Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 110 - Dr. Rohan Nagar

Dr. Rohan Nagar is a renowned Ayurvedic Doctor with over 20+ years of experience treating over 150,000+ patients worldwide. His specialization is in pulse diagnosis and liver & gut detoxification. Dr. Nagar has appeared on BBC, ITV, CNN, and FOX promoting the use of Ayurveda for holistic mind-body health.

To connect with Dr. Nagar directly please reach out:

https://drrohannagar.co.uk/

https://www.instagram.com/dr_rohannagar/

Broadcast on:: 19 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

Dr. Nagar, I am so, so excited that you are here to share the expertise in wellness and food with us. So first and foremost, thank you so much for sharing your valuable time with me and our audience. We really appreciate it and we love you, brother. Thank you, Igor. I have the same kind of feeling for this. I think this platform, which we discussed before as well, that what you do is a great work. Bringing the awareness is most important thing than anything else. Educate, aware, and those things can change people's mind. And once the mind has been changed in the right path, the body will change by itself. I love that. I love that. And we have so much to discuss today because just like we talked about before the recording, the impact of social media, the impact of big pharma are some of the big things that we just cannot have a conversation and wellness without mentioning. Absolutely. Before we go down that route, please tell us who you are and what the area of medicine is that your expertise is in. So giving you my little bit of information about myself, my name is Dr. Rohan Nagar, as you mentioned, and I've done my master's MD in Ayurveda. Ayurveda is Indian traditional medicine. Now, Ayurveda basically made from two words, which is A-Y-U-R-I-U, which is science and Ayurveda basically is science of life, right? System of medication tradition is more than 6,000 years old, right? And what I do is I bring this ancient wisdom to this modern world and try to make people aware that what they need to do. They need to connect their selves to the nature rather than going anywhere and finding yourself into the difficult position that where you are starting going on medicines or starting going on any kind of treatments you would like to do for your small, small kind of issues. You are making it more damage to the system. So Ayurveda is teaching you, go back to the routes, go back to the nature, and that's what I practice. And when I came to London, this is very important things to understand that it's a Western world for me. I came from India 21 years back. People do not understand what Ayurveda that time. Then now it's Ayurveda is global. But it's very hard for me to convince people that what Ayurveda can change in the system and how it basically brings a real change in a positive way where you can live as a good, healthy, all-in-one eternal health, not just treating the symptoms. Yeah. I have so much appreciation and so much just passion for the specific area of medicine because I feel like in today's world, for whatever reason, we on the Western Front feel like, hey, this is what we are used to. We have these big companies who control the market with a lot of medicines. And we just assume that this is the only way to get things done. We go, whenever I'm in pain, I go to my doctor. He gives me a prescription for some type of medicine. From there, I treat the symptom rather than the cause. And I just never get to this whole idea of wellness, of living one with the universe. And the reason why I find so much value in specifically everything that you talk about is this idea of holistic wellness. Become one with the universe specifically using plants, specifically using a lot of the foods that are in nature without human interference. And I think for whatever reason, just because it's not as simple as going to the doctor, a lot of people just ignore that part of their life. They go, I eat whatever I eat. This is how it is. I'm just always in pain. How come for the longest time now, there is so much emphasis on going to the doctors and putting medicine in people's bodies rather than trying to connect with this feeling of, I almost talk about it as being a child. When you were five to 10 years old and you just ate fruit, you ate all sorts of vegetables and you felt good. And at the same time, you were mentally clear. Absolutely. One thing everyone should know that health industry doesn't believe in food. So they don't believe in good food. And the food industry doesn't believe in health. Right. So when you go out in the market, you can see all these McDonald's and KFCs and Coca-Cola and Pepsi and whatever you see, the junk food, UPFP call it nowadays, which is a new name, ultra-processed food, which is quite dangerous for the system. And people are very much into that because they put those kind of chemicals, which is kind of controlling your brain and you would like to eat more and more. Right. You cannot stop when you have crisp, when you have muffins, when you have donuts, when you have pizza, pasta, burger, soda, whatever you talk about. Right. And when we were young, the one thing we learned is how to live on natural stuff. We do not, our immunity is great. So we love to eat vegetables. We love to eat our fruits. And we do not try to go into that path where lots of medicines been introduced to the system. As we grow older, the pharmaceutical giant has brainwashed people's mind that even though you have a simplest and the smallest condition, you just started panicking and then you started going to the doctor and say, "Oh my God, I have this. Can you give me something?" Right. Now there's a beautiful story I always say in my speech, wherever I go, in corporate world or anywhere, there was a one old lady. She went to the doctor and she said, "Doctor, I have a severe arthritis. Can you do something for me?" So doctor said, "Okay, perfect. I'll give you painkillers." She took the painkillers. When she took the painkillers, a couple of days, she's back and she said, "Doctor, my pain has gone a little bit, but I'm constipated." Right. So can you give me something? Doctor said, "No problem. This is the legsatives. Take the legsatives and you'll be fine." After a couple of days, she went back and she said, "Oh my God. I did take these legsatives, but I got so much acidity." Right. Because when you take so much of legsatives, it dries up your stool and then it produces a lot of acid in your stomach. So he was filling lots of hyper acidity. Doctor said, "No worries. I have an antacids. Take this, lancoprazole, pentaprazole, asymaprazole. I have a, you can name it and I have got it." So give it to her, that one. And after one week she went back and saying, "My God, I have the constipation is back and my arthritis is back again." Because she was taking antacids, antacids is drawing this to, drawing this to produce a lot of, and a lot of pains in the joints. Right. So unfortunately, it's a vicious circle. When you start something, it never ends. And this is what I've tried to explain to all of my patients. What Ayurveda says, that Ayurveda is made from, over body is made from five elements, air, fire, water, earth and space. Right. And this by elements, you can only get it from the nature. Why don't you, why don't you just understand that when you were suffering from low hemoglobin, doctor gives you iron tablets. But do you understand that iron comes from the nature? Right. If you have that iron from the nature, why you, why you, I always tell my patients, Igor, that if you really want to manage your condition, why you want to manage with the chemicals, manage with the natural stuff. Because at the end of the day, you are managing. Doctors are not designed to cure. Remember this. Doctors are not designed to cure. They are designed to manage the condition. They will never ever say, "Oh, I will cure your diabetes. I will cure your blood pressure. I will cure your cholesterol." They will say, "Take this medicines and it will keep the levels in control." Right. Yeah. And to me, it always feels like this has been the problem with how we think about doctors. We think about doctors as these sources of knowledge that have an answer for absolutely everything. Meanwhile, a lot of the lessons that I've seen in medical school, specifically one of my friends talk about this, is that you talk about small pieces. You don't talk about food as a whole where there's a combination of micronutrients. There's combination of the feeling of connecting with the earth that you get when you eat a good meal. And instead, we try to break it down into simple supplements like an iron supplement. But at the end of the day, having a little bit of iron is not the same as having a piece of meat that contains that iron because of all of the additional properties that are within that meal. At what point did we create the separation? And when I keep thinking about it, I always go back to this idea of it feels like a big machine that is all about making money rather than treating people. And I don't know why more people don't have the common sense to question it. Like, where did we go away from using common sense and just start believing stories that are put on social media? Absolutely. So in a very simple words, Igor, that we start our day with the toothpaste, which is, again, marketed by the pharmaceutical giants and we slip with the slipping pill. Yeah. So our day starts from the chemicals, finish with the chemicals. We never ever thought about how can we do natural way? There are so many natural verbs available which can do the same kind of job. You can clean your teeth the best way, you can put you in a sleep in the best way. But as I said, because everyone wants in the modern world is the quick fix. And natural stops are not quick fix. They will take time because they work on your root causes. They will not work on your symptoms. So anything which works on the root causes, that will take time. Right. And since the social media came, since the internet came, people are having everything in their palm. They quickly read something. They started believing that that whatever has been posted, it's exactly what we try to do that. And then by doing that, not going to the experts, not going to the real consultants, doctors, or who are expecting that specific field, they are self-diagnosing and self-curing, which is the most dangerous thing. Right. Yeah. And in this process, as you must just mentioned that where that common sense gone, the common sense has been absorbed thought by this social media. Right. Because what you read, you started believing. And once you started believing, it goes in your subconscious mind. When it goes the subconscious mind, it's very hard to delete. Yeah. Right. I just have like, I've always had this healthy questioning of people and why people sell you specific things. And what I find so, so interesting is that most people are at least coming around to understanding that every commercial that you see on TV is just product placement. It's all about trying to get in your subconscious. What have been some of the biggest things where you see a lot of misinformation placed in our subconscious from either commercials, advertisements, or people doing sneaky things to make sure that we're buying more products rather than trying to cure ourselves? See, I read the professional and I've been practicing for more than 25 years now. Right. One thing I saw is visualization of something and the constant visualization of something creates the hammering effect on a subconscious mind. So you are, let's say in the evening between six and eight, you have a family time, you want to watch television, want to watch some drama or soap or movie or something, they are intentionally putting their abilities meant between those period of time, they know where the mind is maximum vulnerable. Yeah. So your mind is when you're vulnerable, it's in the evening time because you're tired from the morning, you started very early, your work, you come back, you really want to just lie down on your couch and watch something coming on the television. And that's where they target maximum advertisements, hammering, social subconscious mind that, oh, if you have this, take this, if you have this, take this, and they show some smiling, laughing face on the screen thinking like, Oh my God, I'm in the pain. And look at that man on the screen is laughing. It means this medicine is a magic. Now, the problem we go here is that now we are like our generation are very, very active and very, very aware. But if you go to our parents or grandparents, those generations, which they were not aware about, there is other options than doctor as well. If you ask my grandmother, or if you ask my grandfather, they will say like, if I have something, I'll go to the doctor straight away. They do not have that conscious idea about that there is a holistic science available, which can help you in a better way. But because this pharmaceutical giant has completely brainwashed them for this many years, they only and only think about, okay, I have a pain, go to the doctor, I have a constipation, go to the doctor, I have any health condition, migraines, headaches, you name it from top to toe. Anything you think about is the only thing, the solution is doctor. Now, I have given a beautiful nice idea to people that when you are chopping the vegetables, right, and you cut your finger, you don't go to the doctor, right? You wait that it will heal by itself. I tell people exactly the same mechanism inside the body. It will heal by itself, give a time, give a chance to heal. Our mechanism is designed like that, that initially it's a really, really aggressive rebellious activity by any infection entering the system. Our ability is designed that way, that it will take time because it has to first understand what kind of infection is entered the system, right? Then it's a communication starts between mind and body that okay, the specific kind of white blood cells should be produced to fight against this infection. But what we do, we don't wait that for that 48 hours. In that 48 hours, we go to the doctor, rush to the doctor, take the medicine and our own immunity suppressed by those medicines. So our immunity never got a chance to perform in that first three days because generally in that first three days, you will get better 100%, right? But we don't have that patience. And why we don't have that patience? Again, coming back to the same point, because of the constant hammering by this pharmaceutical joints that if you are suffering from this, don't wait, take this. And to me, that's just so sad because I feel like even for people who are curious about it, who know, like, hey, there might be a solution in the food somewhere. A lot of the time, what I found is that it's just so incredibly hard to find the information. Once you start googling or whatever the search engine that you use for results of what makes you healthy of possible ways to do this, what you get spammed with and what you get hit with is some type of advertisements, some type of, hey, here is the one pill that will cure everything. Again, we're going to go down the same road of why is it so hard and why do so many physicians not even learn in medical school about the treatments of plants of food for optimal health? Because a lot of the time the conversation stems to fixing issues rather than creating healthy human beings. See, a very amazing question, a beautiful question you put it here, but you need to understand the biggest medical schools in the world. They are sponsored by the biggest pharmaceutical giants in the world. So the whole idea is to understand the human anatomy, human physiology, but when it comes to the treating, then it's only one book they need to follow and that book has been provided by these giants that these are the medicines you are prescribing and you prescribe these medicines and we will take care of you. This is like a package, all the doctors get all the amazing things when they prescribe certain medications for how long six months one year time kind of thing and then the company says that don't worry, they are here for you and we'll take care of you. But you need to understand this whole process that we forgot that our body is our friend, not the foe, and to treat the body in a friendly way, you need to behave with your body in a friendly way as well. I'll give you a very simple example, turmeric. Turmeric came out as a magic herb, right? Everyone think like turmeric can do this, turmeric can do that and then suddenly pharmaceutical giants realize that "oh my god, turmeric is taking over, let's copyright it", right? So they copyrighted the turmeric so now not everyone can use turmeric, the specific pharmaceutical companies, they produce the turmeric tablets, capsules, powders, whatever and they still want to control that part of the herbal part as well because they just don't want our herbal people or natural people or holistic science to dominate the world. So what they do is now they started sending the misinformation in the world saying turmeric can cure everything. But when patient comes to me and then when they are having aggressive acid in the stomach and they keep taking turmeric, "oh I'm taking turmeric Dr. Rowan because I have arthritis and if someone told me turmeric can kill any kind of pain", I said "yes", but do you understand that by taking this level of turmeric can cause ulcer in your stomach? Have you ever realized? He said "no, I do feel burning but I never felt that it's because of the turmeric". I said "yes", not everything is made for everybody. Just by looking at the advertisement and by talking to your friends thinking like "oh he's taking, I should take it" or "they are showing, I should take it", that's a wrong approach. If you eat one potato and you will not have any issues, but I eat one potato, I will have a gas, I have a bloating. So it's the same food, why it's behaving differently because every individual is different, right? This is what they don't understand, they just follow what is being put in their mind. Yeah, I love the two golden nuggets of wisdom there. First being that every single person is different, the second being that "hey even too much of a good thing can be terrible for you". I always use the example of water, everyone drinks water, everyone needs water. You can die from drinking too much water, so you always have to be careful with the things that you put in your body and you have to know the side. And one of the interesting things that I always find about talking with a highly educated, really smart people is that we generally understand the structure of our commercial. A commercial by a pharmaceutical company always has the same structure, which is a happy person with all of their problems solved, followed by a seven second skit where they put in the seven sentences of all of the potential side effects listing everything from the condition getting worse all the way to death as a potential side effect. That's right. Yeah, what is it about that structure that is not illegal because it feels like it should be? Okay, so this is a very interesting point you need to understand here. Human mind has a concentration level for between five to 30 seconds. So what they do cleverly in that 30 seconds, they tell you you need this. So once that being gone in your system, once it's gone in your mind, that first 30 seconds, oh my God, I need this medicine. Whatever happens, I'm going to more to buy this. After 30 seconds, they talk about side effects, which no one cares because the main job has been done. The human mind has accepted and it venge inside and settled inside the system saying this medicine for diabetes, this medicine for ulcerative colitis, this medicine for any kind of pain, this medicine for indigest whatever the condition you are, does that pharmaceutical company produces that kind of advertisement first 30 seconds, which you grasp everything, understand everything, but then when they talk about that seven seconds, which you just told about side effects and everything, they don't worry about that part. They don't even look at that part. They just look at quickly and note down the name of the medicine because we can't lose this. So this is a very cleverly done. And that's why social media nowadays, people say, like most of the social media, I was reading one beautiful article in Daily Mail in London that all the social media, 70% of the social media is been watched on mute. So people only scroll, scroll, and they just read information what it says on the screen. Why? Because they are in the office, they cannot have airports, they cannot increase the volume and listen to that. They have to just keep scrolling it and reading it, what it says, what can be done, what it can be done, what can. So in that whole process of not letting your brain to listen something, but just visualize something is the most dangerous part. I have seen people who are just visualizing and adapting, they're doing more damage than listening. That's why you can see that people who have podcasts nowadays, which is getting famous, and something which goes directly in your ear and you listen that will work better than when you see in a bigger screen and then try to adapt it. Yeah. And to me, it feels like one of those things where I'm sure that you have a lot of overlapping feelings with how I feel about it, that it's just sad. It just said because it feels like the people who are coming across this information are the people who went out of their way, went, hey, something is wrong, I'm looking for a solution. And when they started looking for a solution, they stumble onto some of these drugs that promise things that are not realistic. And at the end of the day, they are almost in a worse position than they would be had nothing happened. See, have you noticed one thing that pharmaceutical giants and other big companies, they are never allowing any alternative medicine entities met. They never allow any herbal things to come on the TV. They never allow that people even look for the alternate, right? I always tell my patients that I, as a doctor of Ayurveda, people only come to me when they are done with everyone. Yeah. So I'm like a last resort for them, right? Go to Dr. Rohan, he might help you because everyone can't. So I see the most chronic, aggressive patients in my life because they come with the biggest hope that Dr. Rohan, the medical science or conventional medicine, as we say, completely ignored us. Now you are the only person who can help us. So this is the thing. How to bring that change is only depend on human brain that everyone needs to understand that how to change it. Like, yes, I can say that in the comparison 20 years before, now people are more into the yoga, more into the plant-based food, more into the pilates, meditation, lifestyle changes, detox programs. So I don't deny that people getting aware. As I said, my and your generation are very much aware that what kind of damage has been done by the medicines. So which is a good sign, you know? It feels like we are moving in the right direction. I just always wonder if a lot of this damage can be undone fast enough for us to actually make a difference. Now, I want to switch gears just a little bit and talk about a symptom and a thing that I see a lot of people don't even acknowledge as being something wrong. And it's so rewarding talking to someone so highly educated like yourself because I'm sure that you've seen a lot of this as well. People who have some type of chronic inflammation, people who are constantly in pain where they're joints hurt each and every single day, especially people. And the saddest ones that I find are people in their 20s and 30s who are relatively healthy who just assume that this is normal. Why do we accept pain? Which scientifically, again, I'm not a doctor. I know you are. And I know that you will agree with this statement that pain is the symptom that something in your body is not operating the way that it should be. Absolutely. Yeah. Why do people ignore that symptom and don't even think like, Hey, as a 20 or 30 year old, it's not normal for me to wake up in the morning feeling like absolute garbage and to be in pain. See, this is an amazing question you ask. I have created a one assessment program in my treatment plan in London. That assessment is telling you that if you have this 25 symptoms, you are not healthy. Right. And those symptoms are exactly what you said, like starts from the top to toe. So when you wake up in the morning, do you have a tired eyes? When you wake up in the morning, do you need to push yourself out of the bed? Do you have anywhere pains in the body or your tongue is coated? Have you checked your tongue? Do you scrape your tongue regularly? Do you have shoulder pain? Do you have a knee pain? Do you have a backache? This kind of thing. So pain is the biggest sign or symptom, which is given by the body or told by the body system that something is severely wrong inside. Right. To ignore this, it means that you are not understanding the inflammatory status of your internal body. Now, inflammation not only happens just because of one thing. This is the five things which people need to understand causes the inflammation in the body. Number one is your lifestyle. Right. Number two is your food. Number three, how healthy and mental environment you work. So your workplace. Number four, your own relationships with your spouse, wife and relatives or friends around you. And number five, how much physically active you are. Right. This five are the biggest thing which people when they ignore. So when they have a horrible lifestyle, they have no timetable like we call in Ayurveda. That's Ayurveda clock. This time you should sleep. This time you should have your breakfast. This time you should have your lunch. This time you should have your dinner. It's a clock. The clock is basically very ancient clock. More than 6000 years ago, created for the human body said, if you follow this clock, you will not see yourself having any issues. So when your lifestyle is out of the track, like you drink so much coffee, you eat so much craft food. As we just just discussed about all chemicalized and junk and fast food, you don't drink enough water. So lifestyle is the biggest cause of inflammation, the biggest cause. But I also believe that if you are not mentally healthy, so if you're in a wrong workplace, if you are in a wrong relationships, if you are with the wrong people or in a wrong company, that is also affecting your anxiety and stress level. And that's blocking the oxygen going to your vital organs. When vital organs are not getting the oxygen, then it starts sending all negative signals in the blood. And that's where you start getting the inflammation, right? Have you seen any happy person complaining about the pains? No. It's something of one kind of or other kind of sorrow is keeping inside, which is giving him this kind of things. Now youngsters, as you mentioned very rightly, in London, I've seen this as well, youngsters who are going to call it school or working in a very young age, they ignore this symptoms thinking like, oh, this is normal. By the end of the tunnel, let's say in the 10 years, they will come back to me and say, Dr. Ruhan, I've been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative choritis, osteoarthritis, hyperfessional, hypertension, heart conditions. Have you seen after COVID, so many young people are getting cardiac arrest, cardiac heart attacks, stroke, right? Because not only the vaccination caused that or not only the COVID has been causing that, your lifestyle for many, many years, unhealthy lifestyle for many, many years has been caused this, right? So it's not, I always say that I always say, Igor, that there's a three steps which everyone needs to understand. Number one, accumulation. When you feel fit, you're not fit. Things are accumulating inside, right? People do believe that, oh, I'm fit. I can eat as much as sugar I want, as much as I crap I want. There's nothing's going to happen because my body is fit. I do exercise a lot. I do drink a lot of water, but I still eat crap, but I'm fit. No, you are basically in a first stage, which we call accumulation. Then the second stage comes, which is appearing as a disease. So symptoms, like you just mentioned about inflammation, body is telling you that, okay, wait, something's not right. If you do not understand that second stage, then you go to the third stage, which is either parable condition. It means you are now certified, diseased person, and that disease is only manageable, not curable, right? So these are the things, which, that's why I'm telling you that I really have so much knowledge, so much to tell you that if you listen to your system, you will make sure that there is nothing. The first rule everyone should understand Igor is precaution is better than cure. Don't think about, let the disease come, and then I will cure after that. Think about how not to invite the disease. And I appreciate that so, so much because the message that has been lost by so many medical professionals today is exactly that one. You don't have to be sick to care about your well-being. You don't have to wait until something is wrong to make sure that you're taking care of yourself and your body. And I'm so glad that you talked about this specific treatment, because in this world that we live today, I found two really, really big things that don't get as much, pretty much loudness as they should because of how terrible they are. And I want to run them by you because you know a hell of a lot better than I do. The first one being sugar. We put sugar in absolutely everything, and we just assume that because we're doing it today, that's how it's always done. So maybe while talking about sugar, tell me about not only the crap that we call sugar, that we put in almost all the food today, but also some of the natural sugar, some of the things like berries, some of the things like natural fruit that we should be looking for, because we both know that not all sugar is the same. And for whatever reason, on the marketing scheme, we don't often get to hear that message. That's right. So you brought a very important point here. Let me tell you by giving you little story about everyone's family. If you go 30, 40, 50 years back, and if you look at your grandparents, have you ever heard about your grandparents that they lost their vision when they're in 90s, they lost their hearing when they're in 90s, they suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia when they're 90s? No, because they used to live on healthy fats, right? As soon as this pharmaceutical giants and other food companies decided to put more carbs in their life, we are basically suffering a lot. The people rather than having ghee or olive oil or avocado oil who just or coconut oil, just relying on not healthy fats, relying only on breads, pasta, burgers, pizzas, like you name it, all carbs basically rice, so white potatoes. So our daily life is basically dominated by this carbs. And the exact you mentioned is sugar, where the sugar basically came in the system, like more sugar from the carbs, right? We definitely used to have white sugar in our tea, coffee, cakes, pastry, chocolate, biscuits, whatever you name it. But then there's a second enemy entered in your system is the carbs. So your sugar, which you used to take as a part of desserts is still there, but then you entered another enemy, which is the carbs, which is your regular three meals, full of that carbs, right? And when that carbs goes in the system, what happens? The first thing happening is which everyone should understand, now new things started in the world is non-alcoholic fatty liver, okay? People do not understand this term, so let me explain this. Children, nowadays, young age, 10 years, 10 years, 12 years, 13 years, getting obese, getting overweight. Why? Because they're eating so much carbohydrates, they eat so much carbs, right? That also includes all sugary stuff they have in a regular basis as well. So what happened is that when they eat carbs, carbs contains high fructose, right? Not glucose. When high fructose goes in the system, it does not break. It converts into the fat directly, right? And it started accumulating in the liver, which we call it fatty liver, right? So people who are drinking soda, full of fructose, people who are eating carbs, sugary stuff, desserts, like when I come to America, don't take me wrong, but I found here so much crap has been given to everyone. Like if you go to any restaurant, the portion, oh my god, the portion is like this huge. The human body is not designed to eat that much, right? One meal a day is enough. Why are you eating like, oh my god, and then the waste, they don't eat everything, and then they waste everything. And I find so much fascinating that I go to McDonald's and I see people like go to KFC and I see people like huge people sitting there and eating doughnuts and eating the burgers and eating that chicken wings, whatever you name it. And I was like, where is the awareness about your health is gone? You're going to die. You don't understand. You already have gained so much weight. You can't even walk from this door to your car or car to your home, and you're still eating this crap. But that exactly it is since the carbs came in the system. Now you do not know this, but I have read a wonderful article, the bread producing companies like all the factories when they produce the bread or doughnut or a bagel or whatever you name it. They put specific chemicals, which is bromide, and that bromide is basically causing lots of negative and cancerous cells in the system, right? So people are eating so much carbs, they do not understand that they are every day inviting something malignant in the system, right? And this sugar, if this sugar thing will not stop, I'm telling you we go in next 10 years, we are going to see the biggest growth of obesity and diabetes in the world, huge. Yeah, which is so, so scary because the amount of obesity that is out there now is just ridiculous. I'm sure that you remember growing up. I'm sure you remember being a kid. It just didn't feel like as many people were as big as they are today. And to me, it's always as simple as this one perfect example that I like using. And I go, hey, when we are in Italy and we have a bowl of pasta, not only the size is different, but whatever is in the pasta is so different that you don't feel like absolute garbage after you eat it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Chemicals that we are using in, I mean, everything. We're just using them and everything. They are the things that are giving us all these problems. They are the things and the big reason behind why people are so unhealthy today. And I just always have this like mental vision of how come nobody is asking, where does this go? Because this doesn't go to a productive society where we take care of each other and we care about each other's health. This is just a train wreck that feels like every single year is letting loose more and more. And it ends up in a place where we lose whatever it is that we consider makes us great human beings. And see, exactly, you know, sorry to interrupt you. But one thing I want to mention that I always say to my patients that whenever you go to supermarket and whenever you buy something, look at an ingredient side of it. And if it has a more than five ingredients, put it back. Don't buy it. I probably shouldn't have it. That's it. Because then they started putting all the crabs. Yeah. They put lots of preservatives and then some numbers and then numbers. And you search about those numbers. They are highly chemicalized things. They're basically adding to the system to make it more tastier for having a long shelf life. So, you know, come on, understand the thing. Just think this way, home cooked food, which has been cooked in front of your eyes. You don't eat next day. Yeah, right. You just say, no, I'm not going to touch it. I just cooked it yesterday. So, I'm not going to eat this. And which is you getting from the supermarket, what is that? 10 days, 15 days, 20 days, you don't know. I mean, come on. Most of the time, it's months and years rather than day. I got a patient. She works in a gourmet and she told me, Dr. Nagar, if you're traveling economy class, business class, or anywhere, you're going in a flight. He throws that food for 28 days before it comes to your table in the same flight. From that day, now eight years, I don't touch flight food. No way. Yeah. Right. Rather, I carry something in my bag, which is fresh, you know. And a lot of this just seems so, so common sense. It feels like, hey, if something isn't made today, you probably shouldn't eat it. And it feels like at some point, we knew it, we just forgot the information. Exactly. Here is the second road that I want to take you down on to because I think that's one is so, so important. For whatever reason, and I've always found this a problem with America, like how many people are so, so angry about marijuana use? I never see these riots about alcohol. We know that alcohol is probably, I mean, I hate saying the number one killer, but this is the thing that over a long, over a long period of time. I mean, the amount of drunk driving, the amount of every single consequence that comes out of alcohol, specifically for your health, is so, so terrible. Tell me about some of the things that are biologically happening inside of my body when I start drinking. And when I start not even abusing, but just being a casual drinker who's consistently having two or three drinks every night, all the time. So, because I'm a liver and gut specialist, right, in Ayurveda, my thesis, my master thesis was done on liver and gut. I get lots of patients who are suffering from liver cirrhosis, liver abscess, fatty liver, IBS, ulcerative colitis. So, alcohol. Now, you need to understand, in Ayurveda, we say one thing, that once the thing has been fermented, it's unnatural in a way which starts damaging the system if it's been taken on a regular basis, right? Now, there are some amazing fermented food in the world which can do a great job for your gut, like a kimchi, sauerkraut or kombucha, a lot of things, which is great, right? Yeah. And I feel like those are the things that have been around for a really long time in some of the healthiest civilizations, like specifically kimchi, that like the staple of Asian food that we for whatever reason just look down on because we go, hey, it comes in the bottle and it's fermented. Like Indian pickles, Indian pickles which is freshly made in the every household and we eat those pickles because those pickles are freshly fermented and we finish it and we help over gut, right? Yeah. But alcohol, when you drink, this is what pathological thing happens in the system, right? When you drink alcohol, the first change happened in a liver composition is when you have a one glass or one unit of red wine, just giving you an example, it starts giving swelling of liver. Now, that swelling is basically liver cells is telling the system that some kind of poison activity happened in the blood. So they try it because liver, as you know, liver is basically sucking all the poison things and toxin things and then it basically throws out from the system. So when you have a one unit or one glass of red wine a day, then initially for first week or 10 days or two weeks or maybe a month, liver is trying to recognize that what is basically coming on a regular basis. So the inflammation is let's say between 7 to 10% every day and that is basically calm down next day. Then you have again a glass and then again it goes to the inflammation stage and when it again comes down. But now where the real damage starts is when person starts drinking two, three, four units or two, three, four glasses a day or maybe half a bottle or a bottle a day, then that inflammation, which was 10 to 7 to 10% in the liver on every day basis goes to 40% a day. So 40% the day damage in the liver, it means that you are near to the condition called fibrosis. It means the healthy liver cells starts dying because it does not do that duty to absorb that constant poison coming in the system. So the people who drink alcohol, they only understand that they give them amazing mood or whatever they like. They would forget about everything, what happened in the daytime, no worries, no subconscious activities, no thought process, they can sleep well next day, they wake up and but indirectly they are damaging the liver, which is the biggest and most important organ of the system. So that inflammation, when it goes on a regular basis then the fibrosis starts and fibrosis means the healthy cell starts dying and then there's a second state starts which I always tell people after the fatty liver fibrosis and after fibrosis is a cirrhosis of liver where your liver starts shrinking in a size and then one day doctor says, do you need a liver transplantation or it's the end of the story, right? So alcohol is the biggest enemy. I always tell people it not only damages you physically, it damages you mentally as well. I always believe Igor, the food which can take your consciousness away is the most dangerous food, right? Because food is not designed or any drink is not designed to take your consciousness away. Being losing your consciousness, having that thing, it means the food itself is telling you that control yourself. Yes, you can have here and there enjoying as a party or something, but on a regular basis, no, because you lose your stuff and you look at yourself in the mirror after having the alcohol for six months on a regular basis, you are a different person. Yeah, and I am so so happy that you let us down this path because this is exactly where I wanted to finish today and it's this one. For whatever reason, one of the biggest benefits that I found in Eastern medicine, specifically non-traditional, non-Western medicine, the way that we think about it is the idea of consciousness being part of the healing process. Today in America, we don't think about the person and their thinking as kind of part of the entire process. So Dr, tell us this, what is consciousness as far as you're concerned and how do you specifically define such a broad, such a complex term that's been around for so, so long in different cultures. So I'm Hindu, basically practicing Hindu, my family, I come from a Hindu family, priest family, basically. And for us, like Christians as Bible, Muslims as Quran, as we have a bug with Gita, so we talk about Gita. And then when you read the scripture, it says that what is consciousness? The consciousness is you need to understand. First thing is who you are. Then the second question is been, is that after that, why you are here, right? Third one is, what is your purpose of your life? And the fourth one is, by living this many years as a human, do you think that you are doing some kind of positive impact on your soul, on your spirit? Because by getting conscious or you want to achieve consciousness, you have to also make sure that you are physically and mentally healthy, right? Now you heard about chakras, right? Everyone talks about chakras. Yep. And the crown chakras are being the most top and the Kundalini open end this and that people talk about that. But do you know that all kind of suffering, what we are suffering, like you just talk about pain, I talk about subconscious anxiety, I talk about depression. And I see the most of the Western countries like England or America, people do suffer from severe depression, schizophrenia, bipolar condition, psychosis, so many issues. Why? Ireland says that when you achieve that consciousness, then there is no pain, right? It means we are dominated by our mind now. So my mind is telling me, okay, ego is coming. Let's start the podcast. Oh, I need to drink water. Oh, I need to go and get my food. It's my mind is telling me, but when your consciousness is physically enlightened, or when you are conscious about things, then you are telling your body and mind what you want to do. So you can tell, oh, no, I don't mind, you need glass of water now. You can say, no, I don't want my glass of water now. I know when I need it. So control, that's the main thing what consciousness teaches you, right? And that consciousness is only achieved by constant practice of meditation, constant practice of astanga, constant practice of hatha yoga and some kind of activity, which is specifically work from solar plexus and above. So the hachakra and above, which is helping to bring that conscious activity in a way of day to day life. I've seen people, I can really literally sing two different people. One is who is only and only into the physical world and do not understand what his consciousness is. And the second one, I saw the person who has achieved the consciousness still living in the physical world, still having iPhones, iPads, TV, and everything around him. But when you see that person, you can see the change that he's controlling his mind and telling him his mind that, okay, I'm going to do this or I am not going to do that. So that control, if you learn that control, it means you have achieved that consciousness. I am so, so happy that that is exactly the way that you talk about this because I have these interesting conversations with my wife, where we talk about specific direction of our life, the direction of our family. And that has always been my approach to starting that conversation. I go, if we're able to figure out who we are and what our purpose is, everything else becomes a super simple plugin. After you get the big answers. Absolutely. Tell me this. How come a lot of people today, it just feels like we're in a rush, and we're not even interested in finding the meaning of some of these big questions, even though they, these questions have been around for so long, and they have been stressed in what feels like every single culture, right? Like they're obviously a part of Hinduism, but they are the exact same questions of why are we here, who are we, are the same thing that you find in every sacred text. How is it that we lost a little bit of that today? And we just don't find that as meaningful of a question as, hey, where am I supposed to be two hours from right now, or what other appointments do I have the rest of the day? See, this question is only started in people's mind that who we are, what is the purpose of our life is, in those people who are wanting to go to that path and achieve and find out that why and who, right? The people who are only and only subconsciously trapped with negativity or subconsciously trapped with some kind of responsibility, subconsciously trapped by people around them and subconsciously trapped by the literatures or the things they are day to day reading or looking at, they are having no interest finding out who they are and why they are here. They just want to live this life as I'm waking up in the morning and I'm having my mug of coffee, I'm going in my subway, going to the office, finish my job, come back, drink my alcohol, and spend some good time with my family and my life is done. Again, it's a basic education, which is we are lacking off, right? Do we need to tell our children that brush your teeth this way, scrape your tongue this way? If you don't teach them, after 5 years, 7 years, 10 years, they will be like, "Daddy, what should I do with my teeth? It's painful. What should I do with my tongue? I have ulcers." Why? That basic education. So consciousness or understanding who we are and why we are and what is the purpose of the life that comes from the root, that's a seed, which you need to seed in your human mind when they are child. When you lose that age, when you go to the middle age, then so many information has been already settled in your system and already told to you by the society, by the parents, by the people, this is a life like a herd. You only follow the herd rather than thinking that, "Okay, I should go opposite way and why can't I go opposite way, right? Why? Okay, let me tell you one thing. I met one Rishi, like a Yogi in India, and he was telling me that, "Tell me doctor who told you that you have to wake up at 6 o'clock or you have to sleep at 10 o'clock or you have to eat your lunch at 12, or you have to eat your dinner at like 7th. This has been coming for many, many centuries, which has been, "Hey Doc, you disappeared. Can you hear me? I'm here. Yep, I'm sorry, you're all good." So this subconscious activity has been put in our mind for many, many years, right? And that's what we follow as a part of being told that we have to do this. Have you ever thought about? No, I'm going to sleep at 3 a.m. and I'm going to wake up at 11 a.m. The world is not going to change, or I'm going to have my lunch at 5 p.m., right? So this is the thing. I always tell people that don't become a part of a herd, think something which you can do different than others. And when you are out of that box, then you are out of your comfort zone, then the real part of consciousness starts. Yeah, I love that answer so much. And I just, I think the world of you, and I think there is only one appropriate way to finish this interview here today, and it's this one. This is probably the biggest question that you ever get asked that most people don't get asked, and it's this one, Dr. Nagar, what is the meaning of life from where you sit today from the journey and this experience that you have had? Because it feels like you have figured out a lot more than a normal person does, and it feels like you're on this great journey of not buying people's bullshit. And as you're spreading the message, I am so, so happy that more people like you exist. And I just hope to hear that or I just hope to know that more of them hear this message because not a lot of them have had to even start thinking about the question. See, you beautifully put it, but for me, the meaning of the life is whatever the service or profession I mean, I want to make sure that I help as much as I can, right? Because people need help. You know, when I go to, when I go in flight, when I go in bus, when I go in subway, when I go, I've been walking on the street, I consider that every person I see, they need help every person in either physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, anyways, right? So my motto that if God has gifted me this science or this knowledge, my main meaning of the life or motor of the life is try to bring that change and try to make people aware that, okay, buddy, you are on a wrong path. Can you please listen to me for five minutes and try to understand that why you are here and what's the purpose of the life and how you should behave to your physical body and your mental body and your emotional body, then you'll bring that spiritual body change in your system. Like people come to me and say, how come I can become the biggest spiritual person in the world? And I always tell them this little story. And it's a very important story that that one mother took her son to a one yogi, like a one spiritual master and he said, you know, my son, you love so much sweet. Every day he needs so much sweet. Can you please tell him that he should stop the sweet now? And then the spiritual master said, okay, today I'm busy. Can you bring him tomorrow? And he said, tomorrow? What you can tell him now is no, no, I'm too busy. I can't tell him. Okay, so he brought bring him next day is like, okay, here is it. Can you please tell him that stop eating sweets? And then master said, don't eat the sweets, sweets are bad for you. This is not good. You need to understand this. And the mother said, oh my God, this is a five minute thing, which you would have told him yesterday. You made me do the same journey again today to just say these five things. And the master said, I could not say that yesterday, because a sad moment when you told me to tell him that, I had a sweet in my mouth. I like that one, right? Yeah, I like that one. And I have so much appreciation for the exact way that you answered that one, because I feel like we as human beings are always on the journey of becoming more awake, becoming more conscious, becoming, and there are so many phrases to signify this exact process of just being better human beings. And the people who are the best of the best, the way that I always find them talking about this process is going, I went and I figured out that I put on this earth to make other people better. That's the way that I've always seen the podcast. That's the way that I've always seen the best of the best in their field. They just go, I have this, this knowledge, this information, this ability to help other people. And I am just here to spread the good message and share it with as many people as possible. Before we conclude, I always tell these people that as the negativity can work as a woodpecker and make a hole in your brain and enters, same thing the positivity can do as well. But that positive message has to be behaved like a woodpecker and constant hammering has to be done to human mind to absorb that in the going in the system and accept it and absorb it and make it happen. Like if you can tell people that drink alcohol, drink alcohol, drink alcohol, drink alcohol, they start drinking alcohol because as a negative thought has been entered. But the same thing can be put in the right way saying drink water, drink water, drink water, drink water, and they start drinking water, right? Have you ever seen people go to the pub and ask for the water? No, right? They ask for the alcohol. So it depends what kind of environment you are in, what kind of people you are surrounded by, and what kind of knowledge or what kind of thing you want to do to yourself. Choose your friends, choose your people around you wisely. And then the real journey starts because you are in those kind of same-minded people who can help you to achieve what you want to achieve, right? This is very important. I love that message. Dr. Nagar, you are absolute delight of a person and I'm so, so thankful for your sharing your time and your message with me and our audience. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I feel great that we shared these things for the world. And by doing this, at least we can bring a little bit of change. That's our reward. That's our reward. Hey, a little bit of change always adds up and we are moving in the right direction. Thank you so much for being here and thank you guys for listening. We'll see you next time.