hol+ with Dr. Taz MD | The Future of Medicine is Holistic

What if your fatigue, achy joints, brain fog, stubborn weight, skin issues, and frequent illnesses aren't six separate problems, but different signs of the same underlying pattern? In this episode, Dr. Taz explains microinflammation, the chronic low-grade inflammatory activity that can quietly affect multiple systems throughout the body.

She breaks down six common signs to watch for and explains how blood sugar instability, gut health, cortisol and chronic stress, poor sleep, ultra-processed foods, visceral fat, environmental exposures, and other factors can contribute to persistent inflammation.
You'll also learn the foundational strategies Dr. Taz uses at hol+ to help calm inflammatory signaling, including stabilizing blood sugar, prioritizing protein, fiber and healthy fats, improving sleep and gut health, lowering chronic stress, and looking at markers such as hs-CRP, fasting insulin, and hemoglobin A1C.

Inflammation isn't necessarily a life sentence. It can be a signal that something in the system needs attention.

Learn more or schedule a consultation with a HOL+ provider at holplus.co/appointments.

Join The Circle, Dr. Taz’s private membership featuring live sessions, practical demonstrations, research discussions, real guidance, and a supportive community.

Start your one-month trial at: ➡️ https://holplus.co/circle/ (use the code PODCAST)

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Produced by https://ClipGrowth.com (Producer: Pat Gostek)

Creators and Guests

Host
Dr. Taz Bhatia MD
Dr. Taz Bhatia is a triple-board-certified integrative medicine physician and founder of hol+, where she brings together science, spirit and the human experience to deliver holistic, whole-person care.
Producer
Pat Gostek
Founder of ClipGrowth.com - End-to-End YouTube, Podcast & Clips Management (you just record).

What is hol+ with Dr. Taz MD | The Future of Medicine is Holistic?

hol+ with Dr. Taz MD is redefining modern medicine through a comprehensive, evidence-based holistic approach; integrating functional medicine, integrative medicine, and time-tested healing systems to treat the whole human, not just symptoms.

Hosted by Dr. Tasneem Bhatia (Dr. Taz), triple board-certified physician in integrative, functional, and holistic medicine, bestselling Penguin Random House author, and founder of hol+; a comprehensive evidence-based holistic medicine platform with clinics in Atlanta, New York City, and Los Angeles, and virtual care available nationwide.

At the heart of hol+ is a revolutionary framework: the Five Body Map- physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and social/community bodies that create whole health. This whole-human approach connects hormone imbalances, gut dysfunction, microinflammation, cortisol dysregulation, metabolic disease, autoimmune conditions, perimenopause, and stress-driven illness to the full spectrum of who we are; body, mind, and spirit.

Each episode explores Dr. Taz’s original clinical frameworks ;The Cortisol Loop, Microinflammation, and The Invisible Load alongside conversations with leading experts, celebrities, and thought leaders including Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Katherine Schwarzenegger, Cameron Mathison, Carol Alt, Jane Seymour, Tamsen Fadal, and Kris Carr.

Topics include hormone health, gut health, GLP-1 and metabolic therapy, thyroid dysfunction, weight loss, inflammation, autoimmune disease, mental and emotional wellness, energetic health, and the future of holistic medicine.

This is the show where science and spirit converge- driving health, happiness, relationships, and family ecosystems.

Want to go deeper? Join Dr. Taz’s private community, the hol+ Circle ; medicine beyond the exam room. (holplus.co/circle)

A 2025 Webby Award honoree, recognized alongside the Mel Robbins Podcast in the 29th Annual Webby Awards, hol+ is built on the foundation of Super Woman Wellness, which surpassed 1 million downloads over 8 years.

This is medicine beyond the exam room. Welcome to hol+

[00:00:00] This episode is sponsored by Hol+ a holistic health platform built around [00:00:05] education, personalization, and integrative care. Hol+ blends [00:00:10] holistic, integrative, and functional medicine clinics with learning resources like blogs, [00:00:15] YouTube videos, and of course this podcast, so you're not just treated, you're informed.[00:00:20]

The platform also includes holistic health quizzes and a curated wellness shop, helping you [00:00:25] make choices that support your body at the root level. Hol+ is [00:00:30] holistic healthcare designed for real life. Visit us at holplus.co [00:00:35] to learn

more about the platform. Again, that's [00:00:40] holplus.co

If you are tired, achy, foggy, and carrying [00:00:45] weight that will not move, I do not think you have four problems. I think you [00:00:50] actually have one. Let's talk about microinflammation and what actually [00:00:55] calms it down. Inflammation traditionally is treated as acute, a three-alarm [00:01:00] fire, something that you have to run and solve immediately.

But chronic [00:01:05] low-grade inflammation is rarely screened for. The [00:01:10] HSCRP is hardly a part of a standard physical set of labs. [00:01:15] Each symptom that I just talked about, those four, usually gets its own [00:01:20] appointment, and usually, and I'm sure you're agreeing with me, each of those symptoms [00:01:25] often get their own prescription.

Anti-inflammatories manage the [00:01:30] three-alarm fire, but never really ask the question of what's going on [00:01:35] underneath. What's switching it on? Why is it even there to begin with? [00:01:40] Here's what we understand when we think differently, when we think holistically or [00:01:45] through the functional medicine lens. We understand that microinflammation is [00:01:50] real.

It's a slow burn. It's happening below the threshold of a standard [00:01:55] test and above the threshold of just feeling good. It's [00:02:00] systemic, which means that's the reason why it's showing up in your joints, your brain, the gut, [00:02:05] and your skin all at one time. And unrelated symptoms, [00:02:10] although they seem unrelated, are usually one pattern, not [00:02:15] four different problems Inflammation and micro inflammation are usually [00:02:20] driven by daily inputs.

That means our food, our sleep, your stress, your gut, they all [00:02:25] matter and they are all modifiable. That's the good news. [00:02:30] But there are about six different ways I see over and over again that micro [00:02:35] inflammation will show up in you and I want you guys to be able to recognize it. [00:02:40] So maybe again, jot these down if you think this is relevant to you or even share it with me in the [00:02:45] comments below.

Just feeling tired all the time. Your immune [00:02:50] system is running in the background, it's consuming energy and nothing you do will [00:02:55] lift that constant fatigue. Morning stiffness and achiness. Have any of [00:03:00] you experienced that? That's the inflammatory signaling that accumulates [00:03:05] overnight. Brain fog and low mood.

That's another way that inflammation [00:03:10] will actually cross into the brain and affect our neurotransmitter signaling, whether we're [00:03:15] anxious or depressed, sad or happy. Stubborn weight, [00:03:20] especially around the middle. Inflammation and insulin resistance reinforce [00:03:25] each other and will cause oftentimes that middle weight gain that takes [00:03:30] forever to lose.

Your skin, whether it's a breakout, acne, [00:03:35] eczema, rosacea, the skin mirrors the gut at every age. And then [00:03:40] getting sick more often or taking way longer to recover. This means that your [00:03:45] immune system is busy, busy keeping up and it's responding [00:03:50] poorly to new challenges because it's already in a subtle [00:03:55] micro inflammatory state Let's get to the root cause.

In [00:04:00] functional medicine, we ask why does the immune system do what it's [00:04:05] doing? Why does it get switched on and start to overreact, or in some cases, [00:04:10] under-react? And we wanna solve it for you. We understand that blood sugar [00:04:15] swings, constant crashing of blood sugar, you're high, you're low, you're all over the place, [00:04:20] causes micro inflammation.

At first undetectable, but over [00:04:25] time, so obvious you can no longer ignore it. We know that the gut [00:04:30] is the root of inflammation. I have been talking about this forever, that almost 75% of the [00:04:35] inflammation I see actually begins in the gut. Ideas like gut [00:04:40] permeability or gut dysbiosis, these are things we have to pay attention to, and [00:04:45] they're a reason why the immune system turns on, turns off, or [00:04:50] overreacts.

Stress and cortisol. We know that cortisol is an [00:04:55] anti-inflammatory until you're in a cortisol loop that does not shut off. [00:05:00] When you are in that cortisol loop, you then enter the place where cortisol becomes [00:05:05] pro-inflammatory, causing many of the symptoms that you experience day to day. [00:05:10] Sleep is an opportunity for inflammation to quiet down, so poor [00:05:15] sleep or insufficient sleep is a window where inflammation no longer [00:05:20] has an opportunity to resolve.

And we know that ultra-processed foods, along [00:05:25] with, you know, a lot of the fast foods that are out there, all of those things are [00:05:30] impacting you towards an inflammatory signal. Visceral fat, which we've talked [00:05:35] about, is metabolically active and also produces inflammatory messengers. [00:05:40] And then hidden infections, sensitivities, the environmental load, all of [00:05:45] that is worth looking at when the basics are already in place [00:05:50] We talk a lot about inflammation and micro inflammation at Whole Plus, and here is sort of our [00:05:55] general strategy, what we really try to adopt when we're thinking about where this is coming [00:06:00] from and how we can solve it for you.

It's all about stabilizing that blood sugar first, the [00:06:05] protein, fiber, fat at every meal, eating every four hours or so and having a [00:06:10] 12-hour fast. Eating brightly colored fruits and vegetables, foods rich in [00:06:15] omega-3 fats like fatty fishes, having your monounsaturated fats like olive [00:06:20] oil, and a wide range of plants throughout the week are a great way to really [00:06:25] mitigate micro inflammation.

Now, if you're having trouble getting all of those foods in on a day-to-day [00:06:30] basis, I know many of us do, this is where supplementation can help. And what we do [00:06:35] at Whole Plus is really offer our patients physician-approved, guided, [00:06:40] personalized supplementation, all available in our Whole Plus shop. Sleep, again, [00:06:45] one that we all struggle with, trying to get about seven to nine hours of consistent sleep, [00:06:50] consistent wake time.

This is where a lot of inflammation can resolve. When your [00:06:55] gut is inflamed, it's very difficult to get inflammation to go away. So really [00:07:00] working on the gut. You know, do you have leaky gut? Do you have an overgrowth of the wrong gut bacteria? [00:07:05] These are important questions to ask to help inflammation come down.

Lowering [00:07:10] that chronic stress load, that's a no-brainer. That's a direct input into your immune system. [00:07:15] And then, of course, testing. Where's your CRP? Where's your fasting insulin? And [00:07:20] even your hemoglobin A1c give us a baseline to help us track you when it [00:07:25] comes to micro inflammation. Inflammation's not a life sentence.

It's a [00:07:30] signal, and it responds way faster than most people expect. Which of these [00:07:35] six symptoms do you recognize, and what have you done to turn them around? And if you need support [00:07:40] and help, remember that we are here for you at Whole Plus. There's an entire provider [00:07:45] team that does this day in and day out.

But if your starting step is [00:07:50] really just maybe trying something to see if your body responds, head over to our [00:07:55] shop for physician-curated, trusted supplements that we recommend at [00:08:00] shop.wholeplus.co. If you wanna dive deeper into this conversation around [00:08:05] inflammation and its impact on your health and longevity, check out my latest podcast [00:08:10] episode with Dr.

Darshan Shah, where he and I go head-to-head talking about [00:08:15] inflammation, micro inflammation, the immune system, and everything in between.