Ayurvedic Longevity with Dr. John Douillard: Rational Wellness Podcast 435

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Dr. John Douillard discusses Ayervedic Longevity with Dr. Ben Weitz.  

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Podcast Highlights

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Dr. John Douillard is a globally recognized leader in natural health, Ayurveda, and sports medicine. Dr. Douillard is the founder of LifeSpa.com, one of the most popular Ayurvedic health resources online, and the author of seven books, including Body, Mind, and Sport, The 3-Season Diet, and Eat Wheat.  He has also served as the Director of Player Development for the New Jersey Nets, where he helped professional athletes use Ayurvedic principles to enhance performance and recovery. Dr. Douillard now directs the LifeSpa Ayurvedic Clinic in Boulder, Colorado, where he integrates ancient Ayurvedic wisdom with cutting-edge modern science.  His website is LifeSpa.com.

Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.

 

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Podcast Transcript

Dr. Weitz:  Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates and to learn more, check out my website, drweitz.com.  Thanks for joining me, and let’s jump into the podcast.

Welcome to the Rational Wellness Podcast. I’m Dr. Ben Weitz, and today I’m excited to be speaking with Dr. John Douillard, a globally recognized leader in natural health, our RDA and Sports medicine. Dr. Douillard is the founder of Lifespa.com, one of the most popular, our RDA TIC Health Resources online and the author of seven books, including Body Minded Sport, the Three Season Diet, and Eat Wheat.  He has also served as a director of player development for the New Jersey Nets, where he helped professional athletes use Ayurvedic principles to enhance performance and recovery. Dr. Douillard now directs the Life Spa Adic Clinic in Boulder, Colorado, where he integrates ancient Ayurvedic wisdom with cutting edge modern science.  Today we’ll be exploring what Ayurvedic can teach us about personalized nutrition, digestion, seasonal living, mind, body balance, and longevity. Dr. Douillard, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Dr. Ben. Good to be here. Good. So what is Ayurvedic and how does it differ from Western medicine?

Dr. Douillard: Ayurveda means life and veda means science.  So it’s a science of life. It’s a thousands of year old system of medicine. And what’s kind of really cool about it is sort of how prophetic they [00:02:00] were. They understood that there were circadian rhythms and they, you know, designed lifestyle when you should eat, when you should sleep, when you should exercise, when you should.  You know, work and mentally when she should pray. All these things were laid out, which we now know are based on our biological clocks turning on and off during different times of day, right? They believe it or not, they talked about invisible microbials, which. Were little or anals they called them, which were little microbes that they couldn’t see and they even talked about how they could be good for you or they could be bad for you, which we now know.  They also talked about how you don’t want to kill them, you want to change the environment. And support a healthy environment. Let the body take care of the bad ones. So it goes on and on. They talked about pran and breathing practices now, and we can talk more about that. That’s sort of how I got into it, was kind of looking for the, I was a [00:03:00] triathlete and I was looking for replicating the runner’s high.  And I stumbled upon some meditation and breathing techniques and it just sort of blew me away. But now we have so much science, you know, describing how these breathing techniques are so critical for us, and the list just goes on and on. And what I do@lifespot.com, I write about the ancient wisdom and the modern science.  And what I really love about that is that when you look at. Western medicine alone, it can prove whatever it wants. I mean, there’s diets, you know, there’s carnivore diets, there’s science on both sides of that aisle You can look at, you know, coffee’s good, coffee’s bad. Soy is good, soy is bad. Dairy, wheat, you name it, you’re gonna find science on both sides.  But when you have something that’s been around for a thousands of years. And you have modern science. I feel like that’s a really safe place for us to start when we’re trying to, you know, navigate through this crazy world of nutrition and, you know, online what you hear. Do you really know it’s, you know, true or not?  It’s very confusing. I think that’s a really good place for folks to start, [00:04:00] and that’s what I provide.

Dr. Weitz: Cool. And ayurvedic is an alternative to some people. Look at Oriental acupuncture as in ancient art. Some people look at other forms of eating, say, looking at the way people, the caveman ate for thousands of years.  But ayurvedic is something that’s not often talked about. As much as the other forms, but is probably the oldest and most well studied of these ancient medicines.

Dr. Douillard: Yeah. It’s also probably the original longevity medicine. They have an entire branch of their whole system based on longevity when it comes to diet.  It’s so incredibly logical and so simple. And they talk about eating seasonally, right? So the squirrels are eating nuts and seeds in the fall because they’re higher protein, higher fat, and they provide kind of the antidote to the coldest and dryness. [00:05:00] Of winter in the spring, the root vegetables, the dandelion, the burdock comes out of the ground.  The spring greens come outta the ground and those foods provide the antidote to the congestion and the allergy season of spring. In the summer, you have cooling fruits and vegetables that provide the antidote to the heat of the summer. And then you have on top of this, those. Amicable, which they talked about that are on these plants.  They talked about the microbiome that are on these plants and how the food that you eat is not just the chemistry of the food, it’s the microbiology as well. And the combination of those of which makes the food intelligent, inoculate your gut with the right bugs for the right season. But we eat everything the same thing every day of the year for all 365 days of the year.

Never really changing the microbiome from one season next, which we now have Stanford studies showing that the HAA tribe, their bugs change from one season to the next. Stanford studies also show that the so soil bugs [00:06:00] change, you know, and are attracted specific plants from one season to the next.  And what’s kind of cool is they said that not only do the plants have different qualities in each season that we’re sort of part of that. Like we have a body type and there’s people that we all know. That are hot all the time and they’re throwing the covers off all the time. Never wear a jacket. And then there’s people who are cold all the time.

They’re always putting the jacket on and putting the covers on. And those are qualities of nature that people who are constantly putting the covers on, they have a lot more winter qualities, coldness and dryness in them. So they’re gonna need more of the nuts and the seeds in the winter to antidote their tendency to get cold.  And people who are throwing the covers off have more. Summer qualities, they’re hot all the time and this is their constitutional makeup and they really need to be careful in the summer that they’re not eating meat and beer and wine and cheese and fermented food and spicy food and barbecue that takes a hot body and a hot season and heats them up and overheats them.  So they understood that everything was part of [00:07:00] nature and they did like a really in depth study of that, and we’re like, wow. We all have those qualities of nature and the foods have those qualities of nature, and they mapped out a plan for us to live our life going with the current of nature as opposed to plowing against it as we do in our culture today.

Dr. Weitz: And if we were living in nature, we wouldn’t be able to, we wouldn’t be able to get fruits and vegetables all year round the same ones. We’re only able to do that now because in the winter we can get the summer fruits imported from Argentina or somewhere else, and we’re able to have the same foods year round.

Dr. Douillard: Right. E. Exactly. And that’s why it’s so incredibly logical, like no one’s gonna argue the fact that we should be eating seasonally. ’cause that’s what everyone did up until probably a hundred years ago from the entire planet did that. So I wrote a book called The Three Season Diet, which was based on the three [00:08:00] harvests in nature.  What happened to the fourth season? It was there, but there’s a, there’s three harvest, okay? And there’s one season. Nature Takes is dormant. So you have a spring harvest. We all know we have a, it’s not much, but it’s there. We have a summer harvest, which is very abundant, and we have a fall harvest, which is extremely abundant.  And then we have, and that fall harvest is for winter eating. And winter takes a break. So there’s three major harvest in nature. So all you do is just eat. So what I did with the, with my book, the Three Season Diet, I just took the grocery lists. Here’s the winter grocery list, which we’re going into now, and you take all the foods that are grown from around the world.  For the winter, they have this warm, sweet, heavy, kinda nuts seed kind of higher fat, higher protein quality, and you eat more of those foods as organic as you can to get the right microbiology. And then when this next seasons change, you go to spring, you circle the foods on that and you don’t have to make a big fuss outta what to eat.  You just want to get sort of medicinal dosages of what nature intended, which was. The right foods for the right season and it makes it really easy. People can get this, like, this is for free on my website. Just go to my homepage, life spot.com and you can just download the free grocery list. It’s right there.

Dr. Weitz: That’s great. So how does Ayurvedic fit into the modern functional medicine model?

Dr. Douillard: Well, the modern functional medicine model is do the job for the body, but do it in a kind of natural way with digestive enzymes and natural laxatives and bioidentical hormones, things like that. Doing the job for you with a digestive enzyme as opposed to helping the body do it itself.  Where traditional systems, medicine like Ayurveda, they were all about. Helping the body do the job for itself, using herbs that have the natural chemistry of the plant, the microbiology of the plant to restore [00:10:00] function so you don’t become dependent on a pill or a powder. So that’s the goal of traditional medicine was do the job, help the body, do the job for itself.  Functional medicine, naturopathic medicine, do the job for you in a more natural way. Western your medicine, do the job for you any way we possibly can, and that may mean saving your life as well. And it’s like a buffet. I think we should all be understanding each of those three buffets. I wanna start with my patients.  To get them to do the job, not depending on a digestive enzyme or a natural laxative. I’d rather have them pooping and digesting on their own. Right. Without having to get, take a pill or, yeah,

Dr. Weitz: I’m not sure I fully accept that characterization of functional medicine. ’cause I do think in functional medicine, the way I understand it is we’re trying to restore that function of the body.  And we don’t all necessarily use digestive enzymes. We can use herbal bidders to get the body to start producing its own enzymes. We try to balance out the microbiome so the body does its own work and [00:11:00] produces its own chemicals. We’re not necessarily trying to just substitute a herb for a drug.

Dr. Douillard: No I agree with that. But the thing about functional medicine, and most of the nutraceuticals and the supplements are sterile. When you take an herb and you extract it in alcohol, like a bitters, for example, it’s a sterile product, okay? It doesn’t have its microbiome, right? So what I’m saying is this plan over here is gonna provide for you what you would really get if you’re eating off the land, right?  And, you know, the food, the biochemistry, and the microbiome. Where functional medicine, naturopath medicine, they more use these herbal extracts. We take the herb and we try to make it more potent, but when you do that, you make it sterile and you lose some of the intelligent. I’ve written many articles about the science behind why you want that microbiology as part of the foods you eat, and of course part of the herbs you take.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah. It sounds similar to the argument that standard process uses for their products.

Dr. Douillard: [00:12:00] Yeah. I didn’t know that. There’s, I didn’t know about that. That’s how they do it.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah. They have their own farms and everything is food extracts rather than concentrates or things like that.

Dr. Douillard: Nice. Nice. And if they ha and if they have actual microbiome, like when we get our herbs in from organic farms, we have to test them for the microbiology, the identity, heavy metals and everything. Twice soon as we get the plant from the farm and then we have to make our farm, then we have to test them again for the microbiology and what we find is when you actually take these old Ayurvedic formulas.  That the microbiome changes in a more positive way. When you put herbs together, like when we take turmeric for example, and you take 16 parts, turmeric, one part black pepper, anybody can do that and that will enhance the absorption of the turmeric by 2000%. So we got a batch of turmeric and a batch of black pepper came in and we tested it.  Everything was fine. We put ’em together, 16 to one. We put the formula together and my manufacturer calls me up and he says, John. [00:13:00] The microbiome has exploded in this. He goes, it’s not bad. They’re all really positive bugs. They’re like, it’s like a probiotic. But when you actually took the back, the black pepper and the turmeric together, the bugs you’re talking about the

Dr. Weitz: microbiome of the plant,

Dr. Douillard: The microbiome of the two plants,

Dr. Weitz: the black pepper.  So really you mean the bacterial content?

Dr. Douillard: The bacterial content exploded. Okay. So then we measure it once the formula is done, which is FDA required, right? We had this thing that was so alive and so functional as opposed to just something that was completely sterile and dead, and just the just the chemistry.  And that’s kind of what allows us to kind of get the people on off and to get on, get better and get off as opposed to being. Dependent on a pillar powder or take it long term. And I understand that Herbal extra, I use them, you know, in certain situations as well. But from the Ayurvedic perspective, you want to get as [00:14:00] natural as you can.  We have a, there was a study done in, in New Mexico and Arizona, and it was a Stanford study as well, and they measured the microbiome of the poop from ancient humans in a museum that were a thousand years old. And they saw that were, there were so much microbial diversity in their gut compared to modern humans that they’re calling that lack of diversity an extinction event for our species, right?  So whenever you can actually get the plant with its natural microbiome and you can inoculate your gut with that. Or the seasonal food and inoculate, you’re good with that. That’s such a critical piece of our puzzle today that we’re lacking versus taking sterile herbs, sterile extracts, or sterile, you know, foods that have been sprayed with pesticides or insecticides.

Dr. Weitz: Right. So Ayurvedic emphasizes one’s dosha, which is vada, pita, or kafa. Can you explain what these are and how they Yeah, that’s a,

Dr. Douillard: like we said, you [00:15:00] know, the doshas are just the aspects of nature. Like Vata literally means air, and in the winter we have wind and it’s blowing. So the environment is very windy and very cold and very dry.  And that’s a Vata constitution. So that winter constitution. Let’s call it winter. That body type is gonna be always cold, always dry, and always wanting more covers and hats and clothes and gloves and hats and all that. So what you would want to do with them is make sure during that winter months, they’re eating off the winter grocery.  More soups. More soups, more potentially more animal protein, more fats, more nuts, more seeds, more grains. Things that were harvested in the fall for winter eating are key to antidote the extreme quality. Of that season in it. But if you’re eating like, like you said, are we, what if this body type, which was cold and dry winter type, is eating frozen blueberry smoothies all winter long?

Right. First of [00:16:00] all, if you were living in Vermont in January, you couldn’t even get those right, right. Like in the 18 hundreds. So it’s impossible to even get that from a natural perspective, which is sort of like illogical. So, but if you were eating those cold foods on a cold body type in a cold season with cold drinks and ice in my beer and my wine and all this stuff, you’re just taking this body and making it more cold.  But if you take warm foods and soups and stews, then you’re gonna actually antidote. The qualities that are existing in nature, they can aggravate their constitution. Pitta, summer types. They have a lot of heat in their body type, so they need to actually eat foods that are cooling, like sweets and sour and astringent foods like vegetables and asparagus and pomegranates and watermelons and fruit.  They cool the body down. But if they’re eating spicy food and fermented food during that season, you’re gonna take a hot type and a hot season and inflame them. And that’s where the word inflammation comes from. In the spring you have [00:17:00] cough, which means congestion, cough, like think about coughing. That’s congestion.

So they have a lot more tendency to hold onto more water. ’cause in the spring. The Earth holds onto more water, and so we all hold onto more water in the spring. So nature provided the antidote, which was a low carbohydrate diet. There’s no carbohydrates being harvested in the spring. So from the Ayurveda perspective, we have a high protein, high fat diet in the winter to insulate you and rebuild you during the winter months.  We have a no carb or low carb diet in the spring, which is naturally occurring. We have a high carb diet in the fall, and now we have studies that show that the ant hunter gathers microbes in their gut. We’re more ba, more proliferate, proliferated with more what are called actinobacteria, which were bugs that in the springtime, that help them get energy from fat and fiber.  And in the summertime they get, they have more bugs in their gut called bacteria des, which are really good at getting [00:18:00] starches out of the gut into the blood free energy. So our fuel supply was supposed to change. But nobody talks about that. They say, just be a vegan or be a carnivore, or be a high protein.  Be a ho. You know, it’s like everybody wants to put on these diets for the entire year. But nature’s not like that. The nutritional cycle in nature is an annual cycle. We should change throughout the year, and they mapped that out thousands of years ago, and now we have the science to back it up and we’re just beginning to understand that’s probably not a bad idea for us to, you know, eat according to the seasons.  It’s not hard. Just circle the foods you like and eat them in each season. 

Dr. Weitz:  Get, but how do you balance out your dosha? With the seasons. Let’s say you’re whichever one of those where you’re Yeah. Always hot and yeah. And now it’s winter. You know,

Dr. Douillard: that’s a great, that’s a great question and the answer is really simple.  We should all. Be eating seasonally, all of us. Now, if I’m a super hot, [00:19:00] fiery body type, competitive driven, my skin is inflamed, my joints are inflamed, I’m inflamed, I’m a hot type, then what season do I really wanna be eating on? The straight and narrow? I want to take that. Summer grocery list, and I want to really eat off this list.  I don’t want to be a lot of spicy Mexican food, beer, wine, cheese, that are very acidic. I want to eat things that are gonna be very more Alka. They’re gonna cool me down, and that’s just exactly what nature’s harvesting at that time. If I’m a cold, dry, winter type and I can’t sleep at night, my skin is dry, my, you know, my intestinal tract is dry, I’m constipated.

I don’t want to eating cold foods and I want to eating warm soups and stews. And that’s, so what you do is you just emphasize. When you nearly need to be on the straight and narrow, right, based on your constitution. So the first thing, everybody changes their diet in the seasons. Like every bird flies south, every whale migrates, every leaf turns red and falls off trees seasonally.  We don’t do anything, [00:20:00] but this is what we were designed to do ’cause we were a part of those rhythms of nature, just like all the animals are as well. So just take the dice and just emphasize. Or eat seasonally. And then based on your body type, you can then, you know, be a little bit more proactive in a season that you’re more vulnerable in.

Dr. Weitz: Now, how do these body types correspond or conflict with modern ideas of biochemical individuality?

Dr. Douillard: Well, they overlap beautifully. I mean, they, you know, the, they, the day we’ve talked about for the last 50 years in America, they, there’s the ectomorph and the endomorph and the mesomorph. Well, the ectomorph is the Vata Winter body type.  The mesomorph is the Pitta kind of medium frame body type. And the endomorphs. The Kapha. Kapha is earth and water heavy, solid, thick, big football player, a linemen. Those are endomorphs. The PTO types are the fiery, competitive driven, you know, kind of [00:21:00] medium frame, but very muscular, inflamed. You know, workaholics, you know, go.  Fire fire. They are the mesomorphs and the ectomorphs. Are the thinner, more sensitive, artistic, you know, heightened radar. They can feel things. They were the scouts. They could perceive danger from a distance. The mesomorphs were the fiery competitive ones who’d fight the battles. And the endomorphs were the ones that were actually very big and very strong, but they were also, they had the earth and quality.  They were calm and easygoing. They were often the leaders because people like to follow. People who are calm and lead from a calm place, not from a, you know, angry perspective.

Dr. Weitz: Does your dosha change over time? Like, does it change as you age? Does it change as you move to a different place in the world?  Or does your diet modify it? How is it? Or is it something that’s you have a certain dosha and that’s you for the rest of your life? [00:22:00]

Dr. Douillard: Yeah, that’s a good question, Ben. It is sort of like you buy a Volkswagen in 1960. Okay. And now you’re still driving it. Okay. In 2025, right? It’s still a Volkswagen, right?  It is still the same old body type, but it is got some dents on it, right? So we have the, your birth body type, which you carry through your whole life. But you also have what’s called the current constitutional makeup, where that thing might have gotten a new engine, a new transmission. It’s got some dents in it, and that’s what, so there’s a current perspective, but for the most part, generally your body’s head carries you through your entire life with some, you know, morphing and adaptation based on lifestyle diet where you live.  It can all it, it can you, we adapt to that for sure along the way. And that’s why you would wanna take a body type questionnaire, not just once in your life. You take a body type care questionnaire, you can dig it. We have a really nice1@fy.com is free. You take it, find out what your [00:23:00] type is, take find out what your kid’s type is, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their likes and dislikes are, you know, where they’re vulnerable, that kind of thing.  And then, you know, every couple years you take it again and see what’s happening with you.

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Dr. Weitz:  You wrote a book, Eat Wheat. And this challenges common perception especially in the functional medicine world that gluten tends to lead to leaky gut is harmful for most people.

Dr. Douillard: Yeah, it’s true. [00:25:00] That’s you know, it was important to write that because I wasn’t trying to get people to necessarily eat wheat per se, but what I was trying to make the case was that these underlying digestive imbalances, I can’t eat wheat. You know, when I first, and you and I probably first went into practice similar time.  We were taking people off of wheat and dairy back in the, you know, eighties and nineties, before it be anybody was talking about it. Absolutely. And now it became public enemy number one. But I noticed in my practice that I would take people off the wheat, they would get better, but then six months later, another digestive problem would pop up, take ’em off the dairy.  They get better and another problem. Then you give ’em a probiotic. Now they’re stuck on a probiotic for the rest of their life. You give ’em a digestive enzyme, they now, you’re, now you’re doing the digesting for them. It became really clear to me that I wasn’t fixing the actual problem. I was actually just putting out the symptomatic fire.  So [00:26:00] what it turned out to be is that wheat is a hard to digest protein, but what’s happened in our culture today is it had didn’t stop with wheat and dairy. Now we have functional medicine and biohackers saying, don’t eat wheat, dairy, nuts, seeds, grains.

Dr. Weitz: We have the low protein, low FODMAP diet. We have the low lectin diet, we have the low histamine diet.

We have the, yeah.

Dr. Douillard: How is that natural, those foods, those, and here’s the science behind that. You can’t bubble wrap your diet. That’s what’s happened in our culture and that’s why Ayurvedic medicine is so important. They say the problem is not those foods, it’s the digestion of those foods that’s broken down.  Right. They did a study, a really cool study. They then, I wrote a, I wrote an article on it called the Dangers of Gluten-Free Diet. They had people who ate wheat. And then they gave they, and then they compare that the people who were gluten-free, but they didn’t have to be right. And the people who ate wheat had [00:27:00] four times less mercury in their blood than people who were gluten-free, but didn’t have to be.  The people who ate wheat had significantly more killer T cells, less bad bugs and more good bugs in their gut than the people who are gluten-free. But didn’t have to be. And the studies go on two Harvard studies, both a hundred thousand people. In both of those studies, the people who ate more grains in wheat had significantly less heart disease and less diabetes than the people who are gluten free when people are celiac.  They, yes, you should completely go off of wheat, but that doesn’t, you know, that doesn’t solve their problem. They have longstanding nutritional deficiency as a result of being celiac. Taking the wheat out of the diet didn’t solve all of their problems. It just took the major aggravator out. These foods that are harder, that the lectins, the nightshades, the phytic acids.

These foods, their study after study of showing how beneficial they are for [00:28:00] us, but they don’t come like every day of the year either. They’re also seasonal, so the body rot, the nature rotates them in and out. So you don’t overwhelm your body with any of those, and they provide what’s called hormesis. A little bit of irritation in your gut that causes the body to respond with gut immunity, which is 70% of your immune response.  You take all those foods outta the diet bubble, wrap your diet. Now you have a compromised immunity. And that’s exactly what these studies show. And I’ll tell you one more study real quick and I’ll let you, you chime in here. There was a study with Amish kids and they found out that Amish kids had the lowest rates of asthma on the planet.  Their genetic cousins came from the same valley in Switzerland where the Hutterites, they came to America, they became sterile stainless steel, dairy farmers, the Amish, they became old fashioned farmers, sterning the milk in the old wooden containers, stuff like that. They measured and the hotter ice had the highest rates of asthma on the planet.

Their kids, Amish kids, [00:29:00] lowest rates, same genetic pool. Really cool study. They measured the dust in the barn that the Amish kids were running barefoot in the barns, had cows as pets. It was the dust that was creating a little hormetic irritation that triggered an immune response against them getting asthma.  We can’t continue to bubble wrap our diet and say, well, here, don’t eat. Don’t eat. Take digestive enzymes to do the, and take probiotics to fix your gut bone. That’s not how nature works. We need to get the body to digest properly, to inoculate the bugs, the gut with the bugs at the right time, at the right season, with the right bugs, and bring resiliency back and digestive strength back.  Because our digestive strength is linked to our di, our detoxification ability, and we live in a toxic world. And when you can’t digest your wheat, your dairy, your nuts, seeds, grains, legumes, nice shape. You can’t detoxify the 70 million tons that the EPA reports is dumped in our atmosphere every single year.  That filtered out on everything we eat and drink.

Dr. Weitz: [00:30:00] You made a lot of points. So if it’s okay, I want to make three comments. The first comment regarding the last one about growing up on a farm, many studies have shown that when you get exposed to more microbes, to bacteria, to viruses, to dirt, we have less autoimmune disease, we have less asthma, and we definitely know that to be the case.  So I definitely a hundred percent agree with that. Number two, when it comes to, we. The argument can be made that if we were eating ancient wheat. That would be much more digestible that over the years we’ve hybridized the wheat specifically to get larger and larger gluten molecules that are more and more difficult to digest.  And these so modern wheat doesn’t look at all like ancient. And the amount of gluten and the length of the gluten molecule is so much bigger. It’s so much more [00:31:00] difficult. Unnatural for us to digest is why modern wheat is a problem when ancient wheat might not be. And anecdotally, a lot of people say, oh, I went to Europe and I was okay eating the pasta over there, but I’m not over here.  And then number three a point I wanna make about specialized diets. Those of us in the functional medicine world who do with some patients recommend a specialized diet. Let’s say if somebody has SIBO and they put ’em on a low FODMAP diet. That diet is only intended to be used for a limited amount of time, and then as soon as we can, as soon as we’ve gotten their SIBO under control, by reducing the microbes that we don’t want in their gut.  The we always try to broaden their diet as broad as possible, as long as they’re not having reactions.

Dr. Douillard: Right. Yeah. So yeah, we’re both guilty as charge. I said too much and you said a lot. So let me just [00:32:00] respond to that. And I’m not trying to give you a hard time I’m just saying Oh no.  This is, I love discussion. No, this is exactly what I love to do. I would never suggest people go to the grocery store and buy the bread in the grocery store. That’s not that’s not what eat wheat was about. Right. Eat Wheat was about the literally thousands of studies on how grains are actually so beneficial because of the fiber and the impact.  The microbiome. So what I’m talking about is eating really healthy versions Now to push back a little bit, when they actually when our original ancestors first took the original wheat and they thrashed it and they took the wheat berries, they would select for the bigger wheat berry. ’cause it was wheat’s.  Really skinny. It’s really thin, almost very smaller than rice. So they would select for the bigger one and the bigger it was. The sweeter it was and the less gluten it had, [00:33:00] but the original wheat on this planet had significantly more gluten than the wheat that we eat today. Just so you know that when we go back and, oh, I wish you eat ancient wheat.

Well, the ancient wheat had more gluten, so really, was it the gluten? That was really the problem. That’s one thing. Now it is true that gluten is a hard to digest protein, and because of all the things we talked about, our digestive threats has been severely compromised. And I’m not saying you should eat weed if you feel bad, and isn’t the modern gluten molecule much longer?  Well, probably longer than it was, you know? ’cause what our ancient ancestors, they selected for wheat that was less gluten and more sugar to make it sweeter and it was bigger, easier for them to handle. But the actual original wheat on the planet. Was way more gluten than we eat today. And then they slowly started to hybridize it to make it kind of less glutenous.  And yes, you’re right, they did hybridize. Did we try to make it more glutenous so the bread would stick together? [00:34:00] It didn’t need to make it more glutenous. It was still, there was still plenty of gluten in the bread the way they were doing it to make it stick. But they do, if they really wanna make squishy bread, they add gluten to the bread these days.  Okay. But the thing is that the gluten. Is Yes. A hard to digest protein, and it’s been hybridized in ways that makes it more difficult. And then you add the glyphosate to it, that’s a problem. However, and has

Dr. Weitz: Alessio Fasano shown that it increases zonulin, increases leaky gut.

Dr. Douillard: Right? And that also has to do with the strength of our ability to digest it when people don’t have a really good.  Digestive fire, stomach acid, they can’t break down those proteins, so they go in completely digested. And I’ll quote you a study on this. When you don’t break down the protein in your stomach properly, the gluten or the fats, the environmental pollutants, well the studies say that it will go, they will go in completely digested into the intestinal tract.  And those [00:35:00] molecules will be too big to get into your blood and nourish you, right? They uptake it into the garbage can, which is the lymphatic collecting ducts around your belly, give you extra weight around your belly. Get into your brain lymphatic system, cause brain fog and all these symptoms that people have when they eat wheat, but that’s not a wheat issue.  That’s a inability to break down the protein issue. And I debated David Perlmutter, who wrote The Grain Brain two times. I was on his podcast. He was on my podcast and my mom said, I won that debate both times. So I’m Your mom said, yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. But the idea, and he, at the end of the second debate did say, yeah, if you eat real whole grain wheat.  Then it’s not gonna, but, you know, wonder Bread or either these croissants that are filled up with puffed with really refined flour. Of course, that’s not what we’re talking about, but I’m talking about we can’t bubble wrap the diet and that’s what we’ve done. And we don’t, and we’re not, I’m not hearing a lot of people saying, oh, let’s go back and.

[00:36:00] Let’s strengthen the stomach acid, the coordinated effort of the stomach making acid, the bile, liver, making bile, the pancreatic duodenal enzymes. Let’s reboot that coordination because that’s really where the rubber meets the road and most people. And when you eat bread, that is from the grocery store that’s full of seed oils, that is a preservative for the bread.  And that means when you eat that, the bugs in your gut that normally eat oil won’t eat that. Those seed oils. So all those seed oils go right to your liver. They create bile sludge in your liver. Bile is not al only an emulsifier for the fats, but it’s also a buffer for your stomach acid. So now what happens is when your stomach eats something that requires to a lot, has a lot of protein in it to break down the acid, it’s gonna need bile to buffer that acid.  But if that liver is congested with bile, slut ’cause of seed oils and pesticides and things and environmental pollutants. The body can’t respond, so your [00:37:00] stomach has to say, Hey, you guys stopped making the bile. You’ve eaten all those seed oils and all the toxic fats. I have to stop making the acid. And now your stomach acid bile flow are both dialed down.  And what Ayurvedic medicines say, let’s reboot those and turn them back on. And now I can eat. And studies show that you can, even if you have good stomach acid, you can break down glyphosate. So it’s not about, oh my God, the wheat in America is so terrible. You know, you should be able to digest anything without having a problem.  And because you eat something and you feel bad before you were blaming the food. How can I look at troubleshooting my digestive system? We have an article called your, you know, digestive health quiz where you find out what part of your digestion might be broken and how with herbs and foods you can reboot it so you don’t have to bubble wrap your diet for the rest of your life because there’s long-term consequences for that.

Dr. Weitz: And also the way we eat with fast food in a short period of time without chewing, [00:38:00] chopping it down while you’re driving in a car, while you’re under stress. So you’re, you’ve got a sympathetic environment in your body which impedes digestion, and then you’re getting reflux or you’re taking PPIs that are inhibiting your acid production.

On top of that.

Dr. Douillard: Just the stress of our culture is co compromising acid production. All the stress in our world these days is compromising it. You know, we’re, we go 90 miles an hour, you know, 24 7 in our culture that where everything is chronically going compared to our ancestors where they were living in harmony and ance with nature.  It’s a completely different. You know, environment that they lived in. And one of, and the response to our stressed out environment is exactly what you said is gonna naturally dial down stomach acid, but then all the processed food only makes it worse. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fight back against that.  That’s not hard to fight back against those things.

Dr. Weitz: Right. Do you still work with athletes today? Are there professional athletes using [00:39:00] a auric approach?

Dr. Douillard: Sure, absolutely. I, you know, constantly working and coaching different athletes based on my first book was what called Body Mind Sport, which was all about nose breathing versus mouth breathing exercise.  And we published studies on that way back in the early 1990s and worked with Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova did the forward of my book and worked with New Jersey Nest. It all did worked with them for two seasons and you know. The logic of learning how to breathe. ’cause when you breathe through your nose, according to the research.  You change your brain chemistry, the brain actually slips into what’s called an alpha state, which is a meditative calm. And when you’re breathing through your mouth, obviously if you saw a bear in the woods, you would take that same breath. It’s gonna trigger a fight or flight response. The brain goes into beta, gets up a tree, save your life.

But that’s a degenerative chemistry. And if we’re living in that degener degenerative chemistry, and we’re. Exercising in that degenerative [00:40:00] chemistry, breaking our body down to build itself up. We’re gonna be limited by how much stress we can endure over time, and that’s where this approach is like, learn how to breathe properly, activate a parasympathetic.  You know, dominance during vigorous exercise so you’re not in full blown fight or flight. Use all five lobes of your lungs and activate a neurological comp, and that’s the runner’s high. That’s what athletes, you know, would say, my best race is my easiest race, and I was. Fascinated by that when I was in college competing as a triathlete.  And I went to a lecture. I was training for an Ironman back in early 1981. And I went to a lecture in Ayurveda. It was my first lecture, and I went up to the guy, said, Hey training for an Ironman and what do you think from the Ayurvedic perspective, this is a good thing. And he said, he goes do you meditate?  And I said, yeah. And he goes, do you sleep when you meditate? And I said, deeply. I get this really deep sleep. And he looked at me [00:41:00] and he said, well, meditation is not sleep. He goes, meditation is your alert and resting at the same time. I go like, oh, I’m completely knocked out, you know, sleep. And he said, you’re exhausted and you probably should stop all doing all that workout and meditate more.

So I started going to weekend meditation retreats and I ended up going, did that for like, like a year. Then I went on a two week retreat and I went into the zone. This true story, I started competing at a higher level winning medals. But not only did this and a lot of my friends started meditating, a lot of ’em started thought I was taking steroids.  Because I was doing this in the South Bay in la. That’s where I was training. It was work. So Marathon sort of really kicked off where you are and, and, but it was like, it was the capacity and the bandwidth that I had during my clinical internship, like for three months I was in this zone state where I could do, I do like, it was like I was doing nothing but accomplishing everything.  I felt like I, everything was effortless, but I was performing at a such high [00:42:00] level and that’s what got me. Kind of really fascinated by Ayurveda. ’cause I was in this, and then after three months it disappeared. Never came back and I was searched for it. So I went to India, came back, did research, published studies on it, and we found that when you breathe your nose, it’s a game changer.  It changes the brainwave pattern to make you in a meditative state, even while you’re in vigorous exercise, which was an unprecedented finding as well.

Dr. Weitz: Oh, are there any auric herbs or daily rituals that you recommend for overall longevity?

Dr. Douillard: There’s an herb called Ashwagandha. Many folks probably heard about it of course.  And it’s a really important herb, particularly if you use the root and use the whole root with the natural bugs on it. Not an extract. ’cause that’s where we’re just trying to be American. I’m gonna give you the same herb that’s really good at a hundred times potency. And it’s gotta be better, right?  Because it’s better. Bigger is better, right? America? No, it’s actually not. The more in [00:43:00] Ayurveda, the more subtle something is, the more powerful it is. And that’s the beauty of it. So I would use those herbs which first do no harm. ’cause you’re taking foods that were put in soups and ensues for thousands of years into your system.

The body recognizes them as whole. When you start to mess with the microbiome and it’s may take potent, make one constituent more potent by a hundred times. You’re creating something completely different than what nature intended. But Ashwagandha being a really powerful agent, it’s an herb you can take in the morning or run a marathon.  Studies show you can take it before you go to bed and sleep like a baby. It’s been shown to protect your mood, helps you handle stress mentally, physically, and emotionally. So that would better be, and with winter coming, it’s a fall harvested winter root. So it’s giving you the right bugs for the winter season to rebuild you.  And rejuvenate you. It’s a root. That’s why the roots are harvested in the fall and in the, and they build natural production. 

Dr. Weitz:  Now, what form do you recommend taking Europe? Is it are you making a tea out of it? Is [00:44:00] it in a capsule? What form do you prefer?

Dr. Douillard: You can make a tea out of it. If you add the actual root, you could just throw it in a pot and make soup out of it.  But I, what we do is we take the root, not the leaf, not the stem, just the root, and we grind it into, and why

Dr. Weitz: just the root.

Dr. Douillard: Because some of the constituents in the leaves in the stem are, they’re way more abundant. They’re cheaper in the marketplace, but they actually can cross some liver heat. Or sometimes if you take it long term, some people can have liver toxicity.  And this is why it’s really important to know what you’re doing because a lot of people say, oh take off. You’re gonna get the root to stand the leaf, grind it up, put in a powder. Now let’s make it more potent and give it to you as an extract that’s sterile versus taking only the root. With its natural occurring microbiome, that’s where the bugs go.  They go to the root first, and that’s, and that is safe to eat from an Ayurvedic perspective. And they knew that thousands of years ago, but now we have companies putting out root leaf stem herbs that’re not good for you. So it’s just [00:45:00] the ancient wisdom just carries a lot of weight. And then when you put the modern science together, it’s like, Hey, you know what?  They really didn’t know what they were doing and if they didn’t know what they were doing. They would’ve stopped doing it a, you know, a thousand or 2000 years ago. You don’t do the same dumb stuff. It’s not working for 5,000 years.

Dr. Weitz: Any other Ayurvedic herbs or daily rituals for longevity?

Dr. Douillard: Well, the other one is like, you know, in the summertime, the sun helps make serotonin in the body, helps stabilize your mood.  But in the winter. Sun goes to the southern hemisphere. We don’t have that, but nature had a plan for that, and that was in the roots like turmeric, ashwagandha, bacopa, they’re all roots of herbs. Bacopa is an herb that is used for mood stability, mantle focus, attention deficit. It’s a brain derived neurotropic factor A-B-D-N-F, which means it’s gonna build brain cells and may help you handle stress better.  Turmeric, we’ve already talked about a powerful anti-inflammatory, a ary, which means it heals the lining of your incest tract. Also supports [00:46:00] depression by 64% compared to the placebo. So it’s like, has really amazing properties because of its serotonin boosting ability. And those are herbs that are naturally occurring in the fall for the winter because of the roots.  And they give us that serotonin boost when we need it, when we don’t have the sun to make our serotonin forests.

Dr. Weitz: Interesting. Great. So, any final thoughts you have for us?

Dr. Douillard: Yeah, I would say that the other last piece of the puzzle, if there’s a last piece here would from the circadian rhythm perspective, you know, we have a lot of folks intermittent fasting today and one of the, yeah.

Dr. Weitz:  What do you think about intermittent fasting?

Dr. Douillard: You know, they used the word supper comes from the word soup or supplemental. So that was always a meal that was smaller and supplemental and across the world, everywhere except for America. To this day, the biggest meal of the day was the middle of the [00:47:00] day.

And our culture. When we were agricultural, the biggest meal of the day was the middle of the day meal. And so people would have a breakfast and then they have a big lunch, and then have a supper, a small supper. When intermittent fasting came along, we decided to skip breakfast, have a cup of black coffee, and then have lunch and dinner, and now we’re back loading our food.

And we’re eating more food. Towards the end of the day when the sun sets, the cooks go home, there’s nobody there to cook at the biological clocks. We’re eating turn off. So we’re eating a lot of food when the body can’t digest it, where the science now shows. And Achin Panda, who wrote the circadian code now is confirmed that he’s the researcher on this, that the best time to eat is your breakfast and your lunch and have a lighter dinner, which was been.

You know, understood, written thousands upon thousands years ago, and we’re still fighting over, I want to skip my breakfast and have a lunch in there because, yeah, it’s more convenient. But the, I mean, the takeaway here is. [00:48:00] Have your biggest meal in the middle of the day when your body’s biological clocks for eating are turned on, and try to eat a little bit less at night, a little less or a little earlier in the evening and in the morning.

Doesn’t have to be a massive, big old breakfast, but a little bit to tell the body. That it’s daytime and metabolism needs to get kicked on. You know what I mean? So if I’m gonna do intermittent fasting and wanna lose some weight, I’ll have a breakfast, a small breakfast, big enough to get to lunch, a nice big lunch, and then nothing for supper, and have a fast from lunch all the way till breakfast.  And you do that for two or three weeks, lose that extra five pounds, whatever you’re looking for. Then you can go back to having three meals a day as long as suppers earlier and smaller. You know, pig out at that nine o’clock meal because that’s gonna be there all night long and it’ll sit there in the morning.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah, I’ve actually been doing that sort of program for quite a number of years specifically on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays only. ’cause I found it worked for me because those would be my [00:49:00] busiest days in the clinic, and I never liked the idea of eating late and going to sleep. And I’m an early riser, so I’ve been skipping dinner for years now, and it just worked for me.  I’ve always liked having a bigger breakfast and. For me, I, that’s my biggest meal, and then I have a medium sized lunch.

Dr. Douillard: Yeah, that’s great. I mean, there’s really good science on the benefits of a breakfast. You know, it protects people from long-term diabetes. It helps people from gaining weight. There’s, the research on it is really compelling.  And so it’s a metabolic activator and if you don’t have that, it doesn’t need to be, you make it for you. It works having a bigger, making your bigger meal, but it definitely needs to be something for folks, you know, and everybody’s gonna be a little bit different, but

Dr. Weitz: yeah. Yeah, I always find it helpful to start today with some quality protein to get my blood sugar on an even keel through the rest of the day.

Dr. Douillard: Yeah, that makes sense. Great sense.

Dr. Weitz: Good. So, since we’re [00:50:00] wrapping up here how can listeners learn more about you and your work?

Dr. Douillard: The way you can go to our website which is life spa.com, L-I-F-E-S-P a.com. In there we’ve got 1500 or so articles all about ancient medical wisdom. With the modern science.  We go to the extra mile to find that science and you can just type in your health concern and you’ll find. Probably multiple articles about, you know, the Ancient Wizard of Modern Science and see if it makes sense to you. I mean, it just makes sense to see the science and what the ancient practice was, so you’re not actually just out there on the next, you know, craze, trendy thing that might be here today.  And gone tomorrow. And there we have a newsletter. You can sign up for my newsletter there as well. Get that information regular. We’re constantly digging into more research and we have an Ayurvedic store. I’ve been formulating Ayurvedic herbs and skincare and different products. And my books and tapes are there@lifespa.com, at the store as well.  And I’m on all social channels as well, if you wanna follow me there.

Dr. Weitz: That’s great, [00:51:00] John. This was an enlightening conversation about our ayurvedic wisdom and how it can help us optimize our health.

Dr. Douillard: Yeah. I appreciate it, Ben. Thanks for having me. It’s been great to share this with you guys.

Dr. Weitz: Thank you very much.

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Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would very much appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcast or Spotify and give us a five star ratings and review. As you may know. I continue to accept a limited number of new patients per month for functional medicine.  If you would like help overcoming a gut or other chronic health condition and want to prevent chronic problems and wanna promote longevity. Please call my Santa Monica Weitz Sports chiropractic and nutrition office at 310-395-3111 and we can set you up for a consultation for functional medicine and I will talk to everybody next week.