Building muscle is the one of the most important things you can do metabolically, and it doesn’t matter how old you are, you got to get stronger! Muscle is key, and a new study has found the importance of muscle in preventing chronic disease.
Dr. Martin says with all the research coming together, muscle mass should be viewed as an important vital sign. The number one cause of disability in older adults is sarcopenia, which is muscle wasting.
Join Dr. Martin as he shares several studies on muscle strength, and even one on salt and its connection to insulin resistance.
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
Announcer: You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin: Well, good morning everyone. Welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Now, I want to talk to you about two studies that came out that I flagged over the weekend. Now let me say hi again to all the folks that came out in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday. We had a seminar and I met so many of you. Thanks for coming out. And many of you drove a long way to meet up with us. And that seminar, we had a ball, I had a ball, and it was great just meeting some. So many of our Facebook group. We really enjoyed that. But I did talk about the importance of, I sort of introduced the book, Sun, Steak and Steel. But was funny because Sunday I got a couple of studies in my research and just started doubling down on the importance of muscle. Guys, let me quote something from my book. Okay? Okay. And then I am going to tell you about this study.
It says here, "muscle is the one of the most important things you can do metabolically." Muscle. And I don't care how old you are, you got to get stronger. Muscle is key. And this new study, let me read it to you, new study from PubMed, new study on the importance of muscle in preventing chronic disease. Muscle mass has a major effect on metabolic functions of glucose, insulin, protein metabolism, and hormone status. Ladies, horrormones status. Getting stronger is important. We already talked to you about grip strength. It's almost like it's a vital sign. A vital sign like your blood pressure, it's a vital sign. Your pulse a vital sign. Okay? Your respiration rate a vital sign. But really the way the research is coming together, it's actually telling us that muscle mass is an important vital sign. And thus, sun, steak, steel, really the importance of getting strong.
Sarcopenia. Let me read the, I'm quoting in my book again. The number one cause of disability in older adults is sarcopenia, which is muscle wasting. Now, here's another study came out again, I just saw it this weekend. When someone has insulin resistance, okay, now we all know what that is. When at the cellular level, your cells can't stand their bad neighbor anymore. If you're a carboholic, you have insulin resistance a hundred percent. You could be skinny as a rake and have insulin resistance, okay? But what they're showing is that insulin resistance when your cells are tired of responding to insulin. Insulin always comes depending on what you eat. But if you're a carboholic, it knocks on the door of your cells. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. Let me in. I got to put glucose inside the cell.
I don't like you anymore, insulin, your cells say. But insulin says, okay, I'm just going to bring more insulin. Cause I can not leave sugar in your bloodstream. I emphasize that on Saturday. I said, your body is so smart. Your body knows more than all the dieticians, all the doctors that I've ever met. Your body is smarter than them. Why? Because it will not allow sugar to stay in your bloodstream. If you empty out your five liters of blood, even if you ate 20 donuts, don't do it. But even if you did a couple of hours later, your blood sugar will have less than a teaspoon of sugar left in the bloodstream. Why is that? Cause your body's smart. It knows. People, someone said this to me yesterday, okay, Dr. Martin protein isn't that hard on your kidneys? Now listen, that's what the world thinks, okay? The world thinks that. Here's why they think it, because doctors who forget biochemistry, they forget it. You take a urine test and you find protein in the urine. Okay? So, oh, there's protein in the urine, therefore protein must be bad for kidneys. It's the opposite. What makes protein come out of your kidneys into your urine is when you're eating too much sugar. Your body knows that. Your body knows how toxic sugar is.
So back to muscles, okay, back to muscles. Insulin resistance. Okay? You know what that is now, it's food, man. It's food. Insulin resistance breaks down muscle protein. Insulin resistance breaks down muscle protein causing one of the causes of sarcopenia. Muscle wasting. Guys, protein will give you muscle. Carbs will destroy the protein in your muscles from insulin resistance, and you're going to get sarcopenia. That's why skinny people with a bad diet, it don't matter if they have insulin resistance, they're in deep doo doo. Okay? Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? And there was a third study that fish oil plus weight training. Ladies, listen to me. Linda's, okay, ladies, you're Linda's this morning. Listen, I know you like to walk. Good for you. I like walking too. And walking is good for you, but it's not weight training. It's not resistant train. Now look, if you don't have dumbbells or barbells, don't worry about it. You can pick up bands, elastic, you know the strengthening bands. You can use those to get stronger resistance.
One of the things I like to do, I like to do pushups, okay? I do that is tremendous weight resistant exercises to get stronger. And I understand at my age, you start to go downhill pretty quick if you don't take care of yourself. And what they're showing is that muscle mass is a huge factor in metabolic syndrome, okay? It's a vital sign. I write in my book. Let me give you a couple of quotes here from my book, okay? Here are a few reasons that women should start getting stronger, okay? Women with muscle mass have 60% better chance of survival of any disorder, any disease, any infection than women with less muscle mass. Okay? Even for your lungs, people with lower muscle mass have more evidence of C O P D. Muscle and lungs, muscle and brain. Listen to this, people with lower muscle mass have much more risk and severity of Alzheimer's. If you're over 60, all cause mortality and cancer associated mortality is twice as likely in people with low muscle mass compared to those with high muscle mass. Okay? In short, okay, this, I'm quoting my book here. Muscle mass is better for your brain, heart, mitochondria, your battery packs, liver, immune system, mortality, lungs, kidneys, metabolism, and on and on and on. I'm quoting from my book.
Now I want to bring you this, this is in my book too, okay? About cancer. A recent study, okay? A recent study has shown that resistant exercises like weight training, may stop cancer in its tracks, quoting from this study, okay, stop cancer in its tracks. Cancer journal for physicians, an exercise prescription could lower the risk of developing breast, colon, endometrial kidney, bladder, esophageal, and stomach cancer. Resistant training is arguably quoting the study, the most important interventional strategy for overall health and wellbeing. Yet a large percentage of the population isn't aware of its vast benefits. Harvard Health. People haven't got the memo. And any movement guys is good. When I say just move, I mean it move. But the key to longevity, to quality of life, even your immune system. One of the keys is getting stronger, okay? Getting stronger, okay? It's not everything, but it's really, really important. Okay? Really important.
Now, here's another study that I wanted to bring to you today. Okay, so we talked about getting strong. I think that's really important. Okay. Lowering salt. This is interesting. Lowering salt increases insulin resistance. Lowering salt increases insulin resistance. I was saying this again yesterday. Might have been Saturday actually, with the folks in Fort Lauderdale. Cardiologists, we love them, okay? We love them, but they often got things wrong, right? They got cholesterol wrong, they got salt wrong. It's not salt, it's sugar. They got the white stuff. They said white stuff, but they got the wrong white stuff. They got salt wrong. Okay?
Go to a hundred doors in your hometown. And let's say we do a survey and we say, why is it important to decrease your salt intake? Now, I believe that 99 doors out of a hundred, okay? 99 doors would have the memo. And that is, oh, how to decrease blood pressure. Lower your salt, lower salt. But they got that wrong. It's not salt, it's sugar. You see, the only time, this is really important, okay, I'm going to use a word viscosity, okay? Viscosity, thickness. And I used to tell patients often you've got blood like molasses. And they'd look at me like I had two heads. I said, you are in trouble. You got blood like molasses. And then you go, why do I have thick blood doc like molasses? You don't drink enough water. I saw someone online or the other day or whatever, Dr. Martin and this water. I'm telling you.
Now, the only time you get high blood pressure from salt is when you're dehydrated. It's called viscosity of blood, okay? So when you don't drink enough water. You know where you get crappy salt, by the way, is when you eat crappy foods, they put all this sodium chloride in fast foods. You go to a restaurant fast foods, and they cook it in bad oil and then top it off, they put a lot of table salt, which is stripped of its minerals. Table salt is not real salt. It's been stripped, it's naked. Okay? So the only time you can get high blood pressure is when you're eating crappy foods with crappy salt and not enough H two O. Okay? And I used to see that in my office all the time. It's not the salt that's doing it to you, although that you know demineralized salt isn't good for you. It's when you don't drink enough water. Okay? Got that memo guys. You guys know this, but it's good. There's nothing harder on your kidneys, not salt. A lack of water and sugar and sugar, okay? A lack of water and sugar.
So here's this study. The lower your good salt intake is, the more your insulin goes up. Now you're getting a double whamo sugar. We all know, and crappy carbs that turn to sugars rapidly are going to elevate your insulin. Okay? I think I showed you this chart the other day. I actually drew it. Okay, here it is. Okay, there's my little graph, okay? I'm showing people on this graph. If you eat crappy carts, look at how high your blood sugar goes over 20. And this is a chart that I meet, and these are the hours. And then you see this second line here of insulin. Your insulin goes crazy and it takes a long time to come down. Okay? Anyway, it's not all that clear because I'm, I flunked art. But when you eat crappy carbohydrates, your insulin goes up and it'll come down. But it takes a long time. And then if you continue to eat bad foods doesn't take long. You develop insulin resistance.
Now, one of the things they're finding, and I like this because I have been talking about this for a while, not so much with insulin resistance, but I've been talking to you guys for a long time about the importance of salt. You cry salt, your saliva's got lots of salt. Your blood has salt. You need salt. If someone calls you salty, take it as a compliment. But the key is getting the right salt. Okay? The right salt, because it's full of minerals, it helps your body become more alkaline. It actually helps your stomach stay acidic. Good salt. And so I hate to tell you, the cardiologist got that wrong. It's amazing when you say a lie long enough, it just gets ingrained in people's thinking, including doctors and dieticians. Let's lower your salt intake. No, why don't you lower sugar intake. Sugar intake. So now you're getting a double whammo. But remember, use good salt, salty up your water a bit. That's why guys, spring water, people ask me, why do I talk about that so much? Well, spring water is water. It's real water because real water has minerals in it, right from the soil has minerals, and that's what you want, mineral water.
And look, I'm not telling people look to purify water and alkaline water and like go pay money to get smart water and this and that. I'm just telling ya, I like salt in my water. Even with spring water, I like that even more salt a little bit. You don't have to have a lot of it. Okay? So now there's research showing, wow, if you have the right salt, it will help you to lower insulin resistance. Okay? Wow. Wow. And when you're retaining sodium, when your body retains it, certain medications will do that. When you are high in carbohydrates, crappy carbs, your body gets out of whack, your kidneys get out of whack. And that puts an enormous amount of pressure on the kidneys. Folks your diet is such an important factor. Okay? So isn't that interesting? We looked today at some studies on the importance of muscle, sun, steak and steel. We looked at the importance of salt. A good salt insulin resistance will go up with sugar and a lack of salt. I like Himalayan salt. I like a good sea salt. That's salt, my friend, Celtic salt. Those are salts with all their minerals in them. Got it?
Okay. Now did you see the notice for our webinar? We're doing Wednesday night, okay, Tony Jr. and I, every once in a while you get to see the brains of the operation. Tony Jr. Doc Jr. on with his dad. And we tag team together and we're going to bring you a great webinar on Wednesday night. So if you haven't signed up, sign up today. Okay? Space is limited, okay? Space is limited. Now what's this week? Friday, question and answer Friday. Okay, question and answer Friday. So get your questions out. But you know what happens on Wednesday night? We usually hang around, answer a lot of questions. People like that. I like that. At our seminar in Fort Lauderdale, I hung around for another hour, an hour and a half or whatever, and I answered people's questions. People have questions. Have I not trained you to ask questions? I want you to think, and one of the best ways to get information, not only read, but ask questions. I love that. So that's Wednesday night. Make sure you sign up for the webinar. Okay guys, we love you and we'll talk to you soon.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!