About Dr. Charan Shikh
A physician’s life devoted to protecting healthspan.
More than forty years in Internal Medicine, decades in longevity and preventive medicine, and one enduring conviction: medicine should not only treat disease. It should protect the strength, clarity, and independence that make life worth living.
The Physician
Four decades at the bedside.
Charan Shikh, MD, has practiced Internal Medicine for more than forty years and has worked in longevity and preventive medicine for decades. His clinical career has centered on the ordinary but consequential forces that shape aging: blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, sleep, weight, hormones, muscle, mobility, recovery, and the slow accumulation of risk before disease becomes obvious.
Across thousands of patient encounters, one pattern became difficult to ignore. People of the same age could live in very different bodies and very different lives. One remained strong, active, clear-minded, and independent. Another gradually narrowed. The difference was rarely one dramatic intervention. It was usually the accumulation of decisions made across decades.
That observation became a philosophy of care, then a practice, and eventually a body of work designed to help people act earlier.
Why Longevity Became Personal
The work changed when life made the question urgent.
Dr. Shikh became a father at 55, when his twins were born. In that moment, longevity stopped being only a clinical interest. It became a personal responsibility: to remain present, capable, and fully engaged for the years his children would need him.
That realization also required an honest look at his own habits. For years he had worked exceptionally long days, often eaten only once daily, and routinely slept fewer than six hours. He understood the science of healthy aging, but he was not consistently living it.
His mother’s illness gave the work another dimension. She developed hypertension early in life and later required dialysis. Her experience reinforced a distinction that now shapes the entire ShikhMD philosophy: medicine can treat disease after it appears, but the deeper opportunity is to protect the life around the disease before decline becomes irreversible.
This is why the work emphasizes earlier action, measurable risk, sustainable habits, and preserving the strength, clarity, and independence that make a longer life worth having.
Practice Philosophy
Three convictions guide the work.
Function over numbers
Measurements matter because of what they predict about strength, clarity, recovery, and independence. The goal is not a prettier laboratory panel. It is a life that still works.
Evidence stated plainly
Where evidence is strong, act on it. Where it is promising but uncertain, say so. Where it is mostly hype, do not sell certainty that does not exist.
Decades, not appointments
Aging is a long process. The best plan is not the most extreme one. It is the one a real person can sustain long enough to change the trajectory.
Jawani
A longevity practice founded in 2002.
In 2002, Dr. Shikh founded Jawani, formalizing a longevity and wellness practice built on years of earlier work in preventive and longevity medicine. The name reflects youth, vitality, and the full inhabitation of life—not the absence of age, but the continued presence of energy, clarity, movement, connection, and purpose.
The ShikhMD Ecosystem
Books, education, and tools for the long view.
Built to Last
The flagship guide to biology, prevention, function, and healthy aging.
The Longevity Kitchen
A nutrition and recipe project built around practical, sustainable eating.
Longevity Fitness
A complete framework for aerobic capacity, strength, mobility, balance, power, and resilience.
The Longevity App
A practical implementation platform designed to connect education, tracking, and action.
Knowledge Center
Evidence-based articles, podcast episodes, videos, and continuously updated resources.
Books and Guides
A growing longevity collection extending beyond the first three titles.