The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Chronic Disease: The Simple Steps That Actually Work | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Wed, 01 Jan 2025
Did you know many chronic diseases—like type 2 diabetes, anxiety, and fatigue—can be reversed? In this episode of “The Dr. Hyman Show,” Dr. Rangan Chatterjee breaks down how lifestyle changes, mindset shifts, and trusting your body can transform your health. We explore the hidden role of diet, stress, sleep, and movement in reversing illness naturally, while exposing what Western medicine often overlooks. If you’re ready to reclaim your health, this episode is your starting point. In this episode, we discuss: Reversing Type 2 diabetes The dangers of ultra-processed foods and how cutting them out for as little as 10 days can significantly improve energy, sleep, and overall health. How socioeconomic factors, corporate influence, and environmental toxins contribute to chronic disease. The power of journaling, meditation, and routines to create a sense of control in an unpredictable world. Practical, no-cost tools—like mindfulness, whole-food eating, and lifestyle tweaks—that anyone can use to improve their health. View Show Notes From This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal Transform your habits and unlock lasting change with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee's revolutionary approach in his newest book, Make Change That Lasts. Discover simple, science-backed strategies to create a life of health, happiness, and purpose—one small shift at a time. This episode is brought to you by Seed. Seed is offering my community 25% off to try DS-01® for themselves. Visit Seed.com/Hyman and use code 25HYMAN for 25% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic.
Chapter 1: What steps can I take to trust myself in my health journey?
You know, chapter one in this book is called Trust Yourself. And I feel that we've outsourced our inner expertise to external experts. And I say that as a so-called expert myself.
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To incorporate DS01 into your daily routine, Seed is offering my community 25% off your first month with code 25HYMAN. Head to seed.com slash hyman. That's seed.com slash H-Y-M-A-N for 25% off your first month. Before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at this scale.
And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real-time lab insights. If you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, hymenhive.com.
And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your routine, visit my website, Supplement Store, for a summary of my favorite and tested products. Hi, I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, a practicing physician and proponent of systems medicine, a framework to help you understand the why or the root cause of your symptoms. Welcome to the doctor's pharmacy.
Every week, I bring on interesting guests to discuss the latest topics in the field of functional medicine and do a deep dive on how these topics pertain to your health. In today's episode, I have some interesting discussions with other experts in the field. So let's just trump right in. So Rangan, it's so amazing to have you here in Austin in my studio for the podcast.
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Chapter 2: How can cutting ultra-processed foods improve my health?
I was thinking about my backgrounds because, you know, my parents were Indian immigrants to the UK. And so I have, like many immigrant families, you're exposed to two different cultures. I'm exposed to my Indian culture at home and my Western culture at school. And I really thought about why, you know, the difference between that. And for example, as a child,
If I had a sore throat or a fever, my mom would put extra turmeric in our food or she'd make me fresh ginger and fresh honey and turmeric and make me drink some hot water with it. So I grew up, you know, in many- Food is medicine. Food is medicine. But then you go to medical school, you're like, oh, this content isn't there. So you forget about it.
And then I think it's not about pitting one against the other. It's saying they both have incredible value. Let's bring them together. Let's use the right approach at the right time. But the problem is, as you know, in Western medicine, we've gone too far to one extreme whereby everything's a problem. Everything needs to be treated with pharmaceuticals. And it's simply not true.
And I think what you're, I just want to double click on what you said before about lifestyle as treatment. And, you know, I'm a doctor, you're a doctor, and we want our patients to feel better. And we will do whatever it takes, whether it's surgery or radiation or chemo or pharmaceutical. But we have to find the right treatment for the right problem.
And, you know, that old saying, all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
essentially doctors all they're having when they graduate from medical school is either a knife or a prescription pad yeah and those are inadequate to treat most of the things that we have and you know if if there was a better drug to treat diabetes than lifestyle then of course we should use it yeah and there isn't like you can't reverse type 2 diabetes with medication period yeah but you can and i've done it
dozens and hundreds of times likewise i mean it just it's it's like a no-brainer and that's why it's so or it can be so frustrating for medical professionals who know how to do that when we see what the guidelines say but even alzheimer's autoimmune diseases depression yeah you know heart failure things that parkinson's things that we thought were really untreatable yeah and what's fascinating is that
We can almost flip it instead of looking at the symptoms. And of course, looking at the symptoms is important. But, you know, for many years, I've been talking about these four pillars of health, food, movement, sleep and relaxation. Okay. And I've always said that these four pillars... Community? Yeah. Yeah. Friends. For sure. I agree.
So I, you know, in those pillars, I put that under the sort of relaxation pillar, but yes, we can make it five. We could add in natural light to that and make it six. But what I love about those pillars is that if you have a patient with chronic disease and if you do nothing else, but initially focus on those four areas,
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Chapter 3: What role do socioeconomic factors play in chronic disease?
But that external knowledge is not enough. I opened my new book with a very powerful story of a GP colleague of mine, a medical colleague, an expert in type 2 diabetes. You know, she'd always send me the latest papers with her own informed commentary on them and emails. And then one day she actually sent me a text message saying, hey, Ranga, are you around this weekend? I really need to chat.
So I arranged to meet her. And what happened is that she basically said that there was a patient that week in her clinic who with a diagnosis of type two diabetes. And she was trying to educate the patient and said, listen, look, excess sugar, too many ultra processed foods, it's gonna cause your body to be inflamed, it's gonna affect your gut microbiome.
And she was trying to educate this patient and the patient just stopped her and said, why should I listen to you? You're fatter than I am.
That's what the diabetes doctor.
Yeah. The patient said it to the doctor.
That's crazy.
Yeah. But what's really interesting, right, is because we can debate whether it was the right thing for that patient to say or not. But the point of me opening this new book with that story is to demonstrate a really important point. I met my friend for a coffee that weekend and she said, you know what, Rangan? The truth is the patient was right. The patient was absolutely right.
What the patient doesn't know is that in my drawer, I have big bags of Cadbury's giant buttons. So the point is she had all the knowledge. Many of us have the knowledge. We have the external knowledge, but that's not inner awareness. That's not wisdom. And I think this is the missing piece
They're very disconnected from themselves.
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Chapter 4: How can mindfulness practices aid in health transformation?
So I made a rule about five, six years ago. I can't remember when. I just internalized this rule that I'm no longer going to outsource my movement to electronic devices where possible, right? So I'm always going to take the stairs unless there's a really good reason not to. I was thinking you couldn't listen to music while you work out.
I'm like, no, no, no.
Yeah.
so so this rule for me right and i'm only sharing i'm not saying everyone has to do it i'm sharing it in case it's useful for someone i basically decided from that day my default becomes taking the stairs now i recognize i'm physically able not everyone is so i'm i'm able to do that i have two legs that are working okay so for me it's a great rule because it means when i go to the supermarket and the car park is on the second floor
I don't think I've taken the stairs. Sorry, I don't think I've taken the elevator in about five years. I'll walk down the stairs, do my shopping, and I'll walk up the stairs with my bags. That's why you got those ripped bicep. Well, the thing is, I don't go to the gym much, Mark, right?
I do a five-minute strength workout every morning that I've told you about on this show before, and I still do it every morning while my coffee brews because I apply the two most important principles of behavior change, which is, one, make it easy, two, stick it onto an existing habit. So I do that.
But even when I arrived in America 10 days ago at LA airport, I remember 14 hour flight or by the time with my connecting plane and you get off and there were these two long escalators and one long flight of stairs. My default has become, and I did this just 10 days ago, I get off the plane, I walk up the stairs with my bags, and I was the only one I saw.
Now, I don't want people to feel bad, Mark, because I understand we're hardwired for comforts, but that is a rule, a discomfort rule, that has helped me immeasurably in my life. Now, look. I got to Austin last night, right? I got to my hotel late last night and I was on the 33rd floor. I did not go up 33 flights, okay?
So I'm saying, I don't always, but if you don't have a rule like that, it means that 95% of the time you're taking the lift.
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