Dr. Murad and Dr. Mullur Team Up to Pay it Forward
Harnessing a Whole Body Approach to Help Our Nation’s Veterans
Supporting out troops is something that has always been important to Dr. Murad and the entire Murad organization. Dr. Murad, himself a decorated veteran who served in Vietnam, has donated his time and knowledge to the VA hospital in Los Angeles for decades.
He is now teaming with Dr. Rashmi Mullur (a staff endocrinologist with the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and assistant professor of medicine at UCLA) to develop a program and study designed specifically to help treat veterans suffering from PTSD.
Like Dr. Murad, Dr. Mullur believes a whole-body approach to treatment – involving elements such as nutrition, yoga, art therapy, and simple lifestyle adjustments, can be more effective than simply spot-treating a condition. Dr. Murad and Dr. Mullur will launch their groundbreaking study early next year and are currently hard at work preparing for it.
We asked Dr. Mullur a few questions about her work and career and how she looks forward to working with Dr. Murad:
What’s your medical background?
I am an Assistant Professor in the department of Endocrinology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. I’m board certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, and Integrative Medicine. My primary clinical responsibilities are located at the VA-Greater Los Angeles Health Care System where I also supervise the training of medical students, residents, and fellows. My current clinical practice remains heavily based in endocrinology and metabolism, but in the past two years, I incorporated a number of integrative and mind-body approaches to care of our Veterans. I’m also involved in shaping and creating a new division of Integrative Medicine at the VA.
Based on your past work, what’s an example of how you have applied holistic principles in your medical practice and research?
My research interests remain heavily focused on complementary and alternative medicine in addition to diabetes and metabolism. I successfully completed a study of a 10-minute yoga-based relaxation program in the management of diabetes. In the study, we were able to show that a gentle yoga intervention improved heart rate, blood pressure, and fasting blood sugar in diabetic veterans.
For the study you are about to launch with Dr. Murad, why were veterans with PTSD chosen as subjects for this program?
Our Veterans are particularly vulnerable to the effects of cultural stress. After serving our country, many return home suffering from PTSD, and it has been previously well established that veterans who suffer from PTSD have worsened health outcomes for a number of disease processes. In addition, these patients also face difficulties after active military service, and can have strained interpersonal relationships within their jobs and families. I feel so honored to care for this group of patients, and it is a real pleasure to offer a holistic wellness program that can tackle some of these difficult problems.
What do you and Dr. Murad hope to achieve with this program?
In partnering with Dr. Murad, we are able to offer an integrative treatment approach to our Veterans. Since we know that chronic stress damages health over time and results in long-term illnesses such as chronic pain, obesity, cardiovascular disease and/or psychiatric disease, it is a real priority for us to address the causes of stress and minimize the damage from stress quickly. Holistic interventions, like yoga, massage and art therapy, are not often utilized by this population because they are often viewed as a luxury rather than a part of health maintenance, but we hope to show how vital self-care is to health and wellbeing. By providing a comprehensive approach to care that focuses on the whole individual, this program aims to provide a strategy to alleviate the burdens of post-traumatic stress. We hope to show that this whole body approach to treatment can improve overall health and wellbeing and provide a viable tool to reduce stress and prevent chronic disease.
Thank you, Dr. Mullur for sharing your insight and expertise. On Veterans Day we celebrate the service of and honor all U.S. military veterans.
Photo credit: VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System Medical Media Dept.
