Out of the Practice, Into the Kitchen

What if your bathroom habits could reveal important clues about your health? In this episode of The Evolution of Medicine, James Maskell sits down with Scott Hickle, CEO and co-founder of Throne Science, to explore how smart toilet technology is making it possible to track digestive health, urinary function, and hydration through AI-powered monitoring. Scott explains how Throne uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to passively monitor stool consistency, color, volume, and frequency, alongside urine concentration and urinary flow rate. By collecting objective data over time, this technology aims to help people recognize patterns that can be difficult to identify through memory alone or traditional tracking methods. The conversation also addresses an often-overlooked barrier to healthcare: embarrassment. Many people hesitate to discuss bowel changes or urinary symptoms, potentially delaying conversations with their healthcare providers. Scott explores how more accessible monitoring could support earlier recognition of changes and more informed discussions about health. James and Scott also discuss potential applications for people with IBS, inflammatory bowel disease, and prostate-related concerns, as well as the possibility of using continuous data to monitor responses to dietary changes and other interventions. Finally, they consider what this technology could mean for the future of functional and personalized medicine, where objective data may help practitioners better understand individual patterns and tailor their approach to patient care. This episode offers a look at how AI, everyday health tracking, and innovative technology could change the way we understand our bodies and approach preventive healthcare. - - - - - About the Guest: Scott Hickle is the CEO and co-founder of Throne Science, a health technology company developing smart toilet technology to help people better understand their health through everyday bathroom habits. Through AI and computer vision, Throne aims to transform routine bathroom visits into a source of objective health data, with potential applications in digestive health, urinary function, hydration, and personalized healthcare. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - PODCAST Thank you for listening. Please subscribe and share. This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/channel-growth/

What if building a successful practice also meant building a stronger family life? In this episode of The Evolution of Medicine, James Maskell sits down with Dave Inglis, author of Chief Family Officer, and Dr. Jennifer Forristal, naturopathic doctor and founder of The Umbrella Project, to explore the connection between family relationships, emotional well-being, and professional success. Functional medicine practitioners spend considerable time developing their practices, improving systems, and supporting their patients. But what happens when the same intentionality is not applied to the relationships that matter most at home? Dave and Jen introduce the concept of "systems of living"—practical ways to create space for honest conversations, navigate conflict, and keep family relationships strong as life changes. They explain why meaningful connection requires more than managing schedules and household responsibilities. The conversation explores the importance of "kitchen conversations," where people move beyond polished success stories and speak honestly about their struggles, fears, mistakes, and unmet needs. They also discuss what it means to be "undefended": remaining open to feedback, self-reflection, and the possibility of changing how we respond to others. Through real-life examples, Dave and Jen show how couples can recognize recurring patterns, understand each other's perspectives, and make practical changes that support a healthier home environment. They share a framework that includes annual family retreats, quarterly check-ins, individual conversations, and regular opportunities to address concerns before they escalate. James, Dave, and Jen also examine why these lessons matter in functional medicine. A patient's family dynamics, emotional stress, and daily responsibilities can influence their ability to follow through with health recommendations. Understanding these factors may help practitioners take a more complete view of the challenges patients face. This episode is a reminder that sustainable success involves more than clinical expertise and business growth. It also means investing in the relationships, communication, and personal well-being that support a fulfilling life at work and at home. - - - - - About the Guest: Dave Inglis is an author, speaker, and family and leadership coach. He wrote Chief Family Officer: Use Winning Plays from Work to Put Your Family First, which explores how people can apply the intentional planning and communication strategies used in business to their family lives. His work helps leaders and couples build stronger relationships while navigating professional and personal responsibilities. Dr. Jennifer Forristal is a naturopathic doctor with a focus on pediatric mental health and the founder and CEO of The Umbrella Project. She develops resources and programs that help parents, educators, and children build coping skills, emotional well-being, and resilience. She is also the author of The Umbrella Effect, a guide to helping children develop stronger coping skills and navigate life's challenges. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/channel-growth/

What if the future of brain health depends on looking beyond the brain itself? In this solo episode of The Evolution of Medicine, James Maskell shares insights from his keynote presentation at the Integrated Medicine for Mental Health Conference and explores the emerging vision of the brain medicine revolution. James discusses why cognitive decline requires a personalized approach that considers multiple potential contributors, including inflammation, metabolism, hormones, nutrition, vascular health, the microbiome, and environmental exposures. He explains how functional and precision medicine can help practitioners investigate these interconnected factors. The conversation also examines the role of relationships and community in health. Drawing from his seven years in a men's group, James shares a process for exploring emotional triggers, recognizing protective adaptations, developing self-compassion, and creating opportunities for new choices. Finally, James outlines four pillars of the brain medicine revolution: functional and precision medicine, community, team orchestration, and psychedelics. He considers how these approaches may contribute to a more integrated model of healthcare that brings together biological, behavioral, emotional, and social dimensions of health. This episode offers a broader perspective on the future of functional medicine and the importance of combining personalized care with human connection. - - - - - About the Host: James Maskell is the host of The Evolution of Medicine and a leader in the functional medicine movement. Through his work in healthcare innovation, community-based care, and practice transformation, he explores new ways to help practitioners deliver personalized, root-cause-oriented healthcare and build stronger connections within their communities. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - -   PODCAST Thank you for listening. Please subscribe and share. This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/channel-growth/

What if healing was less about forcing the body to recover—and more about creating the conditions for coherence? In this episode of The Evolution of Medicine, James Maskell speaks with Dr. Cynthia Li about her personal recovery from chronic illness and the deeper healing principles that emerged through Qigong, embodied flow, and energetic medicine. After struggling with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, dysautonomia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and post-viral illness, Dr. Li discovered that true healing extended beyond protocols and physical interventions. Through practices rooted in ancient Chinese medicine and modern nervous system science, she began exploring coherence as a biological and energetic healing state. Together, they discuss the concept of embodied flow, where the brain, heart, breath, gut, and nervous system synchronize to support healing, intuition, and energy conservation. The conversation also expands into collective coherence, group healing, activist burnout, and the shift from urgency toward "ripeness" in medicine and systems change. This episode offers a powerful vision for the future of healthcare—one that integrates functional medicine, consciousness, bioenergetics, and collective healing. - - - - - About the Guest: Cynthia Li is a functional medicine physician and author based in the San Francisco Bay Area. After experiencing her own long-term battle with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, dysautonomia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and post-viral illness, she expanded her work beyond conventional and functional medicine into the fields of Qigong, nervous system regulation, and energetic healing. She is the author of The Medicine of Flow, a book exploring coherence, embodied flow, surrender, and effortless healing through harmonizing the body's inner state. Her work bridges modern science, systems biology, ancient Chinese wisdom, and consciousness-based healing practices. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - PODCAST Thank you for listening. Please subscribe and share. This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/channel-growth/

In this episode, host James Maskell sits down with Dr. Zach Bush to explore the concept of biological elegance and what it could mean for the future of health and healthcare. Zach begins by describing what he calls "nature deficit disorder"—the growing separation between humans and the natural world through industrialization, technology, convenience, and increasingly mechanistic systems. He connects this separation to a broader loss of connection with the biological systems that support human health. The conversation then turns to one of the biggest blind spots for practitioners: the belief that they must find and deliver the solution for the person sitting across from them. Zach explains how even approaches considered "alternative" or "natural" can become another form of intervention and symptom management when they are treated as isolated solutions. Instead, he emphasizes the complexity and interconnectedness of biological systems. James and Zach also explore what intelligence actually means. Zach distinguishes biological intelligence from artificial or abstract information, arguing that true intelligence requires embodiment, context, relationship, and connection to the living world. They discuss AI and why organizing information is not the same as understanding the context in which that information exists. A major theme throughout the conversation is that health is relational. Zach recalls being taught in medical school that if you listen to a patient long enough, they can tell you what disease they have, why they have it, and potentially how to heal it. He believes practitioners should move from being the person who "fixes" the patient toward becoming a witness, listener, and guide who helps the patient recognize the intelligence already present within their own experience. James and Zach explore the role of groups in healing and how relationships can reveal patterns that may remain hidden in traditional one-on-one healthcare. Zach describes his work with groups of six to eight people and explains why friction and interpersonal triggers can actually be valuable: they can expose experiences and patterns that create opportunities for deeper self-understanding. The conversation also touches on aging, longevity, and the importance of connection. He challenges the idea that biology can be effectively understood or controlled through isolated interventions and emphasizes curiosity, connection, and listening to the intelligence of living systems. They close by discussing the future of healthcare, the breakdown of increasingly abstract and mechanistic systems, and the possibility of communities becoming the foundation through which new forms of healing and collective intelligence emerge. Zach also shares his vision for The Origin, a global gathering centered around human interconnectedness and biological coherence. - - - - - About the Guest: Dr. Zach Bush is a physician whose work explores the interconnected nature of human health, biology, and the environment. In this conversation, he shares his perspective on biological elegance, biological intelligence, nature deficit disorder, relational health, community-based healing, aging, and the future of healthcare. He challenges conventional ideas about controlling biology and emphasizes curiosity, connection, and listening to the intelligence of living systems. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - PODCAST Thank you for listening. Please subscribe and share. This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/channel-growth/

In this episode, host James Maskell sits down with holistic psychiatrist Dr. Ellen Vora to discuss her new book, Season of the Witch: The Psychiatrist's Case for Magic. Dr. Vora's first book, The Anatomy of Anxiety, directly translated her functional medicine approach to mental health. This book came from a deeper, more spiritual inquiry. She describes it as part grief memoir, part cultural commentary, and still a prescriptive functional medicine book. Her central argument is that many of us learned to perform a left-brained, rational type of intelligence while suppressing our mystical, intuitive side. That adaptation opened doors for her through medical school, residency, and a research fellowship. Now she believes it's time to integrate the parts we disavowed. Dr. Vora shares how she grew up in a secular environment where science was worshipped and skepticism was a virtue. When her mother died suddenly, the view that death is random and final no longer held. She chose to open to the possibility that her mother's spirit continues, and signs and synchronicities followed. Eleven years later, she describes an ongoing connection with her mother. She also cites Dr. Lisa Miller's research at Columbia showing that a sense of something larger protects against depression and suicidal ideation. Maskell and Dr. Vora explore intuition as "the witch's compass" and the nuanced role of wearables in self-awareness. They also discuss her practices of embodiment and presence, which she grounds in integrity and sovereignty. The conversation closes on community and the collective: leaving the world better than we found it, finding our unique contribution, and learning about love as part of the evolution of consciousness. - - - - - About the Guest: Dr. Ellen Vora is a holistic psychiatrist who takes a functional medicine approach to mental health. She is the author of The Anatomy of Anxiety and Season of the Witch: The Psychiatrist's Case for Magic, which explores intuition, spirituality, grief, and the cultural conditioning that leads us to suppress our intuitive selves. Trained in conventional medicine, Dr. Vora integrates root-cause care with embodiment, presence, and spiritual inquiry to help patients heal. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/podcast-service/

In this episode, host James Maskell sits down with Kirkland Newman, founder of MindHealth360 and Executive Director of the IMMH (Integrative Medicine for Mental Health) conference. Newman's path into integrative mental health began with her own experience of severe postpartum depression after both of her pregnancies. Offered only antidepressants by her psychiatrist — with no explanation for why she was suddenly experiencing panic attacks, anxiety, insomnia, and depression — she sought answers from an OBGYN, an endocrinologist, two GPs, and multiple psychiatrists, none of whom investigated further. Her own research led her to hormone specialists, a functional-medicine-oriented nutritionist, and eventually to Sarah Gottfried's work on adrenal and HPA-axis dysfunction. She discovered she had significant hormonal imbalances, nutritional deficiencies (low omega-3s, B vitamins, vitamin D), heavy metal toxicity, and gluten intolerance — none of which had ever been screened for, despite clear symptoms including cardiac ectopic beats that went uninvestigated for a thyroid cause. Frustrated that this root-cause approach wasn't part of mainstream care, Newman founded MindHealth360 to provide free resources and a global practitioner database, launched a podcast interviewing leading integrative mental health practitioners, and eventually took over the IMMH conference from its founder, Dr. Shaw. Under her leadership, the conference has grown from 50 attendees in 2009 to around 2,000 in-person and virtual attendees today. Maskell and Newman discuss the shifting landscape of psychiatry — a groundswell of patient-driven demand for root-cause approaches meeting growing frustration among practitioners with the limits of psych medications — along with the broader convergence of psychiatry and neurology into what some are calling "brain medicine." Newman outlines her framework for sustainable mental health treatment across three domains: the biochemical (hormones, nutrition, gut health, infections, inflammation, genetics), the psychosocial/spiritual (relationships, chronic stress, trauma, ACEs), and the lifestyle/behavioral (sunlight, exercise, sleep). The episode closes with a preview of this year's IMMH conference, taking place October 8–11 in San Diego, featuring speakers including Robert Lustig, Bessel van der Kolk, Dick Schwartz, Robin Carhart-Harris, Dale Bredesen, Kat Toups, Richard Horowitz, and James Greenblatt, with tracks spanning trauma, addiction, eating disorders, hormones, sleep, neurodegeneration, and psychoneuroimmunology, and up to 40–45 CE credits available. - - - - - About the Guest: Kirkland Newman is the founder of MindHealth360, a free global resource platform and practitioner database for integrative mental health, and Executive Director of the IMMH (Integrative Medicine for Mental Health) conference. Her own experience with severe postpartum depression — and the lack of answers from conventional medicine — led her on a personal healing journey into functional medicine, hormonal health, and nutritional psychiatry. She has since built IMMH into one of the leading conferences in the field, growing it from 50 attendees to roughly 2,000, and hosts a podcast interviewing leading integrative practitioners in mental health from around the world. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/trunuera Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - PODCAST Thank you for listening. Please subscribe and share. This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/channel-growth/

In this episode, host James Maskell sits down with Nikki Schultek, founding director of the Pathobiome Research Center at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and founder of the Alzheimer's Pathobiome Initiative, a global research consortium. Schultek's path into this work began with her own illness 11 years ago — a multi-system chronic condition driven by a tick bite and co-infections including Chlamydia pneumoniae, which went misdiagnosed by 12 specialists for a year before Dr. Charles Stratton at Vanderbilt identified and treated the underlying infections, restoring her to roughly 95% of her former health. That experience, and the fear of not watching her young children grow up, led her to found Intracell Research Group and later become what she calls a "collaboration architect" — connecting siloed researchers across immunology, microbiology, neuropathology, and epidemiology who study different pathogens (herpesviruses, Chlamydia, Borrelia, Bartonella, fungi, syphilis) but rarely collaborate with one another. The conversation covers the evidence linking infection to Alzheimer's disease: animal studies showing pathogens like C. pneumoniae can induce amyloid-like plaques in wild-type mice; the historical near-miss in which Alzheimer's disease could have been named after Dr. Oscar Fischer, who described bacterial-colony-like structures in tangles and plaques during the pre-antibiotic syphilis era; and emerging research suggesting amyloid and tau may act as innate immune "firefighters" responding to infection rather than purely destructive proteins. Schultek highlights her consortium's 2023 landmark paper in Alzheimer's & Dementia, which catalogued 86 case reports of infectious dementias reversed through targeted antimicrobial treatment. Maskell and Schultek also discuss the heterogeneity of individual cases — from periodontal pathogens like Porphyromonas gingivalis to tick-borne co-infections — and the need for precision, patient-specific approaches that account for genetics, exposome, and hormonal factors. The episode closes with a discussion of what's needed to move the field forward: greater federal and philanthropic funding, better multi-pathogen and host-biomarker testing, industry investment in targeted (rather than broad-spectrum) antimicrobial therapies, and expanded insurance coverage — particularly for PANS/PANDAS families currently priced out of diagnostic testing. - - - - - About the Guest: Nikki Schultek is the founding director of the Pathobiome Research Center at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and founder of the Alzheimer's Pathobiome Initiative, a global research consortium studying the role of infectious agents in neurodegenerative, neurological, and neuropsychiatric disease. A former patient whose own multi-system chronic illness was driven by tick-borne and intracellular infections, she now works as a "collaboration architect," bringing together researchers across immunology, microbiology, epidemiology, and neuropathology to advance infection-associated chronic illness research. She is co-lead author of the 2023 landmark paper on the Alzheimer's Pathobiome Initiative published in Alzheimer's & Dementia. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/podcast-service/

In this episode, host James Maskell sits down with Dr. Helen Lavretsky — integrative and geriatric psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and professor of psychiatry at UCLA, where she directs clinical research on integrated mental health and serves as research director for UCLA's Integrative Medicine Collaborative. Her path into the field began through Kundalini Yoga, sparking 20 years of studying mind-body practices with rigorous neuroscience. Despite initial pushback in academic psychiatry, her evidence ultimately gained widespread acceptance. She details her clinical model: a partnership where patients choose self-regulation tools based on joy, avoiding rigid regimens. She also shares her landmark Kirtan Kriya research, showing that just 12 minutes of daily chanting meditation over 8 weeks rewired the brain, improved cognition, and reversed aging markers in dementia caregivers. Discussing her new book, Living from the Soul: The Neuroscience of Spiritual Awakening, she addresses patients experiencing "spiritual emergence"—symptoms like insomnia and body pain often misdiagnosed as psychiatric illness. She links these rising rates to global instability and generational shifts in resilience. They also explore brain health policy and the "Brain Capital" movement—from UCLA summits and UN testimonies to Texas's $3 billion Brain Health Institute. Finally, they examine environmental risk factors, genetic predispositions like APOE4, and offer a candid critique of long-term SSRI use in older adults. The episode closes on the future of precision medicine and data-driven Alzheimer's care. - - - - - About the Guest: Dr. Helen Lavretsky is an integrative and geriatric psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and professor of psychiatry at UCLA. She directs clinical research programs on integrated mental health and serves as director of research for the UCLA Integrative Medicine Collaborative. She is a past president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry and the author of several books, including her latest, Living from the Soul: The Neuroscience of Spiritual Awakening. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/podcast-service/

In this live episode from the Institute for Functional Medicine's Annual International Conference, host James Maskell sits down with Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark, who opened the conference that morning with its keynote address. The conversation begins with something unusual: conference attendees — mostly, as Maskell puts it, "type A, cerebral" doctors — got up and danced during her talk, a rare sight at a medical conference. Dr. Maker-Clark, who is part of a West African dance company, explains why: drumming and dance tap into something deeply primal in all of us, tied to ancestral rhythm, grief, celebration, and rites of passage — connections she says were severed largely through colonization. Maskell shares a parallel experience with communal singing, discovered through his men's group, and the two agree it produces a similarly embodied, collective effect. From there, the discussion turns to rebuilding what's been lost. Maskell describes creating a small home-school and community pod for his daughter, built around Dunbar's number, as a deliberate act of "rebuilding the tapestry" of connection. Dr. Maker-Clark reframes this broader work not as innovation but as remembrance and reclamation — recovering what our cells already know how to do. The conversation closes on health equity and food. Dr. Maker-Clark discusses her decade running a culinary medicine program at the University of Chicago Medical School, training physicians to talk with patients about food and cultural humility — a model that has now expanded to over 80 academic medical centers nationally. She and Maskell discuss group-based, cohort models of care as a scalable way to deliver this kind of medicine beyond wealthy populations, pushing back on the idea that holistic care is "just for rich people." The episode ends on a note about hope as a muscle — something we have to keep using. - - - - - About the Guest: Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark delivered the opening keynote at the Institute for Functional Medicine's Annual International Conference. She is a member of a West African dance company and runs the culinary medicine program at the University of Chicago Medical School, training physicians and medical students in nutritional science and cultural humility in patient care — a model now adopted across 80+ academic medical centers nationally. She has a book coming out later this summer. - - - - - Social Handles: Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/ X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum - - - - - Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners: TrueNeura: https://truneura.com/ Fullscript Journeys: https://fullscript.com/lp/journeys-james-maskell Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc Genova Diagnostics: https://goevomed.com/genova - - - - - PODCAST Thank you for listening. Please subscribe and share. This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com https://drtalks.com/podcast-service/