Dr. Bindiya Gandhi, a double board certified Integrative Medicine / Functional Medicine Physician and Forbes Health Advisory Board Member, joins Jeanne today. They talk about the confusing world of vitamins, minerals, and supplements. Dr. Gandhi clears up the confusion around taking supplements and talks to us about calcium, vitamin D, evening primrose oil and tumeric.
Dr. Bindiya Gandhi, a double board certified Integrative Medicine / Functional Medicine Physician and Forbes Health Advisory Board Member, joins Jeanne today. They talk about the confusing world of vitamins, minerals, and supplements. Dr. Ghandi clears up the confusion around taking supplements and talks to us about calcium, vitamin D, evening primrose oil and tumeric.
00:00 Introduction.
02:00 The overcrowded supplement space and why its so confusing to understand if you should or should not take a supplement.
02:30 Is it true that vitamins are just expensive urine? Do we really need supplements?
04:25 How do I know what my body needs, or does not need? Do I even have a deficiency?
08:17 What is the difference between food supplements, vitamins and minerals?
10:45 Are there certain vitamins and minerals that you cannot get enough of in your diet?
12:25 Interactions between your supplements and other medications you take.
12:53 What is evening primrose oil and how can it help you? Are there precautions to taking it?
15:05 What is endometriosis?
18:00 Should we be taking calcium after a certain age, when we breastfeed or after having kids?
21:20 What are the different forms of calcium and do the different forms have different side-effects, like constipation?
22:50 Do you have to take calcium with Vitamin D? Is Vitamin D really a hormone?
27:00 Why is tumeric/curcumin a good supplement to take? Is it for everyone?
30:15 What are good and reliable vitamin brands?
33:24 One thing Dr. Gandhi does on the daily to live her best life.
34:09 Where to find Dr. Gandhi and how to make an appointment with her.
35:45 Conclusion
Dr. Bindiya Gandhi: Website | Instagram | Reset Renew Revive with Dr. Bindiya Gandhi
Jeanne Retief: FIGGI Beauty Shop | My FIGGI Life Podcast | My FIGGI Life Blog | Instagram | Facebook
[00:00:00.170] - Jeanne
Hi, FIGGI goddess, and welcome to the My FIGGIe Life podcast. Today we're talking all about supplements. I don't know if you are as confused as I am. Should you be taking them? Should you not be taking them? If you should be taking them, which one should you be taking? We're going to talk about evening premrose oil, calcium, and turmeric. And we're going to ask our double board certified integrative and family medicine physician to help with those questions. So stay tuned.
[00:00:28.090] - Intro
Welcome, goddess, to your sacred space. This is my FIGGI Life podcast, where we openly discuss life's wins and losses on our journeys to self discovery. This is your best life. This is your FIGGI life. And now, here is your host, Jeanne.
[00:00:49.150] - Jeanne
Welcome back, FIGGI Goddess. I'm so excited to introduce our guest today. Dr. Bindiya Gandhi is a double board certified integrative and family medicine physician with expertise in functional and holistic medicine. She's the medical director at Revive Atlanta, MD, a comprehensive clinic focused on total body healing, including decreasing inflammation, improving hormonal imbalance, helping women get pregnant, weight loss, resistance, chronic stress, gut health, and more. She's been featured on the Daily Mail, Fox Five, Atlanta, CBS, 40 611 alive, WSBTV POPSUGAR, MINDBODY Green, The Washington Post, well and Good Vogue Parade Livestrong, HuffPost and more.
[00:01:34.180] - Jeanne
She is also a Forbes Health Advisory Board member and the host of The Reset Renew, Revive Podcast.
[00:01:41.050] - Dr. Gandhi
Thank you so much for having me today.
[00:01:42.870] - Jeanne
Oh, it's such a pleasure. And I'm so ready to have this conversation because I actually just went for my yearly checkup, and this whole issue came up again. Do you need supplements? Do you need vitamins? And if you do, which ones? And I think it's just such a confusing conversation to have because the market is so overcrowded.
[00:02:05.690] - Dr. Gandhi
Yeah, it definitely is. First of all, thank you so much for having me on. And I'm so glad we're talking about this, because it's so confusing. When we talk about supplements, people don't know, should they take it, what should they take, how much to take, which brands to take. It's very overwhelming because it's not really regulated. And every year, every month, there's more supplement brands that are coming on the market, and the marketing is amazing. And you're like, Should I be taking that? I don't know.
[00:02:31.490] - Jeanne
The point where I'm coming from or the background that I'm coming from is my GP once told me, if you're eating a healthy, balanced diet, there's really no need for you to be taking any vitamins. It's just expensive urine. Do you agree with that? Should we be taking food supplements?
[00:02:48.000] - Dr. Gandhi
No. So ideally, I agree to a certain extent. In a perfect world, if all of us were eating a very well balanced diet, maybe we wouldn't need supplements. However, what I will say is that's not always true, because I have patients and I like to believe I eat pretty healthy myself, but I still think that majority of us eat to take some supplements. Majority of my patients are deficient in a lot of nutrients and vitamins, okay? Especially if you're vegetarian, vegan, pregnant, nursing, whatever. There's many phases in life where you become deficient in nutrients regardless of how well you're eating. And of course, my approach is different because I know this because I'm testing blood and I'm checking your iron levels, your B12, vitamin D, etc. Right. So that I'm going to nip that in the bud. I think we do need appropriate supplements. Now, what we all need is very individualized and different. One of the biggest things that I'll just jump into, because I know this is a big question, is should I take a multivitamin? Because in a perfect world, multivitamin has a little bit of everything. And if you're not eating well, a traditional, conventional doctor GP will say, just take a multivitamin and you'll be fine.
[00:03:52.760] - Dr. Gandhi
My approach is a multivitamin has just little bit amounts of a lot of supplements. But if you're truly deficient in B12 or vitamin D, then guess what? You're not getting the appropriate vitamins that you need. So again, it's a very individualized approach and that's just the way I practice.
[00:04:10.810] - Jeanne
Yeah, and I agree with that because I think that's what really frustrates and scares me about the whole idea around supplements and vitamins is you don't really know what you need. A lot of times, unfortunately, a doctor will tell you, take a multivitamin. Okay, great. Which one exactly, and why? What am I needing? What am I deficient in? Because I don't know if this is correct, but I certainly don't want to be taking more of something than I need if I'm being fulfilled in my diet with something I don't want to add more than.
[00:04:44.680] - Dr. Gandhi
Exactly. Yeah. For example, let's talk about this. If you're eating a well balanced diet and you're getting red meat in beet, spinach, maybe you don't need an additional multivitamin with extra iron. Because you know what iron does, it makes you constipated. So why take additional iron? There's also certain vitamins, we call them our fat soluble vitamins. This is your vitamin Adek, and you don't want too many of these in your body anyways, because they get absorbed into your fat cells, essentially, and they can at extremely high doses. Okay? And I just want to emphasize that extremely high doses, they can become toxic. Right. So correct. Majority of the vitamins, especially B vitamins, you just pee it out, can be fine, not have an issue. But high levels of vitamin D can actually be problematic for you. We want good levels of vitamin D, but not excessively high. And this is again why I love checking labs to determine, do you need vitamin D? Oh, yes or no? And then this is the dosing. I think that would be appropriate for you. Yeah.
[00:05:41.650] - Jeanne
And I think this is where, as with everything, the doctor Google thing gets a little bit tricky because there are so many articles and blog posts and online magazine articles on the health sector telling you you need these vitamins. Or if you're this age and you're a woman and you may be deficient in this, and I think a lot of us then go, oh, okay, I need to get this vitamin and see if it will make me better. But you don't really know if you even have a problem.
[00:06:14.150] - Dr. Gandhi
A lot of it, unfortunately, is like, trial and error. Exactly. If you read an article and it's like, well, and some things may be okay to try, like, you can kind of talk to your doctor first. Don't just try things on your own. That's the first thing I'll say. But, for example, let's talk about magnesium. Okay? So one of my favorite supplements I write about this all the time. I talk about it all the time, is magnesium. I love magnesium because it's an essential mineral in our body, but it helps with so many different things. It helps improve sleep, stress, muscle cramping. If you have chronic headaches, helps with menstrual cramps. There's so many good benefits of magnesium. If you're able to go to a doctor and your doctor is able to check the magnesium level for you, and you now know you are magnesium deficient, by all means you need to take it. But if maybe you don't have access to a doctor because your doctor doesn't like to check this level or whatever, doesn't have the time, whatever for whatever reason, and you're like, Well, Dr. Pinia said maybe it would be a good idea for me to take magnesium.
[00:07:07.520] - Dr. Gandhi
Should I try it or should I not? Well, I would definitely say you can try a very low dose of magnesium and see how you feel and see if it helps you. And if it helps you, great. Maybe we're on the right track. Maybe you're suspecting your magnesium deficient based on some of the symptoms I said, and it could be helpful for you. Now, the other thing is, maybe you take magnesium and you're like, I don't know if this is the right dose or if it's doing anything. You can always go up in magnesium, but you can go up and take maybe two tabs instead of one tab, and maybe you notice some relief, and you're like, oh, wow, I noticed my stress is much better. I'm sleeping a lot better. Magnesium is definitely the trick for you. That's not the case with everything. Again, you have to learn to become intuitive with your body. And I think that's a struggle for many people. And whether you're eating the best or not is just paying attention to your body's symptoms and signs, because our bodies are trying to talk to us all the time. We just need to slow down and just pay attention to what it's asking, what it's saying.
[00:08:03.820] - Dr. Gandhi
And when we become in tune with our body, then we also have an idea of what's going to work for us and what's not working for us. Especially when we're talking about nutrition as well as supplements.
[00:08:12.730] - Jeanne
Just to clarify that before we get deeper into the conversation, what's the difference between food supplements, vitamins and minerals?
[00:08:21.670] - Dr. Gandhi
Great question. So let's talk about food supplements. So first of all, food initially in a perfect role. We should be getting all our foods from vegetables, healthy fruits, protein, grains, getting a well balanced diet. I'm a big proponent of well balanced diet. When we start noticing nutritional deficiencies, when we go to extremes, maybe we're becoming now vegetarian or vegan, we're cutting out food groups or now we're the carnivore diets, like really big right now. Or even people that are doing keto or whatever it is. When you start limiting big groups of food, we start to see nutritional deficiencies. Okay, so now that we've kind of explained that, let's talk about what supplements are. So supplements are basically vitamins and herbs as well as adaptogens that we include into our diet to kind of help supplement some of the nutrients that we should not be getting from our diet. Those are vitamins. Essentially. Majority of the time we're talking about vitamins. Now let's talk about minerals. Minerals, they're actually natural to our body. And again, we're getting a lot of minerals essentially from foods that we're eating. Minerals really help us because they help us with the metabolic processes.
[00:09:29.730] - Dr. Gandhi
Same thing with vitamins. They're really important. And this is why we stress and we're like, why do we need vitamins? Because in our bodies we're constantly going through chemical metabolic cycles and we need certain vitamins to go through these cycles so we can stay healthy. It's important for our gut health. B vitamins kind of are metabolized there. Iron is good for our blood. Vitamin C is good for our immune system. All these different vitamins and minerals are important because they're doing bodily functions every day. Now, what's happening is, if we're deficient in, I'll just use iron. If we're deficient in iron because it's a very common one, then we're fatigued, we're tired, we're exhausted. Maybe we're cold all the time. And it can, in extreme people, impact your hemoglobin and extreme cases it can impact and it can be a reason why you're having some shortness of breath and something like that. So we want to know, number one, if we are deficient in vitamins. Two, if we are, we need to know how to nutritionally supplement that vitamin because we want to get things through a diet as much as possible. And if after our diet is not able to supplement that, that's when we'll use an actual supplement or vitamin along with the dietary recommendations that we're doing so we can get optimal results and optimal health.
[00:10:44.340] - Jeanne
Are there certain vitamins and minerals that you can't get from food that you can't eat or consume enough of?
[00:10:52.780] - Dr. Gandhi
I mean, majority of the time I think we can adequately, in a perfect world, adequately get it from our diet most of the time. There is now there are certain things where, for example, let's talk about fatty fish. If you're vegetarian, if you're a vegetarian or vegan and you know you're not going to eat any fatty fish, then you're someone that's probably going to need to take an omega three fatty acid of some sort. If you're vegan or vegetarian and you know that you're not going to ever eat red meat and you're eating the spinach, you're eating the beets, you're still not getting it up, maybe you are going to be taking the iron, additional iron supplement. So I think, unfortunately, it's kind of more of our dietary habits.
[00:11:28.990] - Jeanne
I also, even in my own life, have so many people close to me that are on these really extreme diets. And the best thing is they will always tell you they feel awesome and it makes them feel great.
[00:11:43.840] - Dr. Gandhi
And I'm sure it does.
[00:11:47.250] - Jeanne
But I'm always so cautious of that, of cutting out so many things from your diet, healthy things many times. So I'm so glad we're having this conversation. And I'd like to talk about one of the specific vitamins. I don't know even if it is if you call it a vitamin, evening primrose oil. And it's really one of my favorites. And I will say this a lot throughout the podcast. I really honestly believe that if you're taking, you also just say it. Food supplements or any kind of medication, you really do need to check with your healthcare provider because, for example, I have panic disorder and I have medication I take daily. And I need to know if anything that I take may interact with any other medicine I have. My doctor advised me to try taking evening primos because of my PMS symptoms. I've had many problems with endometriosis. I have an IUD to help me with that. And I really have seen a difference in the pain and the swelling I feel in my breasts, the cramps I have. Tell us a little bit more about evening primrose. Is it a vitamin? Is it essential oil?
[00:12:53.370] - Dr. Gandhi
Yeah, great question. So evening primrose oil and this is, okay, this is kind of like what I was sharing earlier because the word supplement is actually a very broad topic. Evening primrose oil is actually plant based derived. So it's not a vitamin supplement and you're not necessarily getting it from a food source. So in a case like this, you're taking a supplement, probably a soft gel form of evening primrose oil, which is an oil that you consume that really is helping you come with your mood. So when we talk about nutritional supplements, there's vitamins, there's herbs, there's adoptogens, okay? And these can be plant based derived majority of the time. And they're usually in the other categories. There are herbs and there can be nutritional foods. We haven't really kind of talked about that yet. But there can be nutritional foods. Like, for example, moringa can be in powder form, which can be food you can consume. Collagen can be a food source, which is still a supplement. So there are other things like that. Macha, same thing. But the evening primrose oil specifically has really great therapeutic properties for PMS symptoms, menopausal symptoms, hormonal imbalance specifically.
[00:14:02.660] - Dr. Gandhi
And this is why it works extremely well if you're having some of those PMS symptoms, the breast tenderness, the cycles. But a lot of times these evening primrose I'll just use an example, is kind of like essentially acting as helping your body essentially kind of get a little bit more progesterone when you have things like endometriosis. I'm going to get a little technical here, so forgive me. Your estrogen levels are probably a little bit circulating a little bit higher, and Progesterone levels are circulating a bit lower. So when you're taking things like evening primrose oil, you're kind of naturally bringing up that Progesterone without using a progesterone cream, prescription medication. And so it's working in a very nice way to help balance your hormones and not necessarily bringing that estrogen level down, but helping that progesterone come up a little bit. And this is why you feel great.
[00:14:48.560] - Jeanne
And you're saying it also helps a little bit with hormones. Will that be why? I've also seen a change in my skin?
[00:14:55.030] - Dr. Gandhi
A change in your skin and also a change in your sleep. A lot of people, one of the big things I noticed with is they notice when they take evening primrose oil, they're sleeping really, really well.
[00:15:04.300] - Jeanne
Just for our and for the listeners, just to make sure that they're on the same page as us. And those that don't know, could you just maybe quickly tell us what is endometriosis? Why I ended up taking evening primrose oil?
[00:15:16.700] - Dr. Gandhi
Yeah, great. Please talk to your doctor before you just start taking some of these supplements. For some females, they have endometriosis. And endometriosis is essentially excessive growth in the uterus. And it's different, and it could be different parts of the uterus and it's not a tumor. Sometimes that growth can be if they're thinking more of a growth, can be like a fibroid. Again, it is estrogen based, but endometriosis is just excessive. I don't know how to put it. Maybe like scar tissue growth in the lining of the uterus. This can be very problematic for some females because you can experience painful intercourse. You can experience painful cramping during your cycle. Even before cramping, you can have a lot of pain. You can also have painful defecation. So sometimes your bowel movements are very hard. So many different things. But one of the biggest reasons people even know they have endometriosis is because they're trying to get pregnant and they're struggling with fertility. And this is often a time when it's diagnosed because a lot of times you could have had it for many years, but you've dealt with it because you're like, oh, this is normal.
[00:16:13.980] - Dr. Gandhi
Isn't it normal for everybody to have painful cramps or that kind of thing? But most people get diagnosed, learn about it, I should say, when they're having fertility struggles. Now, one of the things I will say about endometriosis, too, is you can't find it on an ultrasound. The true diagnostic way to find out if you have endometriosis or not is through what we call laparoscopic procedure. And the doctor or OBGYN is able to look into your uterus and see, wow, you do have a lot of scar tissue. And this is really what's causing the disruption of your cycles and your symptoms.
[00:16:43.940] - Jeanne
Getting back to and understanding now what it is and why I've taken evening primer as well. Are there any side effects of taking that I've read, and this is why I'm asking you to verify for us the expert. But I've read that it can thin your blood, and if you're going to have some surgical procedures or so, it's best to stop taking them, or if you're on certain medicines that's in your blood already, you shouldn't be taking it.
[00:17:06.280] - Dr. Gandhi
Yeah, so that's a good point, because there's a lot of supplements. Evening primrose is one, turmeric is another. Sometimes ginger is another, even though they're natural herbs and supplements, and sometimes we get them through our diet, especially ginger and turmeric. However, yes, they can thin your blood out. And if you're going to have any sort of surgical procedure, we will say stop it for 48 hours, depending on the dosing that you're taking. Sometimes we'll even have you stop it a week before just to be on the safe side. But usually 48 hours prior to procedure is sufficient enough. But again, I know we've mentioned this a few times, too, talk to your doctor because there are interactions with prescription medication and herbs, right? So a lot of times if you're on a baby, aspirin for whatever reason, and now you're taking turmeric, it's going to thin your blood out too much. This could be why you notice bruising and other things going on in your body.
[00:17:57.460] - Jeanne
So the next one I'd like to discuss is calcium. And this is probably the one that is the most confusing to me, especially, I think in your 30s when you're in that period where you've had kids, you've breastfed because you hear so many contradicting theories. Some will say, yes, you absolutely need to take calcium now, for sure, now that you've had kids in breastfeed. And others will say, well, you don't really need it. So, do we as women, need to start taking calcium in our late 30s?
[00:18:26.640] - Dr. Gandhi
So great question. I think this is very important. The whole reason we make calcium a big deal is because as we age, we start losing bone and density, right? And part of this is happening is because our muscle composition and body fat composition changes as we age. Right? So as we get older, we start actually replacing that muscle with fat. Then that decreases the body bone density and then causes some bad things over time. And this increases our risk of what we call osteopenia or osteoporosis. Okay, so just so everybody understands the background and why these recommendations have been made. So calcium is important. It is an essential mineral in our body. We need it for many biochemical processes in our body. Right. Bones is definitely one, but also our kidneys. Another reason why we need some calcium at appropriate levels. We don't want it to be too high, but we definitely don't want it to be too low. Okay. That's majority of our minerals, vitamin, supplements, they all have a goldilocks number. We don't want it to be too high, too low. Now, calcium, essentially, in a perfect world, we can get through our diet.
[00:19:29.180] - Dr. Gandhi
If you don't have any dairy issues and you're eating yogurt, cheeses, fish, salmon, has natural calcium in it. If you're eating fortified cereals, if you're eating vegetables like broccoli. Broccoli, yeah, broccoli is a great one. Has a lot of natural calcium in it. So if you're eating it through your diet, you actually can be fine. You don't need to supplement with additional calcium. Somehow we've got it in our heads that we need to take additional calcium because it's going to make us strong, and it doesn't necessarily do that. Right. So my theory is if you don't need to supplement it, don't do it. Because there is a problem with taking too much calcium. It can actually make you constipated. And I don't know about you, but I want regular bowel movements.
[00:20:08.210] - Jeanne
I'd like to yeah, so you don't.
[00:20:10.070] - Dr. Gandhi
Need to take it now. If you're deficient, by all means, I think you need it. Okay. So that's kind of where that comes in. Now, even the most of the time, we actually will maybe even make recommendation for having you take an additional calcium. Supplement is usually when you hit above 50, because then we know that it's a little bit more important. We know your bone density has also probably changed as your body composition has changed once you hit 50. So that's most of the time when we'll say, all right, maybe you do need to take a little bit of a calcium. The other thing I will say too, it also depends on your activity levels, because if you're doing a lot of muscle strength building, resistance training, you have good muscle composition, you probably have good bone density, you probably don't need to take an additional calcium. Again, it's very individualized, but in your thirty s, I don't think you need to take an additional calcium right now. We will probably make that recommendation as you get a little bit older, because we know that especially if you're not doing the strength training and you're not.
[00:21:07.580] - Jeanne
So if you are in the category that it has been confirmed. You need calcium. I've also seen that there are so many different types of calcium. I think it's calcium, citrate, and carbonate. And is it true that some of them, like you said, do cause constipation and others don't? Or some are more better absorbed by your blood and others not?
[00:21:28.400] - Dr. Gandhi
Great question. So when we talk about calcium, and not just calcium, magnesium is like this, too. Zinc is like this, too. Iron. They all have different forms. There's citrate, oxy, chelated, I could go on. Like they all have different forms, and they actually do different things in the body, right? So let's talk about calcium for a second. We usually talk about citrate as being a big one. Calcium, citrate and calcium oxide kind of do different things. Calcium citrate technically tends to be a little bit better to get to the bones. Calcium oxide, well, actually, they both technically can get to the bone, right? Like, they both can get to the bone via absorption. The one thing we use is sometimes we'll use different forms if we're from a medical perspective, sometimes we'll use different forms if we're trying to get it through the blood quicker, because we know that the absorption is quicker via, like, oxide versus citrate or vice versa. So sometimes we'll pick one form or the other. But essentially, if you're just taking a routine calcium supplement, you should be fine. One of the things that we'll talk about, too, is tums.
[00:22:26.070] - Dr. Gandhi
I don't know. I'm sure you guys have that over there, too. That's calcium. And that's just a different form of calcium. Calcium citrate, it's working because it's trying to kind of balance the acid level so you can relieve some of that indigestion. But it essentially is calcium. It's like a little calcium tab. So it is a different form of calcium versus, like, calcium oxide going to the bowl.
[00:22:44.350] - Jeanne
The next one is kind of a two parter because you often also hear that you have to take your calcium supplements with a vitamin D. That's the one part. Is that true? And second, is vitamin D actually a hormone?
[00:22:55.370] - Dr. Gandhi
No. So great. Lots of great questions. So love, love, love vitamin D. Majority of my patients are vitamin D deficient. I'll say this majority, people need some form of vitamin D regardless of where you live in the world. However, vitamin D is one of those special ones that you need to get tested because you don't want to take too much of it. You can take vitamin D without calcium, and you can take calcium without vitamin D. You don't necessarily need to take both together, okay? So, again, if you need vitamin D because you're deficient, you can definitely take it, but you don't need to necessarily supplement calcium with it. Now, if you're deficient in calcium, I would definitely have you take calcium. Sometimes. What I have noticed, and I see this clinically in practice, okay, is for people that are vitamin D deficient. And we supplement their vitamin D, and we give them a good amount of vitamin D, it will increase their calcium levels naturally. So then we don't want your calcium levels to be too high because that'll cause other problems. And so we'll have to cut down your vitamin D. They do go hand in hand, and they do work together, essentially, but you don't necessarily need to take both of them at the same why.
[00:24:02.210] - Jeanne
Do we see some it's probably also all of this marketing employees, because you would go into the pharmacy and you'll have these rows and rows of calcium.
[00:24:10.740] - Dr. Gandhi
Supplements with vitamin D. It has nothing to do with absorption or anything like that, if that's what you're asking. One of the things that I will say is if you're taking and I've seen this too, on the market, you'll take like a 400 or 600 milligram of calcium, and there'll be like 300 milligrams or 500 milligram of IUs of vitamin D. That vitamin D is not doing anything for you. That 500 IUs is not even touching what you could be deficient in. I think it's just a marketing thing. Personally, they do piggyback off of each other, so there is a role that they play together. And I want to kind of stress that. But you don't necessarily need to take both at the same time.
[00:24:49.920] - Jeanne
Is vitamin D a hormone?
[00:24:51.890] - Dr. Gandhi
It's not a hormone. So when we think of hormones, it has hormone like properties, but it's not a hormone. Right. So when we think of hormones, I think of, like, leptin, I think of insulin, I think of estrogen, testosterone. They all have their metabolic functions, and they all have a reason of what they're doing stuff. Vitamin D is a nutritional supplement or a nutrient that we need that kind of kind of has hormone like behaviors. Okay. And the reason why it has hormone like behaviors is because it technically is helping our kidneys do what it needs to do. It's helping our parathyroid do what it needs to do. It has different functions that make it hormone like, but it's not a hormone.
[00:25:28.130] - Jeanne
It can improve your mood, if that's yes. Correct?
[00:25:30.970] - Dr. Gandhi
Yes.
[00:25:31.420] - Jeanne
Because what happened to us is when we moved to Europe from South Africa in our first winter here, my husband and I both went through this because in the winter here, it's cold, it rains, the sun never shines. And to us, that is a big deal. Super strange.
[00:25:48.020] - Dr. Gandhi
Yes.
[00:25:48.720] - Jeanne
And we realized that we were both super depressed, and we were sitting outside one day, and we were like, this is so unlike us. Maybe we should go for a blood test and get it checked out. And the doctor actually did prescribe vitamin D because he said we're not used to having so little sunshine, and our bodies just didn't adapt to that.
[00:26:09.500] - Dr. Gandhi
Yeah, I agree. So vitamin D is definitely important. I love vitamin D for. Multiple reasons. It impacts your energy in a good way, especially if you're deficient. I always tell patients and people this. I can tell when my vitamin D starts dropping because I feel like I need that afternoon nap. And the minute I take my vitamin D and I'm consistent with it again, whoa, I don't need that nap. So it really helps with energy, it helps with mood, kind of like you said, it is a sunshine hormone. We joke about it, the sunshine hormone. But yeah, vitamin D helps with mood, it helps with energy. And the other thing that it really helps with is our immune system, and it helps from an inflammation point. This is why we want to get vitamin D up. There's a lot of studies on this that when your vitamin D is low, it actually increases your risk of potentially worsening an autoimmune condition or even developing an autoimmune condition or not just that you're more likely to get sick. This is why when you're sick, I highly will recommend making sure vitamin D levels stay up so you get quicker, better, faster, quicker.
[00:27:05.180] - Jeanne
Turmeric or curcumin? Curcumin, right.
[00:27:09.130] - Dr. Gandhi
Yeah.
[00:27:09.500] - Jeanne
And the reason why I'm interested in this one is actually because of the episode on your podcast and the first time that I had listened or did any kind of research into it to such a degree. And it's actually so interesting for anti inflammatory properties, but it also seems to have a lot of good and a lot of be aware kind of properties. So one of the things that I've read is I had to have my gallbladder removed because of gallstones, and it can cause a little bit of not bile, but sourness, if I'm saying it the right word, if I'm saying it the right way, is that true or not at all? Is it just safe to take?
[00:27:48.680] - Dr. Gandhi
So I absolutely love Turmeric. Turmeric is definitely one of my favorite supplements for many reasons. Antiinflammatory is a great one. There's been tons of data and studies that I can help improve. And I see it clinically because I'm a big data girl and I track numbers and that kind of thing. I see it decrease inflammation and I see inflammatory markers come down. I see that it really helps reduce autoimmunity and it improves that stuff. A lot of people love it because it helps with joint pain. And we start seeing that people are more mobile because they're taking turmeric. It's great for the gut, it's great for your whole body. It's great for cognitive brain health, so many great properties. It's good for your immune system, just keeping you healthy. I personally love turmeric. Now, on the other side, turmeric is not for everybody. A lot of people don't realize this, but it really thins out your blood, especially at extreme high doses. So let's talk about turmeric. Most of the time, if you're eating this in your diet, like, I'm Indian, traditionally Indian we use a lot of curry powder turmeric in our food, that's perfectly fine.
[00:28:49.920] - Dr. Gandhi
That's perfectly not nothing that you need to be worried about. When you're taking high doses of it and you're still eating it in your diet, that's when we can say, okay, maybe that's a little too much, especially if you're going to have any procedures, surgery, that kind of thing. The other thing is, for my females who are trying to get pregnant, I will actually have them avoid turmeric supplements. Eating in your diet, it normally should be fine because the dosage is a little bit different. But if you're eating it, or so if you're taking a supplement and you're trying to conceive, there is some mixed data that maybe that is acting as like a natural birth control. So if you're trying not to get pregnant, take it. But if you're trying to get pregnant and you're taking a turmeric supplement, then maybe that could be a reason why you're not getting pregnant. So there's certain things like that we tend to see in the data. But majority of the time, a little low dose turmeric supplement goes a long way. But again, my philosophy is if you don't need a supplement, don't take it. Don't just take a supplement just because you run about it and you think you need it.
[00:29:48.400] - Dr. Gandhi
If you truly have inflammation in your joints, or you have an autoimmune condition, or your doctor said this may improve your gut health, or et cetera, take it. But don't just take a supplement just because you're low. I read that it'll make me add more years to my life or it'll make my brain sharper. And yes, it may. But if you don't need it, don't take it.
[00:30:07.000] - Jeanne
If we have established we do need a certain type of vitamin, how do we go about navigating this vitamin minefield? Because not all doctors will prescribe you a specific one. Many will say just like, go to the pharmacy and get one. But how do you know it's a good brand?
[00:30:26.160] - Dr. Gandhi
Yeah, so my philosophy is a little bit different, too. I do a lot of research when it comes to vitamins or what we call nutraceutical. It's a whole industry called nutraceuticals. I'm particular about brands, I'm particular about dosages, I'm particular about how to take it just because I've done the research in this majority of the time, and I'm talking about in the US. And wherever you are in the world, I'm sure your stores are different. But I don't typically will say go to your local pharmacy and pick up a supplement. And the reason why I say that is because there could be fillers like chemicals, there could be lead, other ingredients that may be toxic to you in just a traditional supplement that you find over the counter. That being said, too, maybe you're not getting the right dosage. And the other thing is, maybe if you get a supplement that let's talk about tumor. So our Curcumin is the root of tumor. If you find something at the pharmacy and it says, oh, it has Curcumin in it and it's got, I don't know, I'm just going to say 1000 grams of Curcumin in it.
[00:31:21.200] - Dr. Gandhi
But then what you actually absorb is 1% of it because of the way it's formulated. So there's all these different nuances that go on in the nutraceutical vitamin supplement world. And this is where I'm really particular about brands and dosages because why spend all this money? Because it's expensive, guys. Supplements are very expensive. I think. I've done research on it. I think the average person will spend about $350 a month on supplements just for one person. I mean, it can get very expensive, right? Taking supplements a month and you're spending $350 and now you're only observing 1% of it, then your doctor is correct, you're just peeing it out. You're just spending lots of money to just pee out expensive vitamins. It's not doing anything for you. This is why sometimes you're like, well, I took that vitamin D and I didn't notice a difference, or I took the calcium and I feel the same because the brand matters. All these other things matter. Same thing too. A lot of times. Amazon is a big place where a lot of people will get supplements from. These days, you don't know the brands, you don't know the formulation.
[00:32:21.770] - Dr. Gandhi
You're just going majority of the time people are just buying what's cheap and that's not the correct way to go. And I get price is important, but quality matters more than if you're going to spend the money. I'd rather you buy a quality vitamin, herb, nutritional supplement. Otherwise don't take it at all.
[00:32:37.970] - Jeanne
Are there brands that you prefer?
[00:32:39.530] - Dr. Gandhi
I do. So like in the US, there are certain brands that I like and I call them like medical grade brands. Metagenics is great. Designs for Health is great orthomolecular is great. I do like pure encapsulation. I like thorn. I like Nordic naturals. I like nutritional frontiers. Those are just some of the brands that have done research that I trust that I'm happy to recommend to patients. To me, research is important.
[00:33:04.840] - Jeanne
This has been so interesting. Thank you so much for sharing all of this knowledge with us. And at FIGGI Life, we believe that there are no secrets to happiness. Life always happens and you just try your best to live your best life. So can you tell our audience one thing you do on the Daily to try and live your best life?
[00:33:23.860] - Dr. Gandhi
One thing I do on the Daily I do a lot of things on the Daily, honestly. But one thing, I'll tell you one thing that I probably consistently do as much as I'm not going to lie, I've got three kids at home. As much as I wish I could meditate every single morning, some days I get a chance to, some days I don't. But I probably am a big matcha lover. I love my matcha. I'm obsessed with it, so I drink my matcha every day. I love it because it's got lots of antioxidants in it. It just really makes me happy. It's got the l fianny. It balances my mood. My thing is, I need my matcha in the morning, and my kids joke about it. They know Mommy needs her matcha. So if I get a chance to meditate, that would be something that I would do every morning. And some days, if I get a chance to do it, that's amazing. But there are days that I don't.
[00:34:06.680] - Jeanne
Match is the answer yes? Tell us a little bit more about your clinic, and I love your podcast. You should really check out Dr. vIndia's podcast. So tell us about your podcast. Tell us about your clinic. If our guests are interested in learning more about that.
[00:34:20.820] - Dr. Gandhi
Sure. So I have a clinic in Atlanta, Georgia. It's called Revive atlantime D. And so I am what we call you mentioned an integrative and functional medicine, family medicine doctor. I take a very holistic approach to health. I am a big data girl, so I'm always checking numbers and putting people on very precise programs and protocols based on what I learn about them. People are coming to me for various things. Maybe it's like reversing an autoimmune condition. Some people want to be in optimal health, some people trying to get pregnant. Whatever it is, we're just doing a lot of different things. And I see patients virtually as well as in person, so that's something that I enjoy doing. Now, my podcast is called Reset, Renew, Revive, and I've been doing it, I think, like two years now where we have some excellent guests like yourself you were on, and we just talk about everything, health and wellness, and it's been fun to do. If you want to follow me on Instagram, please feel free to it's my hashtag or not hashtag. Sorry. My handle is at Drbindiamd, and you can find me pretty much anywhere at Dr.
[00:35:21.700] - Dr. Gandhi
Drbindiyamd and your website address where.
[00:35:26.010] - Jeanne
They can go to if they would like to maybe book an appointment at your clinic.
[00:35:29.090] - Dr. Gandhi
Yeah, you can always go to Drbindiamd.com as well. Same thing. Dr. Drbindiyamd.com. But if you want to book an appointment with me, I would say go to my clinic website, which is Revive at LMD. It's Reviveatlmd.com. Awesome.
[00:35:45.500] - Jeanne
And if you didn't catch that or if you're driving, don't worry. Everything you need will be in the episode description, all the links that you need to get in touch with Dr. vIndia. Thank you so much for joining the FIGGI Life podcast.
[00:35:57.430] - Dr. Gandhi
Of course. Thank you. And this is wonderful.
[00:35:59.980] - Jeanne
So thank you so much for listening, FIGGI Goddess. And remember, as always, everyone deserves to celebrate the goddess within. So we'll see you again next time on the My FIGGI Life podcast.