Join Dr. Martin in part 1 of a two part series on why your gut may be inflamed. From antibiotics, to fiber, to dehydration, there are many reasons why your microbiome can get disrupted.
Probably 99% of the population will go through a period in their life when their gut bothers them. But for some, their gut is the most sensitive area in their body. They struggle big time with issues like irritable bowel syndrome that diminishes their quality of life.
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 guys. Okay, let's go over reasons that your gut might be inflamed. Okay? I was just thinking about that because if you ever have experienced gut problems through your lifetime, probably 99% of the population will go through some time in their life where their gut bothers them. But you know what? There are people that their gut is their most sensitive area in their body and they struggle big time. Man, I tell you, look, other than horrormones in my office, okay, so I showed you, somebody was asking the other day, I think on the weekend asking about that pyramid, and that podcast will be out soon, okay? The lives get turned into podcasts and a lady was going, can I get the podcast where I did this? And the reason for the pyramid, of course, is the fact that that was a huge part.
And guys, you cannot fix hormones. And that was the title actually. Why do doctors have so much trouble fixing hormones? Because they don't look at them holistically. But let's talk about the gut. We'll talk about why and that what to do, okay? Why? I'm going to give you 10 reasons. There're probably more that people have IBS, we can get into the diagnosis. At the end of the day, I used to tell people, it don't matter why your gut is bothering you as much as what are we going to do about it, okay? Because when you have IBS or irritable bowel and your gut's not working properly and you got pain and you got bloating, and you got discomfort, obviously, I mean that takes away from your quality of life. I know a lot of people, patients over the years, man, that was their big, big problem.
And generally, generally, okay, not always, but generally medicine has very few solutions to chronic, well, I'm talking about chronic gut pain. Okay? So let's look at why, and then we're going to look at what to do. Okay? Why? Okay? Now, I don't have them in necessarily any specific order. I would see over the years, but look, probably the number one reason that causes gut problems, and it may come only years later, okay? Are the use of antibiotics. Okay? So when you take an antibiotic, you're not thinking of your gut, you're thinking of an infection, a child, ear infections, throat infections. Is it any fun? No, it's no fun. And antibiotics are given, okay? Or even in the womb. So mommy takes an antibiotic, it disrupts her microbiome and the baby's microbiome, and we've always said this, remember this, leaky gut doesn't necessarily give you gut problems in terms of, because leaky gut, if you take a chart, and it could be leaky brain, the connection to autism, leaky sinuses, chronic sinusitis, chronic postnasal drip.It could be leaky lungs where you get asthma and they go asthma? Yeah, well, asthma and antibiotics, the connection, okay?
But what I'm talking about today is not so much leaky gut, okay? Because people think, and even today I have to answer that question for a lot of people. "Doc, how do I know if I have leaky gut?" Well, leaky gut doesn't necessarily mean you've got digestive issues. You can have leaky gut and not have any digestive issues and you still have leaky gut. But again, remember that. So leaky gut, leaky skin, leaky gut, leaky brain for different people, it could be what we call referred. It's gone to another area, but it comes back to your gut. And every autoimmune disease, every one of them, every one of them starts in the gut. Leaky gut, toxins get in the bloodstream. I'm not talking about that though today, okay? I just wanted to put it out there because people say, "oh, doc, are you talking about leaky gut?" No, I'm talking about more generalized IBS, irritable bowel where the bowel is bothering me. Okay?
So what are the triggers? That's what I meant by that. Okay, what are the triggers and then what are we going to do about it? Okay, so number one trigger in my opinion is antibiotics. It's the number one trigger that disrupts in the gut. It disrupts the microbiome. And for a lot of people, you get the invasion of the third army. It's a Trojan horse that comes in and sets up shop, and that's called yeast, fungus, candida. That species can take over the gut cause major gut issues. Okay? So that's number one. Number two, and I saw this more than you could imagine, too much fiber, okay? Now remember on every other station except Martin Clinic News Channel, almost every other station, and every day I read, I see fiber, fiber, fiber, okay?
And remember I'm a guy that's been around a long time and I watched the cereal companies make fiber something that you can't live without according to them, and they duped how many generations Now? My parents, All Bran. You need All Bran. That was my parents' oatmeal. Okay? You need All Bran because if you don't, you're not going to get enough fiber. And then you get women, okay? And you know what I'm going to say, who love their chicken and salad. And they were told that that's what they need because it's so much better for you than meat. And so you get these gurus, you get medicine, you get nutritionists, you get almost everybody in the healthcare field and they bought it. Overuse of antibiotics, the lie of fiber, like ah, fiber, Dr. Martin. I used to get my parents' generation, they would come in and when I told them to lay off the fiber, it was like I had put them in a dental chair and started drilling their teeth without an anesthetic. I mean it. If you would've saw some of the contortions of faces when I told 'em that fiber was overrated. Dr. Martin!
And then the cereal companies, you think they're stupid? They tied fiber and they still do it today. They tie fiber with cholesterol and when you get fiber, you are lowering your cholesterol as if that's a good thing. It was all bunk. And you guys know what I'm going to say probably. You weren't built for fiber like that, okay? You're not a rabbit. You're not a cow, you're not, okay? Why do you eat like that? And when I say you, I don't mean you. My audience is smart, but guys it, it's BS, and I'm being polite. It's so overrated. You got to understand, you have to start with the stomach, okay? Your stomach, you, me, every human being you know, their stomach is made to eat meat, not salad.
You don't make cellulase, you don't, don't make it. You don't have the enzymes that a rabbit has. We got rabbits all over the place here. I don't know where they came from. Somebody had 'em as a pet, I think and let 'em loose because they're all over the place here in my neighborhood and I watch them and they're chewing on grass all day long on plants, yeah but that's what they're built for. Your stomach wasn't made for that. A cow eats grass so you don't have to. They got four stomachs. Their pH of their stomach is much different than yours. So when you eat the wrong food, many, many, many a time, you are going to pay the price for that, okay? You pay the price for it.
So why do we get bowels that are irritated? Number one, numero uno, antibiotics, numero duo. Two fiber. And when I got diverticulosis, I got diverticulitis. I got IBS. I used to tell my patients. We're going to cut out the fiber. And like I said, I used to have to tell 'em, you got to trust me, okay? You're not going to die from a lack of fiber, I promise you won't die. "Well, doc, what if I don't go to the bathroom every day?" Well, I'm telling you that fiber is overrated. You have to trust me. Okay? Now number three, one, antibiotics, two fiber, three dehydration, a lack of water. That is such a huge problem. It's a huge problem for everything in your body. Even over the weekend, I was talking about chronic kidney disease with someone and someone was asking me about kidney stones and I said, I'll tell you the number one reason people have kidney stones, okay? It's not steak, it's dehydration. Your kidneys are Niagara Falls water, but your bowels, it needs water more than fiber. Much more than fiber, okay? Water.
And you know how many millions of people are on medication and they're dehydrated just from the meds that irritates the bowel. Drink water. How much water do you need for my new folks? Here's the sweet spot. You need two liters. You need 64 ounces. Okay? That's water. I'm not talking about anything else. Water. That's how much water you need every day. That's years of experience. That's the average. Kids don't drink water. They drink everything else, but only water is water. Your gut needs water. It doesn't need juice. Okay? Your gut needs coffee too, by the way. It does. Okay, we'll talk about that. Okay, so what's going on? Okay, what will irritate the bowel? Okay, we talked about three things. A lack of water, too much fiber and antibiotic. One five day antibiotic can start an IBS. And it doesn't happen overnight, right? Doesn't happen overnight because you don't feel it right away. But that will irritate the lining of the gut. Okay?
Now, what can be bothering you? And here's where I'm going to get into leaky gut, but you got to figure this out too. You got to be doctor, okay? Put doctor in front of your name. I used to tell my patients this all the time, be your own doctor. What do I mean by that? When it comes to food intolerances? Okay, I'm going to tell you one of them I have, okay, I got an intolerance. Only the one food for me. I can't have a lot of broccoli. Okay? Do I like broccoli? Yeah, I like it. I do, but I can't have a lot of it. How did I find that out? Well, Dr. Tony figured it out. How did I figure it out? Well, I think the last time I had broccoli, it bothered me. Maybe not. Maybe it was something else. Then I had broccoli again. And you know what? That bothered my gut. Oh, I have an intolerance.
I had someone, and you know me guys, I like to tease, okay? So don't take it personally. I just like teasing people. I come from a family of 11 kids. We had to have thick skin. I had older brothers. They did nothing but tease me. That's all right. I learned to give it out as good as I took it. Okay? But guys, a lady goes, "doc, I sent my blood out to a lab and it tells me I shouldn't be eating steak." I said, when you eat steak, does it bother you? No. Well, I said then the blood test is wrong. If you got leaky gut, your microbiome is upside down, certain foods might bother you, okay? Be your own doc, okay? Be your own doc and figure it out. Oh yeah, if I eat that, that's true. And how many people are like that? Come on. Almost everybody. There's certain foods they can't have. Well, don't have them. I say eggs, meat and cheese. And then some people, doc, I don't do well with eggs. Well, don't have them. Now sometimes you can fix that. Sometimes if you don't have too much of it, you can tolerate it, but you got to figure that out. Got it?
Okay, let's keep going. And for some people, okay, and I say this like food additives. Now food additives is not the problem. It's not. Look, we live in a different world than we know. It's almost everything you eat. It doesn't matter where it comes from, even if it comes from your backyard. Okay? A dear lady at church yesterday, she gave me some lettuce. I loved it. Okay, Dr. Martin, don't take a picture of me taking lettuce from her backyard. No, but guys, listen, we don't live in a perfect world. So you can have food additives for some people and pesticides and herbicides and whatever is in the soil where you can be a canary in a coal mine. And everything bothers your gut. Okay?
Here's a huge one. And again, pouring gasoline on the fire. You know what I'm going to say? Stress. Okay? Stress affects people in different ways. But if you have an irritation in the gut, you're pouring gasoline on that with stress. And a lot of people, they live with an enormous amount of stress. And where it hits them is gut. Okay? Gut. And it really irritates. And sometimes you've really got to work hard on minimizing that stress response. Cortisol, okay? It's your friend until it ain't. Cortisol's your friend until it isn't. Okay? And that can create havoc in your gut. Irritates, pours gasoline on the fire. Now, someone was going to say, Dr. Martin, what about gluten? Here's me. Okay guys, and I'm, I'm just going to say it because I think I'm right. Okay. Gluten schmooten, that's what I used to tell my patients. It ain't gluten because gluten's in everything just about, and you can be completely gluten-free.
Look if you're celiac, I get it, okay? But even with celiac, there's an underlying condition. Here's what I saw every time with celiac. They got severe leaky gut, they have severe problems, and gluten is schmooten. What I mean by that, it's not gluten, it's the carbohydrates. And I know wheat is not what it used to be and this and that, I know that, but I'm just telling you gluten, remember how big that was about 10, 15 years ago, everybody and their dog had some kind of gluten. You know what? The food industry, you think they're stupid. They came out with a whole category of gluten-free foods. You go to the grocery store gluten-free, you go this gluten-free and all these people, when I used to get 'em in my office, I used to say gluten schmooten. It's not gluten. You're eating too many carbs. So now you lay off the gluten, but you're eating more carbs than you ever did, and you know what you're going to find? You ain't fixing anything in your gut.
If you lay off the carbohydrates and quit feeding that fungus that's in your gut, that yeast, the Trojan horse, you watch how much better you get. It's you and carbs don't get along. Your gut is saying when you lay off all that fiber and all that flour, okay, irritates, and again, I used to bring it even a little bit higher for them. I used to tell 'em about their stomach and their stomach pH, and I said, your stomach pH is too high. It's too alkaline. It's not acidic enough. It's because you're not eating meat. You need a certain acidity to eat meat. And if you don't eat it, you lose it and you're going to have an irritated bowel because if you don't break the food down in your stomach properly, it's going to come in undigested or not fully digested, and it's going to irritate your bowel. Your stomach is a furnace, okay? It's a furnace. It needs to be hot, acidic, big time.
And so that was always part of the equation. I got them to think that way. And I said, you got to lower your carbohydrates. You change your pH in your stomach. You don't have enough acidity there, and that is affecting your bowel too. It's amazing what happens when you lay off the carbs, guys. It's amazing because your stomach responds to that. You ask almost everybody that's done the Reset, their stomach gets better, gets well, yeah, because your pH is changing, okay? Your pH is changing. You want that in the stomach. Your mouth really is the first part of digestion. You know the saliva and that, but you need that stomach. Man, oh man, today we have people that got cow stomachs, they got rabbit stomachs that are not acidic. Like the human being is supposed to be an acidic stomach. But because we think we're smarter than God and we need fiber instead of meat.
Your bowel loves steak, okay? It does. It's the best thing for it. Your stomach loves steak. It's the best thing for your stomach is steak because that's what you were meant to eat. It's just biochemistry. Your pH of your stomach has to be right. Okay? I guess we're going to have to do part two. I didn't tell you what to do yet. Well, some I've been telling a little bit, but we'll talk about that. How to fix. And I got stress, alcohol, too much fiber, toxins. We talked about that. Too many seeds. You're not a rabbit and you're not a chipmunk or a squirrel either. Too many seeds.
How many people today especially, well, because Dr. Martin, I got to have my protein and I can have my little snacks brought to you by the food industry and brought to you by your local dietician. You better snack. Here's a healthy snack. Why don't you have some almonds? Why don't you have some seeds? Yeah, you have to talk to Martin. They're seeds. Yeah, I know, but you're not a chipmunk, are you? You're not a squirrel, are you? You want to talk about irritating the gut. Now, I'm not saying you can't have any, you know how I love flax seeds, but I'm just telling you, if you got a bow that's irritated, would you lay off the stinking seed? I know it's fiber too. I know. I know, I know. Oohh.
Okay, guys, got to keep thanking you for making our book, Sun, Steak & Steel. I love the feedback we're getting. Okay? It turns people upside down because they're not, what, what is it, Dr. Ma... what are you talking about? Sun? Yeah. Vitamin D. Steak, vitamin S, steel, vitamin E, exercise, get strong and sleep. That's a vitamin, isn't it? Yeah, it sure is. Okay, guys. Okay. We're going to have fun this week, I promise. And I promise not to be as excited tomorrow. Okay? I got excited today. 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!