Ep. 364: Micah Yu, MD - A Doctor's Own Joint Pain Wake-Up Call and His Top Supplements to Help Your Chronic Inflammation

Episode 364 • 30th July 2026 • PLANTSTRONG Podcast • Rip Esselstyn

At 17, after adopting a high-protein diet filled with meat, milk, protein powder, and processed meats, Dr. Yu experienced his first gout attack. The pain was so intense that he still remembers waking up at 4:00 a.m. feeling as if someone had slammed a wooden board into his toe.

But gout was only the beginning.

Over the years, Dr. Yu developed recurring, mysterious inflammation throughout his body — jaw, shoulders, wrists, fingers, knees, toes, hips, ankles — along with fatigue and irritability. Even while in medical school, he struggled to find answers. Eventually, he was diagnosed with gout, pseudogout, and spondyloarthritis, an autoimmune arthritis often treated with immunosuppressive medications.

But Dr. Yu had a feeling that diet was part of the story.

Inspired by his wife, Dr. Melissa Mondala, as well as Forks Over Knives and Dr. Michael Greger’s How Not to Die, he decided to try a whole food, plant-based diet. Within two to three months, he noticed his joint pain beginning to disappear. At his follow-up appointment, his C-reactive protein — a key inflammation marker that had been elevated for years — had normalized.

Today, Dr. Yu is a board-certified rheumatologist and integrative medicine physician who helps patients address autoimmune disease through a whole-person lens. In his practice, he looks at food, lifestyle, stress, trauma, infections, environmental exposures, supplements, and patient partnership.

In this conversation, Rip and Dr. Yu discuss:

Why a high-protein diet triggered gout at age 17
The difference between gout, pseudogout, and autoimmune arthritis
What CRP and ESR can reveal about inflammation
Why some autoimmune patients are told “everything looks normal” even when they feel terrible
How a whole food, plant-based diet changed Dr. Yu’s own health
Why rheumatology patients may benefit from looking beyond medications alone
The role of stress, trauma, infections, mold, pesticides, plastics, and environmental triggers
Why Lyme disease can be controversial and often misunderstood
Dr. Yu’s top supplements for inflammation, including turmeric, algae oil, vitamin D, Boswellia, and glutathione
Why vitamin D levels matter in autoimmune disease
How Dr. Yu practices medicine through patient partnership

This episode is a hopeful reminder that inflammation is not always a life sentence — and that the body can respond powerfully when we give it the right conditions to heal.

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