eighty or two hundred. Listen, I pray you have amazing health. I pray you guys live to be one twenty and are blessed, but I'm not betting on that. I don't think that'll, I don't think that'll happen. But so, so maximize your days. Listen, that's part of our days are limited, like, like, you know, cherish every moment.

• 36:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I totally agree and increase your health span, right?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 36:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Why spend the last twenty years of your life, whether you lived a hundred twenty or eighty? Why spend the last twenty years being sick?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like, you know, that's, that's longevity, in my opinion.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Adding those years into your life where you can actually enjoy life, recognize your friends and family. Travel, do all the things you love. That's longevity.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. And there becomes a point, and you've experienced a lot of patients like this, as have I, where obsessing about certain things is detrimental to your health. Like, I have, I've seen quite a few people over the years why, where the reason that they're, they don't fully heal is because they're thinking about their health every second of the day, and they're researching, and they're doing things. And it's like, you know what, like, and in Chinese medicine, they would believe that overactive brain, that's draining your mitochondrial energy, that's draining, they would tend to say your, your, your upper GI health primarily, like obsessing and worrying and, and over studying, is draining your body. So I would say there's an element to, I mean, listen, almost everyone's experienced this.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  They go to Europe, they go to Italy, and they're like, man, I felt the best I've ever felt. I was eating bread, I was drinking wine, I was eating dairy gelato, and it was the healthiest I've been.

• 37:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. So you just gotta let go every once in a while, right?

• 37:58Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. When we see that in the blue zones, right, we see these people that are, there's more of a carefreeness about them. And the other thing is, they tend to be very devoted to family. And, and having a sense of sort of joy and peace and contentment in life, and worry and obsessiveness is the, the opposite of that.

• 38:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I agree completely. And the sense of community and just surrounding yourself with people that you want to be around. It makes, it makes such a huge difference.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So I'm 52 right now, but I'm still pushing all of my limits. I'm running long distances, I travel across many time zones to support my work, and I just want to live my life to the fullest. Staying active as I age isn't just about willpower. It's about supporting my mitochondria, the powerhouses of my cells, with the energy that they need to recharge my muscles and recharge my brain. Mitopure is a supplement that I take. It's backed by solid research, showing that it can boost cellular energy, increase muscle strength, and support overall healthy aging. Personally, I take Mitopure every single day. It's helped me continue my active lifestyle, whether it's a high intensity workout or keeping up with my kids.

• 39:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So if you are looking to support your body and want to feel younger from the inside out, my friends at Timeline are offering you a 10% discount on your first order. Go to timeline.com/DrShah to get started. That's timeline.com/DRSHAH. Your future self will thank you. Let's go back to, you know, we're talking about mold and I want to, you know, you're such an expert in all of the chronic indolent kind of infections and I know a lot of people seek out your advice. I still run into practitioners, medical doctors that say mold is not a real issue. Don't worry about it. I know. I don't like, what are you talking about? Yeah.

• 39:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so, you know, for those people out there, first I would love for you to talk about, like, what do people experience when they have mold exposure, just physically? What are they feeling?

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think the single most common thing I've seen in patients is brain fog. I think secondarily fatigue, but I also think just a disequilibrium. You just feel very off. Inflammation, I mean, really chronic inflammation. I think those are the three, you have really, really severe brain fog, fatigue, inflammation, I think are the three biggest. Sometimes just overreaction. Sometimes there's histamine reactions as well. Again, part of that's that inflammatory response, I think, that's associated with that as well.

• 40:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Getting rashes out of nowhere.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 40:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hives, kind of a thing.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, absolutely. So those are some of the biggest symptoms that I see with people. And, and a lot of times it's like it came out, you feel like it almost came out of nowhere for, for a number of people. You know, there's 24% of the population as a percentage, according to one study, they do not detoxify mold properly. There's a genetic variant, very similar to MTHFR.

• 40:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yep.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  You know, that number can be closer to 40% if you count, yeah, at least having one of those variants of MTHFR and that's not methylating properly. Well, very similar thing, you can have a variant. So some people walk into a mold place and their body just, it is not very good at filtering it. And, and so that becomes a big problem for them. And, and, and so, you know, when it comes to mold, one, I love the therapies you're doing. I mean, plasma exchange, I love. In certain cases, ozone, I think you need to creep into these things sometimes.

• 41:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  But I would say first and foremost, if you want to heal from mold, you've got to get rid of, out of the moldy environment. Listen, listen, you can plasma exchange all day, but if you're walking right back into the mold exposure, you're going to be sick. And so I would say, one, get rid of the mold. The other thing, the exposure there, and then start doing some things to help, help eliminate mold from your body.

• 41:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  You know, I think doing some really mild binders, more like, um, I would say, um, everything from like apple pectin to chlorella to, a lot of people jump to charcoal. Let me just give my opinion on this. I like charcoal for certain things. Let's say you're getting your amalgam fillings removed.

• 42:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Okay. Charcoal is a little too powerful to use long-term because it binds everything and it causes constipation. Well, there's another issue where it's backing up your detoxification system.

• 42:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  So that can be okay if you're doing a more advanced, like a two-week protocol for detoxification, but, but that's a little bit too strong of a binder. And then I really like super high dose probiotics. Like I'll put a patient on one trillion daily probiotics and I'll either have them on a higher dose of SPOs. It depends on if they're having histamine reactions, but anyways, lots of probiotics, lots of pectin, uh, or moderate pectin, some chlorella, those sort of things I like for binding. And then just supporting the liver, you know, dietarily, I try and do mostly meat and vegetables and like apples. I really like apples for this, but like it's, it's, and it's a, and maybe a little bit of rice and sweet potato, but that's it. I mean, I really try and do an elimination diet where we get down to just a very few things that you tend to not have sensitivities to and

• 42:56Speaker 01

  really stick to those things, I think is big. And then recommending out some of those therapies, like the plasma exchange, I think is a, is a, is a good, good strategy for mold. One other thing, sometimes you have co-infections.

• 43:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  And that's the reason why mold's an issue. That's why plasma exchange is so amazing.

• 43:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  As a therapy or maybe ozone as well.

• 43:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  You know, and doing those, uh, a different part, you know, uh, different, different parts of the treatment.

• 43:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. You know, going back to eliminating it from your environment, your exposure, right? I think a lot of people are confused, like Leviticus has burned your house down after three years.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But how, how do people like really truly understand like where are they getting exposed to mold? When you talk to people about their exposure, what's kind of the advice you're giving them to go looking for where you're getting exposed?

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Well, one, there's different types of mold, but the most commonplace you're going to find is in your age. HVAC system and behind your walls. And by the way, there's always going to be a certain level of mold like it's a natural microbe that's in the air. But, but, but you know, you can have somebody come and test us. And let me say, some people will come and test and they don't know how to test, right? Chelsea and I, when we were moving back, we were going to live in an apartment for a short time. This is just about three years ago. We were living between Nashville and Puerto Rico. We're moving full time back here. And we were like, okay, we're going to live in an apartment for six months until we buy, get in a house. And um, black mold started growing and I wasn't there. And then like

• 44:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In the house or the apartment?

• 44:18Speaker 01

  The apartment.

• 44:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, where you were living.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then they, the, the guys came in and they're like, oh, it's nothing. It's just only isolated this little spot. We went back to Puerto Rico, came back, mold over the entire home. I'm talking about pillows, beds, shoes, like literally black mold in the whole place. And it's like, you just tested and you told me it was totally fine. Okay, you just said we're good here. So, so overall, I would say, but yeah, I mean, it tends to HVAC system is the most common followed by behind, you know, behind walls, especially if there's water damage. I remember there's, there's a flood years ago in Nashville. And this is when I first opened my, I was like a couple of years into practice.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  And the amount of patients I had for the next few years with, with mold issues was so, so high because it just, you had so much water damage there. This is why it's a bigger issue in Florida, right? Florida, there's major, major issues with mold. So there's like vibrant wellness. They'll, they'll test for mold in your urine and things like that. But an actual home test, you know, there, there, there are people that do it right. I don't have the name of the company, but there are also a lot that don't, don't, don't test nearly extensively enough.

• 45:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah, agreed. So some of the things that I do with my patients, we use a vibrant mold toxin test. That gives us some indication of this mold exposure. And then there's actually tests that you can do at home using Petri dishes and you mail them in and they grow them and then they, they uh, see if you have mold. So, you know, I think coming, have someone come into your house can get expensive. Like you say, they don't always test for the right things. And so sometimes you just DIY it and test yourself.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And another thing I'll say too, you do, to get rid of the mold in your house, you want to change your environment.

• 45:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  You want it as dry as possible and a lot, as much movement as possible. So we get a lot of air filters. Like we've used Jasper and some others, but we're constantly kind of filtering the air. And also having HVAC people to come out and say, hey, we need to do things to really just get more airflow, you know, in, in and out of the home.

• 46:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. And what I tell people that are listening to this podcast is if you feel terrible, like all the things and symptoms you're talking about, and you go to your doctor and they can't figure out what it is, like everything comes back negative or normal. One of the things most doctors don't check for at all is mold and chronic infections, right? And so this is where I've made massive differences in people's lives just by saying, okay, you feel like crap. Let's figure out why. And we do the total toxin test.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And we find toxic exposure either to mold. Sometimes there's heavy metal accumulation. Sometimes there's other toxins. And toxins to me is that fourth leg of the stool of health.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like it is really like something to focus on.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Well, and there are so many patients being gaslit and you know, and it's funny like when I first opened my clinic like in 2007, I um, I used to be like, people would tend to see 20 other doctors and then come see me. Now, sometimes it's the first, you know, people are coming in the first and maybe it's the same the way you practice the day two. But um, but you know, so many of them, their doctor would just say, it's all in your head, you're crazy. And they would do standard blood work and they're like, it's all normal. It's there. There's nothing wrong with you. And then now doing some of this more advanced testing, like, like, you know, the, the toxic profiles and things like that, you can tell, we can tell so much more.

• 47:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely. Is Lyme a big problem out here?

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Not near, well, it's nothing like, you know, the, the Northeast or Minnesota or some of those areas. Now, we still see a lot of people with Lyme though. It's actually kind of crazy how, how prevalent Lyme is.

• 47:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's really crazy to my opinion right now, too.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, the, the, my, my Lyme philosophy is very much, it's maybe different than some others. And it, it, it might be similar to what you do. I really think when people have chronic infections, the biggest focus should be on strengthening your own body. Not only killing the pathogen, we do want to do that. That should be part of the protocol. But more than anything, I've found that if somebody just stays weak, they'll have another infection come, or they'll never fully be able to eliminate it. Cause I have plenty of, there are a lot of people walking around with Lyme disease that have zero symptoms. It's because their, their, their immune system's healthy enough.

• 48:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  So, so in China, and this was the, this is sort of the, you know, the background. That I I I've had as well in terms of more of that ancient medicine is let's do a lot of herbals and things and lifestyle changes and foods. They're going to really let's slowly let's strengthen up your immune system. Astragalus is an herb I love. That was used traditionally to really bolster the immune system, support NK cell, uh NK cells in the body. There are other herbs like Andrographus, but I would say reishi and astragalus are two of those. They were probably the most prescribed for, hey, let's just strengthen in the immune system over time. So I really like doing those in conjunction with, hey, let's go and kill this actual bacteria that that the limes producing.

• 48:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah. And to your point, you know, sometimes we'll see someone with terrible mold toxicity, terrible symptoms from it. But then the person's like, well, my significant other is fine and they live in the same house.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it's it's a perfect example of how weak or strong your immune system is and how much you can handle, right?

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. And you were talking about this, you know, on when you were on my podcast is sort of like one of these chief hallmarks of aging is immunosenescence. I mean, that's a, I mean, that's a, these things are really kind of right in that wheelhouse of contributing and causing causing that issue.

• 49:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. So what we were talking about is our immune system ages and some people's immune system ages faster than other people's. And that's what leads to not just, you know, increased chances of infections, but all of the chronic diseases of aging as well. So can you talk about that? So how would you strengthen your immune system? You mentioned some herbs you can take. What other things can people do?

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I I think going back to sort of Hippocrates, uh, this all disease begins in the gut idea. I think that that's primarily true. Now, I, you know, now that was a bold statement. I'm curious if that was his exact statement or not. I will say this, I believe 90 plus percent of disease begins in the gut and the brain. I think that's really where most of these issues start. And I would mean sort of like your emotions, your mental health. Those are big contributors too. But I think you really got to start in the gut. And so with that, we really want to heal and seal that gut lining. We want to remove anything that's causing in gut inflammation. And that's different for different people. You know, my entire dietary philosophy really is.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  personalized medicine. There's no one diet for everybody. What works for you might be different for me. You know, and I learned this when I was in practice because I would have somebody come in with inflammatory bowel disease. And I would put them on a diet that was primarily soup and nothing raw. But then I'd maybe have a cancer patient come in and it was like, well, I'm going to have you do Gerson therapy or types of it. I'm going to do a good amount of raw as part of your diet. So I really think that people need a customized diet just for them. That being said, for immune health, I would say no raw foods or very few, really a lot of cooked foods. Stop the salads, stop the smoothies, go all in on soups and herbal teas. Okay.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  So classic chicken vegetable soup. By the way, in Asian medicine, the foods that are most immune boosting are light yellow or white. Typically light yellow. Think about chicken broth, garlic, ginger, miso. Those sort of foods are tend to be the most immune boosting in those ways, but I would have them eat a diet that's almost purely meat broth. Vegetables, maybe a small amount of fruit, but really meat broth and vegetables. I mean, that's sort of the most healing for the immune system. And then supplementally, from a Western standpoint, higher doses of vitamin D and zinc, those are, I think, the two most important. Vitamin C can be important as well. I would do those.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  And then it just depends on the type of immune health. If it's more long term, I mentioned some of those earlier. I would do astragalus, I would do reishi, and then I would probably do ginger herbal tea, lots of it every single day. There's an Ayurvedic tea that I really like. It's called Puka tea and it's a mixture of ginger, turmeric and galangal. That's right. And that's amazing. I mean, that's a great one for people to do. I talk about anti-inflammatory. It's so great. But I think if people do that, infrared sauna, I love it. Amazing for people for long-term immune health, any sort of sauna work. And then I think in Chinese medicine, the number one thing connected to the immune system emotionally is healing past trauma.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  You've had trauma in the past, some sort of hurt, you might be living with shame and guilt, but something's happened and you've not fully healed from it. And so going back and saying, you know what, and the way, one way to This is you write it down. What are the things that you still have creep in your head that still bother you today? Write it down, write all those things down. And then depending on your faith, what I recommend people do and what I do with patients, especially if they have a Christian faith is I'll have them bring it to Jesus and also forgive people. Forgive, let go, move forward, but you can do this with any faith. Like, like, like, identify the emotion, identify when it started the memory. And then recognize that doesn't define me, that's not who I am. And sort of also, I would say, you know, I'll tell a quick story to help with this too.

• 53:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Please.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  So I had, we all get to choose to accept or to deny certain things. When I was in high school, but I was a terrible student, terrible, I had really bad ADHD. I could not concentrate more than a few seconds. And, um, and I had a teacher ask me to stay after class, this is freshman English class in high school. And she said, Josh, what do you want to do when you, uh, after high school? And I said, Ms. Noble, I said, um, I want to be a doctor. And the reason being, uh, Dr. Darshan was because the year prior, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through chemotherapy and I saw my mom like lose her hair and all the trauma. I said to myself, like, I never want to see anyone suffer like that again. I remember praying, I was like, God, like, like, I want to help people like my mom.

• 53:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  She had a deeply personal reason why you want to be a doctor.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know the crazy part? She laughed at me out loud and she goes, Josh, listen, you'll never be a doctor right now. She said, listen, your GPA is, she said, you're, you're getting a D minus in my class. You failed this paper. This is why I asked you to stay after. She said, my daughter has a 3.8 GPA and she barely got into med school at Ohio State. She said, your GPA is like one point something. And so, and then, and then two weeks later, my mom brought me to see a doctor, um, who diagnosed me with ADHD and talked about me like I wasn't in the room. He, she, I remember distinctly, he said, your son has a learning disability. He is ADHD, I got prescribed Ritalin, never took it. So I barely graduated high school because, and I, I live with this thought that I'm not smart.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  And not only am I not smart, I'm medically not smart. I have a learning disability with this ADHD. Now I ended up wanting to go to college, got denied a couple of colleges I wanted to go to. But one let me in conditionally, it said this, like literally the letter from the college was something like this. You're not in, but if you come and take summer school. And you average above a 3.0, we'll let you in. Wow. So I went and did summer school. The first class I had to take was English 101. And for the first time, I'm like, I'm really gonna try, because I don't want to like fail out. I don't, I don't want to be the kid that doesn't go to college. So I did that, and I really tried. First, first assignment was a paper. Turned it in, felt good about it, and the teacher, three days later was like, her name is Miss Williams. She says, Josh, can you stay after class? And like, my stomach sunk. I was like, oh no. Like, I've heard this before. Yeah.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  And she goes, what's your major? And I go, I haven't chosen one, uh, Miss Williams yet. And she goes, well, I think you should consider being an English major or a journalism major, because you're an amazing writer, she said. You know, there's 40 kids in the class. You literally got the highest grade. Great job. And can I tell you, it literally changed my entire life. Because I thought for so long, I, I hardly, teachers hardly tell you anything typically. And the one teacher that said something that was really direct to me was very negative. And this other teacher told me, wow, you could, you know, like, hey, you're gifted. You could do something. And throughout college, I had a 3.1 GPA. Eventually turned to pre-med, right? And then went and got my degree, and uh, it was a chiropractic degree, then got a DNM, Doctor of Natural Medicine.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  And then later, just actually not long, uh, or not that many years ago, I went to Johns Hopkins, averaged a 3.9 GPA. And I share this all, it's all just to say, I was a kid that barely graduated high school. Yeah. New very, but I had to do, this is what I'll call it. I had to have a memory transplant. Yeah. I had one teacher that was like, you're not smart, you're not, you know, you can't be a doctor. And I had another one tell me, hey, you know what, Josh, you're really gifted. And I literally chose, I said, this memory, this is a lie, this is untrue. This is true. And then I also went through this, there's actually a psychological practice for this, and I want to say, um, it's called like the A, B, C, D, E method. And A is like, become aware. What is this thing I'm feeling? What is this thing? B, what is the actual belief?

• 56:53Speaker 01

  C is, what are the consequences if I continue to believe this lie? If I continue to believe I'm not smart, I'll never be a doctor, I'll probably never amount to anything. D is dispute.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  What is the truth?

• 57:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  They said this, this what's really true. Well, here's what I discovered. I just wasn't trying. And the other thing is when I started eating healthy, was my freshman year of college really healthy? That's when all of a sudden my grades got a lot better. I got off dairy. I got off, I started like getting into fitness. And so I said, okay, well, dispute. And then E is exchange. What's the truth about me, my future, who I am? I know this is more about health, but I think that this is so important for so many people. Cause so many people struggle with this shame and guilt. And, and, and here's another thing. If people have studied German new medicine or Chinese medicine, they believe that you get autoimmune disease primarily because you are self afflicting yourself.

• 57:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  It's negative self-talk. Oh, you're not smart. You messed up. If you're really hard on yourself and had a parent that were really hard on you. Think about it. Your immune system's attacking itself.

• 57:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  You mentally are attacking itself. So they would say that's a contributing factor to autoimmune disease. So I believe healing these mental, spiritual issues. That's why again, I think the Bible is so powerful too. But that's critical to healing.

• 58:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. And you know, one of the things that I talk a lot about with my patients is you look at your past traumas as actual toxins. Like, you know, you spend so much time trying to detoxify of physical toxins, but traumas are toxins as well. And they have similar health consequences in their own way.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  As a mold toxin or, you know, a

• 58:29Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  PFOS or whatever you, whatever you're trying to detoxify, get out of your system. You've got to look at traumas the same way. Um, when you said write it down, that kind of resonated with me because, um, Andrew Huberman did an episode about a specific trauma therapy where you write it down.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For a certain number of minutes and you do it again the next day and you do it again the next day. And that's a really good way to decrease the negative, um, emotions and negative physiological consequences from traumas as well.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  That's so good.

• 58:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think the key is just getting them out, get like expelling them, right?

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I think today, part of the reason this is even worse today is I think we're living in a culture to where we're very ice, we're very isolated. I don't think COVID, I think that made it worse too. So we're very isolated, where we should be sharing our burdens with one another. We know that, we, we know this important. I mean, the Bible talks about confess your sins one into another. Yeah. Be, be open, talk about these things. It, it leads to healing.

• 59:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. It's so true. And you're right. I mean, I think we feel more isolated. There's a lot more shame now. Social media has made a big

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 59:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  impact on this.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And everyone's supposed to live this perfect social media life.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And life is not perfect. Life is a mess.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it's okay that life is a mess.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  You know, it's interesting, just, and then we can jump back into all these sort of longevity medicine topics, but you know, when you look at what the world does today, they try and find your one flaw.

• 59:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's true.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  And expose it and discredit you and cancel you. You know what's so amazing about the Bible? Moses murdered somebody.

• 59:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  David was an adulteress. You have these people that did, and you know what? Through God's eyes, you know, God's saying, David's a man after my own heart.

• 1:00:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Moses is an incredible leader. He's the person I have a deep intimate relationship with. And so the Bible is very different, this, this, this unending grace and forgiveness of, listen, I don't see you through your biggest mistakes. You know, I see you through the lens of who Jesus was who sacrificed you. And then in addition to that, these great things you're doing in life, and it's not to say that we don't pay for our sins and there isn't a level of justice that needs to be done. If we make mistakes, we need to pay for some of that.

• 1:00:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yep.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  But all that being said, I think that just the lens, like, like when somebody messes up, do you, do you, do you look at them and say, hey, I'm looking at how I can shame you and cancel you right now?

• 1:00:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Or do you look at them and say, hey, you're forgiven. How can I support you and get you, getting you back to your feet? But culture today is very, very, you pointed this out.

• 1:00:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Into shame and guilt.

• 1:00:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It really is. It's, yeah. And I think, you know, culturally, the problem that we're going in this direction culturally is actually probably contributing to all the illness and the rise in chronic disease and

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  everything as well.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Well, well, think about it. It's like you can't, we can't think about someone in the past without trying to even discredit them. Like George Washington or somebody. I don't know.

• 1:01:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so true.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  I mean, when you read the biography of George Washington, you're like, you had a man who was constantly just trying to give his life, I mean, I mean, like jumping in front of bullets and giving his life for everybody constantly trying to do that. And it's like, well, let's try and stare. Tear down his statue for and it's like, but, but again, listen, here's the thing. We all, we all send and fall short of the glory. Got every, no one is perfect.

• 1:01:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Nobody. So all of us should, you know, have a level of grace, knowing we're not, we're not.

• 1:01:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Towards each other. Right. Absolutely.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  And this is, this is such a healing mindset to walk around with grace for somebody.

• 1:01:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So true.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Versus if you're constantly judging, you're living in a state of sort of, there's a tenseness there.

• 1:01:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  You know, I, I love hanging around people that are very spiritually mature. I think about certain pastors, priests, rabbis, monks. That they just have this level of like this spiritual calmness to them and awareness. And, and there's a level of great health that, you know, there's a study on the longest lived professions. Beekeepers are number one.

• 1:02:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Really? I did not know this.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. And, and again, it's one study, maybe others will show something different. They were number one. It was something like tennis players were number two, but I want to say people that were like, like, um, liturgical, like clergy, right?

• 1:02:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  Um, like pastors, priests, rabbis, monks, they were like the next on the list with a, with a long lifespan.

• 1:02:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. Right. No. And I can see why, you know, they, they are very attuned with freeing themselves from the burdens of judgment and guilt.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, past traumas. I mean, the, the most conversational about all of these things and just letting those out.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I think we can all learn from that.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For sure. For sure.

• 1:02:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Let's take a quick break to talk about something that I see people are using to completely change how they approach their health data. So at Next Health, we're seeing tons of patients every day. These are people that have struggled with fatigue, losing weight, or brain fog, and they're going to their doctor and they're getting their annual blood work. But most of that annual blood work is coming back normal. The problem is they're only getting about 10 or 15 different biomarkers checked by their normal physician. And what they're doing instead now is they're taking their health in their own hands and getting their blood work through a company called Function Health. I love it when people come in with their Function Health results because they have over 160 different biomarkers. Now, normally this would cost about $10,000 out there if you did it with your insurance.

• 1:03:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But to get your hormones, inflammation, toxins, and nutrient levels checked all under one platform and even have access to scans, you can do this all now with Function Health for about $500 a year. And what I love most is that Function Health doesn't try to sell people supplements or pharmaceuticals or anything. They're just giving you the data. So doctors like us can look at the data and interpret it for you and help guide you with a health plan. It only costs $499 a year. That's just $1.37 a day. And it's a really cost-effective way for you to get a lot of your own health data into your own hands. And like I said, doctors love it because now you have a ton of data that you can come to us to and review with you. You can learn more by using Function Health and going to

• 1:04:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  functionhealth.com/drschah. And if you're the first 1,000 people, you get $100 credit towards your membership by going to functionhealth.com/drschah or just using my gift code for you, drscha100.

• 1:04:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Let's jump back into longevity for a few minutes too, because I want to get some great advice from you on some of the newer longevity modalities that you're using with your patients. Peptides, for example, what are your thoughts?

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  I'm a huge fan of peptides, a huge fan. You know, you mentioned this on my podcast, and it was funny because you were saying it. I'm like, those are like verbatim, what I like to say too. And it's this, is that medications are forcing your body to do something. Peptides, along with vitamins and minerals, they are giving your body what it needs to properly communicate or to function properly. And so peptides really are about, we know that there's a difference between amino acids and peptides and proteins. Proteins are more for building, they create scaffoldings. Amino acids, your body is going to use for different types of cellular functions. But peptides are primarily the cellular communication

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  within the body and signaling. And so I love peptides. Now, let me go back to why I've, why, what I've used for peptides before peptides. Glanulars and organs. When you look at the human body or animals, Peptides are the number one thing you're going to find in glands and organs. This is why like bone, you'll see bone broths, you'll see that high in peptides. And there is a physician, his name was Vladimir, I think it's, uh, Cavinson.

• 1:06:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Cavinson.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a Russian researcher, created all of these bioregulators, like forty, you know, forty, thirty, forty some years ago. And, and he took different organ systems and created the peptides for those different organ systems. So you have like threeogen, which is for thyroid, and you have livogen, which is for the liver. And so, and I, and that's something that's actually not really been brought fully into the US yet. So if people want to know what's the future holds.

• 1:06:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Bio-regulators will be the next thing. Now, there's not as many clinical studies as on peptides, not even close. But we will start seeing studies on these bioregulators. And so, for instance, I'm really excited to be able to use like thyrogen for people with hypothyroidism. And livogen for supporting liver detoxification. And so, yeah, I, I, I love, I love peptides, you know.

• 1:06:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Are bioregulators a form of peptide?

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  They, they are. It's just, it just tended to be two to four or five amino acid strands in length are, are typically what those are. And it's about the same that you're going to find in some of these, um.

• 1:06:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And the bioregulators are generally taken orally, is that right?

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, okay, got it. Versus peptides where they're injected.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  That's, that's right. And it's not to say you can't inject them because you can, but, but yeah, they're, they're almost always orally there. And, and some, some peptides have a really great absorption rate. BPC157, for instance, has a higher internal absorption rate where, where some of the others do, just, just, just don't. So I'll share this. So when I had, I had a spinal infection that left, so three years ago, I was not, I didn't walk for a year, a full year. And so I went from teaching, doing all this stuff that I, you know, that, that you were doing now, to where I was, I was in bed and I got it from a stem cell injection.

• 1:07:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  See, did you have surgery and then a stem cell injection?

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:07:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, just a stem cell injection.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  So, so here's what happened.

• 1:07:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  I was doing, I'm not built to do CrossFit. I'm more built to do endurance sports probably. And, uh, and I, I blew a couple of my discs herniated and bulged at my L405 and L5S1 10 years ago. And I had major chronic pain for so long. I mean, and I'd done so many things.

• 1:08:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  I did physical therapy, I did chiropractic, I did perfect nutrition.

• 1:08:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For sure.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  And still just didn't fully heal. And, um, and then I did. I did stem cell therapy to about after just three years of major suffering and it was amazing. And I was like, wow, I've done every therapy you could imagine. And then I did stem cell therapy and it was like, I got like 60, 70% better.

• 1:08:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Did you do them IV or inject into your spine?

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Into my spine. I did facet in intradisc.

• 1:08:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it. Okay.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I was like, wow, this is amazing. Got it done one more time. I was like back to 95%. And so I had almost no symptoms. I would just get a little nagging issue in my, in my QL from that L4, L5 disc. And then three years ago, I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna get it done one more time just to get rid of this little nagging issue. But I was squatting, deadlifting, swimming, cycling. I'm doing everything I wanted pretty much. And I thought I'm gonna get it done one more time. Well, something happened when I went in for this treatment.

• 1:08:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  And it just didn't feel right even afterwards. And I'm like, okay. And then I just kept getting worse and worse. And we were in Puerto Rico at the time. And then one more, one morning I woke up and the pain was so excruciating, I couldn't get out of bed. I literally could not move, couldn't move. And we called an ambulance, came and picked me up, brought me to get an MRI. And I got the report back myself and it said, I had a spine infection, I had osteomyelitis in my L5 vertebra. It was throughout my entire disc and the entire, on the MRI, the entire disc was like infected, or the entire bone. And then it was showing in my, um, there's an abscess then also growing in my, an abscess growing there as well. And so I had to take a medical flight from Puerto Rico to Florida. Hadn't met with an infectious disease doctor. And here's what he told me. He said, Josh, this could kill you.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  He said, but most likely this is going to leave you permanently disabled.

• 1:09:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, no.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  Or likely enough to fuse your spine. He said, it looks like the infection is really severe. And he said, your best case scenario is you're gonna have chronic pain the rest of your life. And he said, you're like, he said, you know, you'll be the first person to know when bad weather is passing through. Now, now sometimes bedside manner of some doctors. You're like, really, you know, and so, and to be honest, I had 48 hours where I actually felt like emotionally like my life was over. I thought, you know, like I just was like throwing my two year old daughter 10 feet in the pool and like, I, you know, feeling great. And now I have this happen. And then I went online. I thought, I'm gonna make myself feel better by finding, I felt worse because what I'd read. About if so many people had to have rods in their spine or had fusions. Yeah. And so I, um, and so anyways, I thought, you know what?

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  I just spent some time in prayer and I felt the peace of God just wash over me and I, and then I, and then I, I felt like God said, just walk with me through this, you're going to heal. And I realized worrying about it wasn't going to help me heal. All I could do is focus on doing everything within my power and, and spending time in prayer. And that's what I did. And so I read a study on, and so then I went to research. I said, how do you heal great, a spinal infection? Sure. And I came across some really great research on hyperbaric chambers. Right. So I went and got in a hyperbaric chamber every day for 30 days and then three to four days a week for a total of 90 days. And so I was living, living two hours a day, 2.488 in a hard hyperbaric chamber.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  I was getting IVs of methylene blue and Jensen silver and ozone. And I was taking herbals. The only thing I ate was pretty much like that's steamed vegetables, pomegranates, wild salmon, you know? All the stuff you talked about, by the way, like up to that point, you're now having to use it on yourself. Exactly. Yes. I was like, I was the patient for the first time really. And, um, so I started doing all this and, uh, and then, uh, and by the way, I literally did not walk for 10 months and then I was a walker for two months. The only thing I could do was, and I couldn't even sit the pain so bad. So I would crawl and get in a pool. Then I could get upright. So I'd spend about two to three hours a day at least in a pool. But, and I just kept doing everything I, I, I, I could do to heal. And then once I got on a walker, I took peptides.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. So back to this, and I took BPC 157, TB 500, GHK CU. And I was really like, wow, like I really noticed a boost. Wow. In the pain reducing and the healing. Incredible. I was so blown away. And then I went and I got stem cell again. Now I know most people would not get stem cell again. But I did, and I did different this time. Before I did the bone marrow extraction. Yeah. This time I did umbilical cord cultured. Sure. In Mexico at a, a clinic called Rehealth and saw amazing results with that. And then, and by the way, it, I mean, it took me, again, it took me a full year. Most people don't realize this. The disc has very little blood flow and oxygen. That's the issue, right? Takes so long to heal.

• 1:12:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  But I was just patiently in prayer and now I'm back a hundred percent. I was playing, I played pickleball this morning before this.

• 1:12:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Incredible.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Um, I'm squatting, I'm throwing my daughter in the pool and I have no pain. Actually, the crazy part is that pain I had before is gone. I finally, I found a good physical therapist. After going through thirty of them and found one who kind of found the root of like the exercises I needed to do functionally, that helped tremendously. But um, but yeah, I'm a walking testimony that stem cells and peptides and longevity medicine works. And the crazy part is they went and redid my MRI and they're like, your disc height is like that of a, of a fifteen year old, you know, it's so high, high now.

• 1:13:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's incredible.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What an incredible story. I mean, this, this how one eighty, everything just completely turned for you. And then again, one eighty again, you know, it's like, it's mind blowing.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like you, and, and you use all the therapies that we talk about. The, the one that caused the infection, was that the bone marrow one?

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  It was. But the crazy thing was, this was the like largest clinic in the US.

• 1:13:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  So it wasn't like, listen, I wasn't like in the outskirts of South America.

• 1:13:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  In like a tin, you know, a tin building, like it was like the most prestigious clinic. So they, they said it was just one of those, I looked online, it was, it was like a one in three hundred thousand

• 1:13:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  Chance of getting infection with this sort of thing. And it just, it just happened. And listen, and I, and for me, I'm like, I forgive, I move on, it's okay, you know, and um, But here's the thing, God uses all things for good.

• 1:13:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  I learned so much of that, but now I can use to help patients.

• 1:14:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  So it's, you know, and, and, and part of it, really, this is why I became so passionate, studied peptides so much. Because when I started using peptides, I was like, wow, because you know this as well as I do. It's rare for people to be as healthy as you and I are, for us to notice something we take or do.

• 1:14:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  And because it's like, I take a lot of supplements and I don't really notice the difference. But peptides, I noticed a difference. So then I started saying, okay, well, my patients have a lot of different health disorders, like what do I recommend for them? So like hypothyroidism, it was like, well, we got to start balancing these hormones. I really like using TB five hundred and thymus and alpha.

• 1:14:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yep.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  Now, going back, we talked about Vladimir Kevinson.

• 1:14:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  And so. So in Chinese medicine, in ancient medicine, they would use glandulars, which were high in peptides. And thymus gland has been used for a long time for actually a cancer therapy for supporting and building immune, immune health over time. So sometimes I like doing the actual glandular, like thymus gland. But we do know, I mean, I know this clinically practically that the TB 500 and the, and the thymus and alpha one, for instance, or they're stronger, that people are going to see more noticeable differences. But, but I started using that with a lot of people with autoimmune, a lot of autoimmune issues. Of course, you know, chronic pain, we talked about those already, that BPC 157, I think is the most noticeable for most people. I started recommending for leaky gut. It's a really great result with gut health with people. Great results.

• 1:15:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oral BPC 157 for sure. Yeah. I, I use it for anyone that has any sort of leaky gut issue. And for me, in my practice, it's cut down the time to healing from like, sometimes it takes six months to a year. Now we get people healed in like two or three months from a leaky gut. It's mind blowing.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  It is. It's amazing.

• 1:15:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think this is an amazing category of therapies that we finally have available. And to your point, these are natural biological signals and we're not trying to force a reaction with a chemical.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In the typical pharma way. And so we're living in great times right now.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  We are. Yeah, we are. Yeah. I mean, you know, uh, somebody was asking me this the other day. I, I think the thing that's going to move forward the fastest is going to be the tracking metrics.

• 1:15:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  You know, like I wear an, an aura ring.

• 1:16:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Me too.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  And, uh, I love being able to tell my sleep and look at my HRV, but I think eventually, and maybe they won't be able to do it with a ring. Maybe we'll have to wear like a, like, like we do a GCM, like a

• 1:16:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  A CGM, yeah.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  But I think you're going to be able to see daily, what vitamins and minerals am I deficient in? What amino acids? Hey, here's exactly what you should eat. It's going to be delivered right to your door. Cause something's reading your app. I mean, it's going to be, you know, maybe we'll have, you know, you have a stool sample every single day. You're going to get your, you know, microbiome levels and balance right there, you know, above the, above the urinal. So it's, uh, it is, it's going to be, and, and I said this on the, the end of my podcast when you were on, but I really think it's going to be like, I, I, I've had one, I think, yeah, one surgery. I, I tore off my retinaculum, my ankle when I was like in high school. And I didn't get surgery because I went and did a YouTube video then. They were like cutting open your leg from here to here, putting in metal rods.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  And then about six years ago, I went, I looked at, hey, what are they doing today? It's like, we do it with a robot and we put in like a little thin suture and it's actually made of bone and absorbs in your bone and like becomes part of your body. It was like, wow. So like that, those sorts, those same sort of advances, we're going to continue to see. And AI is amazing too. I mean, in terms of like what it can do. So it's a, the time, the, the time is bright.

• 1:17:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It is. It really is. You know, I, I, I'm a surgeon. I did surgery for 30 years. Um, I started, um, well, 25 years. I had been a doctor for 30 years, surgery for 25 years. Last five years I haven't done any surgery. But in those 25 years, we developed cameras that you can use for surgery and then robotics developed and things just get smaller and smaller and smaller and much more efficacious as well.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it's just, it, it just keeps getting better and better. And so medicine is getting better. Alternative therapies are becoming more accepted and getting better.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And we live in an incredible time to, to be living as far as health and wellness are concerned.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We also live in a time though, that we are, you know, being assaulted with toxins and being assaulted with negative thoughts, et cetera. But we just have to be aware and constantly keep mitigating the damage that does and just reducing exposure. And I think there's a magic combo.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I totally agree. I, I do think we're under more of an onslaught of things that are psychologically more stressful. Now, I know if somebody is in famine, obviously, maybe there's a greater level of fear of like, if you're in severe poverty or famine. But I do think the level of constant stress and toxins are the biggest things that people need to be aware of and start avoiding. Cause, cause it is amazing. Like you can get any superfood from around the world. So addressing nutritional deficiencies, if you know what they are. And that's another thing I know that you and I have in common. Like, I love good blood work. Bad blood work drives me crazy. You know, so often, people, you know, patients are going to see their doctors and they're like, we ran a CBC, everything, you know, everything's fine. You know, there's nothing wrong with you. And it's like, we gotta go way upstream. Let's see the vitamin deficiencies, the mineral deficiencies. Let's

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  do a GI map. Let's see what's going on in your gut microbiome. And, and, um, and that's where, again, why I love the way that you practice too, is it's really looking at, it's root cause medicine.

• 1:19:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  We want to find the root of your issue. And again, a great example of like that is like, if I have somebody with depression, why are you depressed?

• 1:19:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  Primarily, it tends to be, maybe you're having an, you don't know your identity. Maybe you don't know your purpose in life. You don't have strong community and relationships. Maybe there's a past trauma and you have a lot of negative self-worth. Let's really go and work on those issues. And in addition to that, let's do vitamin D. Let's do some red light. Let's do herbs like saffron. Let's do zinc, because maybe there's a gut component. Let's do some things there. And then the last of the last resort, let's get you on an SSRI, because that's not, you know, but, but that's, that's obviously not happening.

• 1:19:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's like, we start with the SSRI now. And it's like, all they're doing is covering up the symptom without actually addressing the cause. And to your point, you know, I talk about this all the time. Mental health disorders, almost all of them, Christopher Palmer, Dr. Palmer talks about this too. And there's a major physiological component that we're always missing with mental health disorders. Vitamin deficiencies, gut health, et cetera. Metabolic health is another big one as well. But you have to treat both. You have to treat the traumas. You have to treat the community aspects, et cetera. And I also believe that with physiological disorders, we are discounting the mental health component of that as well.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Those, our brains and our bodies are intimately connected. And you have to treat both at the same time.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say this, you know, I think the way that you and I both look at, at people is like saying, hey, what's, what's the root cause?

• 1:20:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  And as we talked about earlier, like, I really like to combine sort of the ancient medicine and the more, and the more modern that we're looking at. And an example of this, probably the most common condition that I see is hypothyroidism in women. And, you know, I think that the single biggest, well, I think there's a few big reasons they have it. Number one is, they're just too busy. Every moment of the day, they're too busy. So they're living in that sympathetic state, so cortisol's high. So I think cortisol is then affecting insulin, it's affecting estrogen, now that's affecting thyroid hormones. And we know with a lot of them, it's a T3 issue. So then there's a gut and a liver component of not converting that well. But I think knowing all that's so helpful, but then addressing it, okay, let's do everything we can to reduce the stress. Here's another big one. I read a study that said if women

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  have taken birth control, long term, their chance of having hypothyroidism goes up 287%.

• 1:21:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  So, and it's like, when you look at the side effects of birth control, not on the label of what is depleted in their body, good bacteria, B1, B2, B3, B9, B12, and selenium and zinc.

• 1:21:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Well, those are all the things you need for methylation and for creating thyroid hormones.

• 1:21:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For creating thyroid hormones, right, exactly.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  So it's absolutely crazy. So it's so, so curing that, it's like, okay, well, what do we do? Well, how do we, and I've seen this so often, I know you've too, it's like helping reverse hypothyroidism, getting off your medication, reversing Hashimoto's. You do it by addressing those nutritional deficiencies, working on the stress. You can do things like peptide therapy, we can do red light therapy, and we can do herbal. So that's the other thing. Like we know ashwagandha has amazing research behind it. We know for scolie has amazing research behind it. Doing those herbals there, and that's how you address it. I see a lot of people thinking, well, I can just take a medication or even a supplement to help reverse this medical condition. No, most of the time it takes a lifestyle change, a dietary change, and us using more of this natural medicine in conjunction with it. Then we can reverse the medical condition.

• 1:22:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And if everyone did that, they would not only reverse that one medical condition, but all the other ones that are going to come after it.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. Well, think about type 2 diabetes. I remember having one of my first patients come in with type 2 diabetes, and they said, my doctor said this is irreversible. Isn't that crazy? Now, again, this was, this was 18 years ago, but there's still a lot, think about this, there's still a lot of doctors that will tell their patients, type 2 diabetes is irreversible.

• 1:22:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, I was told that.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  It's crazy. And you and I have probably helped or seen thousands of people reverse type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance. You know, I remember this couple I had, they were, they were professors at Lipscomb University. It's a, it's a college here in Nashville. And one was 80 pounds overweight, one was 50 overweight, and they were told, no, this is not possible. I'm like, well, let's just try. Let's just try. Okay. I just, but here's the thing, I told them, I'm like, you just have to do what I say and actually follow the plan. Yeah. And so it was like, you know. High protein, high fiber, cinnamon, chromium.

• 1:23:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yep.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  And, uh, and berberine.

• 1:23:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  And, and let's get active. I want you to start walking. Ninety days later, A1C levels, you know, almost completely normal.

• 1:23:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow, ninety days.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And they'd had it for 20 years.

• 1:23:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Incredible.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  And some people, here's the thing, if people are really adamant about following the right protocol, the body can heal really fast if, if they're, you know, if they're diligent.

• 1:23:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, so true. I think you and I have that in common that we went through health struggles of our own. We experienced the treatments that we recommend.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Actually, back then, when I was struggling with my health, I had to discover all of this through, like, your podcast, through going to the first IFM courses, functional medicine courses that existed with Dr. Hyman and Dr. Bland. And, and then I just used it on myself to get healthy. And I was told the same thing, that you cannot reverse your type 2 diabetes. And the way, you know, Western medicine talks about type 2 diabetes is like, this is a disease that just people get, you know?

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:24:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I was never told I caused this problem to happen with my diet and my inactivity and my stress levels.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so if I had known that, I would have stopped doing those things.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so then I had to learn that separately. And I think, um, you know, I think the more people understand that chronic disease is not something that you're just headed towards. It's something that's caused by your lifestyle.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You can reverse it, and you can reverse it quick, to your point.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. I reversed all my, I even reversed my autoimmune disease in six months. I got off methotrexate.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  It's amazing. Yeah.

• 1:25:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And all my diabetes medications, or most of my heart medications, all of it. And so everyone, this power, everyone has in their hands.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  That's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. I, I, I was writing a, I did a podcast pretty recently on mitochondrial health, but also cellular regeneration.

• 1:25:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  And how fast certain organs regenerate. And there are certain areas of the body, and you know this, but it's like, your gut lining, of course, regenerates very quickly. Your red blood cells every, you know, four months and that sort of thing. But other tissues as well, many of them can regenerate. And of course, your brain is much slower than others in certain other organs. But there's a lot that are regenerate really quick, even the beta cells of the pancreas.

• 1:25:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Those regenerate fully, in most cases, pretty quickly, or they can.

• 1:25:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:25:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How do people, what is, what do you think is a top three ways or couple of ways that people can regenerate tissue?

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  So, well, if I'm doing where money isn't, let me do where money isn't an issue.

• 1:25:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:55Speaker 01

  And then on a budget.

• 1:25:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  So where money isn't an issue, stem cell therapy is definitely number one. Nothing's even close, but stem cell therapy is number one. Number two is peptides. I think it's BPC 157 TB 500. Those are the big two, and then you can add on a third like GHKCU. But that is the second biggest needle mover. If you've got like a chronic pain or an injury or something like that, that's going to be very high up there. Number three, follow a diet that is highly anti-inflammatory that helps balance insulin. You know, and it really is organic pastured meat, especially salmon. That's going to be, I think, my number one food for this. And then after that, low glycemic fruit like pomegranates and berries and vegetables.

• 1:26:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  I mean, it's really focusing in there. And then maybe there's herbs too, like herbal teas. But I would say that diet with those two other therapies, man, somebody can get out of chronic pain and really reverse. If you do those things, man, you're going to notice a radical difference. Now, stem cell therapy is the most expensive. I mean, peptides, it's an investment, but I do think for a lot of people, maybe it's more affordable than than doing stem cells. But if it's not those things, that dietary practice I just mentioned.

• 1:27:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  You can see radical improvement and healing in your body. And then the next thing there, it really, I'll just hit on the two, focusing on emotional healing.

• 1:27:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  Really fostering, like going deep spiritually, spending time like in worship and gratitude and having a positive mindset. I think that sort of dealing with the past trauma and then becoming incredibly positive and optimistic and fostering a spirit of joy and gratitude, that really does something really special and powerful to your physiology as well. So that with the proper diet, and I guess the third is you do need to move. The reality is you do need to move. You've got joint issues, get in a pool, swim.

• 1:27:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:27:41Speaker 01

  You know, and then just walking, but I think those, those will go a long way.

• 1:27:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and move outside, just add that, that last little bit, go outside and go for walks, move around.

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  I totally agree. You know, in Chinese medicine, one thing they would say though, that's really big for regeneration is breathing.

• 1:27:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that too.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  I mean, then you know, qigong, box breathing today. Those sort of things are really, uh, you know, are they're they're powerful.

• 1:28:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Now, that's, I mean, that's it. That right there, what we just talked about the last five minutes. That's a protocol for life. It really is.

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You eat those foods, you go outside, you breathe, you move, and that will take care of 90% of the things. And then you, we do have these great new therapies available like stem cells and peptides. If you get really in a jam like you did, but those, those are the things and it's really that simple.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I absolutely agree.

• 1:28:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely agree.

• 1:28:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow. Dr. Axe, this was awesome. We covered so much ground and I really appreciate you, um, for what you're doing now. For you've been doing for years now, you've made a difference in my life. You continue to make a difference in the lives of millions. So thank you for everything you do.

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Uh, well, it was an honor to be on again. I'm a big fan of yours as well. And, uh, yeah, thanks so much again. It was, uh, it was, uh, I love the conversation. So thank you.

• 1:28:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you. And I mean, you're living under a rock if you don't know where to find Dr. Josh Axe, but please.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you can check out my podcast. By the way, Dr. Darshan was amazing on my podcast. So it's the Dr. Josh Axe Show. It's on YouTube. It's on Apple and Spotify. So you can find, find that podcast there. And just search me online. I've, I've written, uh, or done a lot of videos on places like YouTube. So if you look up Dr. Axe hypothyroidism or Dr. Axe menopause or testosterone, you want to learn more about how to heal naturally. Just do, do those sort of searches. And then I wrote a new book called The Bibliodiet. That's done incredibly well. People have been excited about that. It's been, it was a fun book to write. And then just social media, Dr. Josh Axe. So, but, uh, thanks again. Again, I love your clinical work and what you're doing. It's amazing. So thanks for having me.

• 1:29:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you. Thank you so much. And we're going to go to my clinic right now together.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  I can't wait. I can't wait to get some holistic treatments. So thanks so much.

• 1:29:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Take care.

• 1:29:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps us support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider. Or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today. Especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and it's always important to seek their guidance.