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] I want you guys to think about when was the last time [00:00:05] you woke up feeling refreshed and energetic and ready to tackle the day? And [00:00:10] if you answered yes to that, here's your second question. Did that energy [00:00:15] sustain throughout the day or did it go away after an hour or two? We're gonna have a [00:00:20] conversation about energy and energy that is sustainable, that [00:00:25] lasts, but is important not just in a longevity conversation but really important [00:00:30] across the health span As someone [00:00:35] who's worked in the holistic and integrative space for over 20 years, I am [00:00:40] concerned about this idea of energy and what we're seeing even in our [00:00:45] children to our seniors.
Chinese medicine called it chi and tried to [00:00:50] quantify it through meridian theory, acupuncture, and assessing the [00:00:55] body in many different ways through tongue and pulse and so much more. Ayurveda called it [00:01:00] prana. But both systems of medicine, along with so many others, talked [00:01:05] about this ability to assess somebody's energy and to help that [00:01:10] person understand when their energy was optimal and in a really great place or when [00:01:15] their energy might be fading and some interventions might need to happen.
And the [00:01:20] conversation in older systems of medicine was not limited to [00:01:25] aging. It was really around a newborn or a young child or a teenager [00:01:30] or somebody in their 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond. I wanna bring [00:01:35] that concept of energy and cellular health into the [00:01:40] conversation around overall health and family health and wellness because it is something that I feel like is [00:01:45] simply not getting enough attention And at the root of this conversation [00:01:50] is the idea that our cells are not getting what they need because of the [00:01:55] environment, the way we live our lives, our exposure to different light sources, and [00:02:00] chronic stress that many of us are subjected to even from childhood.
[00:02:05] So replenishing those cells and plumping them up and giving them the chi or [00:02:10] the prana or whatever word we wanna use to really sustain life is [00:02:15] something that we've got to take more seriously. It's a part of why I think we [00:02:20] have so many issues today with focus and concentration, dementia and [00:02:25] Alzheimer's, fertility and infertility, or all the many different hormone conditions that [00:02:30] we see over and over again.
It's a part of why we see so many [00:02:35] mood shifts and a mental health crisis. So at the root of all of this, if we [00:02:40] get down to the cellular level, our cells are not being given [00:02:45] what they need, and they're collapsing at a more rapid rate than we've ever [00:02:50] seen before. So let's talk a little bit more about this concept about energy.
Make [00:02:55] it tactical and tangible so that you maybe by the end of this episode have some [00:03:00] things that you can put into action right away. So energy is something that is [00:03:05] a valuable resource, just like your money and your finances. And when we don't [00:03:10] have it, we become bankrupt or in debt, and we might steal from [00:03:15] another resource, right?
We may s- have more caffeine, or maybe we'll have more [00:03:20] sugar or something to give us a temporary source of energy. But as you know from [00:03:25] working with money, taking debt doesn't work for very long. There is always a [00:03:30] price to pay. Instead, I am thinking about your health and your [00:03:35] cellular health and really coming to terms after all these years with the idea [00:03:40] that many of us are biologically bankrupt.
We have depleted our [00:03:45] resources, but we have not taken the time and energy to renew those resources, [00:03:50] and maybe we've taken on a debt that simply is getting too big and too heavy [00:03:55] over a period of time So what is biological bankruptcy? And let's talk a little bit [00:04:00] about it. It's really down to two very specific concepts.
I [00:04:05] can get it all the way down to mitochondrial dysfunction, which is the [00:04:10] power plant of the cell that simply is not working well and doing what it's supposed to be doing; [00:04:15] NAD depletion, which is a fuel that actually runs our cells [00:04:20] and helps our cells to repair. And if we wanna throw a third in, cell death, [00:04:25] we call it cell senescence, and inflammaging, which means that inflammation is [00:04:30] driving the aging process very rapidly.
All of these we could talk about [00:04:35] separately probably for an hour each, but they're actually intertwined. And [00:04:40] again, I keep coming back to how things are connected, to how [00:04:45] sometimes it's three corners of a triangle that we have to understand. And when we talk about energy and [00:04:50] cellular health, then we understand that these are the three pillars that we have to [00:04:55] pay attention to.
I'm gonna say it again so that everybody remembers as they're listening to this [00:05:00] episode. Mitochondrial dysfunction, NAD depletion, and cellular [00:05:05] senescence and inflammaging. We're gonna move right into talking about mitochondrial [00:05:10] dysfunction. That, again, is the powerhouse of the cell. Every cell in your [00:05:15] body has a mitochondria.
But those mitochondria, also known as organelles, [00:05:20] produce ATP. This is an energy source. And I don't know how many biology books [00:05:25] and chemistry books I had to look at to talk about ATP and learn about ATP [00:05:30] all the way back to middle school science, right? But it is important, and at the [00:05:35] time maybe as a young girl, it was just something I had to learn for a test.
But at the end of the [00:05:40] day, ATP is your power source, right? It's helping you move, think, do, be [00:05:45] all the things that you wanna be. But when that cellular energy or currency starts to go [00:05:50] down, then you change, and you literally become a version of [00:05:55] yourself that you may not recognize. And I know this happened to me in my late 20s when I was going [00:06:00] through my own health crisis.
It's happened at other times when I've gotten very stressed, where my energy [00:06:05] reserves and my energy stores became completely depleted When the [00:06:10] mitochondria are working well, you've got energy. When they don't work well, you're gonna [00:06:15] feel it everywhere, cognitively, emotionally, physically, even your [00:06:20] immune system with getting sick over and over again.
Let's take a [00:06:25] quick look at what the research tells us about mitochondria as we age and [00:06:30] even over time and how we accumulate chronic stress. In 2023, there [00:06:35] was a journal, Antioxidants, one of the leading journals in oxidative biology, talked about the [00:06:40] fact that mitochondria are the main source of fuel for the cell.
They produce [00:06:45] something called ROS, or reactive oxygen species, and under normal conditions, [00:06:50] some of this, a small amount of this ROS, is actually really helpful for our cells. [00:06:55] But with chronic stress at any age, not just as an aging process, but with [00:07:00] any age, as this increases because of stress, because of poor sleep, an [00:07:05] inflammatory diet, environmental stressors, you know, environmental toxins, [00:07:10] the ROS production in the mitochondria becomes excessive.
The mitochondria [00:07:15] cannot keep up. And so that's something called oxidative damage. So the cell, [00:07:20] that power plant of the cell, becomes damaged, is no longer able to function the way [00:07:25] it's supposed to. This in turn causes those symptoms, the fatigue, [00:07:30] the brain fog, the muscle weakness, the not feeling like yourself, needing [00:07:35] caffeine all throughout the day.
This is a mitochondrial issue. A 2025 [00:07:40] study looked at mitochondrial dysfunction as one of the 12 core [00:07:45] hallmarks of early aging or premature aging, a driver of it [00:07:50] essentially. And as mitochondrial function goes down, it triggers a cascade. Those ATP [00:07:55] go down, ROS goes up, there's mitochondrial DNA damage, inflammation goes [00:08:00] up, and then in turn we have more pro-inflammatory signals [00:08:05] circulating throughout the body.
This is very much rooted in why we are [00:08:10] seeing the downshift in age of autoimmune diseases, of cancer, and of so [00:08:15] many other crises, including the mental health crisis. The energy is simply [00:08:20] not there, and we've gotta figure out how to provide energy in an [00:08:25] environment where energy is getting depleted from our cells.
And critically, [00:08:30] last but certainly not least, is that chronic fatigue, right? That, uh, [00:08:35] disease pattern that has been dismissed for God knows how long. We actually call it chronic inflammatory [00:08:40] response syndrome. When that was reviewed at the NIH, they found in [00:08:45] 2025 that mitochondrial dysfunction is actually the central [00:08:50] mechanism by which chronic fatigue develops.
And in long COVID, that [00:08:55] was actually the hallmark. Long COVID impacted the mitochondrial cells [00:09:00] and caused a lot of this post-exertional energy collapse where cells could not [00:09:05] regenerate because of increased ATP demand. Bottom line, how we function is [00:09:10] rooted in mitochondrial health. It is chi, it is prana, it [00:09:15] is essence, all these words that have been used over a long period of time to describe [00:09:20] the energy that each of us have.
But this is not a longevity [00:09:25] conversation. This is a health span conversation. Whether we're talking about our newborn and the energy that they come [00:09:30] into the world with, or we're talking about a young child or a teenager or [00:09:35] somebody older or even our seniors, their mitochondrial function is [00:09:40] driving their ability to show up in the world at every level, at every [00:09:45] one of those five bodies that I talk about So bottom line, your fatigue has an [00:09:50] address.
It lives in your mitochondria, and what's happening in there isn't just making you [00:09:55] tired. It's actually accelerating inflammation, premature [00:10:00] aging, cognitive function, and so much more. Mitochondrial dysfunction [00:10:05] is one piece of the puzzle of biological bankruptcy. There is [00:10:10] more to the story, and let's get into the next two pillars.
I want to pause here [00:10:15] because I see this pattern all the time. People are doing the research, they're listening to the [00:10:20] podcast, they're trying to take better care of themselves, and they still feel so stuck, [00:10:25] especially when it comes to their health, their hormones, their stress, and even taking care of their [00:10:30] families.
That's why I created The Circle. The Circle is my private membership where we go [00:10:35] deeper into these topics with real guidance, demos, live sessions, and a [00:10:40] supportive community. If you want to try it, there's a one-month trial available right [00:10:45] now. You can learn more at holplus.co/circle. That's [00:10:50] H-O-L-P-L-U-S dot C-O backslash circle or just click the link in the [00:10:55] description below and use the code YouTube.
Now let's continue the conversation. [00:11:00] All right, now NAD is something that I feel like is getting a lot of press. A lot of people are getting NAD [00:11:05] IVs. They're taking NAD supplements. I get asked about NAD all the time in [00:11:10] the exam room. But NAD is a really important molecule that sits at the center of [00:11:15] everything that we've been talking about with mitochondrial dysfunction, and understanding NAD [00:11:20] may change how you think about aging entirely.
NAD is actually a [00:11:25] coenzyme found in every cell in your body, and it's essential for mitochondrial function. It [00:11:30] powers that electron transport chain that produces ATP. Again, we're back to talking about [00:11:35] my seventh grade biology class with ATP, and it activates the proteins that [00:11:40] regulate DNA repair, inflammation control, and longevity pathways.
But it [00:11:45] declines with age. And by the time most people are hitting their 40s and 50s, and [00:11:50] if they've been through a lot of chronic stress or trauma, it can even shift into your 20s [00:11:55] or 30s, NAD levels are dropping from 30 to 60% of where they actually peaked. But [00:12:00] the research is showing it's not just age, as I was saying, that depletes NAD.
[00:12:05] Inflammation, poor sleep, oxidative loads, toxins, blue light, all of these [00:12:10] things are driving NAD levels down. In 2024, we had a study published [00:12:15] in Aging Cells that mapped exactly how the accumulation of aging [00:12:20] cells is driving NAD depletion through a specific enzyme. I won't give you the [00:12:25] details of the enzyme.
It probably will put you to sleep. But bottom line of the study, it showed that [00:12:30] inflammation is one of the drivers of NAD decline, and NAD [00:12:35] decline triggers more inflammation. Yet another example of how things are connected and bidirectional. [00:12:40] So again, the connection between NAD, energy [00:12:45] metabolism, DNA repair, inflammation, and mitochondrial production [00:12:50] is so interlinked.
You can't talk about one without the other. If we have [00:12:55] to bring energy back and get out of this biological bankruptcy sort of state that [00:13:00] we're in, NAD buildup is a way of kind of getting that reserve [00:13:05] back to get your cellular health where it needs to be. And rather than [00:13:10] spending it faster than we're generating it through our lifestyle habits and our dietary [00:13:15] choices, it's a better idea to start to replete it and to help [00:13:20] stop and prevent NAD depletion And understanding where NAD is in this [00:13:25] conversation is not just, you know, a trend or, or something to talk about [00:13:30] on social media.
It's actually a biological reality, and we want to [00:13:35] understand that it is a fundamental pillar of biological bankruptcy. [00:13:40] Okay, let's move from NAD into cell health and inflammation and [00:13:45] inflammaging and understand maybe what we can put into action to turn all this around. [00:13:50] Okay, so last concept to wrap your head around.
So we've talked a little bit about mitochondrial [00:13:55] dysfunction and oxidative stress. We've talked about NAD and the role of NAD in [00:14:00] energy and in aging and in disease process. Now we're gonna [00:14:05] talk a little bit more about cellular senescence and inflammaging. Senescence, when I say [00:14:10] that, it's another way...
It's kind of like a, a soft way of saying cell death. But [00:14:15] senescent cells are cells that are not growing. They're not dividing. They've hit their end of their lifespan, [00:14:20] and instead of dying and going away, they're just simply hanging around your [00:14:25] tissue, but they're still metabolically active. They're just not working.
It's like having somebody in [00:14:30] a group that's just hanging out there but not doing their job. So some people will call these zombie [00:14:35] cells, and the zombie cells are just spreading more of the bad stuff. So they're [00:14:40] spreading the pro-inflammatory cytokines, and they're spreading things of [00:14:45] inflammatory molecules all throughout the body.
And they're recruiting immune cells to become [00:14:50] pro-inflammatory rather than anti-inflammatory, and this results in chronic [00:14:55] inflammation or inflammaging. And that is causing [00:15:00] accelerated aging. And whenever I use the word aging, I cringe a little bit because it's not just about getting [00:15:05] old, but it's even around ideas like your fertility is declining [00:15:10] in your 20s versus in your 40s or 50s, or your hair, you're losing your hair, [00:15:15] or your skin is changing faster, or you're going gray.
These are all inflammaging signs [00:15:20] and things that should be taken seriously. Again, in 2023, if [00:15:25] we go back to that study in antioxidants, it looked at this connection between the number of these [00:15:30] zombie cells essentially and dysfunctional mitochondria, and the two were interconnected. [00:15:35] We know that some of these zombie cells were producing excessive reactive oxygen [00:15:40] species, which then activated the inflammation pathway in the same way that, [00:15:45] you know, we know that that inflammation pathway triggers that low-grade chronic inflammatory [00:15:50] response, setting up the foundation for future disease.
So we understand the [00:15:55] link between all of these and how they work together. The link to fatigue, you [00:16:00] know, here's a study from Hopkins and the NIH's Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, which is one [00:16:05] of the longest-running aging studies in the world, showed that perceived [00:16:10] fatigue ability, like how tired you got, and your walking effort, that [00:16:15] actually predicted mortality risk more than just general tiredness.
So [00:16:20] when fatigue is physiological versus just sort of like how you're feeling, and we [00:16:25] see that in your cells, it kind of predicts the outcomes. So the sooner we can [00:16:30] measure it and sort of plan for it and change it, the better. [00:16:35] Now, I've seen this in our young people, too. Let's talk about something like ADD or [00:16:40] ADHD, right?
Or, you know, uh, inattention. So many of these kids end up on [00:16:45] medications. Well, when we look at the mitochondria and when we look at cellular health for [00:16:50] many of these, they are suffering from everything we just talked about: [00:16:55] mitochondrial dysfunction, NAD depletion, and defin- definitely [00:17:00] inflammation. So again, helping them rebuild those reserves can make a [00:17:05] difference for what's happening when it comes to fatigue or perceived [00:17:10] fatigue because remember, fatigue can be cognitive, physical, emotional, mental.
There's so many [00:17:15] different types of fatigue, but it's all rooted right back here in these three pillars [00:17:20] of mitochondrial and cellular health So bottom line, we've got to [00:17:25] reverse biological bankruptcy. Let's take a few minutes to talk about [00:17:30] the best way to do this. All right, what does this mean? So you're biologically bankrupt.
[00:17:35] You've bought into this idea. We know that we need to replenish everything. We wanna improve [00:17:40] mitochondrial function, replete NAD, prevent inflammation and inflammaging. Here we go. [00:17:45] Number one, mitochondrial support starts with... I'm gonna leave a [00:17:50] blank, let you fill it in for a second, and you may be surprised by this.
It actually [00:17:55] starts with sleep, which means I'm screwed. But anyhow, mitochondria do the majority of their [00:18:00] repair and their renewal during deep sleep. It includes one [00:18:05] strategic moment because sleep is critical for the body, and it's probably [00:18:10] where I honestly will often skimp, so I'm trying to be better.
I'm trying to force myself to [00:18:15] sleep. The second is exercise and movement, and we understand that even [00:18:20] moderate aerobic exercise, even if you're not sweating and if your heart rate's not going up into zone [00:18:25] three and zone four and all those different things, is one of the most powerful ways to [00:18:30] improve mitochondrial biogenesis or rebirth of your mitochondria.
So [00:18:35] this is another way for you to take control of the situation, sleep and movement. You know, we can all do [00:18:40] that And it includes targeted nutrient support. So CoQ10, [00:18:45] magnesium, B vitamins, these are all things that I've talked about for years. We actually measure and [00:18:50] test them at holplus to understand where you are.
Whether you're a child or an adult, we can look at all of this. [00:18:55] All of these things are things you can do right now to improve your cellular health [00:19:00] and turn biological bankruptcy around. The second is rebuilding your [00:19:05] NAD stores. Remember, that's our cellular transport. So NMN will help, NR [00:19:10] supplementation will help too, but I like deli- direct delivery of NAD [00:19:15] because I feel like NAD, when we do that, whether it's by shot or by IV, [00:19:20] it's a direct sort of influx of that power.
Now, if you can't do that, then you [00:19:25] want to address some of the derivatives of NAD, which include N- NMN, um, as one [00:19:30] of them to improve, but then you also work on, you know, the gut bacteria, on [00:19:35] inflammation, on chronic stress, and all these different things. All right, the third, how do we get rid of those [00:19:40] zombie cells?
What do we do? How do we clear them out? So there are actually some things that have been [00:19:45] shown in practice to help that. Quercetin is one, which is surprising to me in research. [00:19:50] Quercetin, uh, we have used in practice for allergies or for, uh, you know, [00:19:55] like a histamine response, but it actually helps to clear out some of these zombie cells.
Intermittent [00:20:00] fasting also helps. It activates autophagy. I can never say that correctly. But [00:20:05] that's a cellular housekeeping mechanism to help clear out damaged cells and [00:20:10] organelles that have dysfunctional mitochondria. And lastly, this is really important to [00:20:15] managing cortisol and bringing cortisol regulation into the picture, because chronic [00:20:20] cortisol elevation actually drives mitochondrial dysfunction.
[00:20:25] So again, the two are connected together. So these are all ways that we can actually [00:20:30] control what is happening with our cellular health, with our energy, and we can [00:20:35] stay out of biological bankruptcy, and it's something that we need to start understanding better [00:20:40] because I think it's a threat for our generation and the generations to come [00:20:45] because the environment, how we live, what we use, our inputs are all [00:20:50] changing.
We're running at a faster pace than ever before, cognitively, [00:20:55] mentally, emotionally, and I think we've gotta refill those tanks as soon as [00:21:00] we can All right, that rounds out this conversation around biological bankruptcy [00:21:05] and cellular health, how you can identify it, what it may mean for you personally [00:21:10] and for your family as a whole, and it's important to be able to put the pieces together.
If you or [00:21:15] someone you love is suffering from fatigue at any level, share this episode with [00:21:20] them and encourage them to understand where their cellular health falls, whether [00:21:25] they are five or 15, 35, 50, or 80. It's [00:21:30] all connected. That's the holplus way. Don't forget, we post new episodes every week. Don't [00:21:35] forget to share and subscribe.
Before you go, remember healing doesn't happen all at [00:21:40] once. It happens in moments. If today's episode gave you one of those moments, [00:21:45] subscribe and keep learning with me. The next video is right here, and it picks up right where [00:21:50] this one left off