EP083 | The Future of Functional Medicine in India- Systems, Scale and what truly helps patients

Functional medicine isn't just an alternative, it's a new paradigm that integrates systems to address chronic conditions at their roots. 

Today, I’m joined by Dr. Anish Musa, a pioneer in functional medicine in India, who’s bridging the gap between conventional care and lifestyle-driven healing. His unique approach is reshaping how we understand and treat chronic health issues.

Dr. Anish Musa is an ophthalmic surgeon turned lifestyle medicine practitioner and founder of Vita One, a platform dedicated to evidence-based, sustainable health practices. 

In our conversation today, we explore his journey from conventional medicine to functional medicine, the evolving role of AI in healthcare, and why the future of chronic health care lies in integrating multiple modalities. 

His story will resonate with anyone who's felt let down by the limitations of traditional medicine and is ready to explore new pathways to healing.

In this conversation, we talk about:

• Dr. Anish’s personal journey from conventional ophthalmology to functional medicine.
• How functional medicine is being integrated into mainstream practices in India.
• The challenges and breakthroughs of merging conventional and alternative practices.
• Why functional medicine is a systems-based approach, not just another “alternative” therapy.
• Insights into the role of emotional health and behavior change in managing chronic conditions.
• The growing importance of AI in supporting functional medicine practices.
• The vision for functional medicine in India: creating a unified, integrative ecosystem.
• Practical steps for healthcare practitioners to adopt functional medicine in their practice.

Dr. Anish’s vision for the future of functional medicine is inspiring, and it’s clear that we’re at the cusp of a major shift in healthcare. Healing becomes easier when we integrate the wisdom of multiple systems — body, mind, and spirit. 

Together, we can create a healthcare environment that addresses the root causes of chronic illness with compassion and clarity.

Website: https://ultrawellness.in/

Resources & Next Steps:

• Download The Body's Whisper Starter Kit
• Book a 20-min Clarity Call
• Explore a Healing Roadmap Session to personalise your next steps

Transcript

Welcome! I am so honored. I am so excited to welcome Doctor Anish Musa.  I'm speaking with someone today who is quietly reshaping how preventative and metabolic health is practiced in India, and much beyond that, actually, we'll be talking about some some of his initiatives going on right now. Doctor Anish Musa is a physician, lifestyle medicine practitioner and founder of Vita one, a platform dedicated to simple, evidence based sustainable care. And what I really admire about his work is how seamlessly he bridges conventional medicine with root cause, lifestyle driven healing. And that's actually how we connected several years ago. His approach is grounded, practical and deeply aligned with helping people reconnect with with their bodies. And again, that's where our philosophies match. And through Vita one, he supports individuals with metabolic issues, gut challenges, inflammation and lifestyle change. That is all that is required when we are dealing with all kinds of chronic health issues. But there are many other things that we will talk about today. Some other initiative that he's working on currently, his vision about the future of functional medicine in India and beyond that. So once again, welcome, Doctor Anish. So happy to have you here today. 

Welcome to Embrace Your Healing Journey, a podcast for women with autoimmune and other chronic conditions to help them navigate their illness without fear of isolation and uncertainty and find relief from their symptoms. Your body is your guide and ally in healing. If you're ready to embrace this journey with compassion and awareness, then this show is for you. Tune in weekly as I, a Functional medicine Certified Health Coach, deliver tips and insights that demystify the healing process, guiding you towards the relief you deserve so that you can feel healthy and happy once more. Yes, thank you very much, Ananda. And, uh, you know, we had, uh, I can say we had started the awareness of medicine in India. And I recall, you know, I think, uh, nine years, ten years back, we had a discussion and we had a very first, I think, I can say, very first foundational functional medicine workshop that we had done in Ahmedabad, where, you know, we had aware the people about the functional medicine. And at that time, nobody knew about the word functional medicine. And from where we had started creating awareness about the root cause. Medicine, functional medicine. And now I'm seeing from that point in India, we a functional medicine has grown out like, you know, it is coming out of, uh, something and then it is growing in India. So, yeah, thank you very much for inviting me in your podcast. And yeah, happy to discuss with you. And always, you know, I feel love and honor to be with you. Thank you so much for sharing that. Yes, we did start that. And I remember that workshop in Ahmedabad very well. I don't think people had a clue about functional medicine or health coaching at that time. So either of you know, so but we've come. Yeah, you're right, we have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. But it's always good to look back and appreciate how much you know the progress that we have made. But let's start at the beginning. Um, and if you want to like to share how you got started, you know, what is your sort of story of getting into functional medicine in the first place? Because you were, you know, in the conventional medicine practice, uh, to begin with. Now you're blending. But how did you start there? Yeah. So my story is I started, uh, I was, oh, by the way, ophthalmic surgeon. And I'm doing ophthalmic surgery practice. Uh, so I passed my surgeries in 2005, and from that onward, I was a happy ophthalmologist. I am doing my surgery, and I love my surgeries. And because I want to be a surgeon. Uh, what what I, I entered in a medical school. Uh, but later on, you know, I started having some kind of, uh, IBS. And then I got a muscular pain, IBS, and there is no clue. I've done a multiple time, uh, endoscopy and colonoscopy and, you know, IBS, they say that, you know, this is a functional disorder. So, uh, in short, I don't find out solution in conventional medicine. And then finally passing through all these symptoms again and again, uh, conventional medicine failed me, and they diagnosed me as a depression. So they want to put me on antidepressant. And at that point, I asked myself, is it really me who get depressed? And that question has gone deeper, deeper in my heart. And from that I started looking at what is going on. And then, you know, at that time I started internet and I found very interesting guy, uh, doctor Jerry Tennant. And he brought me, uh, in a functional medicine, what I say and then I was connected with him because he's also a technologist, and he passed through a different story, but he was, uh, coming from the same conventional background, what I had learned. And then he was turned to be a electro medicine physician. Then he had done a lot of research, and I was passionate about his work. And one day I got his email. And that saves me that. Now functional medicine is accepting micro current or electro medicine. That email strike in my main. Oh, what is this functional medicine is. And that is a you know that is starting point. Then I go on, I search the functional medicine and end up with IFM. And that's how my journey started. And looking at deeper what is going on. What's the what's what's thing we can think beyond conventional ophthalmology or conventional practice now. And we will talk a bit about what you believe is the future of functional medicine, especially in India, and how we can scale, because I think that's where we need to be. When we started so many years back, I think about almost nine, ten years back, it was a different thing because we were all trying to figure out what this is. And it's so interesting because you share your story. I share my story of trying to help my daughter, because so many of us come from a background where conventional medicine but a failed us. It's not to say conventional, of course doesn't work, but it doesn't work when in the case of chronic conditions like we are talking about that, that's where the problem lies, because it doesn't really address the root causes, because, as you said, you were going to be given medicine for a depression. I mean, it was not depression. It was a, you know, a root cause was your gut health. Same with my daughter. She was put on one medication after another, but nobody was addressing negative. So she was so, you know, it's really interesting and I'm really glad not I would not say glad none of us would like to be in a position like that. But I'm glad that we, you know, so many of us have found a way out of this, and now we are shining a light for others to, you know, sort of also come through. Right? It's it's so hard to be stuck. And we all know that. So tell me now focusing a bit on functional medicine and India in particular, because I know that you are doing a lot of work in that area. So what convinced you that functional medicine can scale and how it should scale and should scale in India, or could scale in India? Yeah. So no, I will I will share the story again. So after that, you know, uh, when I had gone to the IFM and I searched IFM, I found out they are doing a conference in China. This is about in 2016. You know, I got the information from them. And and then I decided to go in China to, uh, what's going on in functional medicine. That is the first time I had gone to China. That time I seen that, uh, the doctor who is running the conference in China is Doctor Ho, and he's a pathologist in USA. So he left the USA and he came in China. And then he is, uh, before I came there, since five years, he is spreading a functional medicine in China. And that blew my mind 2016, 2016. So he he maybe started in 20 1213, I don't know. But he told me that five years they are running a running all functional medicine awareness practices and they are teaching functional medicine over there. IFM is coming from the USA to the China and teaching the functional medicine. And look at the crowd in the entire hall. There are 300 Chinese practitioner doctors. And look at look at the energy. Because the speakers are from USA and they don't know Chinese. Same way the crowd is Chinese, they don't know English. And although you can see the energy and how they are exchanging how they are interested. So I thought why these people are interested in functional medicine and that, you know, after coming from the China, I just I have one idea, you know, let's do something in a functional medicine. Let's build a functional medicine ecosystem in India. And from that onward, I am just trying to build an ecosystem around the functional medicine. You know, how we can make the functional medicine work in India. So how we can do nutrition, how we can train the coaching. And then slowly this ecosystem has started building our building in India. So yes, of course, if you look at if you look at even the conventional medicine, then I look at the conventional medicine from the different point of view. I consider conventional medicine is a one lens from where we see the patient. Right. And then there is a hammer, right. How we can use a tool. So I am looking at what base tool conventional medicine is used for acute condition. Yeah, that's a very, very helpful tool. And for diagnostic yeah we can diagnose the deeper inflammation. We can diagnose the gut health. So many things we can do. So that tool is very important. But when it comes to the chronic condition we only have symptomatic treatment with that. Right. And that's important. So I say we start from the good medicine. And then we look at deeper and find out what is the root cause, why the symptoms occur in the first place, where we can apply the other methods and the therapies and functional medicine. So I often say that functional medicine is not an alternate science. It's a very foundation science where you can apply from whatever the background knowledge you have. You can apply this one right. But you if you learn the principle of functional medicine, then you can apply all the different, different, uh, knowledge and science and all these things you can apply. So it is not just an, uh, one medicine, one supplement. It's basically I can say it's a operating system. It's a thinking process, how you can think for the chronic conditions and that will that will change your state of mind and that will change. So coming to your point that functional medicine is a future for chronic health condition. So in future it will be a foundational operating system where we're going to connect the dots of allopathic diabetic even we can collect the other therapies and Mind-Body medicines and healing and emotional healing and coaching everything come in that platform. So functional medicine, we have to think in a bigger way. It's not just an alternate science. I think that's a very important point you're making. Um, when you're saying that it's not alternate science. I mean, we tend to think of it. I mean, a lot of people tend to think of it as, uh, even radar or homeopathy or anything else as an alternative medicine. Uh, but as you said, it's a, it's a, it's a thinking it's actually bad. We call it the systems biology approach. It's a different way of thinking. It's a paradigm shift, actually. Basically, that's what it is. And uh, what you said is so true that it can bring people from all different modalities. That's the beauty of this, because it's a way of thinking. It's a it's a different paradigm. And it beautifully also complement, uh, conventional medicine where it needs to see. That's the thing a lot of people, I think, get stuck. I mean, you can share your view is in either our thinking approach, you know, that it either has to be this either I should go in for, uh, you know, medication, treatments, etc., or I can do these other things. I believe a lot of times you need both. I mean, you need the diagnosis, you need the interventions, you need the medications to, you know, manage some of the symptoms. At the same time, you need to figure out what's going on, what is at the root, uh, address that. What is your emotional health? Uh, what have you seen? I mean, have you noticed this? Yeah. Yeah. So I have experience with that. You know, uh, my mother actually diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And she was a case where Alzheimer's disease is very rare. I was in a second MBBS, and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And that Alzheimer was very early onset Alzheimer. And that is very, very, very rare. Nobody knows about the Alzheimer. So after she diagnosed Alzheimer we gone the conventional medicine approach. And of course we have to go on there. And as they don't have a treatment, even right now, they don't have a treatment. And before 20 years they don't have any treatment over there. So me and my father bring my mother to, uh, conventional medicine doctor, neuro physician, and then we go to the doctor, we go to a homeopathic doctor, whatever, whatever the available therapies we have. But that was frustrating. You know, when I go to the doctor, they say, stop the medicine, and this is going to work. And we say that nothing is working. This says, oh, because you are taking allopathic medicine. That's why the medicine is not working. I go the homeopathic doctor. Then they say, oh, stop everything and then focus on my therapies. So at that time, you know, something came in my mind why I am going for each and every therapy. Why don't should be having one common science. We can address these kind of chronic conditions. Ultimately, the dealing with an Alzheimer in the family is very, very heartbreaking. It's very frustrating. You know, at that time we have passed a lot of pain. But that things, you know, click in my mind. I think that is the connection I'm carrying and why I when I learned the functional medicine and immediately jump on it, this will give the answer to that my particular thoughts and problem. And right now I'm seeing from last 2 or 3 last five years I am seeing a patients and same thing, same thing is happening with these kind of patients. You know, they come. They go to the different different therapies and they don't have any kind of, you know, connections. And they are frustrated. They don't know what to do. So that's that's very painful if you look at it from patient's point of view. So I take a I started, you know, taking a mission like, you know, let's make a one medicine. That's integrative medicine where we can use everything. Why should we limit ourselves? And living in a only one science or other science? Why don't we create, come out of and think out of box and make a one operating system? Now everything is important. We cannot say. So if you look at the way that we have years and years of experience writing, thousands of years of experience we have, and that knowledge, we are collected with experience. You know, and in a in a conventional medicine also, we say trial and error. So already we have a whole knowledge plethora of knowledge over there. Thus, we have to combine the science over there and let's do so. The problem what I'm facing, or I'm seeing with my experience is every party has their own ego and they don't start to expand, start to accept other's knowledge, other things. But we have to break this and we have to think out of box and how we can combine this, how we can find out a solution. Ultimately, as a practitioner, as you say that, you know, we are here to help people so that we have to let us explore that. How to be a open dialogue discussion, how we can work on this one. And I think that what we are discussing today and what I'm discussing with some other practitioners, you know, hopefully this will be that dialogue that is so important. And I'm so sorry to hear about your mother, but I mean, I do know how painful it is, not only for the patient, but for the entire family going through pillar to post to find those answers. And as you said, you know, once somebody says this is the right thing, somebody else says that is the right. And in fact, one of my clients said a very interesting thing. You know, I'm I'm not from a medical background, as you know, I am a trained as a coach. And then I also have some functional medicine clinical knowledge. But at the end of the day, I don't diagnose, I don't prescribed medication treatment. But I do a very important thing, and I don't think I appreciated how important is the work that I do. I mean, that, you know, you have these moments that something happens. Somebody tells you something. Turning point. So for me, that was my turning point. This was a I think about a year and a half ago. I was working with this client for a while. I think I was already working with her for more than six months. She was seeing and she's still seeing because she has multiple health issues, very, very complicated. She's had cancer in the past. Uh, they, you know, she's under watch for another type of cancer right now when you've been through chemo and the treatment is always that thing of it coming back in another form. So anyway, so she's with that, then she has multiple autoimmune conditions in multiple organs. So she has doctors. So it's it's a lot. And I have helped her to a large extent. You know the on the basics the the the nervous system the coaching. That coaching works beautifully in changing the way we think about food in relationship with her body, with food, etc. but I still don't think I appreciate it till she told me one day because she was seeing the doctor about 5 or 6 specialists in these. Okay. And the therapist because, you know, she was also going so mad. So I told her that, you know, I as a coach, I'm not your therapist, but you can see a therapist. What she told me is that you are the only person I go to. Six people, including a therapist, and they all helping me in different ways. They're giving me medication because there's a lot going on. And some of them. She needs medication. You're the only person who sees me as a person. Who puts it all together. You are in my corner. I know that when I come to your session, you will hear me out. You will listen to me and you will allow me to be myself. We are looking at me as a person, not as a disease, not as a diagnosis, not as something to be solved, to be fixed. And that was the day because till then I'm thinking, okay, she's already going to seek specialist, you know, how much more can I give her? Because I can't really change her medications or anything. Right. But that was my turning point. So I was like, okay. Yeah, that's that's that's what that's what we are seeing. And that's also not what is back. One doctor came over here and he was by the ophthalmologist. He's working nearby here. So we are just discussing about an ophthalmology disease and what functional medicine help in ophthalmology. So I told when I learned the ophthalmic disease certain diseases like if you know about the glaucoma or hydro satellites or uveitis. So we used to consider that as a localized eye disorder. That is what in conventional science we had learned that one. So I told I told him after learning a functional medicine I don't consider this. Chronic conditions are a localized disease. They are a systemic disorder. We have to change and we have to change the classification. And we cannot say it's just what you are seeing in eyes is not just are occurred in our state, in eyes is because something is happening in somewhere else. So so that's why we have to, you know, explore, expand our horizon. And we can see. But you are right. Uh, because conventional medicine, we are trained in such a different way, and that is why we are not looking at whole body picture, we are just looking at the isolated picture. So if you go to the cardiologist, you only look at the heart. If you go to the gastroenterologist, they look at the heart. That is important from the acute point of view. That's very important because your focus is very narrow and you want to target that tissues or that organ. It's absolutely fine. Yes, but that body view is not sufficient in case of chronic condition that we know and what we learn in functional medicine. And actually that's what we are focusing on, because there is a lot of research already done in the acute condition space, the emergency care. And I think that's brilliant and that's so needed. I mean, antibiotics are needed to save millions of lives. But we also need this. And that's why we are discussing this today actually. So if we were to name two top, um, barriers to adoption of functional medicine, or this way of thinking where we are integrating all kinds of modalities, what do you think they are? I mean, I know things are changing and how do we solve them in a practical manner? What are the barriers that you see or you are seeing yourself. So. Yeah. So no, I can say my experience with my practice in functional medicine, I started ten years before. And so, you know, I thought, you know, maybe conventional doctor or they will oppose the idea about functional medicine, lifestyle medicine, nutrition. They're going to oppose the idea. But but something strange happen actually they are sending their families to me. I was surprised. You know, because they know in my town I am autonomous, but I am doing a weight loss. I am doing some autoimmune condition. I am expert in thyroid, so they are sending the patient and the families to me. So I thought, you know, deeper wound. Even if in a conventional medicine deeper down we know we know that there is limitations of conventional medicine. Of course that is a very important. But we know from deep heart that no patient is suffering patients coming back. So many of the doctors right now, they are interested in functional medicine going beyond health, beyond the symptomatic management. They want to also learn the nutrition. They want to also learn the coaching. They want to also learn the different modalities in functional medicine. So yeah, yes, you are right. There is a barrier in adoption of functional medicine. But that is happening with any new technology when they are coming. So the barrier is because they don't have a knowledge and education how to operate this functional medicine in clinical setting. Because if you look at all the converse, even if you look at the rest of the way, they can evaluate in all these therapies. So there is a typical mindset like, you know, within a ten 15 minutes you have to see the patients. Then we have to prescribe the medicine, look and look at the I can say myself, I will, I will not say about others. But when I was the conventional ophthalmologist, what is my mind, how I am thinking? You know, when the questions come, my quicker job is to look at the patients. I, I don't know, I don't look right and left. I just look at with the microscope. I look at the patient sigh. And my job is to diagnose the cataract and restore pathology, what I can see in ophthalmology. And then my mind start quickly. Can I fix with medicine? If answer is yes, then I prescribe the medicine. If the answer is no, I offer surgeries. Mm. Yeah. Oral procedure. That is the things, you know. Because we are. We want to see a lot of patients and we don't have don't have that much time to look at this one. And we are trained in this one. Just fix it. And of course surgery can fix so many things. But chronic conditions we cannot we cannot do this one. So that is the mindset of conventional conventional thinking. So if we can educate them, if we can aware the physicians, they are ready to accept the new technology or new ecosystem and and from the weight of an education, of course, last two years we had we had trained 2000 practitioner in a functional medicine education. So I think there is a barrier, uh, to adopt this, this new modality. Or we can say a new operating system, but eventually the world is moving. So you have to adapt. So if you want to work in a chronic or chronic segment, then of course you have to upgrade your upgrade your knowledge and practice in a functional medicine. Another barrier. Another barrier. If you talk about the barrier, then in a functional medicine, we take a lot of time with the patient. It's not easy. Let's say you share the story of that patient. You must be given your time, your emotions, your personal space to them. And it is not. Not everybody can do this. Yeah, a lot of time. And even if you look at the conventional medicine. So before ten years, I need to take an 2 or 3 hours with the one patient to just look at the system dysfunction and root cause versus I'm just taking a ten minutes for the surgery and I'm getting the machine on more and more, more money in a, in a, in a conventional surgery. So, you know, people around my family said, why are you wasting your time in doing a functional medicine? Just focus on surgery. You can get a lot of things without any mental stress. The patient is gone. Everything is done. So but I was passionate. This is about something. But, uh, what I am observing from the last 2 or 3 years that technology and AI that can reduce this space, reduce the time of doctors to collect the information and look at the root cause in different ways. So I think when technology come and I come, that will reduce the barrier between adoption and the functional medicine. Now. So very important. Yeah. Because as you said. Correct. I mean, as you said, that anybody who is coming into these kind of professions, whether it's coaching, whether it's functional, all kinds of medicine, it doesn't really matter. They are here because they want to help people get well. Nobody is coming, you know, otherwise. And, uh, but the system is such that, you know, as you said, I can give time because my system is my practice is designed in that manner. Coaching is designed but not. But a conventional practice is not so that that the huge barrier. And I think the other point that you were making is true. And I think we are trying to sort of bridge that gap between certainly is and I think we are having other training modules also on functional medicine and health coaching to help bridge that gap, to bring about that awareness that you were talking about, for practitioners as well as non-medical professionals who want to become coaches or, you know, at least using the functional medicine paradigm. So that's shifting. That's why I think you said last few years, but it's a we can I think we can both see that shifting now. And and I think the pace is picking up now which was very good. Yeah. Yeah it's very slow but it's a slow. Yeah. And what I learned from my experience is, you know, in conventional chronic condition care. One person cannot help. One practitioner cannot help. It's a team work basically. So if I'm a doctor and I want to help a patient, I cannot do alone. Because when we talk, it's a lifestyle disorder, a dysfunction. Sometimes patients have emotional dysfunction, sometimes they have a vagus nerve. We have to work on a vagus nerve. We have to work on a restore things, you know? So I think, uh, it's a teamwork, not a just an, uh, doctor job or practitioner or coach's job or nutritionist job. It's basically at the end of teamwork. So if you can, if you can have a good team and good environment, then we can heal the patients. And of course, the, uh, the functional medicine is going very, very, you know, based and, and this is now coming. So I can see now functional medicine in the new world. So we initially know we have to then when we are doing a conference in a, in a endeavor, we have to say everybody asking what is functional medicine now people are coming. They already know the functional medicine and then they are coming. Now they are a functional medicine expert or functional medicine practitioner or coach. Is there coming to us like this way. So I'm I'm feeling very glad and honored for that. Yeah. So things have changed. And I say the same thing. And you're right again that, uh, you know, we cannot do this by ourselves at all. It needs a team. And I think you're building one and we'll talk about that. But where do you see, uh, coaches also fitting in inside the functional medicine clinic or as one of the, you know, the members of the team that you were talking about. And if you have any personal experience that you want to share. I mean, we have worked together on a workshop or in a couple of places, but anything that you would like to share? Uh, because that is sometimes the missing piece as well. Like one thing that goes missing, uh, wherein, uh, you know, bridging the gap between what the client actually, you know, and the example let me put it this way. The example that I share is, uh, you know, most people know what they need to do, or if they don't, they can go to somebody who tells them. So we can give them. Even in functional medicine, in the case of functional medicine, the example I give, because it works, you know, it's very drastic example, extreme example is I tell somebody that, you know what, uh, uh, that, you know, the cigarette packets and you have those pictures in front of the packets. Like if pure was enough as a motivator or, you know, like telling somebody that you're going to, you know, get this disease was enough. People could have stopped smoking. I mean, just that picture would have been enough. It is not right. I mean, that's one very extreme example, but it's a very real example. But people still don't change. They still don't change their habits. They still. So, uh, do you have any thoughts that you could share? How? Health. Yeah. Yeah, I would say if you if you look at the, uh, my study in conventional medicine when I learned conventional medicine, you know, so when we talk about the conventional medicine, functional medicine, like conventional medicine point of view, what is. Oh, we have to be a good, good lifestyle. We have to eat a good food. We have to exercise, we have to do movement, we have to do a sleep and we don't do a stress. It is mentioned everywhere. It is mentioned everywhere. But still people. People are getting. People are getting a lifestyle disorder. Yeah. So what I learn in my experience is we should be having some practitioner who can work with that patient in that journey. They are missing that part. Just giving advice is not going to work in that. They need a they need somebody who can really solve their problem beyond their vision, beyond their thinking, beyond that behavior. So that's the behavior changes is what, uh, what is very important. And that's a that's an entirely different skill. If you advise somebody they will not change the behavior. Like as you said, if you if you say they don't smoke when you go to the dog doctor's cabin, they always say don't smoke and don't alcohol everything. Exercise. Good. Yeah. And but what I observe is when you say no, they will start more. That is not one word. So I think that that is very important where where coach is very important in life study. So see let's say what is a right now in India or even even a globe which is the most common disease. It's a lifestyle disorder. When we talk about lifestyle disorder who is who is a primary in charge of this lecture? Disorder is doctor who is taking care of lifestyle disorder. No. Doctor is not a primary care caregiver for lifestyle disorders. The patient primary caregiver is coaches and nutritionists. That's the primary primary care taker. Yeah. So I think for lifestyle disorder patient has to go in them first. And then so we told them you know correct lifestyle then what is the missing. Come to me and I can fix that. Mhm. So so that's that's a very important thing. And that's why we need a, I can say a huge army of coaches and nutritionists who can help to balance this metabolic lifestyle disorder at the end of the day. Right. So as a doctor we can prescribe but as a coach and support supporting system that really things should be should be happening in patient's life. Well this is the this coaches and nutritionists and all these are important. So I think what you are doing with Bitterman, because I am a part of the faculty myself for the coaching piece, and I love doing that coaching. I never knew that I would love to teach coaching. I know I'm a good coach, but that was quite exciting. So, uh, you can share some of I mean, I would love for you to share some of what Whitehaven is doing to bridge this gap that you were just talking about. The other point before that, I would just wanted to mention and we talk a bit about that as well, is the AI piece, because I think that's an upcoming piece going forward to bridge this need. There's going to be a huge there's a huge demand, but they're not enough. Uh, you know, people right now. And there are ways that we can harness the power of AI. Uh, so maybe we can talk about that. But, uh, let's start at Bitterman. I mean, what what else are you doing? I mean, I know that you're working on a couple of projects, so if you would like to share something, how that is bridging the gap. Yeah. So, you know, I told you my passion is to bring an ecosystem for the functional medicine around practitioner. So we started the Vita one, uh, six, seven years, seven years back where we are working on nutrition and we are doing a vitamin education where we have a functional medicine clinical nutrition course. And that course is entirely for the coaches, nutritionists and doctors who can have a foundational science behind the functional medicine, and this course is designed in such a way that you have a either you coming from the conventional medicine background or allopathic background or Ayurvedic or or coaches or nutritionists. So we are designing this Functional Medicine Foundation course in such a way that you can understand the functional medicine in a better way and your knowledge of nutrition. And that contains the 12 modules where we are seeing a lot of, you know, people are interested, uh, in a functional medicine, learning functional medicine. And of course, I told you more than 2000 practitioners last two years we had trained and we have seen a lot of, you know, interest. And they want to shift to the functional medicine. And of course, as you said, coaching is a very important part of functional medicine. So we are also teaching how to change the behavior. And you are a you are expert faculty in a functional medicine in that part. So my passion is to bring functional medicine to the practitioner. So ultimately patient get the benefit. And to support this system. We have started another project and we are building India's first integrative medicine tertiary center. I will not say the resort, but it's a tertiary center where we have accommodation and we are building a medical center where we want to bring the Ayurveda allopathic and the naturopathy. And what is this? What seems to know that working in that field, we're going to bring that valve and we want to innovate. You know, we want to innovate and we want to bring something, something new to a combination, and we can make someone different protocol. So. And also we are working on a very advanced wellness treatment over there. So here we're going to work on a hydrogen therapies uh ozone therapies hyperbaric oxygen therapies, electro medicine. It's my passion I told you from doctor Z and I learned the electro medicine. And you know, I'm passionate about how we can use electro medicine to to elevate the cellular medicine. So this is what we are building a resource center where we can bring functional medicine to a next level, the next level of advance. That sounds I mean, that's the reason I thought I'll ask you because that sounds really, really exciting. And, uh, I think that's that's the future, honestly. Because what you are doing and that's, that's what's so brilliant about it, you're getting the best of all. You know, all of this is available today, right? I mean, we don't have to now, uh, you know, opt for one or the other. Now, we can sort of opt for all of it or whatever is relevant. Honestly, it's a but at least you are getting the best of all the technology. And by technology I don't mean only the tech, but the medical part of it in one place. And it's brilliant. And that's actually what is the theory for chronic condition? For acute conditions we have that in, you know, many different ways. But unfortunately that was being missing. So I am really excited to see that. I think there's a lot happening. I think 2026 is going to be kind of a watershed year. I know there's lots coming on in the, uh, functional medicine space from the IFM, so anything that you want to share, please feel free to share. Anything else? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will tell you some science. So how are you interested in this integrative medicine? I will I will tell you if you look at the naturopathic, they have a hydrocodone therapy. Okay. So hydrocodone therapy, they are giving you a water enema. And the machines, they can clean the large entire colon. And that's the one therapy over there. Now you come to the allopathic, then we say is there are gut microbiome and gut infection. Colon is the largest habitat of all the microbiome over there. So science will gain then we have a lot of microbiome testing over there. Parasite infections. So we know that colon is very important. And then you go to the Ayurveda. This is key. Colon is very important. And they have one treatment capacity. So they are putting a medicated oil in the rectum. Wow. Okay. And we know that medicated oil, what they want to do. They want to kill the microbiome infections over there. Mhm. So we are thinking big in collection of all this knowledge we have. And why don't we apply this knowledge so we can do hydrocodone. We can do Bercy and we can just clean out the colon. Even we can inject the probiotic. What's the problem with that. Yes. Right. So this is how you know, we can make a integration and we can make something that is very helpful to, to this patient. And this center could be, uh, more of research we are inviting and we are doing a lot of studies over that. We have already started in a functional medicine. You know, uh, people always say, hmm, is that we don't have evidence, we don't have studies. So in this center, we also want to do publish a lot of, you know, scientific studies over there so that we we have started over that because at the end of the day, we require some studies and some research going on over here so we can publish that. And, and that that gives a confidence to our functional medicine community that, you know, this is research based science. We're not just talking out of bloom. And this is completely, completely a study. Yeah. So and that will also help to the people to actually, uh, take it in and, uh, you know, and for the practitioners to actually accept this, uh, you know, and, and it makes sense. Absolutely. And I love what you just shared, that you are putting in all the therapies which already exist. It's not like nothing new. Right. They have been there, but you are truly integrating them. Now. This is what true integrative this is the operating system. This is the true integration. This is the functional medicine operating system where you look at the dysfunction and you just apply the functional medicine foundation knowledge. And then you can build a you can look at treatment. And because finally we are not saying one is better than the other because I think a lot of times they get stuck there. This is better. That is not you know, this is not so great. So I think they are just going past that. Um, so, uh, let's touch a bit, uh, Anthony almost towards the end, but maybe a couple of questions that anything that you have seen about the. I know that because you have supplements and I actually do recommend your supplement that I use some of them. So labs and supplements do get expensive. And you have come out with, uh, you know, um, a, a supplement that I'm very I have used to I know, but what is your, uh, framework for the minimum effective testing or minimum effective intervention with the help of supplements? How do you envision this page? Because, uh, you know, not everyone can also afford a lot of these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, you know, when I started, uh, uh, practicing a functional medicine, initially, I bring this nutrition, uh, from the USA and European market because Indian what the OTC or over-the-counter supplements are not effective because I tried that and I see that I'm not getting the result with that. So initially I was bringing the supplements from the US. And I thought it's very costlier to bring the supplement from the US market, the customs and pain and time. So I asked myself a question if I want to do a functional medicine, practice what things I need. And that is came with the nutrition. I need nutrition to prescribe. I cannot I cannot give magnesium with the coaching. I cannot give vitamin D within just interviewing and just things I need at the end of day nutrition. And if you look at all the science, like if you look at the allopathic within all the science, right. I think the missing part is nutrition. Nobody's really understood the nutrition in a scientific way. All we know is just a superficial science of nutrition. And we consider folic acid folate and everything is same. All the magnesium is same. And we describe the magnesium carbonate, the shell color or any other brand all the same. But that is not the nutrition. If you look at the deepest part of the nutritional science then you will blow your mind. The nutrition is very effective. And giving us this example of magnesium, right. And magnesium 99% of the population, they are magnesium deposition. I will tell the story of my father. My father is right now he is 78. And when I started functional medicine. And before that, you know, we got to check with the cardiologist and he found out that he is missing a one pulse after three pulse. The one missing pulse was there. So we had investigated all angiography and echo and cardiologist and then they didn't find out anything. And they said it's a benign condition. Just live with it. And he doesn't have any kind of symptom except he has a mild hypertensive. And when he check his pulse, uh, three pulse after three, pulse. One pulse is missing. And nothing so easily with that for almost ten, ten, 12, 12 years. But when I started functional medicine, I used to prescribe him magnesium because I had invented the one magnesium over there, and he used to take the magnesium all the day. After one year, he had gone to the cardiologist for regular checkup and cardiologist told I don't see any pulse misfires. That was even surprising for me. All this happened because I never invented to give magnesium for this one. But you know. But then because I know in magnesium, then I learned that highest amount of magnesium is in the heart, the cardiac tissues. So this that's a that's the connection, you know. So that's a but if you prescribe magnesium that is not bioavailable, not absorbing like a rock, if you take a magnesium rock nothing will happen. So when I learned that iron should be in ionic form, you cannot take iron in a rock form like you take a salt. So if you if you put a salt in water, what will happen? It will completely dissolve in the water. So they're coming in ionic form, the sodium and chloride. They are now ready to react. Right. Versus you can take a calcium carbonate but isn't going to create anything. The calcium will not come out in ionic form. How body can absorb this one. So so there are so many things in a nutrition that I started learning, and then I started creating this nutrition. And frankly speaking, I never thought to create a this nutrition and giving a practitioner I'd actually created for my own self. And I love to innovate. You know, when I look at this one, my core passion is to innovate. You know, that's why I'm here to innovate and integrate and just think beyond what we taught and what we are here. So that's the thought, uh, I came and created the nutrition right in my town, and that was the supplement. But anything on the labs that you want to share, anything that you have seen and. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things I had observing right now in India now, if you look at the whole us, US education about the functional medicine, there are a lot of advanced functional lab over there. Yes, right. But unfortunately in India we don't have that kind of advanced lab available right away. We can prescribe just giving the example of, uh, an example of cholesterol. So if we consider that total cholesterol is a is a only marker for cardiovascular health. But that is not true. Now science which is not a total cholesterol, it is size matter is a oxidized LDL matter. Even reverse T3. We are not doing in India so company started over there. But apart from this one there are so many advanced testing. They are right now not in India, so we are still facing a pain to send a sample to us and but eventually we are working on these things and eventually the lab will come in India so we can take advantage of this advanced diagnostic. You know, those who are in conventional medicine. So still waiting for the evidence to come, although we don't depend on completely on a lab because with the experience we can say this is a dysfunction. Is there, oxidative stress is there. Or we can say hormone dysfunction is there with even the small whatever the lab we have available. But for this could be another pillar that can help the functional medicine to grow and that conventional medicine get the doctor, get the real evidence of the what is going on in patients physiology. So I think that's the way the functional medicine go one step beyond, uh, right now what it is. So these are all what you are saying. These are all taking progressing. Uh, it's progressing. It's progressing. There are a lot of labs and a lot of doctors and pathologists. They are right now interested in creating a functional lab. So it is going going on. Yeah. So I think there is a lot that's going to come in the I think in the lot going to come Lord's going. So I can say those who are right now adopting functional medicine, they are the pioneer. And you see the functional medicine future as growing. And functional medicine could be your mainstream mainstream medicine. Yeah. The chronic conditions. Yep. You will find out. So you will find out. A conventional medicine also started exploring the functional medicine opioids. They they are contacting me. There are many conventional big big hospital. They are contacting me. Yes. We want to start a functional medicine OPD in conventional setup. So now they are also. They're also thinking, you know, functional medicine is a model that we should adopt. So those early adopter, they will get the use benefit of functional medicine when it grows. Know. And it's so it's and this is what we want. I mean this is what I think when we started all those years ago. This is what all of us want that it needs to grow. Because then then only it can sort of, um, satisfy the needs of so many people who are, you know, who need this today. So that's so heartening to hear. And, uh, yeah. So we touched upon lab supplements. I want to do, you know, touch upon some of these things. And as you say, nutrition is key here. It starts with food, but it can go beyond food because a lot of times we do need the supplements. We do need, uh, more lab testing to dig dig deeper actually. Because while we can, as you said, while we can start working with the basics, sometimes we need, you know, we do get stuck. And we need, do need to know what is exactly going on. So that's where functional testing I just recently came to doing an interview, came to where there's a brand new, not brand new, but there's a new autoimmune array testing which has come, you know, but again, it's not available in India. I think the 26 markers, I said, okay, so it was very interesting to hear the kind of, uh, development that is happening, the progress that is happening. And on that note, you did talk about AI a bit earlier. Uh, do you see that, uh, supporting this in some way, whether it's in triage or patient education or adherence or anywhere, because you, uh, we we talked about that without replacing the client patient relationship. You're not talking about replacement here. You're not talking about replacing any, quote, medical professional. But do you see that complementing you know, helping in and what what what have you noticed. Yeah. So see AI will not replace humans and and practitioner that is I'm definitely sure about that. So we should not fear about the AI right. We should take advantage of AI. So AI can be our assistant in so many ways. AI can assist me in collecting the information, assist me in organizing my information. I will assisting even in creating timeline. So right now we are working to create and help the practitioner to to get the information from the patients and creating a timeline, creating a matrix. Even we had came with the AI interpreting your lab and gives you exactly how the functional medicine model is working over there. And then you take your decision why you're wasting your time in organizing collecting information. Let's AI do that part and you focus completely on a patient's care. So your focus will be on how I can help in patients, how I can care the patient not just picking a phone or doing something that is not relevant to a patient's care. So all these things I can do and I can help you and help the patient in assisting so many ways I can I can help him. You can in the future. You will see a lot of AI model. They can come, they can interview, they can help you. Small questions, even they can help you in arranging the appointments. So it will it will be a whole ecosystem around around the AI. So I will connect the dots as I told you about, you know, we require we want to build a team like you. I need a coach, I need a nutritionist, I need a emotional healer. I need a doctor in integrative medicine over here. I need a naturopathic doctor. And then same way, what I need, I need AI is a system. Yes that's true. So that they can that can connect is a part of team. Yeah. They can connect all these things. Yes. Right. So that way we can, we can, we can say a lot of time and energy of doing a tedious task so the I can help in so many ways. And it's already actually, you know, every now and then you keep hearing about some in the medical world as well, the medical community as well, not just functional clinics any everywhere. So I think that's something that we need to look out for. And I was sharing with you before we started recording that I am working on something behind the scene, which I will be revealing next year. Uh, when this actually recording goes live, it will be very close to that. But that's something that is exciting because I'm training AI to listen like a healer and again, not replacing a coach, but I think, you know, it has the capability and it can be trained most importantly to actually be, you know, help us reflect people who need to reflect the emotion and healing. So there's a lot that is going on behind the scene. And I'm really excited. I think probably it will be one of the first few, uh, product like this. Uh, it's not just the AI tool, but it's also the coaching and the community. So yeah. So more on that later. But, uh, I think the final question I would like to, uh, you know, leave our audience with is, uh, your one year vision or your three year vision, maybe we'll do a short term and a long term vision kind of thing. What do you see? Where do you see function medicine. And maybe if you can share, if we just did three things as a community functional medicine space, what would help India move the most, you know, in this space? What are the those 2 or 3 things you think? Yeah. So, uh, coming to our first question, definitely, what is moving toward a functional medicine? So you can give a different name. You can give a integrative medicine or metabolic health or lifestyle, ultimately, whatever name you want to give, that's the functional medicine is. Right. So what, uh, what is moving toward a functional medicine? So I can see definitely a bright future for the functional medicine. And we have to adapt to one common system and that is functional medicine model. Right now I'm working on a this tertiary center. I told you, this is the integrative medicine center. And my next vision is to make functional medicine as a as a resource based medicine. And we're going to publish a lot of studies over there. Many practitioners can come they can do a training over here. And we can think beyond lifestyle, diet, nutrition, and we can do some kind of advanced therapies where we can do a research on a functional medicine in this way. So next 2 or 3, next 1 or 2 years I'm going to build this center. And then I will invite every practitioner over here. They can learn. They can we can have something in a collaboration. We can work together. And 2 or 3 things that I would, uh, I would advise, advise to a practitioner community. And same way my expectation from the community is let's come together. It's not a one man job. It's not a one community job. We have to open our mind. Let's collaborate. And don't do functional medicine practice alone. It is at the end of day. It's a collaboration. So let's bring this functional medicine to our next level. Then come out of your comfort zone. I can say whatever practice you are doing, you have to come out of your comfort zone and jump and learn the functional medicine. And when you collaborate, when you connect it with the like minded people, the energy will, energy will blast. And that functional medicine come in a in a picture. Many, many patients are actually looking for the functional medicine doctors and practitioners. So let's be a part of that movement and let's involve in in growing the functional medicine, I can say. And that's such a powerful statement to close on. And I it's such a positive statement to also, uh, message for uh, you know, because this, this I think conversation will help practitioners. It will also help patients who are looking for this, you know, opportunity to work with the functional medicine practitioner, and also for practitioners and coaches who are looking to get into the functional medicine. And as you said in, in, in in brief, a rising tide lifts all boats. You know, that's what we are. We and I have been, you know, sort of been sort of, uh, been in isolation so far for different reasons. But I think, uh, uh, I know that you are one of the people who sort of pointed it out that you can't be doing this alone. You need to be doing this in a, in a, you know, as a team and whatever the team might look at. So that's helped me personally. So thank you for that. And yes, anything that I haven't asked you that. You know, I could have asked you anything that you would like to share. Any, any. I think we are. We are discussing Broadway or a lot about addiction model. Yeah. Functional medicine model. And, you know, I'm just having a passion to to bring the functional medicine to whatever the corner I can bring and whatever way. As we are sharing the same thing, how we can contribute, how we can, how we can help other people and other practitioners. And right now I'm focusing how I can I can help practitioners to bring the functional medicine to their clinic. And this is this is going to happen. This believe me, this is going to happen in a near future. Yes, I completely believe that. And we are on the same page. We've all been on the same page for a long time, and I'm just glad that I brought you on today. So thank you once again for being on this show. It was a wonderful conversation. And as I said, it's going to help a lot of practitioners. And whereas a lot of patients who are looking for this kind of approach and they'll get some clarity on this and I will share the vitamin link, I will share the Instagram and the social handles in the show notes. Um, but where would they actually find you on the website? Was that the correct place to look for you if somebody wants to get in touch with you? Yeah. So they can just look at the white one dot in and those who are practitioner, they can look at the white turban education and they can find out me over there. Oh perfect. Yep. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for that. Take care. Bye bye.