Ep. 183: Discovering The Science Of Ayurveda And Herbs W/ Shivani Gupta, PhD

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Dr Shivani Gupta. Shivani was born and raised in Houston, Texas, in a traditional Indian family, and, throughout her entire life, her father taught her about healthy eating, organic foods, and effective supplements. That lead her to want to take this knowledge to the next level and learn about this inherited wisdom from her cultural background. Shivani then attended the lab of Dr.Aggarwal, the biochemist at the University of Texas who was involved with the Anderson Cancer Centre, who is known as the person who discovered something we've talked about in the show before, the effects of curcumin + black pepper. She actually decided to continue her own study and receive a PhD on the topic of Ayurvedic Studies, with focus on herbalism and anti-inflammatory herbs. Actually, we've had past episodes where we talked a little bit about Ayurveda and the magic of healing the body through herbs and spices, as well as rituals and daily practices. But I've never had the opportunity to sit down with someone who has a PhD in it and actually pick their brain. As you folks will discover, there is so much ancient wisdom that has been used for thousands of years, which has allowed the Indian culture to grow and thrive and maintain health into old age. We've talked a lot about Chinese medicine (e.g here and here), but we haven't had the chance to talk about Indian medicine before. We talk about some simple practical things that you can do today, easily, that take 5 minutes or even 10 seconds, that are going to improve your health. We talk about how those work, and then we go into some of the different strategies, hacks, and habits that are helping Shivani perform at such a high level and maintain such a high degree of health. You can tell Shivani Gupta is a very vibrant, energetic, and healthy woman. I really enjoyed talking with her, and I know you folks are going to enjoy listening to the episode as well. -Jonathan Levi