Why Do Doctors Die Young?
- Madhukar Dama
- 2 hours ago
- 8 min read
If You Really Know Health, Why Is Your Lifespan Less Than 70?
Most doctors die young because they’re trained to treat disease, not to stay healthy. Medical education ignores basics like food, rest, gut care, and daily rhythm. Hospitals exhaust them, pharma makes them dependent, and their lifestyle falls apart. They take pills instead of healing, work nonstop, and ignore natural methods. In contrast, rural healers who live simply—walking barefoot, fasting, using castor oil—live longer. The system breaks doctors while pretending to save others.
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PROLOGUE: THE QUESTION THAT CUTS DEEP
You walk into a hospital.
White coats. Bright lights. Fancy machines.
A doctor stands before you — intelligent, educated, confident.
He tells you what to eat, what not to eat. What to fear. What to take. What to ignore.
And you wonder — “He must be healthy himself, right?”
But look closer.
He’s skipping meals.
Drinks 4 cups of tea a day.
Doesn’t sleep enough.
Has back pain at 40.
Is on cholesterol meds by 45.
BP meds by 50.
Gone by 60.
So you ask:
“If you know so much about health… why aren’t you healthy?”
This isn’t an insult.
This is an honest grief — about a system that breaks its best.
Let’s walk slowly into this mess.
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LAYER 1: MEDICAL COLLEGE – WHERE HEALTH IS NEVER TAUGHT
The young boy or girl who enters MBBS doesn’t enter to push pills.
They want to help. Heal. Serve.
But what do they get?
Zero education on gut health, fasting, or breathwork.
No exposure to food as daily medicine.
No space for rest, silence, or questioning.
No mention of healing — only disease management.
They learn:
To name, not to understand.
To suppress symptoms, not decode them.
To prescribe for safety, not for wholeness.
And they live like their patients — overfed, under-slept, screen-tired, pill-ready.
Real stat: A 2019 study published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry found a staggering 45% of Indian medical students suffered from depression and 1 in 10 had considered suicide.
The training that’s supposed to create healers… often ends up hollowing them.
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LAYER 2: THE HOSPITAL – A TOXIC ECOSYSTEM
Hospitals should be healing spaces.
But instead, they are:
Over-sanitized, under-human
Full of artificial light, recycled air, no sun, no soil
Full of suffering, grief, urgency, noise, EMFs, and machines
The doctor in this setup:
Works 12–36 hour shifts
Eats junk food or skips meals
Gets no time to breathe, stretch, or reflect
Moves from death to death without mourning
Sees 40 patients in 4 hours
Must meet pharma or management targets
Real stat: A 2022 IMA report noted that over 75% of young Indian doctors feel burnt out by their early 30s.
This is not healing. It’s human machinery.
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LAYER 3: THE PILL TRAP – WHEN KNOWING SIDE EFFECTS DOESN’T SAVE YOU
Doctors know what drugs do.
But they still take them. Often more than the average patient.
Because:
That’s what they’re taught to trust.
That’s what they have easy access to.
That’s what the system rewards.
So they pop:
Antibiotics “just in case”
Painkillers for backaches
Statins for minor cholesterol issues
Sleeping pills for stress-induced insomnia
Proton pump inhibitors for acidity caused by hospital tea
But long-term use of these drugs causes:
Gut lining erosion
Liver/kidney overload
Immune suppression
Hormonal disruption
Dependency without healing
They don’t have time to fast. To detox. To reflect.
So they reach for the quick fix — over and over — until their own body breaks.
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LAYER 4: THE LIFESTYLE – FIRST CASUALTY OF THE HEALER
A typical doctor’s life is not what health looks like.
No morning walk
No sun exposure
No home-cooked meals
No bowel regularity
No deep rest
No connection to earth, breath, or gut
Screen fatigue and endless alarms
Health isn't taught.
And what isn’t taught… isn’t lived.
Compare this with a villager:
Eats fermented rice and buttermilk
Walks barefoot daily
Poops before sunrise
Sleeps early, rises with sun
Catches a cold — rests, not panics
No labs. No Google. No prescriptions.
Now ask again — who’s more likely to live past 70?
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LAYER 5: THE EGO – BLIND SPOT OF THE EDUCATED
Another quiet reason doctors don’t live long?
They stop being students.
Once they have a degree:
They resist learning from barefoot healers
Laugh at traditional wisdom
Think walking barefoot is superstition
Ignore fasting unless diabetic
See turmeric, castor oil, clay as quackery
But healing doesn’t come from textbooks.
It comes from the body — when we give it space.
Ego makes you blind to that space.
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LAYER 6: SOME DOCTORS DID IT DIFFERENTLY
Let’s not generalize.
There are exceptions — and we must learn from them.
🧓 Dr. BM Hegde
Age 85+. Calm. Active.
He rejected pharma’s dominance.
Talks about gut, food, fasting, castor oil, grounding.
Teaches that good health is simple, not expensive.
👣 Rural Naturopaths
No hospitals. No MRIs.
Just:
Clean bowel
Clean breath
Belly castor oil packs
Daily fasting
Deep rest
People walk in half-dead, walk out reborn.
Their doctors eat less, talk less, and live more.
These are not miracles.
They are simply human rhythms respected.
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LAYER 7: PHARMA ISN’T EVIL – JUST OERUSED
Let’s be clear:
Insulin saves lives.
Antibiotics have a role.
Emergency surgery is real.
Vaccines have helped society.
But…
Using crocin for every cold? No.
Statins at 35? Dangerous.
Antibiotics without gut repair? A mistake.
Treating chronic illness with lifelong pills? Tragic.
Modern medicine is amazing in emergencies.
But real health is what keeps you out of emergencies.
That part — the preventive, the daily, the gentle — is what most doctors never learn.
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LAYER 8: WHERE REAL HEALTH LIVES
You want to live beyond 70?
Look at those who already do — not the ones who die trying to fix others.
They do these things:
Wake before sun
Eat fermented, seasonal food
Walk barefoot
Do weekly castor oil detox
Fast twice a month
Sit on the floor
Breathe deep
Sleep by 9
Avoid heated arguments
Trust small symptoms
Fear nothing
Avoid screens at night
Let time and nature heal
They don’t Google every sneeze.
They don’t rush to hospitals for fever.
They let the body do its ancient work.
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EPILOGUE: DON’T LAUGH — LEARN
If you’re a doctor reading this — this is not to shame you.
It’s to remind you:
You were once a child with soft eyes and a big heart.
You wanted to help. You still can.
But to help others heal — you must heal first.
To restore the body — you must restore your breath, your gut, your silence.
You don’t need to quit your job.
But you can:
Eat better
Sleep well
Fast monthly
Question meds
Learn from grandmothers
Read the body, not just reports
Heal the healer — slowly, surely
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FINAL THOUGHT
So yes — many doctors don’t live past 70.
Not because they’re bad.
Not because they failed.
But because the system failed them — by never teaching them how to live.
Let’s fix that.
Let’s bring real health home again —
To the soil, the sun, the silence, and the self.
THE DOCTOR WHO FORGOT TO HEAL HIMSELF
A slow-burn poem about the dying doctor and the dead system
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he walks in
white coat
shoes clean
hands washed
mind filthy with exhaustion,
coffee stains,
missed sunsets,
missed childhoods.
he walks like a man
who carries a god
in one pocket
and a death certificate
in the other.
you think he’s wise.
you think he’s well.
but he’s not.
he knows every bone
except his own aching back.
he’s read every disease
except the one growing quietly
inside his own breath.
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I. THE SCHOOL OF FORGETTING
they took a boy
with soft hands
and a quiet heart
and gave him a degree
and a deadened soul.
they taught him to cut
to name
to numb
to write drugs
like cheques he’ll never cash.
they never taught him to cook.
they never taught him to fast.
they never taught him what turmeric does
when it sits on a warm belly
under the sun.
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II. THE HOSPITAL WITH NO WINDOWS
he enters
a place of steel and gas
and fluorescent ceilings
where nothing breathes
and everything bleeds.
a place
where even gods wear gloves.
a place
where everyone’s in a hurry to die
and nobody has time
to rest.
the doctor moves from bed to bed
like a ghost with a stethoscope,
taking notes,
forgetting names,
forgetting himself.
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III. THE SLEEPLESS PROPHET
he hasn’t slept right in years.
his gut is a crime scene.
his skin is dry.
his bowels confused.
his neck stiff.
he gives you rest
without knowing it himself.
he tells you to eat light
while swallowing three pills
with two biscuits
and hospital chai.
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IV. THE PILLS HE PRESCRIBES TO HIMSELF
one for pressure.
one for sleep.
one for the acid that burns
from the stress of treating
people who never heal.
he knows the side effects.
he knows the black box warnings.
but he trusts the pill
more than the pause.
he thinks healing is speed
and not stillness.
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V. THE BODY THAT NEVER FASTED
his liver screams.
his kidneys beg.
his colon sulks
like a child in the corner
never listened to.
he says castor oil is old-fashioned.
he says barefoot walking is superstition.
he says fasting is dangerous.
he says turmeric is a spice,
not a solution.
he says too much.
his body whispers truth
but he has long forgotten how to hear.
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VI. THE EGO IN THE WHITE COAT
he laughs at the village healer
who sits quietly
and listens for an hour
before touching you.
he mocks the grandmother
who rubs warm oil
on her grandson’s chest
under the mango tree.
he thinks he’s smarter
because he studied for 10 years
in a building
where no one ever touched the earth.
he knows everything
except the rhythm
of his own breath.
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VII. THE SYSTEM THAT SWALLOWS THE SENSITIVE
he wasn’t always like this.
he once cried
when a child died.
he once skipped meals
to sit with a patient.
but they told him to move on.
they told him to hit targets.
they told him compassion doesn’t pay.
so now he walks quickly,
nods softly,
types faster,
prescribes blindly,
and dies slowly.
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VIII. THE GHOST OF THE HEALER
by 55
he’s on statins.
by 60
he’s in the ICU.
by 65
he’s attending funerals
of friends who never fasted
never breathed
never sat in silence.
by 68
he’s a man with a name
and no rhythm.
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IX. THE VILLAGER WHO OUTLIVED HIM
there’s an old woman in the next village
who’s never seen a hospital.
she walks barefoot to the well,
eats red rice with buttermilk,
sits in the sun every morning,
shits at 5 AM without effort.
she lost two teeth
but not her wisdom.
she fasts on Ekadashi
and tells stories
about the time when people healed
without prescriptions.
she doesn’t own a phone.
she doesn’t need one.
she knows the weather
by the birds
and her body
by the wind.
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X. THE CASTOR OIL BOTTLE IN THE BACK OF THE CUPBOARD
there’s a dusty bottle
in the back of the doctor’s cupboard.
castor oil.
unopened.
unseen.
unloved.
he thinks he’s too modern
for such simplicity.
but it sits there,
still pure,
still waiting,
like all the other things
he forgot to believe in.
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XI. THE CHILD HE NEVER TAUGHT
his daughter
eats processed snacks
scrolls at midnight
has acne at 12
irregular periods at 14
PCOD by 18.
and she asks him —
Papa, what should I take?
he doesn’t know.
he prescribes.
but he doesn’t know.
because
he never sat
under a neem tree.
he never rubbed warm oil
on his belly.
he never felt healing —
only treatment.
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XII. THE DOCTOR WHO COULD STILL COME BACK
somewhere deep in his gut
beneath the layers of pills, pride, and pressure
there’s a quiet place
still alive.
he can wake up.
he can return.
he can fast.
he can walk barefoot.
he can stop fearing fever
and start fearing silence.
he can heal
if he stops treating
and starts listening
again.
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EPILOGUE: FOR THE HEALERS WHO NEVER HEALED THEMSELVES
you are not too far gone.
you are not stupid.
you are not evil.
you are not alone.
you are tired.
you are trained wrong.
you are trapped.
but you can still sit down.
you can still drink buttermilk.
you can still breathe slowly.
you can still touch the earth
and remember.
the body remembers.
the gut forgives.
the liver sings
when it gets a break.
you can still teach your child
to walk barefoot,
to rest when tired,
to poop like a poet.
and maybe
just maybe
you can live
past seventy.
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Because healing isn’t loud.
It’s slow.
It’s gentle.
It’s barefoot.
And it begins with you.