Can we talk about inflammation and how that factors into the book that you wrote about healing faster? Absolutely.

So right now, inflammation is being characterized as all evil and that it's the root cause of so many illnesses, which it is.

It's the root cause of cardiovascular disease.

It could be the root cause of Alzheimer's disease, anything that ends in I-T-I-S, itis.

So if we have rheumatoid arthritis, that's an inflammatory condition.

If we have ulcerative colitis, that's an inflammatory condition.

And so we have become sophisticated at understanding how prevalent inflammation is and how dangerous it is to our health.

From a scientific standpoint, what do you think are the biological differences that actually shape how quickly someone can heal? Are there differences there? There

So- What can someone realistically do when it comes to trying to remove sources of stress?

So stress is part of modern life, and I am sure that stress was part of ancient life as well.

People got sick.

People got injured.

You know, they didn't have antibiotics.

They didn't have modern ways of healing diseases.

broken bones, for example.

So where does the evidence stand today? And who should consider hormone replacement therapy?

It's about everything in chronic conditions as well.

Yeah, I actually avoided the word chronic in the book.

I call that section longstanding.

And I did that because chronic implies that you're stuck with it for the rest of your life.

Chronic pain, you know, a chronic condition like heart disease or diabetes.

And I think the distinction that I made in terms of these might be things that have been around longer, but also they often take longer to reverse.

So in some sense, you know, the longer you've had something, back pain as an example, the longer and the more effort you might have to put in to fully recovering from it, as opposed to that cold, which if you do nothing in five to seven, at most 10 days, you're going to be well.

What are some other surprising remedies in your integrative medicine toolbox for surgery prep or just for life in general? What are some of the things that when you tell this to a patient and the patient does it and they're like, it worked? Yeah.

So will you share what that's all about and how do we activate this inner healing capacity?

This is, I think, a really important point that our culture doesn't necessarily recognize.

And that's that we get well because of our intrinsic healing system.

We have this innate capacity.

And it's a shift in how we think about things.

So for example, say you get sick with pneumonia and a doctor prescribes an antibiotic.

you could say that antibiotic made me well.

And so what is your recommendation or what are your thoughts on diet and supplements? And then I want to hear what you do personally for yourself.

Do you think people are surprised that as an integrative physician, maybe one of the first things you're going to recommend is this prescription? People

are surprised, yes.

And this is, again, that thoughtful integration where we don't throw out prescription medicines.

We don't always start with a supplement or with acupuncture or whatever.

We're really assessing what's the evidence.

So For menopause, the most effective treatment we have for menopausal symptoms is hormone therapy.

That doesn't mean everyone needs it, it doesn't mean everyone should take it, but it is the most effective therapy.

What is that?

Yeah, let's talk about that.

So...

I didn't actually title the part of Heal Faster that deals with what some people call chronic.

I called it longstanding because I think even in that language of calling something chronic, we are hexing.

we are creating an implication that this now is gonna be here forever.

And people do get over longstanding pain.

They get over it, not everyone, but for a variety of reasons and a variety of ways.

How do you think about that? How do we overcome that? How do we manage that?

What are the common obstacles in your view?

A lot of them are going to be familiar to people.

In the United States, we don't eat the healthiest diet.

We sometimes call our diet the SAD diet, which stands for Standard American Diet.

We know we eat a lot of ultra-processed food.

That ultra-processed food has all sorts of unusual chemicals in it, emulsifiers and flavorants, and they...

They change our microbiome, which is all of the normal, healthy microorganisms that are in our gut, especially, but also all over our body, that are important for our metabolism and for digestive function and even for our mental health.

So what are your general recommendations for improving our diet in a way that will allow us to maximize what you're calling the rapid recovery reflex, the ability of our body to heal on its own from injuries and other conditions?