Reversing Chronic Disease: Dr. Robert Lufkin on Lifestyle, Policy, and the Power of Community
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
Release Date: 06/23/2025
Fasting, Microbiome Reset, and the Intelligence of Your Body
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
About this episode: In this episode of the Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast, Cate Stillman leads a live session from Club Thrive, sharing insights from her own recovery after hip replacement surgery while guiding participants through a gut health and fasting reset. This conversation dives deep into the relationship between fasting, the microbiome, and adipose (fat) tissue—revealing how the body naturally detoxifies and regenerates when given the right conditions. Cate explains how practices like the fast mimicking diet, microbiome reset, and 72-hour fasting activate autophagy, improve...
info_outline
What if your "gut feelings" are actually a hardware setting you were born to use?
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
In this fascinating conversation, I sit down with Julie Ryan, a serial entrepreneur and inventor of surgical devices, to explore the "buffet of psychicness." Julie reveals that psychic ability isn't a rare gift for the "chosen few"—it is a physiological part of our anatomy that anyone can learn to activate. After years in the medical supply industry, Julie pivoted to mastering medical intuition and mediumship. She now teaches students globally how to scan the human body like a "human MRI" and communicate with spirits instantly, bypassing the need for long meditations or complex rituals. ...
info_outline
Healing, Sacrifice & Midlife Awakening: Near-Death, Menopause & the Power of Surrender with Dr. Claudia Welch
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
What if the crisis you’re trying to fix is actually an invitation? In this intimate and wide-ranging conversation, I sit down with Dr. Claudia Welch to explore near-death experiences, menopause, identity collapse, and the spiritual art of surrender. After surviving a life-threatening case of MRSA pneumonia, Claudia found herself stripped of certainty, control, and even aspects of her professional identity. What emerged wasn’t just physical healing—but a profound shift in how she relates to death, leadership, and the second half of life. Together, we explore: The true meaning of...
info_outline
Bending Time Explained: Consciousness & Identity | Patrick Garlinger with Cate Stillman
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
About this episode: In this episode of the Thrive with Cate Podcast, Cate Stillman is joined by spiritual author, intuitive guide, and former lawyer Patrick Paul Garlinger for a rich, multidimensional conversation on bending time, identity, depth work, and awakening within modern professional life. Patrick shares his unconventional journey from Spanish literature professor to New York City lawyer—and ultimately into a life devoted to spiritual inquiry, intuition, and channeled wisdom. Together, Cate and Patrick explore how deeply ingrained identities, cultural conditioning, and...
info_outline
I Am Shakti: Breaking Taboos in Modern Ayurveda with Mother Maya Tiwari | Cate Stillman
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
About this episode: In this episode of the Thrive with Cate Podcast, Cate Stillman is joined by spiritual teacher, Ayurvedic lineage holder, and author Maya Tiwari for a deep and necessary conversation on Shakti, ancestral healing, and embodied feminine wisdom. Together, Cate and Maya explore what modern wellness culture often avoids: the role of darkness, descent, illness, and loss as initiatory forces in true healing. Maya shares how **Shakti—the primal feminine intelligence—**is not something to be optimized or bypassed, but something remembered through presence, surrender, and devotion...
info_outline
Healing the Nervous System with Ayurveda | Sujatha Reddy
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
About This Episode In this grounded and insightful episode of the Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast, Cate Stillman is joined by Sujatha Reddy, Ayurvedic practitioner, educator, and wellness guide, for a deep conversation on what it truly means to build health and a life from alignment rather than pressure. Sujatha shares her lived experience of Ayurveda not as a rigid system, but as a practical, compassionate framework for restoring balance in modern bodies navigating stress, inflammation, hormonal disruption, and chronic depletion. Together, Cate and Sujatha explore how subtle daily habits -...
info_outline
How Udo’s Oil Was Born - A Conversation with Udo Erasmus
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
About this episode: In this expansive and deeply grounding conversation, Cate Stillman is joined by Udo Erasmus, M.A., legendary pioneer of the healthy fats movement and author of Your Body Needs An Oil Change. With over four decades of research in biochemistry, nutrition, and counseling psychology, Udo brings clarity to one of the most misunderstood topics in modern wellness: dietary fats—and what truly creates disease and vitality. Together, Cate and Udo dismantle the seed oil controversy, explaining why the real danger isn’t omega-6 fats themselves, but the industrial processing methods...
info_outline
The Hidden Immune Switch: Dr. Charles Akle on Microbiome & Chronic Inflammation
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
About this Episode: In this groundbreaking conversation, Cate Stillman sits down with Dr. Charles Akle, pioneering surgeon, immunologist, and co-creator of immy. The friendly bacteria in immy, Mycolicibacterium aurum Aogashima (M. aurum), works naturally with your immune system to calm inflammation. With decades of experience in transplantation, oncology, and immunology, Dr. Akle brings rare clarity on how the immune system actually works, why chronic inflammation is rising globally, and how reconnecting with soil-based microbes may be the missing link in...
info_outline
The Cosmological Spirituality of Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicines: David Crow & Cate Stillman
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
About this Episode: In this powerful conversation, Cate Stillman interviews David Crow—renowned author, herbalist, plant-medicine researcher, and founder of Floracopeia. Together, they explore the worlds of Tibetan, Ayurvedic, and Chinese medicine through the lens of lineage, ritual, and spiritual ecology. David shares his extraordinary journey—from being one of the first Western students in acupuncture college in the 1980s, to closing his clinic and moving to Kathmandu to study Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine directly from lineage-holding masters. He speaks about transmission,...
info_outline
Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: Rediscovering Purpose in Elderhood with Ron Pevny
Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast
Aging is not a decline—it’s an initiation. In this episode of the Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast, Cate Stillman speaks with Ron Pevny, founder of the Center for Conscious Eldering and author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging, to explore how the later chapters of life can become a time of growth, purpose, and legacy. Ron shares his evolution from guiding vision quests to leading Conscious Eldering retreats, helping people transform retirement into renewal. His work illuminates a new paradigm of aging—one that integrates emotional maturity, spiritual awakening, and service to future...
info_outlineEpisode Summary:
In this episode of Thrive with Cate, Dr. Robert Lufkin shares his remarkable journey from conventional medicine and medical imaging to becoming a leading voice in metabolic health and longevity. After being diagnosed with four chronic diseases, Dr. Lufkin questioned the standard prescription of lifelong medication. His research led him to discover the transformative power of lifestyle changes- and he reversed every diagnosis.
💡 What You’ll Learn:
- Why lifestyle changes- not just medication- are key to reversing chronic disease.
- How to identify and restore healthy rhythm in your daily life.
- The power of group support for sustainable health habits.
- How to advocate for yourself in a system designed for acute, not chronic, care.
👩‍💼 About the Host – Cate Stillman
Cate Stillman is an Ayurvedic practitioner, behavior change expert, and founder of Yogahealer and Club Thrive. With over 20 years of guiding wellness pros and conscious seekers, she empowers people to unlock deep healing, body intelligence, and aligned leadership. Cate is also the author of Uninflamed, Body Thrive, Master of You, and Primal Habits.
Author of :
-
PRIMAL HABITS: https://amzn.to/3OvfPOx
-
Uninflamed: https://amzn.to/3UUBgJ2
-
Body Thrive: https://amzn.to/3udNFR0
-
Master of YOU: https://amzn.to/3OlfoGn
About Dr. Robert Lufkin
Dr. Robert Lufkin is a distinguished physician, medical school professor at UCLA and USC, and a New York Times bestselling author. With over 200 published academic papers, particularly in MRI and medical imaging research, Dr. Lufkin has transitioned his focus to metabolic health and longevity. He is passionate about empowering the mainstream audience with knowledge on food choices, medications, and the underlying causes of chronic diseases, drawing from his own experience of reversing four chronic conditions through lifestyle changes.
đź’¬ Connect + Subscribe:
If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and review!
Join the conversation: What’s one health insight from today’s episode that surprised you? 💌