Dr. Martin recently read an article saying that people in 1970 were fit as a fiddle. Although that’s true comparatively to today, Dr. Martin adds an asterisk as many people were still smoking.
So, what has happened since then that rates of obesity and diabetes have skyrocketed? Join Dr. Martin in today’s episode as he shares what’s happened that we are now sicker than ever!
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 welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day, and it's always great when you come on with us and we appreciate that when we do our live. Of course, these things are turned into podcasts and we just enjoy our audience so much. Thank you so much. Thanks for all the feedback. We appreciate that too. Okay, I read an article over the weekend and the headline was Fit as a Fiddle. Now you know me. I love expressions like that. I don't even realize it when I talk. My grandchildren sort of made me aware of it that I use a lot of expressions. Okay? Actually in my book, Sun Steak and Steel, we talked about proverbs, the Martin Clinic proverbs. What chapter is that? Is that right at the end? Can't even remember now. Which one did I do my proverbs here? Somewhere in here, okay, in the book, Sun Steak and Steel, okay?
But anyway, I'm always talking in expressions. Fiddlesticks, Sandy says, give me some expressions, guys on the side there. Okay, fiddlesticks, I like that. I don't think I've used that one that much, but I liked it. My mother did. And I don't know if kids don't do it today, but I do a lot of expressions. So one of them was fit as a fiddle. Now our fiddles fit, but that was an expression. Holy moly. Easy peasy. I like that. Turn on a dime. I like that too. Softest silk. Liars, liars, I use that one a lot. Liars, liars, pants on fire. And easy come, easy go. I talk, and like I said, my grandchildren sort of made me aware of it. I just talk like that. Don't even think about it. So I read this. Crime me a river. Love it.
Okay, here's the article. In 1970, people were as fit as a fiddle. And in comparison that's true. I sort of have objections to that. But let me qualify what I'm going to say. I agreed with the article to a big extent. They said in 1970, people were as fit as a fiddle. There was less heart disease, there was less cancer, there was less Alzheimer's, there was certainly less diabetes, there was less autoimmune. Those are, me I always sort of characterize those five major disorders that we live with today in high numbers. Okay, got it? So they were saying, this article said in the 1970s, they were there, but there was very little of it. Okay? There was very little of it. And today we're not near as healthy.
And look, if you in the 1970s were to eliminate smoking, I would agree with the article even more because in those days, especially early seventies, go back into the 1960s and 1950s, people were smoking in adults. When I say that, it was 60, 70%. And I told you the story of my father who stopped smoking in 1962. I was 10 years old. I was shocked when my dad took his pack of Buckingham cigarettes. They didn't have a filter on them. And my dad smoked four packs of those a day and one day he just went cold turkey. It was a major shock because in those days I had three older brothers and they all smoked and my mother smoked and they smoked in the house. And it was just part of our life. I mean, I remember playing junior hockey and the arena was filled with smoke. You could hardly see the other players. It was just a cloud of smoke. We lived in that.
You went to a doctor's office and there was ashtrays there. Believe it or not, those big ashtrays filled up with cigarette butts. Anyway, back to the article. The article said that people were as fit as fiddles in the 1970s. And the question is asked, what happened? What happened? And the article doesn't even talk about it. They didn't say, well, why are we not as fit? The article was only talking we used to be fit. And again, I put a big asterisk there because they weren't that fit because they were smoking. And when people got the memo in the late seventies, eighties, there was some bad things that happened in the eighties and good things. One of the good things that happened in the 1980s is that the memo came down from the cancer societies and the heart societies and they were telling people to stop smoking. And it actually made a difference for a while. It made a difference. It was right. Stop smoking and people got the memo and they put warnings.
I don't know how many years it's been now, probably 30 where they have warnings on cigarette labels and that, at least in Canada, all good. I was for that. I actually liked the cancer societies and the heart societies and all that in those days. I did. I supported them even in the media. I supported them because they were saying the right things. Not anymore. Not anymore. So this is a rehash, but you guys know this, but let's go over it. What in the heck happened? What happened? Again, the little asterisk, fit as a fiddle in the 1970s, fit as a fiddle. People were thin, comparatively. True or false? Yeah, that's true. Look at a movie made in the 1950s or the sixties. Even in the early seventies, people are thin. What happened?
And you know my little story of make believe? Let's make believe that you and I took a trip and we left with an Elon Musk like space shuttle, and we went and lived on Mars in the 1970s and we came back to planet Earth here in 2023 and we would be shocked at the size of people. Right? So something's changed. But what has changed? Well, let's talk about that. Why is it that people used to be fit as a fiddle to where today 93%, and this is a scary statistic, 93%. It's only going up guys. Because as 2018, I used to use the term 88% of the population had some form of metabolic syndrome, which is at the root. Metabolic syndrome is at the root of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and autoimmune. It's one of the root causes of all these diseases that are skyrocketing. What in the heck happened? Fit is a fiddle to 93% of the population.
And people fool themselves. They really do. We have as a society buried our head in the sand. We buried our head in the sand because we're not into prevention. We are not into prevention. We're not at the root causes of what's going on today. We're treating symptoms. We're bandaid people. Medicine has become a bandaid. Doesn't fix. If you got diabetes, they give you metformin or they give you insulin. I'm not saying that's necessarily bad, but that's never, never going to fix diabetes. It only manages diabetes. True or false? It's a management of it. And medicine shifted from prevention to detection and management. They're in the management business. That's a big paradigm shift. Medicine got hijacked and because of that, we are at where we're at today. It's part of it.
So let's go over it. I wrote down, I don't know, I got 10 things here. Maybe it's more than that. 10 or 11 I wrote down. Okay? And they're not necessarily in the order of prevalence because I'm going to start with medication. And again, it's my overall theory, why we're not fit as a fiddle. Because instead of getting to root causes, we mask the problem. Metabolic syndrome, my friend, 93% of the population, it's a food problem. Think about this for a minute. It gives me a serious migraine. Think about this just for a minute. Imagine we spend probably a million dollars easily to educate a medical doctor. Easily. The costs must cost at least that or close to that. They're smart people. How do you get into medical school? You've got to be a brainiac. And imagine going to medical school and they don't teach you nutrition.
Metabolic syndrome, 93% of the population having trouble with food and it's affecting their blood pressure. It's affecting their triglycerides and their HDL, cholesterol. It's affecting their body size, especially visceral fat. It's affecting their uric acid. It's affecting their blood sugar. And we don't talk about it. It's not taught in medical school because if you have high blood pressure and they teach in medical school, you need to be on a medication. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't be on a medication, okay? Don't misinterpret what I'm saying. If you have diabetes, you're on metformin, you are on perhaps insulin, but that's not fixing the problem. That's managing the problem. Even in depression, we have psychiatry, which is a whole branch of medicine, and they don't even talk about nutrition and depression. There's a factor there. I'm not saying it's everything. I'm just saying it's a big thing and we don't talk about it. They don't teach it in medical school. Imagine that.
Guys, like I said, I get a migraine when I think about it. It's unreal. What? They don't know anything. They wouldn't know a protein from a fat to a carb if it slapped them in the face. That's another expression. No, but imagine that. And they have, what they did is they kicked the can down the road and they created, it started a long time ago with Kellogg's, Dr. Kellogg's. They started the dietician, okay, profession. And I hate to be negative, but they don't know anything about food either. Hardly. They look for love in all the wrong places. Moderation. Moderation. Fiber. You need moderation in your life and fiber and more fiber brought to you by the cereal companies. Frosted Flakes are great. No, they're not. No, they're not. Can someone just say it? I wouldn't touch a cereal if my life depended on it.
From oatmeal to Corn Flakes. Cheerios even has a heart on the box for heaven's sakes approved by the Heart Association. Oh, my blood pressure is going up. Imagine a heart on the box because if you eat it, you're going to get a heart attack. That's what the heart means. Or it should mean. And look at people. They bought it. Doctors today, I read articles every day. And physicians, you need your fiber if you don't get fiber. Fiber. I'm tired of hearing that. So what's changed? It's a complete paradigm shift from prevention to management. That's why we're not fit as a fiddle in the 1970s. That's one of the reasons we are into management, not prevention. That's an overarching principle. One, okay? I put it near the top because the brain, the psyche is completely changed in medicine. Management, management, management. Oh, you've got high blood pressure, you need a pill, okay, forever. What's causing high blood pressure?
Okay, why don't we work on that maybe simultaneously and see if we can just, hey, you might need meds for a little bit and then we're going to take you off of it as soon as you get it under control and you better go home and change your diet. But it's not even taught in school. It's not even in their thinking. Change your diet. What's that got to do with anything? Imagine here we are. We're supposed to be smarter than ever. You've got cars that drive themselves, but we gotten stupid. Boy and it's hard to change the world, isn't it? It's so difficult. Most people, they just drink the Kool-aid and doctors, hey, what's food got to do with anything? Okay, number two, number one, medication management. Okay? And again, please don't come after me. I've never, never, ever tell a patient not to take medication, I don't do it. And now that I'm not in practice, I never tell people not to take their meds. I won't do it. All I'm saying is I'm giving out information so that you can challenge your physician. They need to be challenged. They're smart people. Challenge.
Okay, two, the demonization of saturated fat, the demonization. What happened? Cholesterol is bad. Cholesterol is bad. Says who? Not your body. God does not trust you. I made that up. God doesn't trust you. 85% of your cholesterol is made by that body of yours. You're only responsible for 15%, okay? Work, eat cholesterol. Cholesterol is only found in, I've taught you this. Where's cholesterol from in food? In the animal kingdom. Thus, thus, the demonization of animal products. I would've never, ever thought that we would get to the point that we are in 2023, that even today, they want you to eat a meatless burger. It's good for the environment and it's good for you. Oh, I hate that. You're never going to get me to eat a meatless burger ever. Okay? You can hold a gun to my head and I won't eat it. And I ain't eating crickets either. Okay? I'm not.
I know the world has gone stupid because, and I teach you guys on a daily, daily basis, you must admit I'm very, very consistent. And a lot of people don't like what I say, but I mean it. I double down, triple down, quadruple down, whatever down. When I say animal foods, eggs, meat and cheese are the best foods. And it ain't even close. It's not even close, but it's been demonized. And they want you to stop eating that. They want to get rid of cows. Cows. Imagine we've come to this place on our planet that they're actually thinking about, let's get rid of cows because of flatulence. Guys, can you see my blood pressure rising as we speak? If you would've told me 20 years ago that we would be talking about stupidity like that, I would've said, no, that's never going to happen because I'm not a prophet nor the son of one and I'm not.
You know how many young people would come into my office in the days that I was practicing and I'd look at them and I love people, okay? I'm a people person. And young people would come in, they look like Casper the ghost, okay? And I'd sit there and my hand on my chin and I'd go, can I ask you a few questions? Do you like eating meat? I don't eat anything with eyeballs, doc. I said, where did you learn that? I knew the answer. In school and on Netflix. Meat, bad. Vegetables, good. Guys, I lived with a headache on a daily basis and high blood pressure to, I love those poor little kids and they were so duped. It was unreal. The demonization of saturated fat and cholesterol.
And man, oh man, as it ever got into our craw and thinking and propaganda, it's just 24 and 7. Hollywood, the elites, they drive around in their and fly around in their jets, but they're telling us how bad we are for the environment. And we got to get rid of meat and cows and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ooh, guys, my expertise is food. Okay? I'm a nutrient analyzer. Bring me a piece of steak and bring me, what do you want to bring me? Broccoli. What's the best vegetable? Spinach. Well, let's line it up and see the nutrient value. And I'm going to tell you it ain't even close. Bring me an egg and then bring me the best fruit or vegetable that you can think of. Oh, Dr. Martin avocados. Okay? I'm not saying it's no good. I'm not saying an avocado's no good, but I'm going to tell you something. And egg is a hundred times better for you than an avocado is.
I'm not saying avocados are bad. I'm telling you that eggs are better, superior in all the B vitamins and all the amino acids, and yada, yada, yada. But the world has gone silly. The world has gone woohoo woohoo. And there, it's propaganda 24 and 7. And I'm not even optimistic, guys. I'm not optimistic that, oh, by the year 2030, that will just be a fad and we'll be back eating to eggs, meat and cheese. Don't hold your breath, guys, because the big machine is out to get us. And I push back. But who am I? Who am I? And you know what, there's a lot of times I don't argue with people. I don't. I love arguing, but a lot of times I don't argue with people. You know why? Because they're not Linda's or Larry's and I can't say, listen, they're not listening. They wouldn't listen.
You know how many thousands of women, thousands that I used to tell 'em, would you stop eating salad and make a substitution with eggs, meat and cheese and fat don't make you fat. No, it doesn't. And even today, I read an article last week. I'm serious. Here we are in 2023, and they're still connecting eggs with heart disease. Well, it is connected to heart disease. The more eggs you eat, the less chance you have of getting heart disease. Cancer hates what? What does cancer hate? Does cancer hate sugar? No, it loves sugar. You know what? It hates steak. Now try and go find that. Listen to the gurus, listen to the media, listen to whatever. And you'll get the opposite of that. But that doesn't make it true. It doesn't make it true.
Where are we at today? We're not fit as a fiddle, okay? We've changed directions and we're sicker than ever. It's a sad, sad commentary on all the advancements and not only the advancements that should have been made. It's a sad, sad commentary on the amount of money. You know that in North America, there's no societies in the world that Canada and the United States that spend more money, and they call it healthcare. I don't call it that. We don't spend money on healthcare. We spend money on disease care. Wait until you get sick, and then we're going to spend a fortune. In Canada while we have universal healthcare. Okay? But do you think we don't pay for that? Nobody pays for it. No, no, no. We pay for it. We pay for it. It costs a fortune to treat disease.
In the United States, it's private or insurance companies or Medicaid or whatever they have. It's in is into the trillions of dollars. And I hate to be negative. Man, oh man, for all the money we spent on cancer and heart disease. If someone comes to my door and asks for money, and I don't blame the volunteers, I don't. And they come. I mean, who doesn't want to win the war on cancer, for Heaven's sakes. Of course we want to win the war on cancer, but I always give them a little, I don't want to call it a lecture. I always ask them the question, are we winning the war on cancer? They're wearing a pink or whatever. And I said, are we winning? No, but we're doing a lot of research. About 95% of the money you're raising goes to marketing and salaries. About 5% goes to research. But even then, if it was researching the right things, prevention, I'd be all for it. We're not winning the war. We're losing the war. We're losing. It's incredible. And that's where we're at today.
This is to be continued, okay? This is to be continued. When I read the article, I just, wow, seriously fit as a fiddle? I kind of like the expression, and I had to read that article. Okay guys, we've got a great week coming up, okay? So I'll keep you up to date in news and the news behind the news when it comes to your health, okay? That's what I sort of major in. And we appreciate you guys following us. Share this with your friends. Tell folks about the Doctor Is In Podcast. We appreciate you guys, love you more than you know. 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!