Dr. Martin has often shared the stat that the average North American consumes 200 pounds of sugar per year. But did you know that 133 pounds of wheat are also consumed in a typical year? Dr. Martin was quite surprised by that number!
Join Dr. Martin as he discusses our addiction to wheat and how it wreaks havoc on our microbiome. He also discusses the benefits of Stevia as a sweetener in today’s episode.
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 and hope you're having a great start to your day as you are drinking your coffee and enjoying some of that. Guys, good to be with you. Okay, let me get to a few studies this morning. Now see, we're up to about 200 right now, live watching us. I went on yesterday and just to scroll down to see if I forget anybody when I say hello in the morning. And by 10 o'clock yesterday, we were up to over 2300 that had already viewed our program. And so guys, here's what happens. I just give you a little hint on Facebook. We love you coming on live. Again, that reminds me of my radio days of live radio, phone in. The advantage with Facebook is you can watch it at a different time or you can wait till the podcasts come out and then watch it and listen to it at a different time.
But by the end of the day, usually we're up to three or 4,000 people. And Facebook works on algorithms, meaning that the more people that share it, the more Facebook shares it. The more people that share the program, the more Facebook shares it. So that's one of the reasons the program is so popular because you guys share the program and then Facebook shares it, okay? And I am just talking about Facebook. I'm not talking about the podcast on your smartphone. So people that listen to the podcast while we're up to well over a million and a half downloads, and again, we just thank you for that. And sometimes I just want to remain very, very thankful to you guys, okay? And I mean the smartest audience around.
Okay, now let me get to a couple of studies that I found interesting, okay? And by the way, yesterday, we spent a lot of time on cortisol and its effects all over the body. And boy, we got a lot of feedback on that. Okay? We sure appreciate that. Now, how many pounds of sugar do North Americans consume on average? Okay, on average a year, it's almost 200 pounds. I know when I say that, I guess maybe if I say it too often, people are not shocked by it anymore. That is shocking. When compared into the 1950s when I was a little boy, Canadians and Americans were consuming 25 pounds on average, a year of sugar. We've gone crazy with sugar.
But here's something that I don't know if it's surprised me, but it's pretty dramatic, and it's the amount of wheat we consume. Okay? I didn't really know what the statistic was, but there was a new study out saying yesterday that the average North American consumes 133 pounds of wheat a year. And in the form of pizza, pasta, Oreo cookies, granola bars, sandwiches, toast, breakfast cereals, and yada, yada, yada, 133 pounds. It's crazy. And the thing is, the thing is, people think if you did a survey on the vast majority of people, they would think that wheat is good for you. And that's not true. It's not true at all.
Now, let me tell you why wheat, okay? Oh, Dr. Martin, it's whole wheat. Okay? I didn't order white toast with my breakfast. I ordered whole wheat. What's the difference? Not much. It's going to be sugar rapidly. So doc, I'm not eating sugar. Well you're eating wheat, it's going to be sugar. Do you have pizza? Yeah. Okay, well, that's going to be sugar. Do you have pasta? Yeah, I have pasta, but it's whole wheat. I don't care. Still going to be sugar and granola bars. You know what granola bars do for me? They give me a migraine because people think granola bars are good for them. They're not good for them all. It's sugar. It's just sugar. And it's unreal how people just get duped. They start their day with cereal.
So anyways, I just get frustrated when I read a study like this and how much we have been duped. You know what people, and this is a lot of times what happens in people that drink the Kool-Aid on fat. Okay? So fat in the diet, they drink the Kool-Aid fat is bad. Now there are bad fats. We talk about that all the time, okay? We talk about it all the time. But the idea is it's the carbs. And we went away from fat, saturated fat, eggs, meat and cheese got to be bad. Butter bad. And we went hook lion and sinker for what did we go for? We went for wheat, we went for cereal, we went for all grain bread and whole wheat bread, and we're up on an average to 133 pounds a year. So it's crazy. It's crazy.
Now, let me just look at another, this was another study, okay? We've become, what would I say? My name is Tony, and I'm a carboholic, okay? We're wheatoholics. We've become wheatoholics, 133 pounds, the average. Isn't that crazy? So it's shocking. 200 pounds of sugar average, a dump truck load, 133 pounds of wheat. My word. You see, you get a vegetarian and a vegan. And if you ask them, I used to do this all the time. Well, what about the amount of bread that you're eating? Oh, it's wheat. It's good for you. So the idea is cut it out, cut it down. Did you ever think it would be that? And look, no wonder, think about, so think about sugar and wheat in our diets. What does that do? No wonder our society is so stinking sick. No wonder there's so much obesity. Wheat products turn to sugar as rapidly as sugar does, almost without exception to that. You're eating cereal like, oh, Dr. Martin grape nut, grape nut flakes. It's whole wheat flakes. Why don't you just have two chocolate bars? At least it tastes better.
But what it does to your insulin, no wonder there's so much today. Think of it, so much obesity. Your body was never made for 200 pounds of sugar and 133 pounds of wheat. It never was. So all I'm saying, yikes. No wonder we have so much heart disease. No wonder we have so much cancer. No wonder we have so much Alzheimer's. No wonder we have so much diabetes. No wonder we have so much fatty liver. No wonder we have so much autoimmune disease. No wonder we have so much leaky gut. Your body wasn't made for this. And I try and scream as loud as I can, but I just can't tell you enough about what's happening here in our society. I read something like this. I almost fell over when I read how much. 133 pounds of wheat the average person consumes in Canada and the United States.
Okay, let me give you another one. This one came out yesterday on Stevia. Now people ask me all the time about sweeteners, okay? They ask me all the time about it. Personally, I don't like sweeteners. Well, I like them, but I'm not big on that. I am certainly not big on sugar alcohols like Maltitol and what are the other ones there? They're better than just consuming straight sugar. I got no issue with that. That's true. But okay, somebody asked me a question. It's a very good question, Dr. Martin, what about Stevia? Because you put it in your bone broth. Yep. Here's the new study on Stevia. Okay? Just came out yesterday, or at least that's when I read it. Okay?
Stevia has an antidiabetic effect. It blunts your post meal rise in blood sugar. That means that's good. Right? Now, me particularly, I don't necessarily like the taste of Stevia, okay? I find it too sweet. But one thing about bone broth, our bone broth is very popular, is the taste of those products. And look, we want people to take the product. And Stevia, people asked me for the last 25 years about Stevia. I said, well, look out of all of the sweeteners. To me, it's the best. And the reason is because I looked this up again yesterday. Any negative study on Stevia came when you consumed a boatload of it. Never in small amounts. And like I said, this new study said it actually blunts your blood sugar post-meal.
Stevia is a plant. It's natural. People used to chew on that root for a sweet kind of taste. It's 300 times sweeter than sugar apparently, but it's no calorie. It actually affects your blood sugar in the right way. So look, again, I'm big on no sweeteners like me personally in my coffee. I want it black. It's the way I like it. And I understand. It's one thing about individuals. We all got our different fingerprints. Nobody's alike, and we all have different taste, right? We're not identical, and I'm just giving you my opinion. But when the people ask me about stevia or Stevia or whatever you want to call it, look, the research is pretty good, and it's an antioxidant. It's non-toxic unless you have a boatload of it. And I just don't know anybody that has a boatload of Stevia.
Okay, now let me get to a couple of other studies I wanted to talk to you about. Okay? So I talked to you about wheat, 133 pounds. I talked to you about Stevia because that came out. This is a study showing a specific gut bacteria, okay, may improve anxiety and depression. So now we're into mental health, and then we're into gut. The connection between the gut and the brain, it improves a specific bacteria. They actually gave people with anxiety. I get a lot of questions about that every day. Depression, some group got placebo, and the other group got a supplement with lactobacillus, and they did much better than the placebo group when it comes to anxiety and depression. Where do you start? Anxiety, depression, start in the gut. Start in the gut.
You have more serotonin, dopamine, GABA in your gut than you have in your brain because people think of mental health and all they can think of is the noggin. What they don't realize is the vast majority of those feel good hormones are in your gut. And when they study the effects of the microbiome, the bacteria, and I really appreciated this study showing specific gut bacteria treatment. Okay, let me give you my take on it. You've heard this many a time, but it bears repeating. You take an antibiotic as a child, even. You take an antibiotic, and what happens? You wipe out in five days, you wipe out. Yeah, you got rid of the infection, you got rid of the bad bacteria, but you wiped out your good guys.
What have you created? A monster. Nobody told us. Nobody talked about it. I have for the last 40 years. But no, people don't realize the double-edged sword especially of antibiotics, okay? They wipe out all your lactobacillus, they wipe it out, it's gonzo. And of course, nobody tells you to replace that. I do. But generally, nah, they don't talk about it because doctors, even today, I hate to tell you this, but in medical school, they don't learn a thing about the microbiome yet. It's all postgraduate work. In medical school, microbiome, leaky gut. I think Dr. Martin made that term up. No, I didn't. But Hippocrates talked about it 2000 years ago. He wrote about it. All diseases start in the gut. What was he talking about? What did he know that we don't know?
And here we are today, and we've made a lot of advancements in medicine. We really have and some lifesaving things. But here we have a condition, like even mental health, where some of the researchers are starting to question what happens in childhood can lead a person down a path to depression or anxiety. They can lead a path to depression or anxiety. And it's because what happens there is when you get an imbalance in the microbiome, now you have more bad guys than good guys. It's called you lose. You lose and imagine depression. I'm not saying it's everything. I'm not saying that. I'm only giving you what the research is bearing out now, that there's a huge connection between the disruption in the microbiome, your gut, the bacteria, the war that goes on, the invisible war that goes on inside your gut and mental health.
And for years, I talked about the ladder. There's a ladder between your gut and your brain. It's called your 10th cranial nerve, your vagus nerve, not Las Vegas, your vagus nerve. That's the connection between your gut and the brain. And you ever get nervous, butterflies, I got to speak in public, not me. I don't have a shy bone in my body, but people have fear and they're worried, and their stomach is in a knot. It's butterflies. Well, that's the cranial nerve. That's your parasympathetic system. It's the connection between your brain and your gut. That is obvious. How the heck do you get butterflies?
But all I'm saying to you is they're starting to show a treatment of lactobacillus. Look at our formula for probiotics. Do you think I like lactobacillus? I really do because I have it in many different forms. Bacterias usually start with an L or a B. Lactobacillus. Acidophilus, okay? Because I know one thing about leaky gut, you better tighten up those connections. You better stop garbage from getting into your bloodstream at the gut blood barrier. And the microbiome has a big, big effect on that. So the study says a reduction in lactobacillus, a common gut bacteria triggers an immune response that can cause depression and anxiety. And then when they add it, a probiotic high in lactobacillus, different strains, they showed improvement in anxiety and depression starting in the gut.
Now, do you think that memo, just going to ask a question. Do you think that memo will ever get to psychiatry? They're so used to putting people on medication, putting them on antidepressants, putting them on Xanax or other anti-anxiety medications. It's the way it is today. Rather than looking at the diet, looking at probiotics, looking at leaky gut. There's very few that do, okay? Anyway, I had a few on schizophrenia, but we'll maybe tackle that tomorrow. Okay? 133 pounds of wheat a year. I get a headache, almost 200 pounds of sugar a year. That gives me a major migraine. You put those two babies together and you have disaster. Look at our society today, nevermind the oil that they make it in. I'll talk about that too. A new study out on wrap seed oil. Yikes. Scary. Canada's gift to the world. It's called canola, but it's rape seed meant for your car, not for your body.
Okay, remember, Friday is question and answer Friday. So send your questions in, okay? And we appreciate those. We want those questions guys. You want answers, you got to ask questions. Okay? We love you. 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!