Dr. Martin has been reading some interesting articles on mental health recently and thought he’d talk about them.
Mental health sort of got turned on its head in the last year. It was shown how depression wasn’t a chemical imbalance, that there’s been a failure in the treatment of bipolar, and how the cause of Alzheimer’s isn’t amyloid plaque.
For Dr. Martin, controlling your mental health really starts in the kitchen. We can’t control our environment, but we can control what we eat. Proper brain food starts with making better food choices.
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, and once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Thank you for coming on. We appreciate it so much. Okay, I want to talk a little bit about brain health this morning. It's important, isn't it? Yeah. Your brain, you want to keep that. You want to preserve that. I hear people talking about all the time about how long they want to live, and I'm not so much into quantity, but quality and I want my brain. I've seen too many cases where people just, they have Alzheimer's dementia. No, I don't want that. Okay, now we do everything we can to prevent that, right? And so I want to get into a little bit of brain stuff today, and it's not necessarily all as far as memory, just because I, I've been reading some very interesting articles on mental health and I just thought, you know what? Let's break this down a little bit and talk about it. Okay?
Remember last summer, so almost a year ago, mental health sort of got turned on its head pardoned upon because they come out and said three things. One, that depression, for example, wasn't a chemical imbalance. At least what they said wasn't caused by chemical imbalance. Okay? One, then they said bipolar. Okay, bipolar. They've really had a failure in the treatment of bipolar. It doesn't really work according to the research. And then they talked about Alzheimer's not being a plaque, that they were looking for all the love in all the wrong places when it came to Alzheimer's. They haven't made a dent. It's gotten worse. And to me, there's a major connection between them.
And I always have to go back to how your brain operates. Okay? Your brain, it's very complex. I don't know how I got through school if I wouldn't have had that atlas behind me there. And for those who are listening on a podcast, I'm showing my old that I went through school with. I'm a very visual guy. So there's several pictures of the brain and the blood supply, and it's 2% of your body weight, yet 25% of all your energy goes through there. And the key to mental health, the key is energy. It's mitochondria, it's those battery packs in there. And there's a lot of factors that will affect your brain. And you know how I talk about the brain? We divide it into two different, I mean, there's more than not, but for the sake of understanding, two major zones, you have your hippocampus and you have your hypothalamus.
Hypothalamus is all your hormones. Hippocampus is your memory center in the brain. And here's some of the recent studies on SSRIs. Those are serotonin, right? Uptake drugs. They pick up the serotonin and the questions, I've always asked about those things always for years and years and years. Why do they not always work? And this is what they've proven. By the way, depression, for example, is not started by an imbalance. It's not started by that. It's not serotonin imbalance. That probably happens, but it's not the first thing. It's not the cause. So the questions I always ask are I used to see this so often? I mean, millions and millions of people are on these medications, and the questions I ask are, why don't they always work? Okay? Why don't they always work? Why do people have good and bad days on these medications? I mean, if they're working, why are people having good and bad days?
And why do they stop working? They might start working in people, but why do they stop working in people? Because that's very common, by the way. And then why do they change neurotransmitter levels like serotonin uptake, they change those levels rapidly, but often take months to even make a change in symptoms. So those are questions I used to ask myself all the time, and the answers weren't always forthcoming. Now, my take this, okay, when it comes to mental health, okay, it's a lot of factors, but generally there's usually what I see is an underlying principle, and that is the mitochondria in the brain. You got billions of mitochondria in your brain. This is headquarters. It's the energy center of your body. And when those mitochondria are not producing or overproducing, mitochondria are battery packs. So think about it that way, okay? They're little battery packs and you got them everywhere, but in your brain, they are very, very important because if they are misfiring, it's one of the reasons today that we see so much mental health problems.
It is unreal. Let me give you some statistics here, okay? Because I looked these up yesterday. One in five, okay, listen to this one in five. This is American statistics. Today, one in five suffer mental disorders in the United States, one in five, 50%. That's half the people in the United States will suffer with mental health problems in their lifetime. Suicide rates are skyrocketing. When we went through covid, 40% of the population struggled with their mental health. 11% of those considered committing suicide. We haven't even moved the needle when it comes to mental health. And I want to tell you why, in my opinion, okay? Why? Because we're not looking at the underlying cause, okay? We're not looking at the underlying cause. There's something physiologically that happens. You can put two people in the same amount of stress, two people, same stress poured on them, and one suffers with severe mental health problems and the other one doesn't.
Why a guy? Why does that happen? Okay, and I don't want to be too simplistic, but for me, when I saw people in my office with major depression, I want to tell you what I saw. There was deficiency, certain ones, and there were an over secretion of hormones, an over secretion of them, consistently. Consistently. And I always used to tell people, especially young people, if you struggle with anxiety, you struggle with bipolar, you struggle with depression, okay? You struggle with it. You are the canary in the coal mine, your system. You have to understand that my expertise, so-called is food. So what did I see all the time was a common denominator. And you know what I'm going to say? It's insulin resistance. It's at the cellular level where cells are resisting insulin. Insulin is food hormone. What can you control in life? You can't control everything.
You can't, but you can control what you eat. And I used to tell people, well, look, you're a canary in the coal mine. Like different areas of the body can get affected by insulin resistance. And sometimes it's all of the above. For example, women that got Pecos, well, too much estrogen, too much insulin cancer, too much estrogen, too much insulin, heart disease, high blood pressure. Okay? Too much insulin and too much cortisol. See, I'm a hormone guy. I used to look for that. What are your hormones doing? And if you think of the brain and you think of the hypothalmus in insulin, resistance in the brain affects the mitochondria. What does that mean? Well, the mitochondria are battery packs, so either those battery packs are getting too much stimulation are not enough. That's bipolar, in my opinion. A lot of people were sensitive. They'd get bipolar if you could get them.
It wasn't easy because the problem is once you have mental health problems, the idea is good food is really, really important, but it was hard to get them to even think about food when they're unwell. So I used to try, my goal was to get them before they were unwell or when they were unwell, but getting them in time or in a period where they're, okay, give me DACA program so I can manage up here. Give me a program. Well, I said, look, we going to start in the kitchen. We're going to start with food. You have to understand how your brain works, and it's the federal government. It wants taxes. So every time you eat, it doesn't matter what you eat, 25% of it is going to end up in the brain as energy. Now, if you give your brain poor fuel, it's still going to get up there.
And the problem is when you're a canary in the coal mine and your brain is hypersensitive, you better start with food. I'm thinking of a young lady that came to see me years ago, okay? She was well aware of her issues, bipolar, depression, anxiety. I did all her testing, and I'll get into that in a second. But just when I said, look, I think we can really help you. You wouldn't believe I remember that young lady, she had struggled so much, and on the day that I saw her, I'll never forget it because she lit up like a Christmas tree when I said that we could probably help her, and then I went down the list and said, okay, here's your problems. Here's what I've seen. You got insulin resistance. Your cells are resisting insulin. So I said, you got a fuel problem. You and carbs don't get along.
You just don't get along. She said, I love them, especially when I'm unwell. I know, but they don't love you. I said, look, this isn't going to be easy, but while you are, well, right now, let's put a program together to get you stabilized. She said, docket said exactly what I've been looking for someone that isn't going to treat me with medication after medication, after medication, that works for a little bit if I'm bipolar. Yeah, it's sort of, I used to be high, now I'm a zombie. She said, I'm tired of it. I'm in a dark hole. I said, well, all I'm looking at is physiology. I'm looking at what's going on in your body. Let's correct those, and it starts in the kitchen. So can you do it? Yep. Are you ready? Yep. Guaranteed. Okay, let's get you off. All sugars. The reset, right?
30 days, no sugars. I said, are you ready to go? No car. Yep, 30 days. Let's just see what happens because I want to get rid of your insulin resistance. I want those mitochondria in your brain to start operating with the best fuel. So we start with that. I said, okay, now two, your low in vitamin D. What's vitamin D got to do with the brain doc? Everything. Everything. Your body doesn't work without vitamin D properly. I said, your brain, again, you're a canary in the cold mine. Your brain is hypersensitive fuel, vitamin D. I said, you're extremely low in b12. I knew it, but they didn't know it. And I said, b12, your brain needs B. Well, guess what? Food. She like carbs. She wasn't a meat eater. She thought meat was bad for her. I said, nah, man. No, no. I said, you like eggs?
She said, I love eggs, but I don't eat too many. I thought it wasn't good for me. I said, you need to eat a lot of eggs. Your brain needs eggs. Your brain needs toine. Your brain needs choline. You know what a set of choline is? It makes the synapses in your brain function properly. If you don't eat eggs, you're not going to get it. Eggs got all your B vitamins, so does steak. You ready? Said, I'm ready. Okay, I like eggs. Well have a hundred a week. I don't care. And I said, okay, now I'm going to put you on a couple of supplements. I need to get your B12 levels up and you ain't going to be able to eat enough steak for you to get your B12 levels up high enough. I said, I'm going to supplement with you. Now, we're going to do eight to 10,000 micrograms of B12 a day, sublingual every day, seven days a week. Okay? Okay. I could tell this young lady was saying, doc, if you tell me to walk off backwards, off this building, I'll do it because I need help. Okay? Food, vitamin D, I was giving her, I think 10,000 IUs a day. B12.
Okay? And you know what? I saw her again in about six weeks or a year, every six weeks. She wanted accountability and I was going to make her accountable. And that young lady was a new person. I put her on high, g h a two for oil in the brain. I said, you need an oil change. You've been eating all of these seed oils that were meant for your car. And I said, when you go to the grocery store, don't go in the middle aisles. Get out of there. Don't go there. You go to your produce section and get your meat, get your eggs, get your cheese, and then after the 30 days, you can have some vegetables and a little bit of fruit. I said, we're aiming to fix your horrors. She had way too much estrogen, way too much of a woman. I said, that's your hypothalamus.
Your thyroid is out of whack. But again, it's horrors. I said, we're going to balance those out. They're all connected. Remember, the brain is headquarters and some people are bipolar. I've seen it in major depression. I've seen it in schizophrenia. I've seen it, and I said, look, I'm going to do my thing. I never tell people to get off their medication. Never. I don't do that. I didn't do it in practice, and I don't do it anymore. I don't do it. Medicines over here, you know what they call integrated medicine? If you need meds, you need meds. And then there's food and hormonal balancing and that over on this side, it should be together because medicine should be integrated, but we're not there yet. To be honest, I'm not all that optimistic. I know integrated doctors that put the two together, but there're not many of them.
And you know, this is complex. There's a lot of things. And then of course, oh, let me tell you one other thing that I found. Leaky gut, leaky brain, almost invariably, leaky gut, leaky brain. I had to fix her leaky gut when she was a kid. Again, I'm a history taker. When she was a child, lots of antibiotics for ear and throat infections. I said, well, you created back then, leaky gut. She said, why didn't anybody ever tell me that? I said to her, do you know what APCs said 2000 years ago, the father of medicine? He said, all diseases start in the gut. It wasn't far from being right. Your microbiome, your microbiome, your bacteria.
I said, you're way out of balance. You got fungus in your brain. You have yeast coming out the wazoo, and of course it wants to be fed. It'll call your name every day. That's why you are having such cravings. Hello? Yeast hates you, but love sugar hates steak. I said, it hates it. If you don't feed yeast, it will die. Don't feed it. Don't feed the beers. They want to be fed and they can only get something rapidly. It's whatever breaks down quickly. You see steak don't break down quickly. Eggs don't break down quickly. Cheese doesn't break down quickly. People that tell me, well, don't have any dairy. I don't buy that. Why wouldn't you have dairy? Now, I'm not saying drink milk, grocery store milk, but dairy's good for you, my friend. It's good for your brain. It's got C conjugated linoleic acid. Your brain loves that.
You got to fix those symptoms in your body. You can do all the rest. And if you don't do the insulin thing, I said, you're making a big mistake, so you got to trust me. I used to tell my patients that. I said, do you trust me? I said, well, you're here. Right? Okay, you're here. You've waited a long time to see me. I said, do you trust me? No. I got a good reputation, Dr. Martin. I said, okay. Now you got to trust me. This program is going to work, but I can't go home with you, so you need to implement it. Do what I say for 30 days. And then if you don't notice a big difference, 30 days, if you don't notice a big difference, then call me a quack. Tell ev all your friends. He's a nutcase.
But you know what? I would put up those results with anyone's results when it came to mental health. We would lower their cortisol. We would do everything we could to get them sleeping again. But you better start in the kitchen or as someone is set online in the grocery store. Yeah, absolutely right? My expression, we're starting in the kitchen and we live in a day today. Why is mental health so crazy today? Why is it one in five in the usa? Why is it 50% in their lifetime? And I know there's stress. It's huge. We live in a different world. I know that. But you have to look at the brain as headquarters hypersensitive for some people and can turn on its head easily. You look at mental health and you better start with food. That's what bothers me, because they don't start with food. Food is hardly even discussed in mental health. Hardly at all. It's almost like they chopped the head off and separate it and say, okay. And they were wrong. SSRIs, they said it came out. They're looking for love in all the wrong places. Bipolar, looking for love in all the wrong places. Okay, nice.
I got excited. You know what? Tomorrow is tomorrow's question and answer. Thursday. Why Friday? I'm traveling. Okay. So we want you to send your questions in. Okay. We'll try and get to all of them if we can. Okay? So send your questions in. Okay? We love questions. We really do. We love question and answer Thursday, tomorrow. Okay. We love you guys. 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!