Gastroenterologist and hepatologist based in Sydney, Dr. Pran Yoganathan is an extremely passionate educator, a Mathematician-turned doctor who aims to empower his patients with data that can help them on a journey of self-healing using the philosophy of “let food be thy medicine”.
Dr. Pran who has innovatively harnessed creative technology and 14,400 followers on Instagram @dr_pran_yoganathan, stresses that his educational memes are not medical advice or recommendations, simply his opinions — and rather strong science-backed opinions they are too!
In the podcast interview, Dr. Pran speaks about his diet of choice, which comprises predominantly of grass-fed steak and eggs and why that has raised eyebrows and temperatures not just in the oven, but in conversation with peers as well. We ask him about butyrate and got him all fired up and excited! Now, are WE ready to absorb the fact that we’re meant to burn fat for energy and not glycogen? Let’s save that for perhaps another conversation.
Joining co-hosts Jasmine Low and Nikki Yeo in this same episode are Dr. Desmond Menon, medical lab scientist featured in Ep. 2 Do Our Genes Predispose us to Diseases of our Parents and Malaysia’s “biggest” stand-up comedian Papi Zak who’s in training to be a wrestler.
Together, we pose our numerous curious questions to Dr. Pran and have a content-packed conversation that’s science-based yet entertaining and revealing at the same time! Dr. Pran’s message is to “eat a diet that is not rubbish, move your body”, and he shares science in between some of his Instagram posts.
We ask him why he got into gastroenterology, his inspiration behind the Hippocrates’ philosophy “let food be thy medicine” and his personal dietary habits.
On the table, we discuss hunter gatherer societies in our modern world where Dr. Pran shares about the Hazda ethnic group from Tanzania and how they forage for food today.
Dr. Pran sheds some light on high fibre diets – a push by the standard Western Diet and how excess fibre can slow down gut motility, cause reflux and bloating and fundamentally IBS.
“If you’re going to deal with fibre, you need the machinery. That is why you see our primate cousins, like the chimps and gorillas tend to have a thick hind gut, a very big belly, that’s not visceral fat, it’s simply machinery to deal with rough fibrous tissue. That’s not my theory, that is a scientific fact and it’s called the expensive tissue hypothesis. It’s what makes us special in terms of our species; our brains grew in response to a shrinking gut.
Dr. Pran Yoganathan, gastroenterologist
Incidentally, on a side track, if you’re interested to deep dive into the Expensitve Tissue Hypothesis by American paleoanthropologist and professor emeritus of the University College London Leslie Crum Aiello – click here. She co-authored the textbook, “An Introduction to Human Evolutionary Anatomy”, which uses the fossil record to predict the ways early hominids moved, ate, and looked.
We hope you’ve enjoyed these bite-sized pieces of information. Keep reading below for more about Dr. Pran’s credentials and to listen to the full podcast.
More about Dr. Pran Yoganathan
Graduating from medicine from the University of Otago in New Zealand, Dr. Pran is a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physician (FRACP) and a member of Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA). He has accredited expertise in Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and Colonoscopy as certified by the Conjoint Committee for the recognition of training in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. Working across the public and private sectors in Greater Sydney, Dr. Pran has a strong interest in the field of human nutrition. He practices an approach to healthcare that assesses the lifestyle of the patient to see how it impacts on their gastrointestinal and metabolic health. Dr. Pran believes that the current day nutritional guidelines may not be based on perfect evidence and he passionately strives to provide the most up to date literature in healthcare and science to provide “Evidence-Based Medicine”.
Dr. Pran has a special interest in conditions such as Gastro-oesophageal Reflux (GORD), Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and abdominal bloating. He takes a very thorough approach to resolve these issues using dietary manipulation In conjunction with an accredited highly qualified dietician rather than resort to long-term medications.
Ready to digest the podcast episode with Dr. Pran? Listen here:
In this BONUS edition for Spotify Listeners only – In the tradition of AsiaFitnessToday.com’s methods of using rhythm and movement as therapy, we introduce a song to seal off this episode. We have selected a mash-up song made popular by Yohani De Silva – a Sri Lankan singer songwriter and rapper, a social media star herself. Yohani did her Masters in Accounting at a Queensland university.
