Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | How to Eat Your Way to Better Health | Dr Rupy Aujla #347

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

Most of us would agree that a healthy diet – whatever that means to the individual – is vital to our wellbeing. But can the right foods actually prevent and even cure illness?  Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart.  Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 269 of the podcast with my good friend Dr Rupy Aujla. Rupy defied medical expectations and reversed his heart condition by transforming his diet. In this clip, we discuss why food can be medicine and how you can eat your way to better health. Thanks to our sponsor http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/269 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk   DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 269 of the podcast with my good friend, Dr. Rupi Orjala. Now, Rupi defied medical expectations and reversed his heart condition by transforming his diet. And in this clip, we discuss why food can be medicine and how you can eat your way to better health. each your way to better health. We're both really passionate about the healing power of food and what it can do for a whole variety of different conditions. But I think what happened to you in your early 20s really shows just how powerful food can be. You've gone deep into the weeds of the science of nutrition

and how it can help. If you reflect back now, what do you think was going on? What was going on that you were having heart problems, scary heart problems at such a young age? What do you think changing your diet and lifestyle actually did? Have you thought about that? Have you got some ideas? I've thought about it a lot. In my end of one case, it's likely going to be a bunch of different things. So we can look at the microbiota, for example, the population of microbes that live in and around us, all over our body, largely concentrated in the large intestine, microbes that live in and around us, all over our body, largely concentrated in the large intestine,

foundational to our health, inseparable from well-being. We know now about what it can do to improve the lining of the gut, improving the functioning of our natural immune system, how it impacts with our mood, how it impacts on inflammation pathways, how it balances sugar. excellent inflammation pathways, how it balances sugar. What I was doing by changing my diet very broadly without going to specifics from a pretty processed diet, if I look back on it and actually look at it with more of a critical eye, to something that was more whole food. And it doesn't need to be like raw food. It wasn't anywhere near as well as I eat today, actually. It was just better than the norm.

It was just better than the norm, exactly. That would have had a dramatic impact, as we can see now from research, on improving the functioning of those microbes that include bacteria, fungi, viruses, nematodes, a whole selection of different microbes that we're learning a lot more about even today. And that shift can happen very quickly. I know in my case it took quite a while before I observed quite an impressive reversal of my condition. But even in some studies, as short as a few days, you can drastically change the population of your microbes. So me consistently eating well and changing it from process to unprocessed

would have definitely had an impact on multiple levels. Do you think that was within a year of it starting? Yeah, it was just over a year. Just over a year. So about a year or so since quite a scary thing happening at 24. And a condition, atrial fibrillation, which people wouldn't naturally draw a link between diet and lifestyle. I think what's so powerful about that for me is that when we talk about foods and its impact on our health, I think for many years, the prevailing narrative in society and within our profession is yeah we can see a role with obesity and type 2 diabetes right there's this kind of an an obvious link

there but I don't think that link has been made for many years with other things whether it's how fast we age depression gut problems libido, electrical heart issues like atrial fibrillation. Do you know what I mean? I think that really speaks to this healing power of food and that you change your diet and your lifestyle and you no longer have atrial fibrillation. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's that mismatch between how powerful diet can be for a collection of different issues that has plagued our thinking around diet and lifestyle in general. Like you eloquently demonstrated on your show the impact of diet and lifestyle beyond the traditional ways in which we view view it which is cardiovascular disease reducing cholesterol and obesity no one's really gonna argue much with that but when you're applying those same principles which are very simple to mood to chronic pain to cognitive disorders, brain fog, all these issues,

you then see the links. It's all foundational. So what I was doing in retrospect was building the resilience for my body to look after itself. And that is something that I want to try and instill in as much people as possible. Because I think the term food as medicine can be sometimes uh misinterpreted as food as the pharmaceutical food as a person the one of the things i wrote about my first book actually food is not a pill it's not a symptom killer it's a way

in which you can build a more resilient body and mind such that it can take care of itself and it sounds a bit out there but that's generally what i believe and what i can see from yeah research so the gut microbiome is one thing that now with all the knowledge you've got reflects him back it's like well i i had more whole foods less refined processed foods so my gut health improves and as my gut health improves. And as my gut health improves, that can help a whole variety of different things in my body. Any other theories?

Absolutely. So by having a lot more greens in my diet, just general greens, I mean, I was having whatever I could at that point in time. We know, looking at inflammation pathways, the impact that greens can have at a cellular level. So they have what we call a hormetic effect. So people see foods that we intake as having a direct anti-inflammatory effect, i.e. when I have turmeric, for example, that's going to reduce my inflammation levels. Actually, what's happening is that it is activating our endogenous anti-inflammatory pathways.

So having a mild aggressor like turmeric actually does, it actually aggravates some of our cells. We have a net benefit overall. I use the analogy of exercise. So when you exercise, you're actually shearing your muscles. You're creating quite a stressful event in in your in your muscles in your physiology puts your blood pressure up increased cortisol levels increased sugar you know if you looked at a at a snapshot it doesn't look like a very healthy thing to be doing but the net effect on that on dementia on mood on cardiovascular disease, massive improvements. So at a similar level, that's

kind of what we're doing with food as well. So me having a collection of all these phytonutrient rich foods, so these plant chemical rich foods, was having that net benefit at an inflammation level in my cells as well. So that's definitely another element of it. So you've got the microbiota, you've got inflammation. Something else that I think is harder to prove in my case was perhaps having a selection of different foods that were nutrient dense, that had more things like magnesium in, or selenium, or vitamin B12. What does nutrient dense mean to you so nutrient dense to me means less processed such that it contains a lot more of those bioavailable micronutrients so things like vitamins and minerals but also there's plant chemicals of which we know there are thousands

polyphenols come up quite a bit and things like berries and coffee and other anti-inflammatory chemicals that you find in greens like sulforaphane, indole-3-carbinol, all the indoles, all the glucosinolates. That, for me, is nutrient dense. pathway that the um that the spectrum of process versus unprocessed the more refined your food the less nutrient dense is because we're stripping away bit by bit all those different nutrients it's incredible you were describing there all kinds of benefits that you get from let's say greens the way you were talking it made me think that within these foods is a whole pharmacy of medicinal compounds that are doing different things. Let's talk about food as medicine. Because for me, I spent a lot of time thinking about food medicine. Is food medicine? So to me it is. And I've got to say to having used that term with many of my patients for years, I found it to be helpful. And I feel I've never had any feedback from my patients saying, actually, that term is quite confusing for me.

I don't like it. So I'm biased by my own experience with tens of thousands of patients. But for me, there's like literal, cultural and philosophical reasons why I think food is medicine. Philosophically, I think we're living in an era now where about 80 to 90% of what we see as doctors is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles. So therefore, if we don't give lifestyle and nutrition the same weight as pharmaceutical interventions, I say the same weights, if we don't talk about them in that way, it's always going to be deemed as inferior. The classic case, someone comes in to see their doctor with a new diagnosis of type

two diabetes. Doctor spends the first nine minutes out of the 10 minutes talking about the blood results and metformin and the fact that you're going to need more medications and you'll end up on insulin. And then as you're walking out the door, oh, and if you can just, you know, maybe go to the gym and change your diet a little bit, that may help. Well, what message does that patient get? It's like, yeah, there's diet and lifestyle there, but it's really about me taking this medication. So I think philosophically, given what we're now afflicted with, what's bankrupting healthcare systems all over the world, I think it's time to elevate the status of foods and lifestyle in terms of what we view as medicine.

But also I think there's a cultural element to this, which you touched on with your mum. And I think to some cultures, certainly, you know, we've got Indian backgrounds, this idea that food is not medicine is just an alien concept. I don't think my family would understand that. I don't think my grandparents would even understand the question. What do you mean? You know, we were brought up in such a way that, you know, I've got a slight cold at the moment. So what was I, literally before you arrived, I'm doing what my mum taught me to do when I was little, when I had a sore throat, which is, you know, hot water, finely cut ginger, pepper, turmeric, and manuka honey. That's literally what

I was drinking all morning so that I can have this conversation with you. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. So I don't know if any of that fits with you or not, but that's kind of my take on it and why I passionately believe it is. But I'll also, before you respond, I also want to say, look, if that term doesn't work for people as well, I'm okay with that. Yeah, totally. If that doesn't fit your belief system, totally cool. But I think it's hard to make the case that food isn't super, super powerful. Absolutely, yeah. And I think I completely agree with that analogy of looking at food in those different elements, cultural philosophy.

It's very, very ingrained in us and it's very easy for us to understand. But certainly for someone who doesn't come from that background, who hasn't been brought up with that, I can understand why it can be a little bit off-putting for whatever reason. I get that. But for the reasons that we need to take nutritional medicine a lot more importantly, I think it's important, just as you said, to elevate the conversation around food

in all environments, clinical, academic, culturally, day-to-day the food environment and if you just look at the stats i mean like one in five deaths globally diet related increasing the likelihood of mental health disorders by 43 if you're on a westernized diet if you look at the number of cancers that are related to diet and lifestyle it's around anywhere between 25 and 30 depending on where you look at all these different sources from the who all these huge institutions are all recognizing the impact that diet is having it can have conversely the positive impact as well i'm i'm an example of how that can be in an extreme way, but also just generally looking at, like you said, the issues that are afflicting healthcare systems globally and causing the

most amount of cost and damage to people's livelihoods and their ability to live disability free lives. It's having a huge, huge impact. And that's why we need to talk about it a lot more and let me just be clear i still don't know what the root cause of my illness was be i i believe that it was food i believe it was stress was it other things was it movement was it sleep was it all the other things going on i don't really know but i know that the solution will always be doing what i did naturally. And that's what we need to scale up to as many people as possible. All nutritional medicine is about is optimizing your physiology such that your body knows how to look after itself. So going looping back to what I was talking about with me earlier, this is what we do with nutritional medicine. There's no it's not like a food for every symptom.

This is what we do with nutritional medicine. There's no, it's not like a food for every symptom. It's not a specific thing that you need to change in your diet to have this desired outcome. It is really about leveling up and improving your physiology such that you can engage in those innate mechanisms that know how to prevent disease in the first place. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend and i'll be back next week with my long-form conversational wednesday and the latest episode of bite science next friday