Episode 161 | Dec 30, 2025

A New Perspective on Chronic Inflammation, With Dr. Shivani Gupta

What if the symptoms many people chalk up to “normal aging” were actually signals of chronic inflammation brewing beneath the surface? This week on Health Coach Talk, Dr. Sandi welcomes Ayurvedic practitioner, inflammation researcher, and author Dr. Shivani Gupta for a powerful conversation about inflammation, individuality, and the wisdom that emerges when ancient traditions and modern science work together.

“Inflammation is like a forest fire that starts with one little match smoldering for a long time. It slowly spreads, and by the time we recognize something is wrong, all the fire alarms are going off.”

Dr. Shivani Gupta

In this episode, Dr. Shivani reframes inflammation as a slow-burning process, one that can quietly build for decades before showing up as fatigue, joint pain, digestive issues, weight changes, or autoimmune conditions. She shares how Ayurveda, a 5,000-year-old system of health and healing from India, offers a preventive, lifestyle-based framework that aligns seamlessly with functional medicine, biohacking, and longevity science. Drawing connections between circadian rhythms, gut health, environmental toxins, food timing, and mental stress, the conversation paints a holistic picture of why inflammation has become so pervasive and how it can be addressed in a more individualized, sustainable way.

Dr. Shivani’s work is deeply personal, shaped by growing up between Houston and India and witnessing two very different healing paradigms, Western medicine’s prescription-based approach and her grandmother’s intuitive use of spices and daily rituals. After years of chronic illness later identified as leaky gut, she immersed herself in Ayurveda and experienced profound healing, which led her to spend the last two decades translating ancient wisdom into practical tools for modern life. Throughout the episode, she introduces concepts like elemental design and mental inflammation, offering health coaches language and frameworks that make complex ideas approachable and actionable, while reinforcing the essential role coaches play in helping clients implement lasting, personalized lifestyle change.

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Transcript

Dr. Sandi: Today, I have as my guest on the podcast a practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine. She is going to explain all about what this is. And I’ve known her for some time, and she is a huge supporter of health coaches. So let me tell you about Dr. Shivani Gupta.

She is an Ayurvedic practitioner and turmeric researcher who helps women reduce inflammation, balance hormones, and boost energy with elemental design, mental inflammation tools, and gut-forward routines. Her new book, “The Inflammation Code,” will be published by Hay House in February of 2026, and it offers a clear non-diet plan for cooling chronic inflammation. She hosts the “Fusionary Health” podcast and created the Emmy-nominated TV show, “Vibrant Health with Dr. Shivani Gupta.” You can find more at her website, shivanigupta.com. I know you are going to really enjoy this conversation with Dr. Gupta.

Dr. Shivani Gupta, thank you for being with us today, and welcome to “Health Coach Talk.”

Dr. Shivani Gupta: Thanks for having me.

Dr. Sandi: I am so excited for this conversation because I cannot wait to hear all about your new book, “The Inflammation Code.” What inspired you to write it? What’s it about? Let’s just dig in. And what is the inflammation code? What are you going to advocate in this book?

Dr. Shivani Gupta: I grew up living in two worlds. I grew up in Houston, Texas. My parents are trying to build the American dream for us and working really hard for that. And I grew up going to India every year of my life in the summer and spending time with my grandparents and cousins. And I had this weird experience where, in the U.S., we’d go to the pediatrician, they’d write a script for antibiotics, and you’d get better, or I’d go to India, and my grandma would open the spice cabinet and say, “I have a remedy for that.” And she’d fix my stomach. She’d fix whatever the issue was. And I kept thinking, these are two really different worlds and two really different approaches. But who is right?

And so, fast forward, over my lifetime, I was chronically sick. I later realized it was leaky gut, and that’s why I always felt like this autoimmune patient. And finally, in my 20s, I realized, you know what, there has to be a better way to approach my health. And I told my parents, “We are in India. This is the land of yoga and Ayurveda. I bet it has something that’ll fix me.” And I discovered there’s so much wisdom inside of this ancient wisdom called Ayurveda, but it’s just buried deep in India, and no one was sharing it in a way that any of us here in the West would be able to use it.

So I healed myself. I studied. I immersed. I was really excited about it. And then I have actually spent the last 20 years of my life since then trying to decode how to take the Ayurvedic wisdom and apply it into our daily lives in simple ways, into little bite-sized ways that show us that we can build a circadian rhythm. We can honor gut health, we can bring these key pillars of ancient wisdom, and we can fuse them with modern science. So I’m a huge fan of functional medicine. I wrote a whole chapter on how Ayurveda’s approach to gut health and functional medicine’s approach to gut health are completely synergistic and aligned, because I wanted to expose people to…functional medicine is potent and powerful. Health coaching is necessary. And all these integrative medicine modalities have so much wisdom to them. And it’s really about figuring out what works for our individual constitution because we are so bio-individual.

Dr. Sandi: Exactly. Yeah. So I really like your approach, and that is it’s not either/or. It’s not ancient traditions, all good, Western medicine, all bad, but really looking at the best of both worlds and how you can integrate them. And there’s a time for one and a time for the other, and it has for blending the two.

Dr. Shivani Gupta: Exactly. And I love both, and I love bringing both together. And I wish we had that balanced viewpoint of one way is beautiful, the other way is beautiful, and both together is a really powerful toolkit. It’s a double toolkit for us.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, exactly. And I say the same thing about health coaching. And thanks for including health coaches in your description. So if you think you’re having a heart attack, you don’t get to a health coach. You get to the emergency room. You get the best of Western medicine. And I was reading, I got a newsletter from our big hospital conglomerate talking about the wonders of Western medicine, and they gave this example of someone who had this really rare cardiac tumor and life-saving. And they interviewed the surgeon who saved his life. And so there’s many situations like that. But unfortunately, it’s chronic disease driven by inflammation that is the problem for so many of us. So, can you talk about the ancient Ayurvedic tradition, and how does that support us if we want to reduce inflammation? First of all, what is inflammation, and what are some ways that we can use this tradition to lower inflammation?

Dr. Shivani Gupta: For sure. So we know in the health and wellness and the longevity and the biohacking space right now that inflammation is a problem. And most people know that it’s a problem, but they don’t recognize how hidden and how insidious it is. And so, in the book, I talk about how it’s almost like this forest fire that starts in the attic with one little match that’s left smoldering after the holidays, and it just starts to slowly spread. And it takes a while before you recognize, “You know what, there’s something really bad happening here. All the fire alarms are going off.” Only then do we hear it loud enough to go and take action. And that’s the issue, is this inflammation that brews in us over decades until finally we’re like, “Oh, this is a problem.”

And whenever I hang out with my friends and meet people, they say, “I think this is aging, this joint pain, can’t eat anything. Half the time it throws me off, fatigue. I get headaches every day. I have this weight gain. I can’t lose any weight. These are all struggles I have, but I guess this is just aging. I guess this is how it is.” And I always use that word, inflamm-aging, and highlight, “You know what, it’s inflammation that’s causing you to feel these aging symptoms. You don’t have to feel that way. You could choose differently.” But I think, in modern-day society, we believe that this life that we’re in is normal, but it’s really a life that’s normalized, and we believe that we have to live this way. And so whenever I travel abroad, whenever I live in Italy, which I lived in college, and I love going back there, whenever I go to India, I’m like, “Oh, there actually could be very different rhythms and lifestyles that we live by.”

And so ancient Ayurveda is this system of health, healing, and medicine from India. It’s over 5,000 years old. And when you look at those ancient texts, it really highlights not just how to address every single disease out there and the subspecialties of medicine. It gets pretty serious. But it also outlines this lifestyle. And that lifestyle piece is what I love sharing and teaching because it’s preventive. And so it really is beautifully tied actually into so much of what we’re teaching in the functional medicine and health coaching and biohacking spaces, which is honor your circadian rhythm. Your circadian clock, your alignment to nature, is the key to everything.

Ayurveda taught that the gut is the center of all health. And we call that “Agni” or your gut digestive fire. And isn’t it beautiful that, in modern-day science, we’re talking about the gut-brain axis? We’re talking about how gut affects our mental health. We’re understanding the gut microbiome is the key to our immune health, our energy, and everything else. And Ayurveda already had a lot of tools in the toolkit for opening up that digestive fire, honoring it throughout the day, strengthening it so we absorb all the nutrition that we want to have.

Then another key pillar I teach about is self-care, because we can build self-care rhythms into our day that are detoxing, that help us detox through all the toxin burden that accumulates in the system. And I actually wrote a whole chapter on toxic burdens because we underestimate, when we think of inflammation, a lot of times we think of it as food, like, “Oh, gosh, I know that wine or that sugar, those foods are the culprit.” Yeah, food is a piece of it. But another big piece of it is everything in our lives, in modern-day life, that’s foreign coming at the body, and the body’s, like, “That’s BPAs, phthalates, mycotoxins. I don’t know what to do with that thing. So that thing that’s coming at me, I’m going to try to survive. I’m going to mount an inflammatory response against it.” And that’s why we see this insane prevalence right now of autoimmune disease, chronic disease, inflammation-based disease. So that’s three of the pillars that I teach about.

Fourth one I love diving into is food. But Ayurveda talks a lot more about how to eat and when we eat as opposed to what we eat, because I know what we eat is a pretty controversial topic. Everyone’s on all sorts of spectrums with food right now. But I talk a lot more about when you eat, how are you choosing to eat that food, where are you sourcing it from, what’s in that food that’s going to benefit you?

And then, finally, my last two pillars I love to teach are mental inflammation. That’s a term that came to me when I was writing this book. I thought, “How am I going to explain to people that, if we’re going to stress about our health, even though we’re doing so much good, we’re almost chasing our tail?” Because we’re eating well, we’re eating clean, exercising, all those things, sleeping, and focusing on sleep metrics. There’s almost like a pressure we’re creating on to the joy of being healthy. And so what is that mental inflammation doing? It’s causing physical inflammation.

And then, finally, I talk about super spices and how super spices, turmeric, which is one of my favorites, are a very powerful toolkit on this journey. And I called this whole process, the six pillars, elemental design. Because, in Ayurveda, we want you to know what your key elements are that make up you that drive who you are. So I took the dosha, as in that concept from Ayurveda, and I renamed it elemental design to make it more approachable and usable by all of us.

Dr. Sandi: Wow, I love that. First of all, I love that explanation of inflammation and that little spark. You didn’t quite get out the entire fire, smoldering, and it spreads, and it grows. And most people don’t realize they can have control. So, can you explain…? I think many people often get confused. When they think of Ayurveda, they only think of dosha. So explain what that is and how this elemental design fits into this.

Dr. Shivani Gupta: For sure. So, in Ayurveda, we teach that we’re all made up of the five elements. And when you’re born, those five elements combine to give you your own individual constitution. And knowing your constitution really matters because it’s like a guidebook to yourself, and it shows you what your templates are. It’s like taking a personality quiz where you start to understand, “Oh, I am of this nature,” or, “I am of that nature.”

And so the first constitution that we teach out of Ayurveda is called Vata, or in the West, we pronounce it vata. And so this is a person who’s thin and wiry, maybe taller or shorter than most of their demographic. This is someone who talks fast, moves fast. Their main elements are wind and ether, being space. And so think of a beautiful breeze in a forest during the day. That’s a happy version of Vata energy. And a more extreme version could be a tornado, because wind and breezes could move at that rate and volatility as well. And so the same Vata person in balance is, like, happy, joyful, always in motion, creative, energetic. They’re that busybody who always has cool stuff going on. When they’re out of balance, this is someone who suffers with dryness, constipation, insomnia. They suffer with anxiety as well.

And so our job in Ayurveda is to show the Vata person how to stay balanced, how to stay whole and grounded and nourished. A tendency of a Vata person is to run their whole day, and they just survive on drinks, like their tea or their protein shakes, green juice, and they won’t eat. And so a big piece of homework for Vata is three nourishing meals a day with your healthy fat. And that sounds easy for most of us, but for a Vata person, that is real homework that you’re giving them. And then we go deeper from there to address those dryness issues and things like that.

Then you have the Pitta archetype. The Pitta person, we pronounce it pitta here in the West, that elemental design is someone who’s medium bodied, reddish hair, reddish skin, maybe early green. This is someone whose traits are all fire with some water. So that fire element really drives. They’re sharp. Their personality is very driven, organized, very focused, very clear in their communication. This is someone who is a go-getter. They are driven. They want to create things in the world. When they are out of balance, they’re like a volcano. So they tend to erupt. This is the person who gets hangry, angry, frustrated, melts down, burnt out, all the words that describe a fire or a volcano.

And so our job is to really help the Pitta person understand, “You get hangry, you need to eat your three meals a day,” how to time those meals, how to stay hydrated, how to use summer foods as cooling foods, and manage themselves like a nuclear reactor. And so understanding that can be very helpful because Pitta people tend to eat hot, oily, fried foods, spicy foods, and they tend to run in flames. They’re all fire. And so our job is to really support them so they don’t end up with high cholesterol, heart disease, all these types of issues that can be the byproducts.

And then, finally, you have a template called Kapha, here in the West is earth with water. So this is someone who is strong. They have a sturdier body, sturdier frame. They can lift heavier, bigger boned. This is someone who, in a man, feels like a mountain-grounded energy. In a woman, it feels like that grandma, caretaker, loving, Mother Earth energy. So personality-wise, they’re very one thing at a time. They are slower speaking, slower moving. But it’s very much the turtle who wins the race. So it’s that energy of that person who’s going to love and serve everyone around them. They’re deeply loyal. When out of balance, that earth energy and that water energy can lead to congestion, sluggishness of metabolism. They tend to run with colds and heaviness in the chest. They can have a tendency towards getting jealous because they do so much for others, and then they feel like they are getting nothing, and so they tend to get jealous. They’re very protective of the people around them.

And so, with Kapha, our job is to move their energy first thing in the morning, because a Kapha person, once they sit down in the evening, they’re done for the day. You cannot get them to move again. And so it’s just that understanding of all our templates are not meant to be burning the midnight oil and hustling with three different careers. We don’t all have to do things just because society is telling us that. We should actually honor our balance within our nature, and then that’s how we leverage our nature to thrive in the timeframes that are best for us. And so you’re born with your constitution.

Over your lifetime, you can definitely shift and get out of balance and live in kind of another constitution. And then some people are balanced in all three constitutions. And most of us have a primary and a secondary. So, for example, I’m a Pitta first, but my Vata mind can tend to get really all over and scattered because of social media and all these things. And so my job is to constantly say, “Okay, you know what, we have to cut you off from technology and really get grounded and centered and aligned again.”

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, such a good explanation. I can see my primary is absolutely Vata. I am thin, short, and also just light and full of energy. And, yeah, the drinks are what I need, as opposed to three meals, and have to pay attention to that. And really my older daughter is just like me. Many years ago, we had just moved, and we were on an expedition to Target to get some stuff for the house. So my younger daughter, who is the combination, I think, of a Pitta and a Kapha, she had a list, “Okay, we need all the practical things that we need.” And my older daughter, she’s like, “Oh, that’s a cute pillow. And, oh, this is cute,” and just floating around in lightness and like, “Oh, look at that.” And my younger daughter said, “No, we have to stay focused. We have this list. We need a fire extinguisher. We need all these practical things.”

Dr. Shivani Gupta: It’s so funny, right? And it’s great because once you have the awareness, speaking into health coaching, and you understand the client in front of you better, understand their nature, so you understand how to align to how they’re going to listen to you and implement what you’re saying. I use that a lot as a practitioner. I quickly ascertain the constitution of who I’m dealing with and how I’m going to find leverage points with them, how I’m going to help them succeed on their health journey. Because a lot of times, we are all watching these wellness trends and words. I know, for myself, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I need a sauna and a cold plunge,” and then this and then that. And then I laugh because I’m like, “You can’t do that.” You have to be careful for what’s in your constitution and what you will actually do. Because if it goes directly against your constitution and your nature, you’re not going to be able to make yourself do it.

Dr. Sandi: That’s exactly right. And that’s how I am with cold plunges.

Dr. Shivani Gupta: Yeah, exactly. Me, too.

Dr. Sandi: Saunas are my thing, not cold plunges. And I think also knowing the seasons is very end. It’s been cold here in Chicago, and I typically have a morning smoothie, but I don’t use a lot of ice. Now, once I had learned, I always, when I’m in a restaurant, “No ice in the water.” But the idea is, like, “No, I just cannot have a smoothie. It’s first snow. It’s cold. And I want some warming foods, and I have this craving for oatmeal.” I don’t eat oatmeal, but I just wanted something, like, hot and something soothing like that.

Dr. Shivani Gupta: Yeah. And Ayurveda came up with the circadian clock. That concept came from Ayurveda. And so, nowadays, I find it beautiful that we’re talking about it so much in all the longevity and health spaces. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this awareness is what we need right now in this moment.” Because when you understand your constitution and how it ties to a season, then you can shift your entire year. So, for example, I’m a Pitta first. Pitta season is in the summer. So that summer season, that quarter of the year, is the hottest. It’s when the sun is highest, the sun is hottest, and the season is the hottest. And so, in the summer, I have to lay low. I have to downshift my schedule a bit so that I’m as productive and healthy and happy as I can be the other nine months.

So Ayurveda taught us we’re all meant to take an off-season, and it ties to your constitution. So a Vata person, like yourself, fall season comes, all of a sudden it’s windy, and those dry leaves are falling. And if you go too hard in the fall season, that’s a season that can tend towards burnout for you. And then winter for Kapha. Kaphas are meant to hibernate. We’re not meant to, like, party through the holidays and then party for New Year’s. It’s actually more about hibernation and reclusiveness and just doing your own inner work and taking that time to rest.

But how many of us do that? Most of us don’t. And so understanding those elements and how they tie to us can support us to help us thrive more and to feel more balanced and to feel more healthy. And Ayurveda actually takes that circadian clock and goes even a layer deeper. There’s the seasons of the year. There’s also times of day.

And so, for example, 12:00 to 2:00 on the circadian clock, according to Ayurveda, when that sun is highest in the sky, we call that the Pitta time of day. And so, during lunchtime, 12:00 to 2:00, you’re meant to eat your biggest meal of the day to absorb the nutrition. And like you mentioned, ice water. We never have ice water or water even anywhere close to our meals because we want to support the digestive fire to do its job, to ignite, be ready, assimilate, and absorb all that nutrition. So lunchtime is when, if I have microgreens around, I have hemp seeds, I have sprouts, different things, I will add those in, nuts and seeds. Anything harder to digest, I’ll add it in at lunchtime.

And then 12:00 to 2:00 on that clock again, at night, 10:00 to 2:00 is our most important time to sleep. And so the circadian clock teaches, if you sleep from 10:00 to 2:00, that’s when we’re going to clear the glymphatic system. We’re going to clear the lymphatic system. We’re going to heal, regenerate. And so it’s beautiful, this ancient wisdom said, “Rise with the sun, set with the sun, mimic nature.” And that is the key to vitality and health. And so we even teach that Kapha time of day is 6:00 to 10:00. And so taking that time to really rest and wind down is important. 2:00 to 6:00 is Vata time of day. So that’s why, after lunch, sometimes we have a really hard time focusing. And so we’re meant to, from 2:00 to 6:00, just get emails done, light tasks, things like that, because we’re not going to have the same focused energy that we did in the morning.

And so having that understanding can help you shift your day and understand, “Okay, well, 2:00 to 6:00, if I’m going to feel that way, let me leave all those tasks for that time frame. Let me make sure I have a healthy snack.” For me, I teach something called “Tea time is me time.” And so I pause and have alarms that say, “Have your high tea and snack. It’s 3:30.” This is the time frame for that. And it’s a reminder to just pause and take care of ourselves. Because a lot of times, we’re going so far so fast in life. We’re so distracted. We’re lacking that presence. And so little self-care anchors, like tea time is me time, is my way to really anchor in and then shift and downshift and upshift into those different time slots of the day.

Dr. Sandi: That is so interesting. And I think many people know that intuitively, but sometimes our social life doesn’t revolve around that schedule. So dinner people are… I notice that there’s a trend towards earlier eating, and restaurant reservations that are being made for Gen Z, I’ve heard, is out of sight. The early bird senior special, which is great to eat that way, but yeah, when I’m at an event, and it’s a late dinner, I just can’t eat them.

Dr. Shivani Gupta: Me neither.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. So, where can people find you? Where can they find the book? Because I know our audience would be really excited to learn more and get the book.

Dr. Shivani Gupta: For sure. So the book is available at theinflammationcode.com, and all the information on the book is there. My website is my name, shivanigupta.com, so S-H-I-V-A-N-I G-U-P-T-A, and that’ll have all the rest of the information on all the aspects of the book that I want to teach to everyone. And the book is really a beautiful way to take all of Ayurveda and simplify it so we can use it in our lives in really tangible ways. That’s why I try to simplify the language, all those concepts, but still give that heartiness of how to bring this wisdom into our daily lives.

Dr. Sandi: Well, that’s so good to hear because I think that’s what many people want. How can I take this and put it into my life? So different ways that you can make this actionable. And so you’ve been a wonderful advocate in teaching people about this. And we’ve known each other for many years, and I always appreciate you, your wisdom, and your support of health coaches. So thank you for all that you do to support the new profession of health coaching.

Dr. Shivani Gupta: Absolutely. I think health coaches are the most necessary piece of our whole, entire health structure. And we’ve talked about this. Without the health coaches, you’re not going to have compliance. You’re not going to have accountability support, the coach alongside you who helps you implement. And I think, especially as we have this growth in functional medicine, we need that loving coach alongside us who’s going to help us with implementation. I thought that, this week, for myself, I was like, “You need someone at this point because this is a lot to implement so much change into our lives.” And so I think there’s so much need for health coaching, and I love that you’re a big part of creating that movement.

Dr. Sandi: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure to talk with you as always.

Dr. Shivani Gupta: You as well. Thanks so much.