A Functional Medicine Approach to Long COVID with Anju Mathur, MD

A Functional Medicine Approach to Long COVID with Anju Mathur, MD

00:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to the EnergyMD Podcast where we help you resolve your long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome naturally so that you can get back to living your best life. So really excited today because we're gonna be talking with Dr. Anju Mathur all about long COVID and maybe we'll throw in a little bit of menopause in there, but her experience over the last five years in treating lots of people with long COVID. So let's learn a little bit about her.

00:31

So over 15 years now, Dr. Anju Mathur, MD, a leading holistic and functional medicine practitioner, has been administering prescriptions that infuse her patients with long-term health and blue zone tempered wellness that defy the effects of aging. It's a really powerful statement. I love it. Through customized diagnoses, Dr. Mathur and her staff at Angel Longevity Medical Center in Studio City, California.

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hone a creative combination of resources that boost the immune system and promote prolonged renewal at a cellular level. Dr. Mather's prescribed health plans typically include combinations of natural medicines, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, IV treatments, fitness, and nutrition coaching. As a menopause specialist, she has also successfully guided hundreds of women through midlife changes with her attentive treatment methods. Dr. Mather, thanks so much for coming on today.

01:25

Well, thank you for inviting me to join you. Happy to have you happy to be here in chat with you today. So let's talk a little bit about long COVID. So can you take kind of take me through, you know, what, how has your, your treatment protocols kind of changed over time since you started seeing long COVID patients, what five years ago? Long COVID.

01:51

Not five years ago, because people just started with COVID, when they started having COVID, we had a very acute cases, you know, with very high fevers and all sorts of GI symptoms and other things, arthralgia, know, joint pains, aches and whatnot. And then I think over a period of time, it has evolved into long COVID. Those same patients that had one or two episodes of having COVID.

02:19

by itself. And also the other thing I noticed recently is that the COVID strain has changed with mutation. So I think the virus has mutated quite a bit and it has become endemic. So people do get COVID, but they test negative. I have a big thing on testing and then accurately focusing what comes out as positive to actually address those areas.

02:48

So for long COVID, I do test for spike protein antibodies and they are to the roof for patients who are suffering. So to answer your question, last five years, I think I've seen that the long COVID has evolved over the last five years. Like patients are sicker and sicker and they remain sick. They can't get out of it for a while before they show up in my office.

03:14

So what do you do if the testing comes back negative and the clinical picture really looks like somebody has long COVID? For sure. mean, that there is no test that's approved for long COVID diagnosis, as we know. There is no test, but I'm just curious person. So I'm always checking to find the answers and hey, what's going on. And one for one so far, I have found that every person that I suspected had long COVID.

03:44

had humongous levels of spike protein antibodies. And so my idea is that the long COVID occurs because there is an autoimmune reaction to it. It's nothing else but an autoimmune disorder where the immune cells get infected with COVID virus. And then their reaction to anything that's happening externally is abnormal.

04:11

So if the pathogen comes in, they are not going to attack the pathogen. They're going to attack the body tissues itself. And it's just kind of, if you have, you know, a guard at the gate, instead of guarding the gate, it's going to let in the thieves. And that's exactly what the immune cells do. So no matter what you're doing, you can't get over it because you have an enemy within, so to speak.

04:40

Go ahead. is how I explain to the patient. They understand and they're like, yeah, you what do we do? And so we started looking at, okay, what can we do? Obviously in my mind to simply put this, causation of autoimmune, why does a person develop an autoimmune? Not everybody is developing a long COVID. There is a reasons for it. So in my mind, way I, from my own experience of treating so many patients, I realized that

05:10

the autoimmune is occurring for multiple reasons. Like you mentioned, always talk about heavy metal toxicity or even other infections because you mentioned chronic fatigue syndrome. And so that comes from chronic viruses. People have Epstein-Barr virus. They already have immune cells that are infected with EBV. So their in terms of protecting the bodies is goes off the rails.

05:38

And that's why there is an autoimmune reaction. So the same exact thing happens with COVID-19. And so we tried to figure out, what do we do to handle that autoimmune reaction? So then just to kind of summarize, it sounds like that you're saying that when the spike protein comes in, the immune system is becoming dysfunctional or it's already dysfunctional and it can't get rid of the spike protein. And so then it takes up shop and it causes inflammation. Is that accurate? Yeah.

06:08

I think the other concept that I have is that you may, mean, look, when you have long COVID, it doesn't necessarily mean you have now COVID-19, you don't. So what is happening? It's not like you have a lot of COVID-19 virus in your body, you don't have it. So why is it that you're having this problem? In my mind, I was thinking about the other day, I was thinking, okay, you know, it's like any other autoimmune. So you have one antigen that's in the body.

06:38

and the body creates the antibodies. Now there is a chance that the immune cell is going to be a kind of the reaction of the immune cell is thinking like, oh, look, there is COVID-19 where there's none, but it's going to create that spike protein antibody over and over and over, even if there is no antigen. And that's what is happening in the autoimmune. Gotcha. So the immune system is hyper reactive. It's creating these antibodies. These antibodies are getting confused and they're attacking different tissues in the body.

07:08

Exactly. Like just like the other day, I'm still treating the patient. She's she has this chronic bronchitis. It's so severe that she can't even breathe. She's got pneumonia multiple times. It's like last two or three or four years. She's done so many inhalers, so many steroids, so many. There's so many that still she can't breathe. And I'm like, this is long COVID. So I tested her. Of course, her spike antibodies are in thousands.

07:34

And I'm like, okay, so we just have to fix that immune system. If you can fix the immune system, you can bring the body into balance so it doesn't go off the rails and create all these antibodies randomly. Nice. So then how do you do that? How do you fix the immune system? There is many things. There's not one magic pill, as we both know. I wish there was a magic pill.

07:58

We don't have a magic pill, it's addressing the body holistically like you're doing, you know, handling the toxicities, whether it's plastics or it is heavy metals or, you know, pesticides, chemicals, environmental, even stress in your life can make the immune cells act really weird. And so all of those, we address each of those factors that we feel like this is positive in this particular patient.

08:27

And then we, I love a treatment called UBI. It's the ultraviolet blood radiation therapy where the blood is exposed to UV light A and C and the treated blood goes back, re-infuses into the body, patient body. And then that makes an impact in the immune system. And I feel like that's the only technology that I know that can retrain the immune system.

08:57

And the retraining occurs, again, is my concept is the immune, the viruses when, the UPI, as we all know, the light kills any pathogens, right? The sunlight does kill the pathogens. We leave things outside to dry. so that's the concept that sunlight does do that. So when it kills the virus, when it's passing through and is killing, those killed viruses going back into the body.

09:25

and the immune cells kind of realize, okay, this is what we need to kill, not the body tissues itself. So it's a little bit of a point where you change the reaction of the immune system itself. And lo and behold, I've treated many, many autoimmune disorders with it and it's amazing results. mean, amazing results. I have had a patient with ulcerative colitis, know, to being treated with mizalamine for nine years.

09:52

nine years and she had this blood and the mucus and whatnot and we gave her the UBI's. After the ninth treatment she goes back and gets another colonoscopy and the colonoscopy is negative like there's no lesion there's no ulcers in her colon and the GI doctor tells her oh you know this is impossible so you probably got a wrong diagnosis. Interesting. She was like yeah right and she walked out and she said

10:21

You know, it's not the diagnosis because she had her her own symptoms. I mean, know, better you when you are ill or you're well. So she had all the symptoms and then she was diagnosed. So she said, OK, I got it. And she walked out. But. It's interesting. So, yeah, it's always fantastic. I've done this many times with so many patients with autoimmune that it's mind blowing. So then how many people would you say or what percentage of people who

10:51

So are you using the UBI with everybody with long COVID at this point? No, I don't do that. There is no one-size-fits-all. You have to definitely customize and personalize your treatments to everyone. So if you have allergy to sun, obviously some people can't tolerate sun. So it all depends on what that person needs exactly. But I just find it's very curious to see that there's this one treatment that actually helps with the autoimmune.

11:20

And so easy and people don't know about it. Right. Yeah. And so, and so does UBI get rid of more than just viruses? What pathogens does it address? Oh yes. Anything to do with viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungus, mold, anything you have that is pathogenic to the human body, it will deactivate it. It'll denature the viral DNA. So the DNA, the virus doesn't replicate. And that's what we're looking for. It doesn't eradicate.

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things, but it will desensitize and neutralize it, in other words, so that way it doesn't replicate. Excellent. And how many treatments does it typically take in order to see benefits? That also varies. You know, again, one size doesn't fit all. I've seen patients that get better within five to 10 treatments, and then there's others that take 20 to 30. It all depends on the person, but

12:20

it's very heartwarming to see that the results and the changes occurred pretty quickly. So it's not like you're going to do 20 treatments and then wait and see what happens. It's not like that. The things happen as you go along. So as you're going along, you see improvements. So that's why the person is excited because they want to get to the other end of it. So then, yeah, so that's what we're looking, but no, no two people are saying. Right. And then you're also doing other things in addition.

12:48

You know, the toxicities. And and, and, and would you say that it just, it's just a matter with the UBI. It's just a matter of how many you get, but eventually is it reversing autoimmunity or is it just decreasing it significantly? What do you see? Again, what I see is like, just gave you the example of that patient that they also disappeared. But on the other hand, see the interesting thing is that

13:17

The disease is not anything that's overnight. The disease is a spectrum of dis-ease when you are uncomfortable within your skin. And that starts with a small scale and it goes up if you don't do anything to fix it. And it gets worse and worse and worse. People sit on it. mean, look, me too. mean, nobody likes to see a doctor, including myself.

13:45

don't blame people that they've waited for a very long time, but obviously once you're educated, then you can start taking measures way ahead of time than to wait at the last minute. the same thing happens when you're reversing it, it's gonna go exactly the same route that you came through a route. now you have to, so what I explained to patients is like, it's like taking a U-turn.

14:13

You're going in downhill and you're going this dwindling spiral downwards. So we need to first take a U-turn and come up in the other direction. And then it depends on what else is happening. What is your level of health? Will determine how fast you can get over it. just depends. I'll give you another example. A patient came from Colorado.

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and he had chronic fatigue syndrome and he had Epstein-Barr virus. And so we told him, okay, you need to come to LA and stay here for about six weeks and let's get it reversed. So he came prepared to stay for six weeks. But as soon as we started treatment, he got different treatments, but we gave him the treatments within three weeks, he felt like back to his self.

15:09

And he said, okay, I'm ready to go back to work. He wasn't able to work before. was so tired. He couldn't get up and do much throughout the day. And then by the time we finished, he said, I'm ready to go home. Like, great, you should go home. And he did. So it all depends. Nice. And what are you finding with people with long COVID in terms of the, the toxicities that are present? Are you finding all of them?

15:36

Or are finding there's specific, it depends on the person or is there a majority of people who have mold more than some of the other toxins? What are you finding? Oh, I see. In my practice, what I try to do is I try to do the basics first. I don't like to go for the knee plus ultra right away. I go to the basics like your food. What are you eating? Are you eating something that will nourish your body?

16:06

Or are you eating something that will devastate your body? So if you are, you know, even if you are like eating crappy fast food every day and drinking diet coke, then no matter how many IUBI's I give you, it's not going to work. I'm sorry. So we start from the basics. We start from the nutrition and we find out, okay, what is, should we do a system is called metabolic typing?

16:35

to find out what is your metabolism like and what foods are correct for you that will nourish your body. we're not, again, the nutrition is not one size fits all. It's not like everybody needs to be on keto diet or Mediterranean diet or a vegetarian diet. Why do we have so many different types of diet? If you really think about it, where do we come up with this idea that we should have only animal protein or the fats, or we should only eat vegetables or this or that?

17:04

And that's because we do have different body types. We have metabolic types. There are different types of bodies. For example, eskimos. Eskimos don't need vegetables. They don't. They eat fish. They eat blubber and they are, don't have chronic degenerative diseases. They don't have cancer. They don't have heart disease and they're not eating vegetables. So when somebody comes up and says, Hey, eat vegetables. They are really good for you. I'm like,

17:34

Right, how did you know that? See that's the thing, it's common sense. Literally I'm using common sense. Well and sometimes it's what you're not eating rather than what you are eating, right? Because eskimos are also not eating grains. That's right, exactly right. That's right. What is the right food for your body is the first step towards taking a first step towards your health.

17:59

Sometimes people get lucky and they kind of run into something. They kind of hit upon the exact diet that's correct for them. It happens all the time. And people do know what is correct for them. They kind of ignore it. You know, they eat certain kinds of foods and they feel great. And then they kind of get dispersed and they forget what they ate. It just goes on and on. So when I do my testing, again, we do testing for nutrition.

18:27

And when we do testing, we tell them, is your diet, this is what you need to eat. One for one, they are happy with it. They say, yeah, you know, when I think about it, when I was eating like that, I was feeling lot better. So then they give, they get like a stability. They kind of get the idea that this is right, that they know it is right. People get confused because there's so much information on nutrition, you know, right, left and center. There's so much information that may or may not apply to you.

18:56

Right. But people can't tell the difference between what applies and what doesn't. And so the metabolic typing, is that a blood test or a urine test or is a questionnaire? Yeah, it's a questionnaire which basically goes into a phenotype, like how is the gene being expressed? And then over lots of questions, over 200 questions, we find out that your body is like like autonomic nervous system and the oxidative system in the body. How is that functioning?

19:25

If it is balanced or it's not, what is it? And then based on that, we find out the dominance between the autonomic or the doxidative system. And then based on that, we tell you, okay, this is the right diet for you right now. Eat that for next six months. And then as we keep doing the metabolic typing, the body goes back into the genetic type. Because I mean, look at it. People are born with certain genes that are different from one person to the next. So you want to find out what it is that you have genetically been, you know,

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endowed with and that's what you will be eating. If you eat like that for the rest of your life you at least are not making a mistake on one area which is nutrition. Interesting, so what are the typical metabolic typing recommendations? they keto, paleo, carnivore, vegan? Yeah, it could be anywhere between, it's a whole spectrum. So you could be vegetative vegetarianism to all the way to just the carnivore or the keto.

20:24

So yeah, it could be any one of those. And then on that, even within that area, let's say you're a balanced type, that you can eat practically the animal protein or the vegetables and fats, like carbohydrates, fats and proteins more in like a balanced type. But within the balanced type itself, you will have to kind of fine tune the macronutrients. Like you have to really fine tune the macronutrients to your body. And that

20:53

The way you do that is you have to know when you eat food, mean, look, again, common sense. When we are eating food, it's like a fuel for the body. So when you have the fuel correctly put in the body, you will have the energy and vitality return.

21:10

I mean, it's for energy production. Why are we eating? We are eating because we want to get the energy out of the food. So if you eat lunch, if you eat a meal and you want to pass out on the couch, obviously it was the wrong fuel for your body. I mean, it's just as common sense as that, you know? So we just use that and we just kind of have people understand this is what we are doing.

21:36

Nice. And what does the majority of people test for? What is the highest or the highest scoring type of diet? You mean the most common? Most common, yeah. Yeah, the most common. Lots of people are what is called fast oxidizers, which means that they need higher levels of fats and proteins. But not everyone. I would say, I mean, if I were to guess,

22:04

probably about half of them, 50 % would be fast oxidizers because they have been eating so much carbs that they can't tolerate. They need to eat more fast oxidizer type of diet and then see how it goes because it could be that they're built for that diet or that temporarily they need that diet to kind of balance out the biochemistry in the body. And once the biochemistry is balanced, they may not remain

22:33

to be a fast oxidizer. Like for my, for example, for me, when I started doing metabolic typing, I was a fast oxidizer. So I ate almost 90 % of my meal was protein and fat. It wasn't keto, it was protein and fat and a little bit of carbs like vegetables. And I did that for, I think about a year and a half. I did that for about a year and a half. And then I realized it just not working because I don't have energy after eating this.

23:02

And so little by little you changed and now I'm balanced type. So I can eat practically any of the three macronutrients mostly in balance. So now I'm a balanced type. So, that is, think genetically my type. So I'm not going to change into fast oxidizer at any time in this lifetime. Interesting. So it seems like it's more of a paleo diet initially. Yeah, you can call it again. There's so many names to it.

23:31

but we have given it a fast oxidizer diet. So, but it's similar, like 70 % is fats and proteins. So if you were to divide fats and proteins, probably 40 % proteins and 30 % fats. And then the other 30 is carbs, which is vegetables. Right. Okay. Excellent. And in terms of the genetics, you know, I have, I have a lot of skepticism around the ability for genetics to provide us with

23:57

really clear information because you know, we, you know, there's thousands of different genes that kind of go into the expression of something. So give me your thoughts on, on how genetics plays a role in this case, diet. Well, the way it works out is this, like you said, the genes can be turned on or off so you can have the genes. doesn't necessarily mean that you will express them. So

24:24

when we are testing somebody for the first time, it is what we call functional type. I mean, this is how you're operating right now. Your body's operating like this. So when we do the metabolic typing diet and you're eating that way, the body gets shifted back to the genetic type. And that is a type that you remain with for the rest of your life. Like I explained to you, I was a fast oxidizer, but that's not my genetic type.

24:52

But I needed that for that period of time to balance out the biochemistry. And once it is balanced out, then I go back to my genetic type and I don't have to retest anymore because I know that's Understood. And do you have a sense about the most common diet that you're finding in people who have long COVID? I don't think I'm categorizing the diet by long COVID at all. I don't think I'm connecting those two dots.

25:20

We test patients when they come in for all these different things and whatever comes up. Maybe I should just go back and look into all my charts and find out, get some more information. That's an idea. We have a nutritionist that does nutritional advising and coaching and all that. But yeah, I mean, I don't think it's anything to do with the COVID. It's more like, what are the basic reasons of why you even develop?

25:50

autoimmune actually to answer your question, I do find that the patients who have long COVID also have another autoimmune disorder previously. It's very common. So like Hashimoto's patients have Hashimoto's and so, if you have a CF, if you have a chronic fatigue syndrome, you are more prone to get long COVID. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely see that as well. Okay, great. So then in terms of the, um,

26:19

the toxins, and I think you kind of talked about this a little bit, or actually let's go to the spike protein. So do you have any favorite treatments? If you were to go directly at the spike protein, obviously you have to address all the toxins as well, but if you were to just go after the spike protein, do you have any favorite treatments at this point? I don't think I work like that at all. I don't have any favorite treatments for patients because I really, literally every patient I walk in, I tell them, you are unique.

26:48

So I'm not going to compare you with the last patient that I just treated because you have your own ecosystem. Literally bodies are ecological systems. And if we don't address them as an ecological system, we fall short of getting the really the outcome that we want and expect. So no, I have no preconceived ideas about anybody though. You should do this. No, no. It all depends on what shows up in the labs.

27:16

And what is the imbalances? Like we also do hair testing. So the hair test will tell me, okay, what are the minerals that are deficient? If there is any heavy metals that are coming out in the hair. And so we go after that. find out, okay. But when the patient is so uncomfortable, they can't even breathe, for example, or they have neurological symptoms or their depression, anxiety, just tingling neuropathy, whatever joint pains, muscle aches.

27:45

I had one time a patient was young kid. was like 16 years old and he had this little literally very weird muscle cramps that didn't resolve with anything. And he had neurological symptoms, numbness and whatnot. And I realized that's long COVID. Literally it was long COVID. I mean, that long COVID can also happen after a vaccine. It's it's a, something similar that can happen because of the reaction of the immune system to what you've just put in.

28:15

to the body. Gotcha. then, you're doing testing and you're so you're like, okay, so you have spike protein, you have, how are you assessing for microclots? Are you looking at fibrinogen and some of these other markers? Yeah, fibrinogen, can also do, I mean, the D-dimer tells me the coagulant, you know, how much is the blood is coagulant, coagulantable and what is the viscosity, the blood viscosity will also tell me about it.

28:45

So there's different ways that you can track. D-dimer is my favorite test, so I do that. So if somebody has long COVID and they don't have D-dimer, you're not going to necessarily treat them with Fiber Analytics? No. I always test first. And the reason I test is not only to detect what I need to give them, but also when I give them something, it better work. So if it is working, I have to have some kind of

29:15

and evidence that it actually worked. So if I do a D-dimer and let's say it's 2.5, whatever, it's five times higher than what it should be, and then I start treating it, let's say with natrokinase or whatever, then I need to do a serial testing to make sure the D-dimer now is normal. Otherwise, how do I know anything I've given is working? So I always monitor my own treatments to see if whatever I'm giving is effective.

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to the patient. But what if the patient gets better, but the D-dimer doesn't change? I haven't seen that happening. I haven't seen that happening. I always correlate the physical, the clinical kind of presentation with the labs. Thank God the labs always match what the person says. Oh, yeah. It's very interesting. I've been doing this for now 15 years.

30:10

And not the long COVID, the long COVID is a newbie on the scene, but the autoimmune disease is for a long time. And thank God, very rare instance when the patient is complaining of something and the labs are normal. It hasn't happened in long time, but let's say it does. Then I have to dig deeper. Obviously there's something wrong for the patient to complain. So I always try to find out one biomarker that I could use to monitor the progress.

30:39

the patient because otherwise there's no I mean yes the patients is I feel awesome they usually tell me they feel great no problem but to my to satisfy myself I need to see a test that shows something that's just me because I'm an MD. Yeah well and it's and it's nice to have that sort of objective data that you can potentially hang your hat on

31:06

The challenge is that I found that most tests are imperfect. I actually don't do much testing anymore. And that's because I've been fooled. Somebody comes in, doesn't have any sort of elevated D-dimer or fibrinogen. And yet we treat them with fibrinolytics for microclots and they notice a significant improvement. Or somebody does not have any mycotoxins in their urine. And yet we...

31:33

And then six months later, they do have a whole bunch when we've opened up the pathways and all of a sudden they're detoxing a lot better, right? So we should have been treating for the last six months, you know, the mold that's in their body. So how do you navigate some of those things? That's an excellent question because I was again, that dilemma of what, how do we diagnose and how do we monitor it? Those are the two things that we have to do as physicians.

32:00

I have to be able to diagnose it. I have to be able to monitor what I'm doing. Is it working or not? believe it or not, 15 years ago when I started doing this, I had to literally check out the different labs to see which lab is the most effective in doing the testing correctly. Because believe it or not, there's labs that their lab results are not reliable.

32:28

They're not. So I used to, I did that 15 years ago. I would send the sample of the same patient to five labs. Nice. And I would get the results back and I'd say, aha, which one correlates? So one is that the test results have to correlate with the clinical presentation. If it is not correlating, I don't treat that patient with that lab until I find something that

32:54

And it's not very difficult. haven't been in a situation where I had to like really dig deeper and do all this stuff. But most, most commonly 95 % of the time there is a definite correlation with the labs and the clinical presentation. For me, I haven't had a problem, but because I also identified the labs that I can, I can depend on. Like I have labs that I've been using for the last 15 years and patients come in and they will bring me the labs from other labs, the lab reports from different labs.

33:24

And they tell me, look, all this stuff is normal and blah, blah. said, okay, no worries. We'll do our testing and then we'll find out. then lo and behold, every single time I did that, it's like exact problem that the patient had shows up on that testing. So yeah, I have already done that stage of work. I'm sure the labs are not, you know, they change as well. You know, their reagents, what they do, how they do it, the processes, hopefully. So far I haven't run into any trouble with that.

33:54

So it's all good for now. Nice. Well, and I, you know, I think I have the luxury of, just working with people with chronic fatigue syndrome and long COVID, like the picture that I see is that, you know, I mean, you can, you can have your chronic fatigue syndrome from mold as a primary, from metals, from infections, right? You know, so, um, so yeah, so I've kind of realized that I have to address all of those things because the testing that I have done before hasn't necessarily been perfect, but it sounds like you've got some

34:24

some good things and because you're seeing a broad swath of people, it makes more sense for you to do, because somebody might not have all of the toxic five that I talk about, if they're coming in for Hashimoto's, they might just have metals that are causing their Hashimoto's or something. Well, that's a good point because I divide the categories of causative factors to any autoimmune disease into five categories.

34:52

And I go over this with each patient that this is what we're to be looking for. And lo and behold, every single autoimmune patient I've seen have all of them. So you're not wrong. You're not wrong for treating all of it because it is, they have all everything. I haven't seen a patient that has only one thing. So then why test? Why test? No, I think it's, there is multiple reasons. One is that

35:18

There is, it's an evidence-based medicine that we have to be doing. It's an evidence-based medicine. And then it helps the patient to understand what is happening because there is an evidence, there's a piece of evidence. So it's also convincing and it's also for them to really realize, yeah, I have this problem. The second reason is that I want to use those tests to monitor my progress with the patient. So if I can show them that X amount of whatever mold and it's come down to

35:48

nothing. So then they're like, yeah, okay, we accomplished something. And they're, of course, they're feeling great, but it correlates with the testing. So it's just more solidifies in the patient's personal universe that something was done and it helps them understand. And they can say, okay, you know, I'm good. Now they're really confident they are good because now they see the evidence as well. Yeah. It's so it's a, it's a psychological treatment. It's a psychological. It's a, yeah, because look,

36:17

There is a spiritual being, right? We are all spiritual beings, right? And we do have a mind that is like a machine. It's literally a machine and it runs the other machine, which is the body. So you cannot ignore the spirit. Right. And of course the mind and these are all interrelated. So the body is deceased. It will affect the spiritual being. Cause he will not feel well himself.

36:47

not the body, but himself. And the same thing with mind. So the mind, there is aberrations in the mind that can make your body ill. And if the body is ill, you can also make the mind ill. So this is all interrelated. So you can separate out one thing and just do the other one. You can't really do that. You have to look at it holistically. So the spiritual being that is you has to be confident, say, yes, I know, I feel great.

37:15

And it's not all in my mind, right? It's not some kind of fake idea. is, it is how I feel. And then there is a solid evidence. I mean, this is how I'm doing, but of course anybody can do it. Yeah. Yeah. So then how do you, how do you like to do the, addressing the spiritual being or addressing the, the mental, emotional of the individual? I tell them literally that I'm, I'm a physician. So I treat the body.

37:43

but there are two other factors. And so we do have life coaches that help us to handle the stress aspect of their lives. There is stress. Stress is important. It's very, very important in autoimmune disease. So I can't ignore that. I have to consider that as well because this is why I'm talking about holistic medicine, because we have to approach the person holistically.

38:08

We can't say, you know what, this is isolated. No, they're not isolated. They're all related. And it's even like saying your arm is not separate from your leg. It's all connected. So you have to literally look at the person as a whole. So we do have life coaches that help with the stress and mental, whatever it is. The mental health is very important. So we definitely have the patients with that as well.

38:35

but not in a practice because this is a medical doctor. So I'm not doing that part, that aspect, we'd hook you up with the life coaches and they help. They're amazing. They are literally amazing. Awesome. Yeah, it's so important. The mind, the body, the spirit, the emotions, the energetics, so important. Well, this has been a wonderful discussion. Dr. Anju, I so appreciate you coming on and sharing your knowledge with us today. Well, thank you, Dr. Hirsch for inviting me.