Functional Medicine and Diabetes: How to Treat the Root Cause

Dr. Preeti Nanda Sibal, who's an international life coach whose positive aura reflects even in the phrases she uses—no don'ts, can'ts, or won'ts, only endless possibilities with the self. She'll take you on a journey into your inner self and make you explore your hidden strengths, and she'll help you draw them out from the depths of your mind and seize every single day Dr. Sybil takes the power zones of your mind and shows you the way to calm down and how to strengthen your strengths. In this fast-paced, stress-filled, chaotic world, she's an island of the much-needed change or transformation and thus inner peace. So let's ask her how she got into this journey of functional medicine. What made her choose this field as a physician. Dr. Preeti, can you tell me a little about yourself?

Thank you, Anandi, for such an elaborate introduction. Uh, I am Dr. Preeti, 1989 batch, Amritsar Medical College student. Uh, I was the first doctor in my family, and my father, uh, really wanted me to become a doctor, and I think that was the motivation behind me becoming a doctor. I moved on to do my MBA from IIM Lucknow and came into management. Now that is where my inner turmoil started, and I started feeling that, you know, healthcare is incomplete. We are only working for the last 10-15% of patients, but what about the remaining 85%? Where is healthcare? Having said that, I moved on to head VLCC Pan India. And that is where I found that connect between food, stress management, our lifestyles, and healthcare. And life did not end there. I was traveling to US and realized that functional medicine is a new future medicine which takes care of lifestyle choices we make. And for the last 5 years now, I'm practicing functional medicine and helping people reverse their chronic diseases and adding yours to their life.

What made you move to marketing from medicine?

It's such a sudden change, right? So I think there's some inborn leadership traits you have. And when I became a doctor, after that, when I was to get married, I told my father I don't want to marry a doctor. Somehow I think somewhere I had that instinct that I will do something different. And over the course of years, I realized that we need doctors in management space also. Because we can understand the management, medical management space much better than an outsider who is not a doctor. And that way, I think I got an opportunity to see both sides of the healthcare world, the good and bad. And that is why today I am here trying to bring my services to 360 degrees. Prescribed medicines and now making people stop their medicines.

That's nice. So what do you like most about being a functional medicine doctor? What do you actually call a doctor of functional medicine?

Can I ask you that? Wow. So I love being a functional medicine doctor because it's all about your functioning. It, you know, the moment you add smile on your face, the smile makes your face more attractive, more lovable, more huggable, right? And that is what I think functional medicine does, because functional medicine looks at the functioning of your body. Are you feeling energetic? Are you feeling fatigued? And therefore, what we work in functional medicine— so I say two things about functional medicine. One, We ask why. If you are a diabetic, I am very curious to know why. If you are obese, I am very curious to know why, because that leads me to the point where I need to start working. Second, what I like about functional medicine is functional medicine is very personalized. 80% of things which in lifestyle you need could be generic. But that 20% makes the trick. What are your genes? What is your biochemistry? How is everything in your life interacting with each other? Your relationships, your emotions, your sleep, your stress— all of it together comes in functional medicine. And we think of the human body as one body. Okay, so for the first time, you know, we don't say that you go to your gastro, you go to your physician. Of course As functional medicine doctor, when I— whenever I work with a patient, my patient needs to have their physician with them because I am not going to prescribe allopathic medicines. But yes, I am going to work with the patient on the why of the problem and then send the patient back to their physician to decrease the medicines based on the report my patient takes to them. So when I say report, in our practice monitoring is very important. So anybody who joins our program has to write every day's weight, every day's dietary recall, every day's sugar, every day's BP. So once your physician sees that your sugar has come down from 160 to 90, physician is very happy to decrease your medicines dose or stop some of the medicines. You know, he's not getting anything prescribing you medicines. And that is how we work as a team. And I think functional medicine in the coming days is going to become more prevalent, more popular, and it is going to support the allopathic healthcare in a huge way in making India and the world a healthier country.

So what you're actually saying is it's going to be a complete lifestyle overhaul.

Yes.

So it's like going back to what our ancestors were, a routine. Your body needs the discipline. Is that what you're saying?

I love you for this. I— my basic premise is go back to your basics. We are from a very, very rich heritage. So when people ask me, what should I eat? I tell them, don't— your question needs to get changed. You must ask yourself, would your grandmother or grandfather consider this as food? If your answer is yes, go ahead and enjoy it. So when a diabetic asks me, should I eat mangoes? I say, why not? Love your mango, eat it, because mango loves you. It gives you so much nutrition, and it has enzymes which help you manage your sugar levels also. So for a diabetic, you know, I know of a doctor whom I helped to manage their diabetes, and suddenly he shares with me that in summers my sugar numbers are better.

Okay, right.

So there are two reasons to that. One, he used to have half a mango every day, right? And second, of course, in winters our calorie intake increases, we have cravings for fried food, sugary foods, you know, and fatty foods. That's right. Right, so both reasons, but summers, sugar levels used to be much better.

So, but you're saying— what you're saying is entirely different from what any physician would say. The first thing a diabetic would be told is don't have mangoes.

Right, so fortunately and unfortunately, and I am a part of that group, Till 5 years back or 6 years back when I joined VLCC, right? And then after that when I studied functional medicine and nutrition and stuff like that, I did not know much about nutrition. So I have recently completed a 21-day detox program for 51 doctors. Okay, right. And interesting was it was only based on nutrition, and I got about, I think, 200+ questions from them after my sessions. So that is not to say that, you know, they are right or wrong. It's just that in our curriculum, nutrition is not a part, one. Second, nutrition in itself is a full science. Yeah, so we were not fortunate enough to read nutrition in our medical schools.

What you're saying is very interesting. Getting doctors to follow a detox program, that is going to be a very tough job.

We enjoyed it thoroughly, and I will share some testimonials with you. Doctors have stopped their BP medicines, doctors have lost weight, doctors have found that they were lactose intolerant, some have found they were gluten intolerant. I had a Hashimoto's thyroiditis patient who lost 8 kgs in 21 days. Oh wow! And I can go on and on and on. So it was very—

So what do you dislike most about this field? Is there something you dislike about this field?

So yes, I dislike something about this field is it is all based on behavioral change, and behavioral change doesn't happen very easily. So what I dislike is that I can only help people who want to help themselves. If you want to be on the driver's seat of your health, then I can really help you, support you, and tell you the— be your GPRS for health. But supposing I have a loved one and I really want that loved one to live a healthy life, I cannot do much till that loved one gets motivated enough to start driving their health curry.

So the change must come from within the patient.

It has to come. I have no other option. So in my clinic, when people come and say only give us supplements or IVs and don't change our diet or sleep pattern, I unfortunately have to refuse. Because unless you change your diet and your lifestyle, these popping pills is not going to help you. Yes, having supplements, having medicines are critical and important, but only after you have, you know, a clean soil where you are planting your plants now.

So you just gave an example that, uh, the doctor had stopped taking blood pressure medicines. So I'll read this as the blood pressure is reversible, which generally doctors say that it's not reversible. Once you are in the medicine, you have to be on it for a lifetime. So, uh, Can you talk more about that?

Yeah, so hypertension is reversible. So let me tell you, all these diseases— your hypertension, stroke, cardiac diseases, diabetes, PCOD— all these major— cancer, Alzheimer's, memory loss, and all— all these diseases start with one problem, and that is insulin resistance. And now, how do you know that you are insulin resistant? You don't even have to go to the doctor or get your blood test done. Right? You can just know by knowing that your abdominal waist has increased by 2 inches from what it was at 20, 22 years, or 16 years, or your waist-hip ratio for women is more than 0.80 and for men is more than 0.85. If that is the case, you know insulin resistance is starting. You must go get your fasting insulin, PP insulin, C-reactive protein, homocysteine, and other basic tests done. And we all know prevention is better than cure. The earlier you start, the easier you can reverse it, right? And completely reversible, all these diseases. So 75% of problems or deaths which are happening today are because of non-communicable diseases, and these are all reversible. Just to add to this, recently a lot of literature was there on cancer. 95%+ patients of cancer were found to have insulin resistance 20 to 30 years back. Can you imagine your body gives you so much time? Yeah, right. Even in COVID, recent studies in very highly impact factor journals is clearly saying that obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes are the big problem areas, saying your immune system is not working right. And I have heard some doctors, you know, in America and all, very clearly telling people, if you won't do it now, when will you do it? Exactly, right? And, and, and that's true, you know, because I think COVID has once told us, once again very strongly told us, health is the key to everything. Health is wealth. Wealth.

Yeah, yeah, right. And true, actually, right now all the wealth in the world cannot save you from COVID if you go out and you are going to be affected, right?

And, and you know, going out, how many months you will be inside? Almost 70-80% of us have to get affected to build herd immunity. Yeah. So what is it that we have in our hand? We have one choice to make. And that choice is we should make sure that we are not insulin resistant.

So tell me, what would you— so when you were training as a doctor and then as you did MBA, and so did you face any difficulties in changing from one field to another? And then you again moved to functional medicine.

Yes, so I think in the first phase it was difficult. I was among 120 students, only one doctor in the class, right? But when I came back to medicine again, I think that was a bigger struggle because I had to revise my MBBS completely and functional medicine courses Even bigger than that, every day a new mystery about my body used to unfold in front of me, and I used to fall in love with my body once again. Okay. It is so amazing that this is the best machinery made on this earth, and no man-made machine can be compared to this. But unfortunately, what I've realized is we buy a car and we generally don't take it outside on the road if it is not insured. And if it is not serviced, right? That's a good example. And we go to the best, you know, generally in the beginning we used to get to roadside guys because we bought our car, first car, about 30 years back, 27 years back, and we had to have a waiting of 9 months when we had to buy a Maruti that time, yeah, right? But in the last 22 years, I don't remember, we all have, we have all Honda cars Going to any roadside vendor, we go to the Honda showroom. Why? Because we know it is expensive, but it is the best, and it will put original things in my car, right? So a 8 lakh or a 10 lakh or a 20 lakh investment is so precious for us that we make all right decisions for them, right? But a billion-dollar worth human body, I can promise you, Anandi, if I tell you give me one arm today, I need one extra arm, 'Come, because I have lots to do in COVID times,' you will not give it to me even if I pay you crores. Exactly. Right? But when it comes to taking care of this, we have a lot of questions and we have a lot of other priorities. And I'm not saying with anybody else's example, Anandi. I'm saying this with my own example. I was working in a corporate, I was working 16 hours, heading a multinational company, having 4,000 people reporting into me. And I was a diabetic, I had cervical, I had lactose intolerance, I had migraine, I was obese, I was 87-89 kgs. Then every 6 months, I remember I had to change my wardrobe and buy 5 new suits because nothing seemed to be fitting into me. I became hypothyroid, I had fibroids, I used to bleed excessively during my menses. Every 15 days my menses used to come. So I can go on and on and on, right? So I'm not talking about anybody else because I know myself the closest. But last 5 years, I've— I have no migraine attacks, my menses are normal, my fibroids have shrunk, my diabetes is normal. Only yesterday I got my test done, my HbA1c came out to be 5.3 and my sugar levels at 82. Oh wow! Right, fasting. So that's amazing. And my thyroid levels have come out normal. My T3 is normal because generally we look at TSH, but if T3 is not normal, we don't feel energetic. And life is so much better. I'm slimmer now. You can look at my face and know. If you visit my website, you will see my older image and you will say, oh, she's not the same woman. Right?

I was actually going to ask you about a successful case, but I think you are the most successful case for yourself, and you are standing there as a testimonial for your— for functional medicine.

Thank you, Anandi. And I didn't learn it on the very first day. For first 9 months, I kept being obese and with all the diseases and kept preaching people that change your lifestyle because that's a good way to do it. And one day, one of my patients, and thanks to all my patients who have taught me so much, comes to me and says, Dr. Preeti, if you can't apply it on yourself, why should I pay money and trust you? Okay. Right? And because change is not easy, Anandi, and we all are human beings. So change is the only constant, and change is the only thing we keep resisting. Yeah. Right, so, um, so yes, that day I thought, yes, I need to work on myself. And I'm 64 kgs now and 48 years now, a mother to two sons, 25 and 23. And I just shared with you all my reports, normal. And, um, and yeah, so if I can do it, everybody can, because my genetic test showed me that I don't have any satiety gene. Okay, so when this guy came and met me and gave me my reports, he said, ma'am, I was expecting to meet a 90 kg weighing doctor at least after seeing your genetic report. And I said, why? Because he said you have no satiety gene, so how do you know when to stop eating? And I said, oh God, I now know why I keep eating the whole day. Right? But even eating the whole day, if you plan it well and nicely, you can change things. So you don't have to go on dieting, Anandi, which I realized. What you have to do is healthy eating plan with a healthy eating mindset. Yeah.

So tell us something about, like, when you have a patient, when when a patient comes to you, I'm sure the first session with you would be a longer session when you get to know the person. So is that right, or does it take a very short while to examine the patient, diagnose?

No, so it takes a long time. My consultations are generally 40 minutes, but my first consultation goes to 1.5 hours because for me it is very important even to know about your relationships. Your childhood. So our history starts from the way you were born. Was it a cesarean section or was it a normal delivery? Okay, because from that information also we get to know how is your gut microbiome. And gut is your second brain, because for a cesarean child, he's not been exposed to the mother's vagina where a lot of microbes are there which help make the gut more Variety. And variety is the key. Yeah, so that's where we start. And every incident in your life, any head trauma, any emotional trauma— for example, for PCOD, very critical is, is he— is she born in a family, is she born in a family, just she wants to show that she's very good, she's very prim and proper. Is she always been in an environment where there's been competition? Okay, because all that changes your hormones like this, and unless you work on them, on their self-esteem, you don't get what you want to get. And you know, these are young girls, you know, you are investing your time, energy with people who are going to remember you for the next 60, 80 years. Yeah, right. So I'll just share a story with you. I met a lady in one of my yoga camps because for last 6 years now, every anniversary we go for 10 days to some rejuvenating site, offsite. Okay, okay. 6 months later, that lady calls me and says, my daughter has been diagnosed with PCOD, I want her— you to, you know, help her. One and a half years later, that girl sends me her reports, and you know, her statement is, Doc, I thought you were working on my weight loss, but imagine, from 18 years to 28 years, I have never had my hormones normal. So now I know you were working on my hormones all the time, and, and I didn't know that. So you can imagine, you know, how that feels. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, yes, I like hearing such comments, and I think that motivates me to give more time to my patients. Uh, it's never less than 30 minutes, but it goes to 1.5 and sometimes 2 hours depending on their phase of life and what is it that we are wanting to do there.

So what is your main strength?

That's a very nice question. So my main strength is I have a never-die attitude. So I will not leave any stone unturned to help my patients because I really honor them and the trust they show in me, right? And in the second leg of my career, you know, almost 29 years into medical career now, uh, I really know that money is the last thing and it will happen, right? So my motivation which drives me is making India a healthier country. Okay. And I think that's something I think is my strength.

And what is your weakness?

I think that's my same weakness. I work on result-oriented programs. So if somebody joins me and in between thinks, I want to get off the flight right now, I really make sure that they don't get off the flight then unless they have reached their destination. So when they join, I make sure that I ask them 3 times, this is a flight you are boarding with me and I'm the pilot in the flight, right? You cannot get down in between. If you're going to Mumbai and in between you decide, oh yeah, my friend in Ahmedabad wants to meet me, Sorry, you will have to go to Mumbai and then you can come back to Ahmedabad, right? So I think that's my weakness. Um, once you join me on my journey, then I make sure that you achieve your results.

So now first I want to ask you some personal questions. Tell me some— something— what other personal interests do you have apart from medicine?

My sons, anything for them, anytime for them, right? So parenting is very special for me, very, very special. My other hobbies are reading, laughing, and drawing, painting. So I do canvas paintings at times, I do glass paintings, and, and that's what I love. I've been doing that since my medical college days.

Okay. And, uh, painting, uh, what examples on your website?

I have not put them, but I will share with you and maybe you can look at. I have some, yeah, some paintings which I've done and I really like them.

So you have them in your clinic?

In my clinic and in my house.

Okay. And how does your— what does your husband do?

So he heads the medical division at Fujifilm. He's an engineer. Both of us did our MBA together. Okay, and he keeps telling me I do what I love to do, and he still does what he's supposed to do.

So he's actually related to the medical industry despite not being a doctor?

Yes, and that's the reason I think he appreciates my work a lot. He believes in giving back to the society, so I have a lot of support from him. And yeah, went positive. So a lot of his family members have benefited from my programs. We've helped infertility patients. His maasi was on 80 units of insulin and now 4 years later she's not on insulin anymore. So yeah, so I think I've gained the trust and credibility on that side too. So you're also a published author.

Yes. You already have one book out and you are writing another book. Yeah, can you tell us about the published book and the one you are writing right now?

Right, so the published book is on cyclic keto. What I realized was that though I believe in giving balanced diets to people, because as I said, functional medicine is personalized medicine, so whatever you want. But during my experience, I realized that there were a lot of queries and myths about keto diet, and I also realized that keto diet was landing people into problem also at times. For example, you know, when your insulin is going high, keto is the diet for you. But supposing your insulin starts falling down and you still keep following keto, you become hypothyroid patient. Okay, now not many nutritionists and doctors know this, but this is so vital because we already know insulin resistance is at the core of everything. Yeah, so in depression and mental diseases, keto is extremely important, and people just go online and do it. Second, I also realized that, you know, for Indians, keto is very easy because a lot of our dishes are keto. Yeah, for example, palak paneers and curries from full cream, right? So, so that's the reason I wrote that book. The 100 pages of that book initially are more about health, more about what I think we should look at health like. And I know that 99% of people relate with that. And it's a very conversational book. I did not get it copy edited. I wrote the way I talk. So people who know me, hear me, know that I'm speaking to them from my heart. And it has 40+ recipes, 14 diet plans for people who just want to do it on their own. They can just take that book from Kindle and do it on their own. And if they have any questions, I don't have the book on my table right now. Sorry. If you could share the COVID Yeah, but I, yeah, I will share the link with you. Sure. And we can add that. And the new book I'm writing is about 4-Hour Rapid Fat Loss Method. Because, you know, obesity and diabetes and insulin resistance and thyroid, they are that triangle. Yeah, right. And in that triangle, cortisol fits in. That's the stress. And that, and that is our life these days. Yeah, right. So if you invest 4 hours on yourself every week, you can reverse these problems and stabilize these hormones and align them in balance. Okay, right. So I wanted to tell people from this book, which should be out soon, early next month, is that this is not difficult, but yes, it won't happen while you are sleeping. Yeah, right. If you plan it well, 4 hours in a week— I'm sure all of us are spending more than that currently also. Just the problem is we are not spending it in a way we should, because we are not knowing that calorie in is not equal to calorie out. Weight loss is not equal to weight loss, right? Your hormones need to be balanced, fat needs to go away, right? So I am sure people will find it interesting. I'm trying to use only practical inputs. Okay.

Yeah, so that I'll ask you something very controversial now. Yes. So, and I hope you'll answer it honestly. Please. So when you see a patient, like you gave the example of diabetes and blood pressure, when you see a patient, what do you see that a conventional doctor would?

So conventional doctor will not talk about, uh, your lifestyle changes. But what I tell them is that I will work with you on your lifestyle changes. And I know this, that if you would be able to do it on your own, you would not be sitting here making that much of effort and paying me money for something which you can do on your own. Yeah, my— the only promise I need from you is if you have a scheduled call, you have to respect it. If there is a 5 or 10 minute homework, you have to do that. And then your results are my guarantee. Okay, right. So, and I don't think there's any other conventional doctor will say exactly.

So there's one last question that I'd love, then we'll wrap it up here. Please. Uh, how affordable is— you said that functional medicine is just getting recognized in India. I think there would be very few doctors of functional medicine. So how affordable is it for the common people?

So functional medicine is slightly expensive because when we find why the testing and all takes a lot of time, also because the consultations are longer. So, you know, you need to invest more. But it, you know, but it depends expensive in comparison to what. If you are comparing with the hospitalization bill you will get in few years, then it is very cheap. If you're comparing to with the lost number of hours, your family hours of fun and frolic, then it is very, very reasonable. So it really depends what you are comparing it with. I thoroughly believe that it is one investment everybody should make. And to make it affordable, what I do is I do group programs also. So people who are more motivated and who are really into it, who don't need a lot of push and pull stuff of thing, I strongly recommend that they join my programs, which are group programs, because they are done only to make it very, very, very, very financially effective.

Okay, so all these details are available on your website? Yes. Okay, so we'll wrap it up here. And for people Who want to know more, I think we should visit Dr. Preeti's website, which is www.dr. preeti.com. Yes, so drpreeti.com. Yes, you'll get more information on that. And just one more thing I'd like to say here is that Dr. Preeti had posted a link today regarding fruits. You must read that, it's very informative and interesting. Article about how we are going about eating fruits the wrong way. So please eat fruits, enjoy it, but do it the right way. Read the article, you'll know more. Thank you, Dr. Preeti. Thank you for having me.

Thank you very much.