Brainz Magazine Exclusive Interview
Dr. Pran Yoganathan is a medical doctor with over 20 years of experience. He is a Gastroenterologist. Two decades spent as a doctor, standing in the eye of a “storm of disease”. He has observed that modern medicine is seeing this tsunami of illness with the narrow lenses of a “moment in time”, a mere snapshot. He has come to conclude that this view leads to a “reactive approach” to healthcare. Fundamental solutions to disease are overlooked in the pursuit of polished new instruments to remedy disease. The proverbial shiny new scalpel to cut at the wound, with no awareness of the talons, fangs and claws that inflicted the gash in the first place. Dr. Yoganathan believes many healers are awakening, in the traditions of medicine men from a long-lost and forgotten era, they dare to challenge the paradigms. Dr. Yoganathan aims to explore the challenges that healthcare faces in this article. He aims for the reader to grasp the link between our structure of the modern monetary system, agriculture and modern diseases. He envisions a new epoch where we rebuild from the ruins of a fallen empire.
Dr. Pran Yoganathan writes: “What manner of absurdity was I”? The pain of an existential crisis dawned on this Gastroenterologist. Carl Jung wrote, “Life really does begin at forty, up until then, you are just doing research”. This was certainly the case for me. I had it all, “success” as defined by society, a beautiful family and the respect of my colleagues. One day, as I left the doctor’s car park of my hospital, I was struck by the luxury cars that occupied the spaces. I was no different, my wrist was adorned with a luxury timepiece, unbeknownst to that former version of me, but I was a slave to time, with a shackle on my wrist to match. I was a healer, a medicine man, in an epoch that no longer exists, I would have lived simply in a tent made of animal hide. My tribe would have turned to me during their difficult times, with their maladies that gnawed at their bodies. I would have laid my hand upon them and sought the remedies from Mother Earth. To put it simply, I would have looked to nature for her help, I would have practiced root cause medicine, and I would carefully pick at the parasites and leeches that drained my tribe of their essence. “Damn, I had lost my way”, in that car park I slowly unraveled, had I become a parasite upon my patients? Was I a slave to the big business that is the pharmaceutical and medical-industrial complex? I could no longer bear the thought of taking money from my patients without “imparting my soul” to each of my patients. They trusted me with their bodies. “Would I bleed my soul into my job, or would I let my job bleed my soul”? Thus, much to the ridicule of my colleagues and the medical system, I began a journey that would change my life. But most importantly, it would help change the lives of the people that would collide with my body of work.
This was my path towards a new paradigm in medicine, one that was less concerned with “the broad brush stroke of science” but rather with “logic”. If a broken environment is the basis of disease, perhaps we remedy this, rather than seeking novel surgical solutions and pharmaceutical bandaids? Such a logical thought, but apparently a revolutionary idea in such damaged times. Perhaps, we needed a new way of practicing the “business of medicine”. The first step towards this new paradigm would be to recognize that medicine was an “art” before it was a “business”. We doctors, we were artists, and our canvas would be our communities.
Armed with experience, I began my descent into this swamp of modern disease. With typical reductionism that permeates modern medicine, I was told “stick to being a Gastroenterologist”, which is the specialty concerned with the human gastrointestinal tract, more colloquially called “the gut”. But I was a physician, I could no longer see my patients as simply a “gut”. A set of digestive organs. In front of me was a soul, a complete person, broken by a world that they were not evolutionarily prepared for. A world run by the grease of “crony capitalism” where the glorious nature of free markets was decimated. I needed to elevate my patient’s consciousness. To use “the Plato’s allegory of the cave”, I had to show them that mankind was unfortunately born into bondage into a metaphorical cave. I had to show them like Plato posited, that there were “architects to this society”, that projected shadowy images on the wall of the cave that we sat chained in. Our lives have become so shaped by the media and social media with its degenerate algorithms that incite polarisation and thus division.
I needed to expand the awareness of my patients so that they may see that modern illness is a function of the modern systems of money, leading to the corporatization of agriculture, medicine and pharmaceuticals. I needed to show them the forces that rule us, unfortunately, work against us, to keep us unaware and indeed unwell. A truly terrifying topic for those who are uninitiated in the realm of this reality. I had to sit in the violence of these thoughts, over time, I deciphered a way I could convey this to my vulnerable community through love. Many won’t fathom the personal toll it took on my own mental health, “the violence it took to become this gentle”. Plato’s allegory of the cave, speaks to the slave that escapes to the surface of the dark cave, he now knows and sees that reality is not the dark cave with the shadowy figures projected on the wall by the architects behind the flame of media. Indeed, reality is beautiful, it is a world of abundance, not scarcity. This slave didn’t escape into the forests of this beautiful reality, I went straight back into the dark cave to tell my disbelieving community trapped within. I won’t leave till every detainee sees the invisible chains that bind them.
How do you believe modern farming and food production practices impact our health today?
Our gut is a reflection of our mastery over our environment. It is simplistic that one must seek to classify what we humans are in terms of a category of carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous. We mastered the art of cooking, fermentation, farming, domestication of wild animals, dairy and much more. We are indefinable, we are mankind. The most complete and conscious creature that walks this planet. In some ways, we chose to mold nature to our desire, we shaped her. But in this modern era, we seek to rise above her, herein lies our problems.
When asked, “What are humans supposed to evolutionarily consume”? My answer is always this, say that there is a global power grid blackout, causing the world to go dark, say supply chains grind to a halt, large-scale commercial & mono-crop farming which is dependent on supply chains, fossil fuels & agrochemical inputs ceases to be functional, very quickly, the veneer of civility ceases, mankind would revert to what is called “the theory of optimal foraging”, at this point any diet rooted in ideology dies a very quick death. This situation reveals quickly what mankind is best adapted for. But we can’t deny that we believe ourselves to be “masters over the environment”, thus we are farmers first and foremost.
My hypothesis as a Gastroenterologist is that “agrochemical use in farming is destroying our gut health”. I have been labeled a renegade, quack, conspiracy theorist and pseudo-scientist in my industry. These labels have hurt me deeply, but over time, I became battle-hardened. If my hypothesis is correct, then the people at the frontline of food production will be getting ill at a higher rate than the consumers of their food, as they have direct exposure to the chemicals. This is exactly what is happening. Farmers are getting very sick. Rural communities are not well. France and Italy officially recognize Parkinson's disease to be linked to farm work.
In the last few decades, fuelled by the modern monetary system promoting exponential corporate growth, we are farming in a new way. A methodical way of farming has been birthed. One that employs the tools of large-scale farms, market agricultural technologies (antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, and genetically modified crops). The companies that provide these tools to farmers have significant economic and political influence. It is not even a point that needs to be argued when I state, “only a handful of corporate entities control the world grain supply, chemical and seeds”.
These corporations have global dominance. The tentacles of the mythical Kraken of modern money grasp all the countries of this world. Sovereignty and decentralization are illusions, we all farm the same way, we eat the same way, recognizable giant brands that litter every corner of every globe, most of them selling foods that directly cause sickness in my species. Centralization, unfortunately, leads to decay, because it distorts a free market, smaller competitors are swallowed and competition that keeps the market “honest & innovating” fades. The fish of small businesses in the ocean of money, circled by leviathan corporate entities and consumed in a bloodied frenzy. There is indeed blood in the waters, the free market does not exist, with its demise, these leviathans continue to grow, mankind is now their prey.
We are now witness to this monopoly and how the free market was destroyed in agriculture. Farmers have the “illusion of choice” but fundamentally lack it. Some of these companies have patented genetics, and some of these companies in isolation are involved with planting on 80% of U.S. corn acres, 86% of cotton acres, and 92% of soybean acres. Imagine the power they wield over farmers, regulators and indeed over the state? These monopolies dictate the seeds as well as the herbicides or pesticides that accompany them. It also shows how weak regulators have been in allowing a handful of firms to amass enormous market, economic and political power over our global seed supply.
Let’s take the American soybean industry as a microcosm of the agricultural issues that plague us today. The USA is the 2nd largest producer of soybeans in the world. 87 million acres of farmland are dedicated to their production. 80% of soybeans go towards animal feed. Almost all soy is bioengineered to withstand herbicides. Thus, the vicious cycle of agrochemical use over time. What is the impact on the health of the animals that consume these foods? What then is the health of the human who then consumes the animal?
Additionally, we now consume foods hedonistically. Large companies used food engineers to create a pandemic of food addiction to UPF (ultra-processed foods). Sodas, breakfast cereals, packeted foods like chips, biscuits, sweets, etc. This type of food requires mono-crop agriculture with huge chemical inputs & loss of soil diversity.
The father of medicine, Hippocrates said “All diseases begin in the gut”. He would be proud to see one of his own extrapolating on his quote to state “All diseases begin in the soil”. The greatest biobank of our microbiome is not the pharmaceutical companies attempting to monetize probiotics, rather, it is our Earth. The soil is the greatest reservoir of the microbiome.
Everyone wants to understand the human gut & the symbiosis of the gut microbiome. But not many souls care for farming. Little do they know that all their food comes from the Earth. Every time they eat a single bite of food, they are engaging in the art of agriculture. Everyone wants a healthy gut microbiome, no one understands the soil which is where the microbes originate! They won’t tell you our fruits, vegetables & plants lost valuable nutrients in the last 50 years. They won’t tell you “plants are themselves farmers” that harness the bacteria in the soil to help generate the nutrients which they then absorb. The microbiome of the soil is everything for the plant.
There is a “mass extinction” event underway. It is occurring in the soils of Earth and thus the gut microbiome. A huge proportion of the gut microbiome is bacteria, that are sensitive to agrochemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, industrial fertilizers and antibiotics in animal fecal material due to their exposure to these drugs. Mono-crop farming systems and loss of diversity in the human gut microbiome are both the same issue, they are not mutually exclusive.
These chemicals not only deplete the microbiome in soils but there are also trace amounts in food, as acknowledged by many regulators. This chronic exposure via food to these chemicals leads loss of beneficial bacteria and thus overgrowth of resistant species. The delicate balance is destroyed. The symbiosis with our microbiome is critical for our health.
Do you now grasp the importance of agriculture? It is axiomatic in my mind, “the heartbeat of our species' civilization is farming”. Yet, here we exist in our concrete jungles, whilst the heartbeat of our society, the farmers, are banished to the outskirts of our cities toiling for our nourishment, under the rule of the leviathan industries to who they must pay homage. What happens to a being that no longer feels its pulse? A man who no longer places their head on the chest to listen to his lover’s heartbeat? This encapsulates why modern disease must exist. It is an amputation of our collective’s heart. It beats still, but it pulses within the caverns of the corporate dragons of our modern epoch, the treasure that is our farmers, they are held in the caves of these monsters. Thus, how well do you know your food? How well do you know your farmer? How often do you feel your pulse?
What are the main ways in which the global financial system contributes to the concentration of wealth and power? Additionally, what are some of the biggest challenges that small businesses face in the current economic environment?
According to the 18th-century French banker and philosopher Richard Cantillon, who benefits when the central banks print money are based on the institutional setup. In the 18th century, this meant that the closer you were to the king and the wealthy, the more you benefitted, and the further away you were, the more you were damaged by the move.
So trillions of dollars have been printed in the superpower that is America. Where does it go? Well, the money has to travel through institutions, the banks. The closest to the banks are the corporations and the wealthy. So money gets to the rich first. Eventually, some money will get to the rest of society, but in the interim period before that money fully circulates, the wealthy can use their access to money to buy up physical or financial assets, driving up inflation. So by the time the money gets to the smaller players, the smaller businesses, the value of money has dropped due to inflationary pressures. This system devalues our money, what a disgrace. The wealth moves further and further up the pyramid. Do you recall the money printing that accompanied the recent pandemic? Do you recall the inflation that resulted from this, it haunts us still? Do you understand that the big banks, large corporate entities and oligarchs became wealthier during this period. Whilst the boundaries that separated the poor and middle class started blurring. The greatest determinant of health is socioeconomic circumstances. People struggling economically make unhealthy choices, this is axiomatic. Money and health are intertwined.
This system is built for “big business”. That is big agriculture, big food and big pharmaceuticals. This is the triad that is interacting to propagate and worsen our species' health. No one is talking about the fundamentals of disease, because where is the profit in such simple solutions? A well person is of no use to this industry that needs disease. It is not a pleasant thought to think, perhaps the nature of the system is so broken, that a shattered environment is part of the business plan? It is always interesting to me that one of the biggest agricultural companies in the world is owned by a pharmaceutical company.
In your opinion, what policies or practices could help promote fair competition in the marketplace?
The real question here is this, do we have a sound system of money? The answer is no. The grease that lubricates the supply chains of the globe is the US dollar, the reserve currency. 35 Trillion reached on the US debt clock, the ticking time bomb. Imagine if that detonates? What would happen to the supply chains that grease the world? The debt clock won’t tell you about the offshore US Dollars (The Eurodollar system) created by banks to allow global trade using the reserve currency. I suspect the Eurodollar debt probably approaches quadrillions. Mankind is about to witness what happens when he slumbers and is apathetic about two things, politics & money. Interestingly the very two things the social architects of the system taught you never to talk about at dinner time.
“The US dollar will never fail as our reserve currency” - say the people who are ignorant and never study cycles or history. 550 different currencies have gone extinct in the last 320 years. 30% of these were caused by hyperinflation. History will repeat itself.
As the dollar crashes, perhaps the systems that it created also collapses. Perhaps we have the opportunity to rebuild from the ruins of a fallen empire? Otherwise, I cannot see the system relinquishing a deeply entrenched tentacle within our society. We must chart the course for “sound money”. Such sound systems of finances allow for a robust method of free markets and business. But we as the people need to demand a “new way”. Otherwise, the parasite simply moves on to another host to begin the same pattern of monopolistic behavior, and history repeats itself forever.
How can we build the illusion of civilizations on Earth with quadrillions in debt? How can we poison our planet with the delusion that we are feeding people quality sustenance? A time comes when the debt must be paid, we took from nature to build this world with unsound money. The “nature of nature” is that she always recovers her debts. Let us rebuild from the ruins of a fallen empire.
I started this journey to find a way to help my patients on a fundamental level. To understand the “nature of modern disease”. I now know that we have been betrayed and the appropriate reaction isn’t sustained denial. It is an acceptance of the situation and a vision to plant seeds, to grow trees, which provide shade, in which we will not sit. “Intergenerational planning” to stem the tides of disease brought on by “intergenerational slavery” engineered by the architects of society.
What steps can individuals take to strengthen their connection to nature and improve their physical health?
A moral nerve is “self-respect”, the ability to accept that one is responsible for their own life. In matters of health, it is ultimately about imbuing the individual with “self-respect”. This is also the philosophy of “this new way of medicine”. I am coming to the humble conclusion that “nature knows best”. Thus by extrapolation, it isn’t unreasonable to state that “those that display moral nerve are also deeply connected to the way of nature”.
Vigorous physical activity such as weight training and nutrient-dense foods grown by excellent farming practices is the antidote to the venomous apathy of modern lifestyles and modern food systems. They are cornerstones of “anti-fragility”. Additionally, there are spiritual pillars to health, and perhaps pondering our consciousness, the nature of death, existence and the very fabric of reality is the antidote to a materialistic and fearful society that has forgotten the eternal concept of a soul. Nature heals mankind, but if nature were to be bitten by the deadly venom of our money and war machine, then nature is fatally poisoned, nature can no longer heal mankind. But I believe we can transcend the venom, to quote Nietzsche, “When did a dragon ever die from the poison of a snake”? Thus, become a dragon in your thoughts, should your body fade, at least your mind remains mercurial.
In this journey, I have spent time with people who source their food with a short supply chain. Recently, I spent time in the mountains with a bow hunter, he has become one of my closest companions. I find them to be “connected to the source” due to the amount of time spent in nature and the solitude they experience. I said to him, “What makes Earth so special”? He reached down to the soil below and dug it out to uncover worms. He said, “Look around you, look how plentiful life is”. I was reminded that this is a world of abundance. But your politicians will never tell you this. They have to keep you trapped in a “scarcity mindset”, they need to make you dependent on the system. So I encourage you to spend time in nature, bask in her abundance.
How can communities take action to improve their health and counteract negative trends in food and healthcare systems?
A community is a symbiotic organism, it breathes, it takes on a life of its own. The heartbeat of the community is communication. We are constantly interacting, and the rhythm of this beating heart allows for the pulsation of the lifeblood to the individual constituents of this society, each of us. A parasite upon this organism of our society needs to be recognized. We need to imbue people with awareness and elevate their consciousness.
People often mistake capitalism for corporatism and the former is blamed for the ills of society such as inequality. True free-market capitalism is the solution for society. Innovation is driven by people and incentives are rewarded by the community. The fundamental issue is the deep centralization of money. We must recognize this!
We have a duty to raise gentle warriors within our institutions. Curriculums should give way to the ingenuity of common sense. What a beautiful thing it would be to tell a young medicine man who graduated from medical school, “Go now, into this world ravaged by pain, go now and be judged not by your peers, but by your tribe, be adjudicated by your community, walk amongst them, sit with them, weep with them, and be judged by the very people that you are trying to heal”.
What am I selling? Nothing. Since my practice changed to include lifestyle modifications to aid disease management, I lost many referrals from primary care physicians who disagreed with my approach. What I lost from my own colleagues, I gained from the community. Inadvertently, my business flourished. Perhaps, there is a role for small businesses practiced with soul? Perhaps, we must look to impart our essence into our occupation?
I am teaching my patients, that the solution starts with them. I advise them to seek out the many decentralized networks of farmers practicing agriculture with soul, they are your regenerative farmers. I tell them to seek out health care practitioners practicing with soul, those that are concerned with “wellness” rather than “illness”. I believe modern medicine is a marvelous thing, but I believe we have now lost our way. I encourage my clients to build their networks and community. I tell them, “Put your money where the quality exists”. Do not put your money where it is the illusion of quantity, that is the consumer-driven world that has compromised the fabric of food systems.
Thank you so much, Dr. Pran Yoganathan!
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