77: Inflammation Isn't Aging – Reverse Brain Fog with Shivani Gupta

Today we are joined by Dr. Shivani Gupta, Ayurvedic practitioner and turmeric researcher, author of The Inflammation Code, published by Hay House earlier this year, just in February. She is here to talk small daily rituals to cool inflammation, restore energy without an over-restrictive diet. And you guys already know inflammation is one of my favorite topics. So let's dig in. So today we're talking about one of my actual favorite topics in the world that no one has ever addressed on my podcast. So I'm extremely excited to have you here, Dr. Shivani Gupta. Thank you so much for taking the time and coming on the podcast to talk all things inflammation.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. It's our honor. So we are going to talk about inflammation. I know we're going to talk about it some from the standard of care, like general medical viewpoint. But what I love about your approach is we will also dig in and talk a little bit about inflammation from an Ayurvedic perspective. And it's so exciting for me.

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

I started working on my inflammatory journey when I was like in college, and the first thing I ever did was an Ayurvedic cleanse. So that was like 20 years ago. And I did the cleanse where every day you drink ghee and then you can only eat very specific foods. And I think it's like the 5th day you drink castor oil and you have a complete cleanse.

Yes, you do. Everything will come out.

Everything came out. And back then I didn't have a lot of tools in my toolbox. So that was one I kept going back to over and over and over. So very, very cool. I would— of course, I want to dig into like thyroid inflammation, but I'd love for you to give us a little bit of a foundation to start from. Like, tell us about inflammation from a regular standpoint. Tell us about it from an Ayurvedic standpoint.

For sure. So ancient Ayurveda is a system of health, healing, and medicine from India that's 5,000 years old, and most people have never heard of it. We hear about all the other integrative modalities. Like acupuncture, chiropractic, traditional Chinese medicine, and the herbs they use, which includes acupuncture, homeopathic, naturopathic. So oftentimes Ayurveda is the last door anybody finds, and by then they have spent so much time trying to reverse disease, it's almost hard for us. But we have all these powerful tools for prevention and true healing. It's really a preventive system of medicine. It's root cause medicine, it's precision medicine. From 5,000 years ago. And so when Ayurveda talks about inflammation, we're really talking about the body being disrupted, the body not having the tools it needs on hand to deal with what's coming at it. Inflammation is just the body's response to any external force or factor or enemy. And the problem is in modern day times, in modern day times, we basically consider the enemy within. We're chronically inflamed, attacking our own organs, which is problematic. And from the modern day perspective, we do have a lot of science that digs even deeper and says the reason for this is we are under such a toxin burden in modern day life. So many chronic stressors. We're not learning how to really rest and digest and heal the body. And so in that state of chronic inflammation, we're basically like forest fires walking around and we have extinguishers available to us, but we're not using them 'cause we've turned off all those signals. We're just not hearing it. So in this moment, I know for a fact my body's inflamed. I know that. I know that I carry a big amount of chronic stress, running around, keeping my schedule too tight. I try to eat my best and do my best, but in any given day, I can have inflammation going on. But am I hearing when my body gives me symptoms? And what most people don't realize is those symptoms are things like joint pain. Aches and pains in the morning, fatigue, frequent headaches. When your gut is disrupted, so like you eat, you get bloated, you don't understand why, or you're suddenly food sensitive. And all of a sudden, when the body's doing all that, most of us women in our 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond will say, I guess this is just aging. Like, I guess that's what this is, this is aging. And I always say, no, no, no, it's not aging, it's inflammaging. This is inflammation making you think that you're aging, but you're not. Let's address that inflammation. Let's get to the root cause because we don't have to suffer like this. We don't have to struggle with this.

Yeah. And I know you have a book out, The Inflammation Code, which of course we're going to talk about. It's so beautiful.

Thank you. I love it. It's my new little baby. This book.

It really is. It really is. And I'll put ordering information in the show notes. Of course, I'm curious as we unravel more and more of this conversation, How did you end up so invested in the conversation of inflammation?

Sure. So growing up, I was born in Houston, Texas, to this immigrant family, my parents who came to live the American dream. And they worked so hard to raise us. They put us in all the classes and all the things we do for our children. But we ended up eating a lot of fast food, running around, doing the things you typically do back in the '80s. And at that time, we also would go to India every year to see my grandparents. And what would happen was I was always the sick kid, couldn't understand why. We'd go to India to see the grandparents and all I would see happen was death and destruction. It was like heart attack, stroke, leg amputation, someone needs a quadruple bypass. And then I saw my father always working really hard to reverse his parents and my mom's parents out of those issues. He's like, quadruple bypass, not under my watch. And he'd build like a biohacking suite in our family room and he'd be like, that's it everybody, it's green juice, it's vitamins. It's the Power Plate, it's walking in nature, like real tools, whatever he could get ahold of at that time. And I saw him reverse disease after disease. And I learned that diabetes and the diseases we struggle with the most in my family are rooted in inflammation, obesity, and stress. And when I saw that, I was like, that's reversible. You guys all are doing this to yourselves. And what's the point in life if we work so hard and then at the end you're struggling this much just going to hospitals and dealing with medicine and doctors. What does that mean for my parent generation and what does it mean for mine? And I just realized in college, I was like, I am no longer gonna be this sick kid, chronically sick, chronically weak. I was taking antibiotics every month for different sicknesses. Mm-hmm. Back then no one thought like, oh, Augmentin 10 times a year may not, may not be a good idea for a teenage girl who weighs 100 pounds. Like maybe this is not the right plan. And so I had all my own health issues going on. I saw my family struggle with it and I thought, no one else should suffer like this. I have to find a way. And so I went on a path. I studied Ayurveda in India. I told my parents, oh, like there's this thing called yoga and Ayurveda and I think it can fix me. I think it can heal me. And so I went on this quest north, south, east, west through India. I sat at the guru's feet taking notes. The universe really supported me and put me in the right places to study. Those people in India kind of looked at me like, that is an American girl. We don't know if she's here to really take our wisdom and teach it the right way. So I even had to convince them. I was like, I will hold the integrity of the studies. I'm trying to impact the world here. You guys are holding pure gold in treasure chests and you're holding it instead of sharing it and we need it. And so my whole life's work since college has been to take the Ayurvedic wisdom, bring it west, apply it to people, show them how to live better so that we can live lives that aren't full of inflammation and stress and disease. We have the power to reverse it. We just haven't been taught. All the tools that are available to us.

Yeah, that's so fascinating. And I have to tell you, side note, I grew up south of Houston, was also always the sick kid. I grew up in Lake Jackson, straight down 288 on the coast. And I think too, there was a season where I had two physical offices. One was in, you know, south of Houston, one was in Austin. When I compared my Hashimoto's patients, the most severe Hashimoto's still to this day that I've ever seen is people in the Houston area. I think too, it's a huge toxic burden industrially with Dow Chemical. Lake Jackson's right on, right by Dow Chemical and just all the industry of Houston. So that probably plays a significant part too. So incredibly interesting.

Sure.

Yeah. And then, you know, one other thing that I wanted to— oh yeah, bring up was So, all of this ancient medicine, this ancient wisdom, and I think so many people discount it so quickly. They're like, oh, well, it's not modern medicine. Yeah, well, modern medicine has been around for a couple hundred years. This has been around 5,000 years. Traditional medicine has been around for thousands. Traditional Chinese medicine has also been around for thousands of years. Do you feel like those pillars, those constructs of healing still apply today, even though we live in such a different world?

Absolutely. I mean, the lessons are so timeless. The wisdom is so true. When I found it, I was kind of shocked. I was like, why did no one tell me I could detox gently on a daily basis? My body could feel healthy. I could build a robust immune system. And what's great is what ancient wisdom taught us 5,000 years ago modern science is just now proving it to be true with our modern tools. So when I talk gut health, now we talk about gut microbiome, gut-brain axis, but Ayurveda had language for this. We talked about Agni, the digestive fire, being the center of our brain health, our mood, our immune system, our energy. So Ayurveda already knew these things. Ayurveda came up with the circadian clock, that concept that we talk about and we say, oh, these three Nobel Peace Prize winners proved this thing called the circadian clock to be true. Ayurveda already taught it in really grand detail. And so what I'm finding is I love all the worlds. I love the biohacking world, I love the longevity world. And when we look at the integrative medicine world, we are actually teaching the foundation. And I love that these are enhancements on top. Like, it's— longevity's just saying, hey, we need to focus on these things. And we're like, yeah, we totally agree. Biohacking's like, we've got technology to give you more light and more grounding and more of everything you say. And we're like, awesome, give it to me. Like we're living in a modern time that has a heavier toxin burden. Why wouldn't you fuse all the tools together and take them all and use them?

Yeah, I know. Absolutely. And that's what I think a lot of people lose sight of. It's a both/and situation. It's not like either/or, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Things from all of these areas that are useful for us for sure.

And I wouldn't say that I love Western medicine. I respect it and I had so many issues with it growing up because they really did give me crazy antibiotics unendingly. Til I think they completely destroyed my gut microbiome and it's been quite a rebuild. And then I really honor and maintain that as my first, most important health habit. But I reach for Western medicine when I need it. So I really do respect that we need those toolkits too. We need the emergency toolkits, the acute toolkits, the big heavy toolkits so that if we're in trouble, we have those. So it's really about the balance and you can elegantly ebb and flow between them.

Yep. You really can. And there's a time and place for all of it. And I feel the same. You know, I practice traditional medicine originally. That's what I'm board certified in. And, and I think finally people are coming to realize medicine is great. Like if you need to go to the ER, if you need surgery, if you get into a car accident, but medicine is not making people healthy. That's different, right? Like we are solving problems. We are not creating wellness. And so that's what I love about these more ancient modalities. They really work for wellness and not just solving, band-aiding problems all the time.

True. Very true.

Well, I want to switch gears a little bit and pick your brain about Hashimoto's from your perspective. I would love for you to tell us how Ayurveda looks at Hashi compared to traditional standard of care medicine.

Sure. So Ayurveda really frames Hashimoto's as impaired agni, like that weakened digestive fire that's leading to something that we teach called ama. Accumulating, which is really this toxic undigested material inside of us that triggers this immune confusion that we have, but also this tissue inflammation as well. And so conventional medicine typically identifies that antibody attack on the thyroid tissue, but it doesn't address the upstream issue. And Ayurveda asks why, like why is the immune system becoming confused in the first place? Why would it? Its number one job is to protect us. And so in modern science, we talk about this as our compromised intestinal, intestinal barrier. We talk about it as intestinal permeability and leaky gut. And we know that allows for all these bacteria and toxins to flow into our circulation. It, you know, it triggers systemic inflammation, and then that's also gonna trigger that autoimmunity. And so we know that there have been scientific studies that have been published that talk about leaky gut as this prerequisite for autoimmune disease development. And so we know how bad that is. In Ayurveda, what we talked about was when we look at— when we start to measure inflammation and understand it better, then we start to see that when we just focus on gut digestive fire coming back online, when we have that strong and robust, then we're going to absorb and assimilate everything from our food. When we understand how ama or toxins are formed in the first place, then we can start to reduce that toxin burden. And so one big way we do that is we do annual detoxes and we also do circadian seasonal detoxes and we also do daily detoxes. Actually, we have something called dinacharya, the daily self-care rituals of Ayurveda. And so according to Ayurveda, whether we were living 5,000 years ago or we're living right now in modern day life, there is a toxin burden of accumulation because every single thing you're consuming has to be absorbed by the body. What you eat, what you drink, what you even mentally, emotionally consume. So you might be going through a season that's really hard. Maybe you have something happening in your personal life, maybe it's world global events, whatever it may be, we are absorbing it. And if we don't take the time to release it from our tissues and body, it starts to accumulate. And so that's why Ayurveda says on a daily basis, do some simple habits like tongue scraping, oil pulling, dry brushing. On a quarterly basis, at the intersection of seasons, we would love for you to take a week, 2 weeks, maybe 3 weeks, and ease up off of inflammatory foods or anything that's hard to digest and drop into a gentle detox. And then we also teach about the mega annual detox. We call it Panchakarma. It's like a five-fold, five-approach detox that's more intense. It's almost better to go into a center and detox there, but you're really going to clear inflammation, clear the lymphatic system, clear everything out of your tissues. And I have seen this over and over again. I've been to India many times for detoxification. So many people show up and they say, this is our annual ritual because this is the one thing that keeps us in remission against so many of the things that we tend to create in our bodies. And so that's the Ayurvedic approach to our thyroid health.

Yeah, I love that so, so much. And I know a lot of your work historically, you got a PhD in research on turmeric specifically, which is fascinating. Tell me a little bit about how turmeric— what turmeric is actually, because some people might not even know how it can reduce inflammation and even potentially autoimmune inflammation. Give me your whole thoughts on, on that.

For sure. So I ended up doing my master's in Ayurvedic sciences and I fell in love with the herbs and spices of Ayurveda. They are some of our most potent tools. And so I renamed the spices super spices because I really think they're as effective as superfoods. When we're taking superfoods, we're usually taking them for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits. And so that's what these spices do. Ginger, cumin, Cinnamon. All of them are such powerhouses. Coriander, which is cilantro, can do heavy metal detoxing. Like, they're superheroes unto themselves. And then when I learned about turmeric, I thought, why did I not have this my whole life? When I got sick— turmeric is antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant. I was like, right there, I'm sold. So you're saying it's completely anti-aging, gets rid of pain, and helps me have a warrior shield against sickness, I'm totally sold. Then when you dive deeper, turmeric as— and you ask, what is turmeric? Turmeric is a beautiful herb and plant. It's actually called a rhizome, and it's a sister plant to ginger. So if you've seen ginger, turmeric is the same thing. It's just way more orange on the inside, and it has its own superhero benefits compared to ginger. And so most people think of turmeric and they're like, well, I buy my raw turmeric and I juice it. Some of them say, I buy my powdered turmeric and I put it in my food. And then some people talk about the extract. When we talk about raw turmeric, it has benefits, but in ancient India, that's not what we use the most. Sometimes we'd pickle it, use it as a garnish. Regular turmeric is pretty warming, so we didn't use it in that raw form. Then we did dry it into a spice, and India is the largest consumer of turmeric as a spice. It's used in all our dishes. It is beneficial. It became famous because people started asking, why do Indians not suffer from Alzheimer's? Like, what is this? And they thought it must be the curry, it must be the spice. And so turmeric has been proven to be so beneficial for neurocognitive health and things like that. We know that you should always, if you're going to cook with turmeric, add black pepper or a healthy fat. That's super important. The black pepper increases the absorption by 2,000%. The healthy fat also helps with the absorption. And helps it cross the blood-brain barrier. And so I'm a big proponent of, please, if you're gonna take it, take it in a way that absorbs. And then finally, there's the extract. So what most people don't know is out of the entire turmeric plant, only 3 to 5% of it is the curcuminoids. And out of those curcuminoids, curcumin is the most effective at reducing inflammation. And so all the time people are like, yeah, I juice my turmeric, I'm good. Or I sprinkle it on my chicken, I'm good. And I'm always like, Guys, there's therapeutic doses of things. If you are suddenly suffering with the flu, you wouldn't say to me, I ate an orange, I should be fine. You would start taking your vitamin C like it's your job, your vitamin D and everything else. So in the same way, it's about that therapeutic dosing to create that significant result when we talk about inflammation. And so I did my PhD on it. We know turmeric is beneficial for a million different things— heart health, brain health, gut health. It helps with leaky gut. It helps get rid of the bad bacteria and keep the good while healing that gut lining, which I find incredible. It helps really simmer down inflammation at such a systemic level because it impacts those top-line inflammatory markers that affect all the others. So NF-kappa-B, TNF-alpha, interleukin-1, interleukin-6— over 30 major pathways of inflammation are impacted by turmeric. And so that's why when we talk about natural solutions for pain and inflammation, turmeric comes up. It's also so well absorbed by the body. And so when I finished my PhD, everyone around me was like, are you gonna keep saying you can take turmeric for that for the rest of your life? And I was like, yes I am, 'cause you can. It's the most epic thing. And they were like, this is the craziest thing to be an evangelist about. You should just make your own. And I was like, that's ludicrous. Like, That's a big thing to create a supplement company. And they're like, no, I mean, if you're going to be so passionate about it, it looks like that's your thing now. So I ended up creating my supplement company and my dream was, can I build something that's so potent that all of Western medicine gives it to us every single time they say we're inflamed? And so that was my hypothesis and premise. I'm a really big optimist, so I always think that whatever I dream will happen. And that's 11 years ago I had that dream. And so we have put this into hundreds and hundreds of doctors' offices. I have mentors now who are like, can you please just share this online? It's much easier than what you're trying to build in the doctor's office market. But what's great is doctors are using it every single day and people reach out to me and they're using it every single day. They're like, no other turmeric made us feel anything, but we feel it with yours. And so when we talk about all these different things around inflammation, I did wanna talk about how it impacts our inflammatory cytokines. It does impact all those pathways of inflammation. It can help with thyroid health. And so I pulled up a study that said curcumin modulates Th17 T-reg balance, which is directly relevant to autoimmune and thyroid disease. That was a study from 2020 in Frontiers in Pharmacology. And I saw many studies actually that talked about turmeric for thyroid health that I pulled up for you.

That So cool. Any other highlights you want? I'd send them to me too. I'd love to include them in the show notes. Thank you for finding that. You're the actual best.

Yeah, I thought, you know, it's your topic and I love learning. So every single time I do presentations, like I was on the Alzheimer's Summit recently, there's so much about turmeric for amyloid plaques, tau tangles, neurogenesis, mitogenesis. I mean, it to me is astounding. And I think we're going to discover more and more. Because ancient Ayurveda had a very multifaceted use for turmeric. We were like, oh, your arm hurts? Just rub some turmeric on it. Oh, you have a cut? Just rub some turmeric in it. Oh, you have anything? Just take some turmeric. So it's kind of like, you know how in My Big Fat Greek Wedding they love Windex?

Right, exactly.

It's like the same thing. We love turmeric in that way, but we've known for thousands of years it did have those applications. So it's really exciting when you read all these double-blind placebo-controlled trials because you're like, okay, that's proven too. There's a lot of movement right now in the studies of turmeric.

That is really cool. And, you know, honestly, as a clinician, I had no idea that it could help neuroprotection. I've got a special needs daughter with a, with a neurodegenerative disease. So that's something that I'll totally look into incorporating for her. And I did not have any idea that the incidence of Alzheimer's in India, I presume, is less than it is in, in the States.

It is. And I, I wonder if they later went back and studied more deeply. I mean, we have a couple of things that would impact that. First of all, I do think that the diet in India is very much around the culture of homemade and fresh. Yeah, I maintain that in my home. Like, we eat proper fresh Indian food made from scratch. And if we eat the modern standard American diet, that's going to have a, a, a rough comparison. Then if you look at community in India, we have a very multi-generational household. Household. You always have the elder, the child, and the grandkids all together. So I wonder if that also impacts it, but I'm sure that turmeric, ginger, and our super spices have a contributory role as well.

So cool. Okay, so changing gears a little bit to detox, tell me what, like, an Ayurvedic detox program, rituals, whatever it would be, or essentials that you think might be beneficial that thyroid people should consider incorporating in.

For sure. So in Ayurveda, we very much believe that your daily detox opportunity is so important because we're going to accumulate every single day. So why don't we at least try to keep cleaning off that surface and clear out that daily detox, that daily toxification or toxic burden that's happening? And so as we talk about Ayurveda, we have something called dinacharya, the daily self-care rituals. So the first one is wake up in the morning, touch the ground, touch your forehead, and say your own prayer or your own intention for the day. Sounds simple, but the goal is the grounding. And what I shared in a recent talk at a menopause conference was if you're sitting on the side of your bed and you touch the ground, guess what you're doing first? You're compressing all your internal organs, so you're more likely to have your first bowel movement. The entire goal of Ayurveda in the morning is to make sure you go to the bathroom. So then we want you to— yeah, I mean, it's so important. If we don't detox and clear out what's accumulating— our body accumulated everything that needs to go overnight. Our job is to let it go. And in America, we know a lot of people are constipated, and that's not a given that they're going to go. So we want that rhythm and that daily routine. If you're always rushed in the morning, make a little space for it. Make like Give some time in your morning so you get to go to the bathroom. We also teach hydration first thing in the morning, so you can put a cup of water by your bed, or copper-lined cup by your bed, which is how we do it in Ayurveda, and sip that morning water. And that's also going to create peristalsis and ensure that you go to the bathroom. Again, bathroom is detoxification, so that's important, that bowel movement. Then we teach, after you brush your teeth, to do something called using a copper tongue scraper. A copper tongue scraper is a simple self-care habit. You gently scrape the tongue 7 to 14 times, and what this does is the tongue reflects all the organs in the body, just like in reflexology all of our organs are reflected on the bottom of our feet. And so when you're scraping the tongue gently, you're clearing out ama or toxins on all your organs, you're igniting the digestive fire so it's ready to go for the day, You're also clearing off your taste buds so they work better. And so when your taste buds work better, you're going to taste your food better. So I would say tongue scraping is a daily habit that so many people now do, and they say it affects their constipation. They're not as constipated. They can feel that their mouthfeel is clearer and better. And we know that the oral microbiome is connected to the gut microbiome. And so that communication is important. The more we can support it, the better. And then after that, in the morning, we teach something called oil pulling. Oil pulling is apparently getting really popular on TikTok. People are talking about coconut oil in the mouth. You basically take a tablespoon or two of oil, put it in your mouth, and swish it around for 5 to 20 minutes. I know that sounds weird, but you can multitask. So I have a lot of people who go for their morning walks, or they'll take a shower, they'll get ready for their day, they start making their morning coffee while they have their oil in their mouth. Mouth. And then when you spit it out, just make sure you spit it out in the trash can, not your toilet, sink, or shower, because you will clog the pipes of your house, and that would be unfortunate. But oil pulling, again, is going to clear this toxic burden. And we now know through modern science, oral microbiome is gut microbiome. Oral microbiome is your heart health too. And so isn't it cool that this ancient wisdom knew 5,000 years ago all these little things we can do that would massively impact our total toxic burden. So by the time you get to your seasonal detox or your annual detox, your body's like, I'm good now, I can go a layer deeper and detox you because you took care of all that top line stuff.

It's so true. It's like, I think people discount the everyday thing and the goal is almost to keep up with or detox more than you're getting toxed every day, you know? And if you can do that, I love, love, love the construct of seasonally you do these deeper detoxes. That's so incredibly powerful. I have two follow-up questions. I had no idea. I tongue scrape every morning. No idea that I should be doing that with copper.

Mm. We like copper as a metal because it's antibacterial, so it's already going to keep things cleaner and better. We also know that copper is a good metal for the body. Like when we talk about growing our gardens, they say if you used copper, you'd see like a 10x result out of it. And so it's just a better metal. You can do steel, you can do silver, you can do gold even. I have a silver tongue scraper, but at the grocery store you see all the copper, all the steel ones. And then on my website I have a copper one, or you can just get them online on Amazon.

I love it. I love it. And tell me too, so oil pulling after tongue scraping.

Yes.

Right.

And you can do coconut oil, sesame oil, olive oil, any food grade oil that you like.

Okay, cool. And then I kind of want you to circle back for a moment to your curcumin supplement and tell us a little bit about that. I can include that in the show notes absolutely too for people who are curious.

For sure. So I created Fusionary Formulas, my turmeric supplements. I have Turmeric Gold, which is my main formula, and Inflammation Relief, which is the second one. And the two together became our Pain Solution Bundle. Because people are really struggling with their inflammation and with their joint pain. And they all told us, look, when I combine the two, I've got complete relief and I don't have to reach for my NSAIDs and these things that can cause GI bleeds or harmful side effects. And so that's the majority of what I do is those two products. And, and everyone calls me and they're like, oh my gosh, my hip pain, my back pain, this is insane. I feel better. I don't have aches and pains. And when they don't take it for a week or two, then call and they're like, okay, now I understand what it was doing for me. I actually didn't realize how much it was doing for me. And then after that I realized if we're inflamed and we're not sleeping well, we're never gonna win at inflammation. We're just gonna keep taking the turmeric forever, but we'll never have solved that root cause. So I built a sleep tea and a sleep gummy to help people sleep better. 'Cause I thought, let me fix that issue for them. And then the next biggest thing I get asked about is menopause. And so I made a menopause support tea with shatavari. We call it shatavari here in the West. 3 types of tulsi. It's on a green jasmine base. And so people tell me their hot flashes, night sweats are all gone when they drink it. I drink it for mood regulation and perimenopause to stay cool and calm. It's a very cooling tea to the system. And then I made one called Unwind that reduces cortisol because we know that in Ayurveda, our ashwagandha, our brahmi, our adaptogenic herbs are like a thermostat in the body. If you're stressed and anxious, they calm you down. If you're depressed and having the blues, they lift you up. And so I love playing with the adaptogens as plants. And so I made an unwind tea, a deep sleep tea out of those. So I'm constantly creating things to show us that simple super spices can create such a potent effect in the body. I love it.

Women helping women. It's just, it's the best, right? Yeah.

And at high potency, high quality. I think we have such an opportunity right now to really create supplements that are third-party tested tested, made in the United States, really conscientious third-party testing and awareness. And that, that to me is really exciting. So that's why so many doctors send us their patients, 'cause they were looking for something they could trust. And I think we as consumers are getting smart and we really wanna know who's making something. Are they actually trying to make it in the most potent form or not? When I created my company, my factory said, "You are crazy for using those ingredients." You can't use those. And I was like, why can't I use these ingredients that I found? They're like, no, those are medical grade. They're really expensive. You're not supposed to do that in supplements. You're supposed to find the cheapest ingredient and make a decent product and then sell it for a high profit. And I was like, you are talking to the wrong girl. I'm building it for impact. And they were like, you will lose money and never own a company if you do this. I said, try me. Just try it. Let's just see. And once I made it, the doctors were like, said, this is nuts. We don't even understand how you did that. And I was like, well, product made right with love, with intention for the highest potency, could win. And so it's taken me 11 years to make the company make sense, but now it makes sense and it's thriving, which is great.

That is so great. I absolutely love it. Talk to me a little bit about— so a lot of people with thyroid issues, in fact, 100% of people at Modern Thyroid Clinic have what I call a conversion disorder. They have difficulty converting their inactive thyroid hormone, their T4, to their active hormone, their T3. Tell me a little bit about how that can be impacted with inflammation, with poor gut health, and are there methods in Ayurveda to address it?

For sure. So when we talk about that T4 to T3 conversion, which honestly, I don't know what woman it doesn't affect right now, it happens I mean, literally everyone I meet, I'm like, you are a subclinical thyroid patient and you need to get help. That's all of you. But that conversion we know happens primarily in the liver and the gut. And we know that both are deeply impaired by chronic inflammation and by gut dysbiosis, which again is pretty much all of us. And so when we talk about dysbiotic gut bacteria that's overproduced, we know that it's interfering with that thyroid hormone metabolism. And then we know that our intestinal permeability allows LPS and all these harmful bacteria into circulation, and that's going to trigger NF-kappa-B, which is inflammation, and it's going to start depleting the cofactors that we need that are essential for our T4 conversion. So things like our selenium, our zinc, our iron. And so we know through the science that exists that our gut microbiome directly regulates regulates the thyroid hormone absorption and conversion. We know that our gut dysbiosis is definitely not recognized enough as that driver of those thyroid symptoms that exist. And so from the Ayurvedic sciences, we know that turmeric and Boswellia restore our intestinal barrier integrity, like the integrity of our gut lining. And we know that the Boswellic acids, AKBA, or the Boswellic acids, also help inhibit all these inflammatory productions that happen. Like, we know that when we have leaky gut, there's so much going through that gut barrier, it's triggering so much inflammation in our system. And we know that it helps reduce zonulin production as well. And then what's interesting to me is when we talk about curcumin and turmeric, we know that curcumin significantly increases our good bacteria, so lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium products, and populations in the body. But then it also directly helps restore our microbiome environment that's needed for healthy thyroid and healthy, like healthy thyroid hormone metabolism and production as well. And then what's interesting to me is ginger also helps improve when it comes to our blood flow. We know ginger's beneficial for our gut health. We know that it's helpful for repairing the gut lining, increasing that digestive fire. Ginger has some similar properties, but also supportive properties in there. And so in Ayurveda, anytime we formulate something, we really build something from that multidimensional approach. So that formula I was mentioning, Inflammation Relief, it has curcumin, it also has boswellia, ginger, and all those supportive herbs to help them go where they need to go. And that's how we can also support thyroid health.

So cool. You know, I read a study last month on ginger, and I'm trying to remember all the ways, but one, it helps facilitate conversion. Two, it helps reduce antibodies. Three, it can even lower someone's TSH. Like, it had all— multifactorial approach to thyroid. 1,000 milligrams every day. It was so cool. So yeah, you're spot on. Absolutely.

Yeah. And it's simple things, right? Like in Ayurveda, we would give you a tea for that. We'd say, please have some ginger lemon tea every morning. Ignite the digestive fire. The hot water will make sure you support going to the bathroom first. And now we know that instead of having coffee first or caffeine first, we're meant to have something else first. And so that's a beautiful herbal remedy to bring on board. You could have ginger lemon tea. That way it's gonna be alkalizing with ginger to support that gut health.

I love it. So if a thyroid person wants to start their journey or incorporate in some Ayurvedic, you know, additional things into their life, into their protocols, what would you say, you know, the top 3 or 4 things that they should consider incorporating in are?

I would say number 1 is don't change your thyroid medication. It's so important that we are keeping on board with our our plan. We're going to support it. We're not going to replace it. I myself have been on Armour thyroid for well over a decade, and sometimes I do try to get off it, and then I'm like, no, no, I need it until I'm going to live the most zen, healthy life that's so optimal, incredible. I'm not coming off that thing. I need it for my health. And then start with your circadian eating would be that next step. We talk about eating your largest meal at lunchtime, at your midday. We talk about consistent sleep and wake times so the body knows what to expect. We talk about no eating after dark, so no eating after 6:00 PM, because we know that that alone is going to reduce the metabolic inflammation in our system. We want to finish dinner by 7:00 PM if we're going to sleep by 10:00 PM, because then we're assured that we are fully digested on that food. We're going to have that melatonin release. We're going to switch over into detoxification Ayurveda teaches that 10 to 2 on the circadian clock during the day is when you eat lunch, but at night is, it's when pitta or our fires come out and clean and clear and detox. They clear inflammation, the glymphatic system, the lymphatic system. And we know that that meal timing and circadian alignment is really important when it comes to our inflammation. And then finally, we would start talking about those super spices because turmeric with black pepper is very powerful. You could also take it with healthy fat like coconut oil, olive oil, or ghee. You can take it in the supplement form to get that therapeutic level result. But what we want to do here is invest in all the things we need to do to win at inflammation, gut dysbiosis, and getting everything on track. And so that's why I teach a lot in my 7-Day Inflammation Challenge and things like that. I teach everyone their body type, what we call in Ayurveda their dosha. And I have renamed that elemental design. Design, so everyone knows their elemental design and can understand how to customize their life accordingly. And so when you take my elemental design quiz, you come to know, are you the air type, the fire type, or the earth type? And based on your body type, to really start to customize your diet and your lifestyle around it. Are you meant to eat cooked foods? Is that what your digestive fire does better? Are you okay eating cooler foods and things like that? So once you customize and personalize in that way, then all of a sudden thyroid health gets easier because gut health is better and inflammation goes down.

So interesting. And I know I, I forget exactly which dosha I am, but I align with so many hypothyroid people where we have slower lymphatic, we're puffy, we're cold, we don't have a lot of fire, we tend to be more tired. Isn't that kind of descriptive of so many thyroid people? And do you think a lot of them fit into one of those elemental design types or doshas?

For sure. I think the air type is what you were just describing, where if you're more air and ether, you are taller, leaner than most in the, in the demographic or in the population, but you tend to run cold. Definitely don't have the strongest digestive fire. Tendency towards constipation, disrupted sleep, insomnia. Tendency towards always being anxiety or high stress. And we call that the air body type, air and ether. And so a balanced air type is like a beautiful breeze, always creative, always in motion, always happy, more energy than others. But out of balance, that body type is anxious, overwhelmed, never finishing what they start, massive brain fog, dryness and coldness in the body. And so from an Ayurvedic perspective, we teach so much about 3 square meals a day, more healthy fat, more total nutrition. We talk about a more peaceful lifestyle, like building self-care and really grounding self-care. That's going to weigh them down a bit into being more whole and nourished.

Have you had a camera in my office for the last like 10 years? Because you nailed it. It's so crazy. It really is. Like, it's really, really fascinating.

Yeah. And what's funny is a lot of times, because of modern-day trends, The same person who's meant to eat healthy, whole, grounding, 3 square meals a day with healthy fat will instead be surviving on green juice, ice cold smoothies, ice cold drinks, raw cold salads, and everything that makes them imbalanced. 'Cause modern trends are like, eat this, do this. And so, so much of my work is sitting down with people and saying, this is your constitution. Just try my way for a month and see what happens. And they're like, Oh my God, this is amazing. I'm like, this is just ancient wisdom. It's, it's so fun to teach it.

It really is. It's special. Thank you so much for your work. This conversation has been so enlightening, fun, fascinating. I would love for you to tell us more about The Inflammation Code, about your book, where people can find it, anything else we should know about it, and where in the world they can find you too, to keep up with you and your supplements and your book, all the things.

Thanks. Thank you. So this is the book, The Inflammation Code. It is written for every woman who needs support in feeling her absolute best again. I know that in premenopause, perimenopause, menopause, we're all going through the transition together. So this book is there to show you how to align back to your circadian clock, your elemental design, gut health that's nourishing to you so your body can bring body, mind, and spirit back into alignment again. That's always the goal of Ayurvedic wisdom. You can find me at ShivaniGupta.com, my name, S-H-I-V-A-N-I-G-U-P-T-A. And on there you'll find my 7-day inflammation challenge, my quizzes and everything else. The book is there, my podcast is there, The Inflammation Code. And my Instagram where I love to hang out with everybody is @Dr.SivaniGupta. And then the supplements, the turmeric, you can find at FusionaryFormulas.com. Fusing East and West. So it's fusionary. And I made a special code for your audience. Modern Thyroid Clinic will give them 15% off on their first order if they want to try the turmeric or the teas.

Thank you so much for doing that. That's so generous. There you go, guys. And I'll drop all of this into the show notes as well. Dr. Gupta, thank you so much for this conversation and your work. Truly, it's impactful and just so inspiring.

Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Same to you.