Dr. Shivani Gupta comes from a family of people with diabetes, generation by generation, where she’s seen the after-effects of suffering with chronic metabolic disease.
Her new book, The Inflammation Code, distills 20 years of studying Ayurveda into simple pillars you can apply to prevent the level of inflammation and disease we see today. When people tell her, “I have brain fog, I’m tired, my sleep is off, my digestion’s off, I have stubborn weight gain…I guess this is just aging,” her reply is, “No, it’s not aging, it’s inflammaging.”
We had a really excellent, in-depth conversation that covered a lot of ground, from black pepper and the blood-brain-barrier to our detox experiences in India. I hope you enjoy the podcast!
Get The Inflammation Code here: shivanigupta.com
Use code ENERGYBLUEPRINT for 15% off at: fusionaryformulas.com
Table of Contents
In this podcast, Dr. Gupta and I discuss:
- Her study of Ayurveda, a 5,000-year-old system from India that taught us the circadian clock, modern science discovered what Ayurveda taught 5,000 years ago about living in rhythm with nature
- The three doshas or constitutions of Vata (air/ether), Pitta (fire/water), and Kapha (earth/water)—understanding your constitution helps customize your self-care practices and diet
- The circadian clock in Ayurveda teaches that 10:00 to 2:00 PM is Pitta (fire) time, when you’re most focused and energetic, and meant to eat your biggest meal
- 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM is the most important time to be asleep, when Pitta fire cleans and clears inflammation, the lymphatic system, and the glymphatic system (lymphatic system of the brain)
- Vata people are always in motion and prefer jobs where they don’t sit still—they’re endurance athletes who can run through the day on coffee, green juice, and crackers (but their homework is three square meals)
- Pitta people are fiery, passionate leaders who tend to crave hot, oily, spicy fried food…but that’s the one thing they shouldn’t eat because their digestive fire is already like a bonfire!
- Kapha people are sturdy, strong, and very grounded, but can struggle with sluggish metabolism, low mood or depression, getting stuck, or not wanting to create change
- Black pepper increases curcumin absorption by 2,000%—scientists at MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered this, which is why traditional Indian cooking always uses turmeric with black pepper
- What it feels like to experience a Panchakarma detox in India: “massage that feels like abuse” with paper thongs—Dr. Gupta says, “I can’t believe you’re allowed to do this to me and I’m paying for it” (both she and I had this experience!)
- Mental inflammation is the stress we create when forcing ourselves to be healthy; if you force workouts, force protein, force intermittent fasting, the stress alone causes the inflammation you’re trying to prevent
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Transcript
Ari: Hey, this is Ari. Welcome to The Energy Blueprint Podcast. With me in this episode is Dr. Shivani Gupta, who is an Ayurvedic practitioner, a turmeric researcher, and the creator of the Emmy-nominated TV show Vibrant Health with Dr. Shivani Gupta. She is the author of a new book coming out in February called The Inflammation Code, which is all about offering a clear, non-diet-specific plan for cooling chronic inflammation and combating inflammaging, which is the chronic inflammation that drives biological aging and many different diseases. With no further ado, enjoy this conversation with Dr. Gupta.
Shivani, welcome to the show.
Dr. Gupta: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Ari: Yes. I’m very excited to dig into this with you. You have a new book that is coming out in February called The Inflammation Code. Tell listeners briefly about what this book is all about and why you wrote it.
Dr. Gupta: For sure. I wrote this book because I have struggled and seen so much suffering in my own family when it comes to inflammation. I come from a family of diabetics, generation by generation, and all I’ve seen is the after-effects of suffering with a chronic metabolic disease. I wrote the book because ancient Ayurveda had such a profound system and lifestyle that we could live. I’ve always wanted to distill it down into pillars that we can use and apply in our lives in a simple way.
This book is really my last 20 years of studying Ayurveda, applying it to clients, and building solutions for them, and showing us all how we can have more energy, be more vibrant, win at inflammation, age better, and really not suffer at the level that I think we see a lot of suffering right now. We could really prevent a lot of this level of inflammation and disease we see.
Defining Inflammation: The Good, The Bad, and "Inflammaging"
Ari: I want to start with first principles around inflammation because we have all heard this word before. It has come to be a bad word because it has been associated with many different diseases, as well as the aging process itself. Inflammaging, it’s now considered one of the, I think, 12 or 13 hallmarks of biological aging. I want to talk about all the bad stuff. However, I would like to maybe begin with a first principles breakdown of inflammation, what it actually is, and maybe why it is sometimes a good thing before we talk about why it’s a bad thing.
Dr. Gupta: For sure. You’re right. We do always call it the enemy, this thing that has to be suppressed, this thing that has to be shut down. One thing that Ayurveda teaches us, Ayurveda is an ancient system of medicine from India that’s over 5,000 years old. What the ancient wisdom taught us is these are just signals. Our body is giving us a message. Our job is to pay attention to that message and say, “Okay, why am I getting this message? What did I change? What is new? What is different? What has accumulated, and where do I need to create a shift so that I can address this message that’s coming through, whether it’s a symptom or whatever’s happening with the body?”
Inflammation, in a good way, is the body’s positive response to anything outside or foreign that comes in, and the body doesn’t know how to deal with it. For example, let’s say I pull a muscle or tear something at the gym. Yes, I’m going to have an inflammatory response. There will be swelling. There might be redness, heat, and pain, these kinds of responses. That’s because the body is sending healing to that area, sending the immune cells in to do the job and get us better, get us healed.
The body’s job is survival. When we’re talking about inflammation in the negative way, the problem is so many of us aren’t really addressing the volume of environmental factors, diet and food, living off our circadian lifestyle, circadian clock. There’s a lot of factors that cause inflammation in the system, but that bad type of inflammation we’re talking about is that chronic, low-grade, persistent inflammation that’s like a low-grade forest fire. It’s causing this underlying damage. Sometimes we’re seeing it in our blood work. We’re seeing higher cholesterol, higher A1C. Some of us are testing for hs-CRP. We see our inflammation is up, but we may not be addressing it because the signal isn’t loud enough yet.
That’s where that term inflammaging comes in. Oftentimes when I meet with people, they’ll say, “Yes, I have brain fog, I’m tired, my sleep is off, my digestion’s off. I have stubborn weight gain. I’m really tired. I don’t feel good. I guess this is just aging.” I’m always like, “No, it’s not aging. It’s inflammaging. Let’s address inflammation, take a couple months and address it right, and then let’s talk about if you’re really aging or if those are just the symptoms of inflammation that you’re struggling with right now.”
Ari: Got it. What is inflammation? Beyond the surface-level expressions of it, let’s say the redness and swelling and that sort of thing that we would associate with an injury, at the micro level, at the level of what’s going on in and around cells or in our bloodstream, what actually is this thing that we call inflammation?
Dr. Gupta: The way I explain it in the book is it’s that moment where the body is sending a response. Unfortunately, the body is oftentimes polluted. We have lymphatic backups. We have a body in Ayurveda that we call Ama. We have this toxin residue in the system. It’s a response of the body. It’s these immune cells coming out saying, “What is that thing that you’ve put in me?” Whether it’s the environmental toxins, whether it’s an ultra-processed food, whether it’s stress in the system.
That oxidation and those immune cells and all this friction happening in the system is why we’re suffering so much. It’s like the struggle, the body doesn’t know how to communicate. I really look at it as a traffic jam, the traffic jam between our inflammation and our lymphatic system being clogged, being the biggest problem.
Ari: Got it. There is this acute context where, as you said, this body’s response, this immune response, is creating a beneficial effect, is involved in facilitating healing. How does it transition, or at what point does it go from good, helpful, regenerative, part of the healing process, to now a driver of disease or driver of aging?
Dr. Gupta: It’s a great question. Oftentimes, we have that acute issue that comes up. We’ve got hip pain, back pain, knee pain, whatever the pain is that comes along. Typically, that’s an acute situation. We should be able to use PT, different solutions. Maybe it’s medical massage, chiropractic, different solutions to go in there and help us heal. The problem is that level of our body already being in a fight or being in a struggle. From the Ayurvedic perspective, we look at it as gut health being off, sleep being off. How is our diet? Circadian misalignment. So many times, we’re already in a state of the body being at war with itself, the body having this toxic burden going on.
That’s the perfect storm situation. It’s almost like we’re surviving, but we’re not our healthiest. We’re not thriving. We’re not fully invested in the body being in alignment. When something like that happens, it’s really a tipping point where all of a sudden, “Okay, it’s a tipping point from regular one hip pain that came along, turning into this chronic acute situation.” Then years later, you’re like, “Why am I still struggling here? Why am I having so many aches and pains now? How did this one problem become a whole constellation of issues?”
From the Ayurvedic perspective, we look at it and say, “Okay, well, let’s peel a couple layers back. How is your gut health? How is your circadian clock? How is your sleep quality? How is your diet?” As you start to look at lifestyle, that’s often where we see some of those habits being off that are contributing to why this happened.
The Ayurvedic Perspective: Agni, Ama, and the Root of Disease
Ari: From an Ayurvedic perspective, how does the understanding of inflammation? I guess first, I know Ayurveda is an ancient system. I don’t know how many thousands of years or at what point the origins are, but does it have a conception of what “inflammation” is? Is there a similar concept in the Ayurvedic system? How do they conceptualize it? How is it similar or maybe different from modern Western medical understanding of inflammation?
Dr. Gupta: In the West, we measure things. We’re like, “Here’s your blood work. Here’s what we see.” What I love is in functional medicine, we go much deeper, much wider. We’re actually doing a lot more understanding on every single patient. It’s, let’s do a stool test. Let’s do hair minerals. Let’s test for mold. Let’s test for a lot more. Let’s test your hormones in great depth. I’m a big fan of functional medicine because I think we’re getting a much bigger snapshot. That’s still data and metrics, and based on their standards of testing. I love that piece. Ayurveda really looked at us as a holistic system. Ayurveda said, “Goal is body, mind, and spirit in alignment.”
That alignment alone removes all the friction that we’re talking about here. Because it’s such a holistic perspective, it’s 5,000 years old, Ayurveda said, “We need to build the pillars of health.” That comes from understanding detoxing as a circadian habit that we do annually or seasonally. That detoxing alone is going to clear the slate. It’s going to get rid of all the junk that’s in our system, all the accumulation that happens over time due to stress, poor diet, or whatever else comes along. Detoxing is a big piece of what we teach in Ayurveda. Then we say, “You know what? Instead of waiting for a quarterly or annual detox, let’s do a daily detox.
Let’s teach you a daily self-care rhythm using self-care rituals that will help you gently detox every single day.” Accumulation removal is one huge pillar of how Ayurveda addresses inflammation. It’s like, “Let’s get rid of the junk that’s causing friction in the system in the first place because it’s going to accumulate. Then we talk about how are you living right now? How are you honoring your gut health as the center of all health?” In Ayurveda, we call that Agni. Imagine a fire or gut digestive fire within you. We actually teach it in much more depth. There’s many fires. Fire in the brain, fire in the body.
To simplify, the gut digestive fire is the center of all health. If that thing is working great, you’re all set. If your gut digestive fire is off, that is the root cause of your body not functioning well, not processing anything that you take in properly, not assimilating and absorbing nutrition so that we have resilience, or what we call Ojas, this nectar and vibrant health that we want to have. Honoring digestive fire is actually our first job, according to Ayurveda. You wake up, you ignite gut digestive fire. You eat, you are igniting digestive fire, managing it. You’re not snacking in between your meals. You’re not pouring ice water on it. We have a lot of practices.
That fire, when it’s healthy, robust, and good, is that center of winning at inflammation because it’s going to process and absorb everything properly and help you excrete everything properly. Then finally, we talk a lot about circadian. The circadian clock came from Ayurveda. Ayurveda taught us how to live in rhythm. That rhythm with rest, with recovery, with balance is also a big key piece to inflammation. When we’re in alignment with nature, our body is in flow. When we fight against the circadian clock, we teach that as fighting uphill, climbing up the mountain, trying to climb a river uphill against the flow of nature. That’s when we have disease or disharmony in the system.
Circadian Rhythm and The Best Times to Eat
Ari: Tell me more about the origins of the circadian rhythm from the Ayurvedic perspective. What specifically did they talk about? How did they talk about it?
Dr. Gupta: For sure. Circadian clock in Ayurveda is the idea that nature’s rhythm is our rhythm. Nature’s rhythm is king. That’s the rhythm that we must follow. In Ayurveda, we also taught something called the Doshas. In my new book, I went over Doshas, but I renamed it Elemental Design because I wanted to take some of these words out. I can’t call everything Agni, Ojas, Ama, and drive everyone nuts. I simplified the Doshas and called it elemental design to highlight for all of us that we’re all made up of the five elements of nature. Your elemental design is how you customize your circadian clock. Elemental design means the five elements from nature are air, ether, fire, water, and earth.
When you take those five elements and break them down into the different constitutions, you get a person who’s either Vata, or we pronounce it Vata. It’s the more air and ether template. You get a Pitta. We pronounce it Pitta here in the West. That’s a more fiery template with some water in that elemental person, or Kapha. Kapha is how we pronounce it in the West. That’s Earth with water. These are three different body types that I can get into. Ayurveda teaches us that our circadian clock is tied to these elemental times of day. For example, we’re meant to rise with the sun at 6:00 in the morning or earlier. That 2:00 to 6:00 AM slot on the clock is what we call Vata time of day. More air and ether.
It’s a lighter time of day. 2:00 to 6:00 AM is a good time to meditate, to do your breath work, to do your reading, your journaling, everything spiritual. The light is just starting for the day, and everything is lighter. The morning time is for that. Then 6:00 to 10:00, you’re meant to get moving and get your day started. We teach to do those detoxing self-care rituals, to get your day moving, get your energy moving. It’s a slower start in the day. Then we teach that 10:00 to 2:00 on the clock is Pitta time of day.
Fire. 10:00 to 2:00 is when you’re most focused, most energetic. You can get your biggest work done. You’re also meant to eat your biggest meal of the day in that window, 10:00 to 2:00. When the sun is out, we have the biggest digestive fire to process our hard-to-digest foods or our biggest meal of the day. Then 2:00 to 6:00, we teach again is Vata time of day, air, and ether. It’s a harder time to focus. It’s why most of us are reaching for caffeine or a snack or something.
Ari: Or a siesta.
Dr. Gupta: Or a siesta. If you’re in Italy or Europe, you know how to do it right and take the siesta and the afternoon nap. That time is typically unfocused. It’s this movement energy of air. We’re meant to just get tasks done because we can’t assume that we’re going to be able to focus well and do the bigger things. Then 6:00 to 10:00 PM on the circadian clock, rest, wind down, finish your dinner by six, seven o’clock, and shift gears, which most of us don’t do very well in the West. We’re meant to really unwind during that time.
Kaphas is an earth energy. Drop into the earth energy so that by 10:00 PM, you’re going to sleep. In modern science, we know we have that melatonin release around 10:00 PM. Ayurveda said 5,000 years ago, 10:00 to 2:00 is the most important time to be asleep. Again, it’s your fire time of day. When that Pitta fire comes out at night, it’s there to clean and clear inflammation, our lymphatic system, what we now call the glymphatic system, the lymphatic system of the brain.
All that washing and clearing happens then, and regeneration. Nowadays, when we took that circadian clock into modern times, in the biohacking longevity space, I love it because we’re talking so deeply about sleeping on time, waking up on time, sleep pressure, aligning to the sun. These are just beautiful ancient principles that we’ve taught for 5,000 years. We just have a couple years deeper on how to navigate those times of day and how to leverage them in a different way.
Ari: How does all of that story of circadian rhythm and what to do at different times of day, how does it tie into the inflammation story?
Dr. Gupta: What we teach is most of the time, the problem that we have, the struggle we have, and why we are inflamed is because we’re battling against the circadian clock. If we don’t battle against nature, if we align to nature’s rhythm, then health is easier. The body has an easier time of staying balanced. We’re not fighting. To wake up with the sun and face the sun and create that sleep pressure is only going to support better quality sleep at night. We know sleeping on time and having our food completely digested before bedtime is going to lead to better quality sleep. Modern science has already shown us that’s how we’re going to win at inflammation, is clearing that inflammation.
Ayurveda also teaches when you sit down to eat at those three meal times, you’re going to open that digestive fire and allow it to process and absorb that meal. That means during those times, focus on your meal. Take a deep breath or say a prayer right beforehand. Tune into the meal so you actually absorb and digest it. Modern science calls that our parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system. Are you in rest and digest? Ayurveda had simplistic language for it, but it’s the exact same concept. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Hold a good intermittent fast. Really customize to your body, and remember that the circadian clock rules in all things. That’s how we win at inflammation.
Elemental Design: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha Body Types
Ari: You talked about the Doshas, the elements, or elemental design, I believe, is what you’re calling it in the book. It sounds like there’s two layers to the story, maybe more, but at least two. One is an individual’s constitution. Then there is this other layer, as you outlined it, as far as the different times of day. How the times of day also correspond to Vata, Pitta, and so on. Explain the constitution aspect of it, these body types, and how someone would know if they’re more one than the other.
I’m also curious, has there been any modern scientific literature that has validated? I remember studying Ayurveda a long time ago. 20 years ago or something, I read some books on it. I have some familiarity with this. I’m curious, has there been any research in that span of time where maybe modern Western science has tried to study or validate any of these ideas?
Dr. Gupta: For sure, there has been. I wrote about it in the book, and I cited it. There’s limited science on it, but I think there will be so much more. It’s part of my mission to publish more science on the Ayurveda topics. There was a scientist, a researcher, who took a Dosha quiz, standardized it, and started using it in clinical trials, and was able to correlate, for example, that Pitta people who are all fire have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. It makes total sense according to what we teach in Ayurveda. That was really exciting. I can’t wait to see more of that kind of correlation to what we believe, if we look in the Ayurvedic journals out of India, that’s already published and studied extensively.
In the more Western journals, that was the one study that I found, and I can’t wait to see more of it. The elemental designs are so powerful. It’s our self-understanding of our own body type, our own constitution, and how to navigate with it. The first one, Vata, or Vata as it’s pronounced in the West, is air and ether. That’s someone who’s more like the tendencies and traits of air. Air can be dry. It can be cold. It can be always in motion. Air can be like a breeze on a beautiful day, or when out of balance, it could be a tornado. Having that understanding of air and ether illuminates the traits of a person who’s more Vata. That person could be taller or shorter than anyone in their demographic.
This is someone who can be petite with small bones or tall and lanky. This is someone who tends to be dry, so dry skin, dry hair, tends to run cold hands and feet. It’s someone who, personality-wise, they’re like air. They’re always in motion. Their energy body is always in motion, which is always interesting. When you sit next to a Vata, you’re like, “Gosh, that’s a lot of movement and energy.” They’re also someone who’s always thinking, always on the go. They prefer a job where they don’t have to sit still. This is your endurance athlete, or their job is going to be more on their feet.
Physically, some of their traits can be, or some things that they can struggle with are constipation, insomnia, disturbed sleep, anxiety, and things like this. Our job in Ayurveda is to really help them by helping them understand how to be more grounded, more supported, create more oiliation, hydration for their joints and their colon, and everything like that, and reduce that dryness in the system. Homework to Vata is three square meals a day because this is someone who can run through their day never eating. They’ll survive on coffee, green juice, and some crackers. They’re the one body type that doesn’t need three square meals. Their homework is routine, rhythm, structure, consistency.
Then all of a sudden, they start to thrive more. They’re a group that tends to be really creative and artistic, but they start things and they don’t finish them. They can look like flakes when, in fact, they’re just off to the next, off to the next. Our job as practitioners is to show them how to ground their energy and be more supported and more balanced in that energy. Then the second constitution is Pitta. A Pitta person is fire with some water. It tends to be medium-bodied, tends to have reddish skin, reddish hair, tends to have early graying in their hair, tends to be personality-wise fiery, passionate leaders. They’re driven. They’re very organized. They tend to be go-getters, very ambitious people.
When out of balance, a Pitta person tends to be burnt out, frustrated, angry. They’re like a volcano when they’re burnt out. They erupt and take their anger out on all the people around them, their frustration and anger. When they’re balanced, they are just driven, on point, and very productive. Health-wise, Pittas struggle with too much fire. Imagine that campfire I was talking about. In most Pittas, it’s like a bonfire. If they’re not watching it, it’s on at 100% all the time. That causes a lot of inflammation. Skin reactive, acne, heartburn, everything fiery in the system. Pittas tend to crave hot, oily, spicy fried food. That’s the one thing they shouldn’t eat.
Pittas are meant to treat themselves like a nuclear reactor and cool their jets, stay hydrated. Eat three square meals, but don’t overeat just because they’re hangry all the time. I really teach them cool, calm, collected summer foods, cooling foods. Then, finally, you have Kapha. Kapha is the last one. It’s earth and water. This is someone who’s so grounded into the earth, those earthly properties. They tend to be bigger-boned, stronger. They’re more sturdy. They can lift heavier. They tend to have round eyes, round face, oily, curly hair. This is someone who’s very one thing at a time. Imagine how fast earth energy moves. One decision at a time, one step at a time, one word at a time.
They can feel like a very mountain energy, like you’re not moving their energy, or very caretaker energy. They’re deeply loyal. They’re all about their friends, taking care of the people around them first before even taking care of themselves. Kaphas can struggle with sluggish metabolism, low mood or depression, getting stuck, not wanting to create change. They really need help with getting their energy moved. As a practitioner, we sit down and talk about, “I know once you sit down at the end of the day, you’re not going to get up. That’s a Kapha trait. That’s okay. We’re not all meant to hustle and grind 24 hours a day. Let me show you how to move your energy first thing in the morning. Move that body.
Eat cooked meals that are easier to digest. Cut the dairy, which causes congestion,” because they have a lot of water energy in them. Then show them how to really support that metabolism and get it churning and burning. That’s the three main constitutions. The next question people have is, “I’m two of those. What do you mean I’m only one?” On my website, I have a quiz. When they take it, you’ll learn you have a primary, but most people have a secondary as well.
Then some of us are balanced in all three. When you’re balanced in all three, we call it Tridoshic. To understand your constitution, your body type first, is such a powerful way to then navigate your self-care practices, your diet, and what really works for you. In modern-day times, we’re talking about a lot of big trends, but Ayurveda really wanted us to customize it to our own individual body type.
Detoxing in accordance with seasons
Ari: You mentioned detoxing earlier. I’m curious to learn a bit more about what are the specific strategies. I know that you mentioned they’re seasonal. Then what was the breakdown, yearly, seasonal, and daily?
Dr. Gupta: Yes. In Ayurveda, we call the big annual detox Panchakarma. Panchakarma is how we pronounce it in the West. Panchakarma is the idea of detoxing. It’s like a profound oil change for the body. When I’ve gone to India to do this, you live there for three weeks in an Ayurveda center. It’s super invasive. It’s like an advanced level. You’d have to be pretty obsessed with health to sign up for this because it’s colonics, it’s enemas. It’s purgation. It’s a lot of yoga, moving, walking, hydration, but it’s pretty invasive. It’s a lot of massage, but not fun massage. It’s like massage.
Ari: I have a funny story on that.
Dr. Gupta: You do?
Ari: Not fun Panchakarma massage while in India.
Dr. Gupta: Oh, my God. You’ve been.
Ari: Yes. I’m maybe slightly afraid to tell it here, but I’ll let you complete your thought.
Dr. Gupta: I got to India once. My mom and sister arrived before I did. I got there, and they go, “You will not do these five treatments to Shivani.” I was like, “No, I’m down. I can do everything. It’s fine. I’m always in it to be a guinea pig. I try everything.” A lot of people contact me when they have really obscure health issues, and they’re like, “We know you’ve tried everything. What would work for this?” I’m like, “I need vitamins. I’ve already fixed that one.” They do medical massage that feels like abuse. You’re laying there in your paper underwear. There’s two people going at every cell of your body in a way that you’re,-
Ari: You got it. Yes, you’re describing my experience perfectly.
Dr. Gupta: -“Can I jump off the table? Can I run away? Honestly, this should not be allowed.” It works. Their massage technique, as horrible as they are, do work because you come out feeling like a new human after the two weeks or 21 days in India. It does feel a bit like abuse. You’re like, “I can’t believe you’re allowed to do this to me, and I’m paying for it.”
Ari: Exactly. That describes perfectly what I experienced. I’m used to getting massages here, and I typically prefer a female to work on me. When I was there, I requested a woman to be my masseuse, and they objected to it because that’s not culturally acceptable there. I think there’s a concern over the man overstepping in that context. They ended up putting me with a couple of dudes, and they put me in a little paper thong. Literally paper and literally a thong that was not wide enough to contain my stuff.
Then they dumped probably several gallons of coconut oil on me. Then I have two guys just working back and forth across my body, including that area that’s covered in the paper thong and going over it again and again and again. I’m like, “What am I doing? Why am I paying for this? This is not enjoyable. I’m not really happy about this.”
Dr. Gupta: No. Panchakarma is so intense, and it’s hard to recommend. At this point, that’s why I don’t detox anyone that way. You’d have to be really gung-ho and really have tried everything on earth or have a really serious health concern for me to say, “Go to India to reverse that one.” I try to find detox centers here in America now that are collegiate or appropriate or easier on us, and don’t do all of that because that’s like a–
Ari: Paper thong.
Dr. Gupta: Exactly. Level 10. You never want to go back. I’ve never been able to make myself go back to that place because, as good as the effect was in the end, the torture to get there is just too significant.
Ari: Agreed. Agreed.
Dr. Gupta: Yes. I can’t believe you’ve had that shared experience. Going back to the topic, Panchakarma just means profound, amazing detox. Whether you do it in India or anywhere else where maybe they don’t torture us in that way, it’s really effective. Then when we take that back to seasonal, Ayurveda also teaches us that at the intersection of seasons, we’re most supported to detox the body. For example, I am a Pitta. I am pretty much all fire. Summer season, when it’s the hottest season, is the Pitta time of year. We’re best supported in detoxing right before our season starts, so pre-summer in my case. I would detox to go into a summer that’s more balanced and cool and doesn’t throw me off balance as much.
Then post-summer, detox again at that next intersection of seasons to release all the accumulations that happen during the summer anyway, because I’m going to get overheated. I’m in Florida. I’m a Pitta. It’ll happen. You can release all of that by detoxing. Regardless of your constitution, detoxing four times a year is a great way to take a week off, tune into self, clear the decks, clear the cobwebs out of our bodies, clear inflammation out of the system kindly and gently, so that when you get to that annual detox, you don’t have to be so intense about it because you did the quarterly. Then, when you break that down further in Ayurveda, we teach the daily self-detox rituals, which are simple things like using a copper tongue scraper.
That’s a very popular habit out of Ayurveda. We tell everyone, buy a copper tongue scraper. It’s a one-time purchase in your life, and gently scrape the tongue 7 to 14 times every morning. We teach about that because in Ayurveda, we teach all the organs are reflected on the tongue, just like in reflexology, they’re reflected on the bottom of the feet. There’s a lot of correlations between Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine. When you’re scraping your tongue in the morning, you’re also gently scraping all the organs. You’re igniting the digestive fire. You’re detoxing, Ama, or that accumulation of toxins that happens in the system.
You’re also creating a healthier oral microbiome, which we now know in modern science is tied to a healthier microbiome. It’s funny. Ayurveda had all these practices and didn’t have the words for why it was so important, but it taught us that these are daily. Daily meaning, in my case, mandatory. They are non-negotiable for me as my daily habits, because Ayurveda teaches how important they are for that detox benefit. Another great one would be oil pulling. We talk about oil pulling, any food-grade organic oil, putting 1 to 2 tablespoons in the mouth in the morning, and then gently swishing that around for 5 to 20 minutes.
Sounds like it’s annoying and takes forever, but you can do it while multitasking. You can take your morning shower, get dressed, make your morning coffee, and be oil pulling. Again, oral microbiome leads to healthier gut microbiome, healthier heart, all the things. It’s the way to remove toxins. In Ayurveda, we’ve really valued the importance of our mouth communicating with our gut. Now we know that, as the release of digestive enzymes and all of that.
In Ayurveda, we knew that what the mouth experiences and tastes, and the tongue tastes, will then release what the stomach needs to release for us to process and absorb that food. Those are two of them. Then we teach evening rituals as well. Dry brushing is another one. Move the lymph system. We teach yet another one called Abhyanga massage, which you know from going to India. Abhyanga massage is daily self-massage we can do for ourselves using a high volume of oil because you’re gifting that oil to the body. The point of that is to balance–
Ari: With or without a paper thong.
Dr. Gupta: With or without a paper thong. Correct. In the privacy of your own home, with no one else near you.
Ari: Do I have to wear a paper thong or not?
Dr. Gupta: No, absolutely not. No more torture. No more torture for you or myself. It’s so funny that it was so tough to do all those treatments in India that one time. I’ve never gone back for it. Now that you’re saying that, I’m realizing why. It was so rough. Instead of going there, I’ve actually now taken my mom to places like Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach. I’m always looking for an American place for detoxification that she’d be willing to go to because I can’t get her to go back.
Ari: Panchakarma minus paper thongs.
Dr. Gupta: Exactly.
Ari: I’m with you on this.
Dr. Gupta: A little more reasonable.
Super Spices and the Science of Turmeric (for Inflammation)
Ari: Okay. I know that you’ve been involved in some research on turmeric. Tell me about that. I’d like to learn more about spices more broadly and how that fits into the picture of The Inflammation Code.
Dr. Gupta: For sure. On my book, I have a picture with some of my favorite spices. Turmeric, I’ve got cardamom, which is an incredible black pepper, cloves, cilantro. We call it coriander. In my super spices, in my herbology spices class when I was doing my master’s, the professor talked about these profound spices that we use every day in the Indian kitchen. I grew up Indian, so I just did not value how important those spices are. Coriander is a heavy metal detoxer. Cilantro, it’s very easy. We use cilantro in everything. Cinnamon helps with blood sugar levels. Cumin, we use broadly in Indian cooking, even in Mexican, Tex-Mex cooking. I’m from Texas. We use that a lot.
Cumin seeds help with the absorption of our food, help to reduce any gas-producing properties. Anything, lentils, beans, hard-to-digest vegetables, in Indian cooking, we’re going to use our cumin seeds. Ginger, such a powerful anti-inflammatory, but a powerful digestive support. Ginger, lemon, tea is an easy remedy out of Ayurveda, ginger tea, to ignite digestive fire. Then finally, we got to turmeric. When we got to turmeric, the professor started explaining the benefits. I thought, “There’s no way. That’s insane. How can one spice from India do all that?” Later, my advisor said, “I want you to do a PhD. You should do a PhD. What topic do you want to do?”
I said, “I’m really fascinated by turmeric because if that stuff is true, why, when I go to the doctor, are they like, take NSAIDs for 10 days, and then I get stomachaches from it? This is ridiculous. This process should change.” He’s like, “Okay, let’s do the PhD on turmeric.” I spent years in the science of turmeric. I’m an evangelist of it. I believe it can help with 99% of our problems. There are whole sections of the PhD on cardiovascular health, brain health, gut health. Of course, it’s a powerful anti-inflammatory antioxidant. Growing up, I was always a sick kid, chronically taking antibiotics. I was really fascinated that it’s antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal. I was like, “Amazing.
I have a defense shield. I’m no longer the weak, sick kid. I’m going to use turmeric and be the strong body of steel girl now.” To me, turmeric is a profound tool in our toolkit. Once I studied it, everyone asked me, which turmeric should I take? I would say, “I don’t know. Let me go figure that out.” I couldn’t figure out who’s to recommend. My whole family was like, “You should just make your own if that’s what you think, if you can’t recommend one.” I ended up creating my own turmeric supplement 11 years ago now. The whole point was just to prove to Western Medicine that they could use it in their offices, safely, in a potent way that was effective. That’s how I built my company 10 years ago.
It’s in hundreds of doctor’s offices. The feedback is pretty incredible because I put it into orthopedics first, and they’re like, Shivani, this works. The patients are running in every month to pick up your product. They don’t even need to come see me. You’re totally winning here. This is awesome.” That’s been my body of work with turmeric. Then over the last decade, I’ve just started teaching about it, sharing about it more because it’s a piece of winning at inflammation. About five years ago, I realized the turmeric was so effective, so potent, so well-built.
Everyone was using it and winning, but I wanted to teach the lifestyle piece because I want us to have both. Turmeric is a very powerhouse solution, but if you don’t sit and address sleep, detoxification, your Ayurvedic elemental design, your circadian clock, you’ll always be chasing with the pill. I didn’t want that for us. That’s why I pivoted and really started teaching Ayurveda and saying, “Look, win at lifestyle. When you need the solution, take the solution. It’s there. Don’t always lean on a pill for a problem when lifestyle is really the way to reverse out of it.”
Ari: I understand the natural segue from this moment would probably be to go into lifestyle, but I want to linger on turmeric a little bit more if that’s cool with you.
Dr. Gupta: Sure.
Ari: Yes. I’m curious on some of the specifics, as far as, are there differences in the qualities of the turmeric depending on where it’s grown or how it’s processed? I know that there are lots of different formulations as far as how liposomal or packaged with black pepper and piperine. There’s Meriva, Longvida, and several others. I’m curious to learn about what your formulation is, why you did it that way and what you think is the best way to take turmeric. I think there’s also an Ayurvedic, they take it with, obviously golden milk, maybe with honey also.
Dr. Gupta: Yes. There’s so much goodness in what you just asked. Out of the entire turmeric plant, what we teach in Ayurveda is there is raw turmeric. In ancient India, we didn’t use raw turmeric much. We would pickle it. We would use it as a garnish, but raw turmeric isn’t typically how we consumed it. We took that raw turmeric and dried it into the spice. Kitchen culinary turmeric is what’s been used for thousands of years. In any traditional Indian kitchen, we’re going to use turmeric, but we’re always going to cook it with healthy fat. We always use ghee, butter, olive oil, or coconut oil in our cooking, mostly ghee in the ancient kitchens.
Then we also use garam masala, which is a spice mix that goes on nearly every dish and that has black pepper in it. That turmeric with black pepper was always used as well. What’s interesting is out of the entire turmeric plant, only 3% to 5% of it is the curcuminoids. We know that the curcuminoids are most effective at reducing inflammation. In high school, I worked in the lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center where the scientists discovered that it’s black pepper that increases the absorption of curcumin by 2,000%. I have always been a team black pepper girl. Now, when I did my PhD, you could easily see that liposomal curcumin has a powerful effect, of course.
It’s going to help cross the blood-brain barrier, which we know will help us when it comes to neuroinflammation, neurocognitive issues, things like that. I believe in the benefits of both. Turmeric with black pepper, we know, is going to increase that absorption and be beneficial. Curcumin and healthy fat, also beneficial. The way I talk about it is when I created a formulation, I created it 11 years ago, and I wanted to be really confident that what I made was safe. I couldn’t safely, in my good ethics, create a liposomal curcumin that I was confident wouldn’t go rancid because I have that issue with fish oil right now. Everyone ships me fish oil, and I’m like, “How do we know this is not rancid somewhere along the way?”
I’m sure as we’re modernizing with technologies, all of this process will get easier, and people are figuring this out. Back when I was doing my supplement, I wanted to be 100% the most potent curcumin sourced from the best suppliers out of India in a way that will absorb the best to deliver the best results, so all of Western medicine would apply it. That was my whole dream. It’s still my dream in this lifetime. I will still keep going at that goal. When you take curcumin, and you extract it, there are many different extraction methods.
Unfortunately, as you probably know in the supplement sector, a lot of what people do is to make the cheapest product possible, just throw it on Amazon, and just do whatever’s cheap, and fast, and effective for making the highest profit. I went at my company ass backwards. I just went for the best product possible. My factory at the time said, “You are insane, and you will be out of business in a year. Nobody does this way.” I found a supplier out of India with a form of curcumin where they extracted it, where they kept the proportions that mimicked Mother Nature. They proved that this curcumin was more effective because Mother Nature rules. That’s the whole foundation of Ayurveda.
I took that curcumin. My cost of production was $20 a bottle, which is insane. You’re not supposed to do that in the supplement space. You’re not supposed to go that expensive for the ingredients, but my ingredients were thousands and thousands of dollars. I just wanted to prove my point. In year one, that was when all the doctors were like, “This is insane. We’ve never seen a supplement work like this. We can’t believe you made this. This is amazing. My patients are coming off this, that, or the other, and they’re using this instead.” That’s where we started. Then, I never changed the ingredients since because I refuse. Curcumin, when put with black pepper, is very effective. That’s my turmeric gold formula.
I made that because that’s what the science and literature has studied the most, is that kind of a formulation. I added turmeric powder back in so that whole plant with extract has synergy together to further increase and enhance that absorption, trusting that the plant itself has the wisdom, even though we’re using a modern form of an extract, to then enhance that benefit. Then, I created a second formula called inflammation relief. That one follows what an ancient Ayurvedic village doctor would have built for you and put in your hands. In ancient India, in Ayurveda, we don’t just take a modern extract so strongly and put it in the body. We actually look at it much more holistically.
Its primary ingredients go in to do the main job. Secondary herb sets go in to support that. Third, herbs help with where they need to go intelligently in the body to make the impact. Fourth set of herbs mitigate the negative effect of even putting strong herbs in the body in the first place. That’s more of a holistic integrative approach. That formula I built thinking when I work with people one-on-one, I’ll give them that one.
It was interesting because the orthopedic doctors took both, and they said, this is the pain solution. I didn’t expect it because I thought they’d only reach on the first one because that’s the most studied formulation. They were like, “No, this is great. You told us it works. We read the science you gave us, and we’re cool.” The combo became what I do all day long now, when people have joint pain. I have thousands of people who take that combination.
The Inflammation Code
Ari: Very cool. Are there any layers to this story, to The Inflammation Code system, and the principles that you teach that you feel we have not thoroughly addressed that you think is an important layer that listeners should hear about?
Dr. Gupta: For sure. We’ve covered a lot. We covered elemental design, circadian rhythm, Agni, which is gut digestive fire, the self-care rituals, which are detoxing, plus the bigger stories around detoxing. I’d say the final piece is as I wrote the book, I kept thinking, “Okay, I’m going to teach everyone this Ayurvedic, the lifestyle, and it’s going to be epic. They’re going to pick up some slices of it. It’ll change their lives. That’s the whole point.”
If I stress everyone out too much on health practices, and if many of us continue the current path, which is I have to force myself to work out, I have to force in this protein, force my intermittent fasting, and we’re creating so much force and stress around health, then the stress alone will cause the inflammation that we’re trying to win at. I kept asking the universe, like, I need a name for this. How do I name this thing called my own stress about my own health will cause my own inflammation, and then I will get the diseases anyway? The term that came to me was mental inflammation.
That’s a whole chapter of the book, which is the mental inflammation, the chronic stress we live under, the fact that 24-7 we never give our mind, our body, our spirit a break, is going to still cause the inflammation. No matter what we do, doesn’t matter how clean I eat, doesn’t matter how much I work out, doesn’t matter how many times I scrape my tongue, if I still am under chronic stress, I will still cause all the same problems. It’s just this reminder and this understanding of creating the pauses in our day, the sacred pauses, honoring sleep, honoring recovery, honoring our spiritual practices, whether it’s your journaling, or whatever you do in your day to really feed your soul.
That reduction of that mental inflammation, that real adjustment to what we really need to stay body, mind, and spirit in alignment, that’s the key to our health. That chapter is my favorite chapter because it brought home that whole message of Ayurveda seeking to give us joy, vibrancy, our own spiritual alignment, our own self-understanding, total energy, and vibrancy, but we are the true controllers of that destiny. It’s completely up to us.
Ari: Very cool stuff. When is the book launching?
Dr. Gupta: The book comes out February 3rd.
Ari: Okay. I’ll try to release this, maybe just before or just after that. I have my own book right now. It’s around number 100 in all of Amazon right now.
Dr. Gupta: Awesome. Very good.
Ari: I know how it goes with wanting to get on podcasts and try to support the book launch and get it highly ranked in Amazon’s algorithms. I’ll do my best to support you. What else do you want to tell listeners? What do you want to leave them with?
Dr. Gupta: I just want to share that we are in control of our destiny when it comes to inflammation and our health. We have total sovereignty and total power. It comes down to our daily rituals and lifestyle habits. Ayurveda teaches us some beautiful habits to incorporate. That’s all I’m here to inspire people to do.
Ari: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Shivani. I really enjoyed this. Where should people get your book, and what else do you want to tell them?
Dr. Gupta: For sure. My website is my name, shivanigupta.com, S-H-I-V-A-N-I-G-U-P-T-A. On there, you’ll find the link to my book, The Inflammation Code. My podcast is also called The Inflammation Code. The supplements and the turmeric are at fusionaryformulas.com, F-U-S-I-O-N-A-R-Y. We made a special code. Energy Blueprint will give them 15% off on my website.
Ari: Cool. Awesome. Thank you very much for doing that. I really appreciate it. Shivani, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Best of luck with your book launch. Thank you for doing the work that you do.
Dr. Gupta: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Show Notes
00:00 – intro
00:25: – Guest Intro
02:28 – Defining Inflammation: The Good, The Bad, and “Inflammaging”
08:59 – The Ayurvedic Perspective: Agni, Ama, and the Root of Disease
12:59 – Circadian Rhythm and The Best Times to Eat
18:38 – Elemental Design: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha Body Types
26:13 – Detoxing in accordance with seasons
34:45 – Super Spices and the Science of Turmeric (for Inflammation)
45:23 – The Inflammation Code
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