The Whole Health Cure Sharon Bergquist, MD

Bill Rawls, MD is a fourth-generation physician with over 30 years of clinical experience. He is the Medical Director and Co-Founder of Vital Plan, Inc., and the bestselling author of two books, Unlocking Lyme and The Cellular Wellness Solution.

With hundreds of supplements derived from herbs on the commercial market, it can be difficult to know which ones are safe and effective, and how to select them based on your goals. In this episode, Dr. Bill Rawls shares the science of herbal therapies and how to best use plants as medicine.

“[Plants] have this broad-spectrum protection against free radicals, toxic substances, and all these invasive microbes that we're exposed to. And that’s true of every single herb.”

Bill also delves into the study of cellular wellness and explains what our cells need to function optimally. The cells in our bodies share common mechanisms with the plants we consume, and by harnessing their protective properties, we can improve our long-term health.

“The greater the concentration of phytochemicals that you take, then the more benefit you're going to get.”
Listen to this episode to learn more about Bill’s recommendations on herbs, supplements, and the role plants play in cellular wellness.

Here are the details of our conversation:
[00:01:40] Defining cellular wellness
[00:02:31] What causes a loss of cellular wellness?
[00:04:31] Five ways to promote cellular wellness through lifestyle
[00:09:49] Improving symptoms versus treating a diagnosis
[00:12:24] Herbs and cellular wellness
[00:16:13] The spectrum of plant foods and herbs
[00:19:43] Methods of consuming herbs
[00:22:01] How much supplementation do we need?
[00:26:10] Zones of herbal toxicity
[00:29:13] Deciding which herbs to take
[00:36:14] Herbology resources

Dr. Ravi Komatireddy, MD, MCTI is the founder and CEO of Daytona Health, a digital health startup that combines the power of algorithms, human experts, and behavior change science to help you make and implement better health decisions. He is a board-certified internal medicine physician and the first wireless digital health scholar at the Scripps Translational Science Institute, where he earned a masters in clinical translational investigation. Previously, he co-founded and served as Chief Medical Officer of 2 funded digital health startups, Lumiata Inc. and Reflexion Health Inc., and helped introduce a digital health model to medical startups operating in Nairobi, Kenya health tech ecosystem.

In this episode, Ravi and I discuss the field of digital health and wearable technology. Named the top fitness trend of 2023 by the American College of Sports Medicine, devices like Apple Watches, Fitbits, Ouras, and Whoops are not only user-friendly tools to track your fitness progress – they can also offer personalized insight into your long-term health.

“Things that used to take rooms full of people in labs in a hospital, we can now make them smaller, better, cheaper, and available to connect to your smartphone through a wearable or through a portable lab.”

Ravi breaks down the types of data these devices provide, how they collect their information, and the ways their numbers can be used to build healthier habits. We address questions including which brands offer the most accurate data and how much we should trust reports on recovery and sleep quality.

“People who stay healthy and can maintain lifestyle changes, they have a really high commitment to themselves. And that is a trainable skill. The wearables play a role in helping you build the skill because they're tracking and holding you accountable to the activities, and you can measure that and see them over time.”

Listen to the full episode to learn more about using wearables for optimizing your health and longevity.

Here are the details of our conversation:

[00:01:33] Ravi’s early work in digital health startups
[00:03:26] Transitioning to work at Daytona Health
[00:07:37] Defining digital health
[00:10:49] What are wearables?
[00:12:50] Wearable brands
[00:17:42] Will using more devices provide better information?
[00:20:22] How to interpret different types of data
[00:24:51] Trusting data for decision-making
[00:30:58] Data vs. Intuition
[00:37:08] Using data for behavior change
[00:43:48] Integrating digital health into the healthcare system

Linda Shiue, MD is an internal medicine physician, chef, and author of the cookbook Spicebox Kitchen: Eat Well and Be Healthy with Globally Inspired, Vegetable-Forward Recipes. At Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco, Linda serves as the first Director of Culinary Medicine and the founder of Thrive Kitchen, a space for patients to learn “the most practical, simple, and flavorful ways” to improve their health through nutrition.

So, what does the term “food as medicine” mean? Where does it fit in the healthcare space? In this episode, we break down the field of culinary medicine and how Linda’s path in traditional primary care has informed her practices at Kaiser Permanente.

“What I realized after more than a couple of decades of being a doctor is that the simplest and most basic ideas are actually the most powerful… No matter what we have in terms of technology and medications, if someone isn’t eating in a way that is supportive of their health, nothing we can do will help them get to their optimal health.”

Linda’s classes offer recipes for diverse, flavorful vegetarian dishes while also fostering an appreciation for healthy eating and cooking among her patients. In doing so, Linda has created an educational and supportive community that promotes long-term wellbeing.

“We would basically have five or six different recipes… and then we would all have them together, join all of our tables together at the end for a group meal. And that's when we would talk about health and nutrition and cooking… in a very relaxed environment over a meal.”

Listen to this episode to learn more about Linda’s classes, her cookbook, and her recommendations for making meals that are as healthy as they are delicious.

Here are the details of our conversation:

[00:02:03] Linda’s transition from primary care to culinary medicine
[00:04:47] Food as medicine
[00:07:04] The importance of culinary medicine in healthcare
[00:07:38] The Thrive Kitchen experience
[00:09:33] Foundations of Linda’s recipe design
[00:10:42] Writing Spicebox Kitchen
[00:13:30] Spices as a theme of Spicebox Kitchen
[00:14:18] What is culinary medicine?
[00:16:27] Key components of a healthy meal
[00:19:57] Most fun and most challenging parts of cooking classes
[00:22:21] Linda’s top five spices
[00:25:56] Properties of spices
[00:27:43] Linda’s message on nutrition and cooking

Tim Radak, DrPH, MPH, RDN is Academic Coordinator for the Public Health PhD program at Walden University, where he has taught public health courses since 2010. His research in nutrition, chronic disease prevention, and public health has been published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals and textbook chapters. Today, we delve into the history, science, and health impacts of fish oil supplements.

Tim explains that the supplements’ popularity was promoted by a 1979 study of Greenland Eskimos, whose diets primarily consisted of seafood. Although the study found extremely low instances of heart disease within the population, the Eskimos’ cardiovascular health was likely under-reported due to lack of access to diagnostic testing. As a result, the data was invalid but, nonetheless, led to a flurry of studies over the following decades on the association between omega-3 and nearly all chronic diseases.

Whether or not your body needs supplemental amounts involves many factors, Tim says. “Even though… fish oil, in terms of essential fatty acids (omega-3), has an anti-inflammatory effect, we have to weigh that against whether the body really wants extra amounts of omega-3 fatty acids to reform inflammation events.”

For most healthy Americans, Tim says that sufficient levels of omega-3 can be obtained by eating a plant-based diet. In fact, it is important to balance omega-3 intake with the intake of another fatty acid, omega-6. The metabolism of the compounds are in competition, and high levels of one can impact the uptake of the other.

You can listen to this episode to learn why “A good thing is great, but too much of a good thing could actually be counterproductive.”

Here are the details of our conversation:
[00:01:26] Tim’s mentorship and research at Walden University
[00:02:27] Tim’s journey in lifestyle medicine
[00:04:05] Navigating health information
[00:05:20] History of omega-3 supplements
[00:12:46] Omega-3’s anti-inflammatory mechanisms
[00:15:13] Primary and secondary prevention
[00:15:59] Obtaining omega-3 through diet
[00:18:36] Balancing omega-3 and omega-6 intake
[00:20:36] Should certain diets take supplements?
[00:24:56] Reducing omega-6 intake in the Western diet
[00:26:35] Secondary prevention for heart disease

Anoop Kumar, MD is an emergency physician, the Co-founder of Health Revolution, and the creator of the Health Jumpstart program. He has authored two books, Michelangelo's Medicine and Is This a Dream? In this episode, we discuss Anoop’s experiences in emergency medicine and how he is using his medical background to redefine the meaning of health and healthcare.

“When we activate what we call primary medicine, these engines of nutrition, movement, connection and rest, some kind of healing always ensues, and it's always customized for that person in that way, whatever it means to them.”

Anoop also describes the four main pillars of healing and explains how we can use them to create sustainable, healthy habits. As an emergency physician, he emphasizes that the pillar of rest, which includes sleep and stress relief, is just as important as nutrition, movement, and connection.

“That's when I practiced all of these things, and that's where this comes from… so if I go into the ER now, it's very different than when I went in ten or 15 years ago, and that's not only because of the experience.”

Here are the details of our conversation:
[00:01:38] Anoop’s journey in emergency medicine
[00:05:11] Completing our view of the human body
[00:07:02] Defining health and healing
[00:10:18] Recognizing the process of healing
[00:11:50] The four pillars of healing
[00:21:48] Improving sleep quality
[00:25:05] Practicing stress relief and mindfulness

Emeran Mayer, MD is a Gastroenterologist, Neuroscientist and Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is the Executive Director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress & Resilience at UCLA and has authored two books, The Mind-Gut Connection and The Gut-Immune Connection.

Emeran has been at the forefront of microbiome research for nearly four decades, with work focusing on communications between the gut, the brain, and the immune system. While these connections seem commonplace today, informing treatments ranging from autoimmune therapies to fecal transplants, they were not always so widely accepted.

“Our abstracts had a hard time getting traction and attention. And many of the key opinion leaders in this field of irritable bowel syndrome or functional gastrointestinal disorders always emphasized this is a disease of the gut and had nothing to do with the brain.”

Thanks to new technologies like brain imaging, Emeran was able to receive the grants needed to fund his projects. Since, his work has contributed to understandings of chronic diseases, obesity, and cognitive decline. In this episode, Emeran discusses his journey in pioneering the study of the microbiome, delves into the history of the gut, suggests ways we can harness brain-gut communication to manage our overall health, and offers insight into the future of the evolving field.

Here are the details of our conversation:

[00:02:04] Emeran’s early career

[00:06:18] Gaining support for brain-gut research

[00:10:47] History of the brain-gut connection

[00:15:33] Homeostasis in health and disease

[00:18:15] The “Common Denominator” of immune activation

[00:23:57] Disease prevention through diet and microbe exposure

[00:29:01] Commercial microbiome testing

[00:34:23] Gut feelings and intuition