Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark │ Food as Medicine, Circadian Rhythm and the Loneliness Epidemic

What if the word "medicine" has quietly narrowed down to mean nothing more than a pill? In this episode of The Dr. K Show, Dr. Michael Karlfeldt sits down with Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark, board-certified family physician and co-director of the Culinary Medicine program at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Maker-Clark, author of Medicine for All People: Science and Ancient Wisdom for Revolutionary Healing, explains why conventional training alone wasn't enough for the patients she saw, how she helped bring food-as-medicine training into a major medical school curriculum, and why she now defines medicine as anything that actually heals, not only what comes in a capsule.

The conversation covers the circadian rhythm reset she calls dusking, why plants deserve a personal relationship rather than just a prescription pad, and why she considers community one of the most powerful medicines we have, backed by research showing chronic loneliness carries health risks on par with smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. If you've ever wondered what a doctor trained in both conventional medicine and ancestral healing actually prescribes for a full life, this episode lays it out.

Key Takeaways:

0:00 Introduction

1:32 Why food alone wasn't the whole story for her book

3:18 Conventional training wasn't enough tools in the toolbox

6:48 Bringing culinary medicine into the University of Chicago curriculum

11:10 Redefining medicine as what actually heals

16:21 Reconnecting to nature and the practice of dusking

27:55 Community as medicine and the true cost of loneliness

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