When most people think of metabolic health, they think of metabolism. That’s right to some extent, but the metabolic syndrome Dr. Martin is talking about is characterized by insulin resistance. If you have insulin resistance, your health is already in jeopardy.
Join Dr. Martin as he further discusses metabolic syndrome and explains why muscle resistance exercise is the most important thing you can do!
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TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
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Dr. Martin:Â Well, good afternoon everyone. How are you? Good to be on with you this afternoon. A rare occurrence, right? 99% I think, morning sessions. But hey, we're happy to do this this afternoon. Okay, guys, let's just talk for a minute here. I know a lot of you were on last night. Thank you for coming on with us and starring Tony Jr. I was the backup guy. Thanks for all the feedback. Thanks for all the questions. I'm going to try and get those questions that weren't answered last night, okay? We stuck around for about another hour last night and answered questions, and you can't get to all of them. Thanks for making that a great night, and we appreciate it. Okay? We really do.
Now, I want to do a little bit of a follow up today and maybe just do a little bit of a deeper dive. Well, you only did a deep dive, but we just do a little bit more on metabolic syndrome. Okay? So what we talked about last night, a lot of people, they use the word metabolic and they sort of think of their metabolism. And to some extent that's true, but metabolic syndrome is 93% of the population is unwell. And I'm telling you, the vast majority of people, they have no idea that they're unwell. And this is what we were trying to hammer home last night, is that you just don't go from being healthy one day and then into a sick bed the next day. Now, that can happen with a virus or bacteria, right? You pick up a bug and you're in bed the next day. Something that microscopic can really, if you think you're tough, by the way, I'm a man. I'm a big baby. I'm used to feeling good all the time, and when I don't, oh, I don't like that.
Now, but what we're talking about is metabolic syndrome is characterized by insulin resistance, and we really went into a deep dive on insulin last night and why it is the culprit. It really is the biggest culprit in our society today in terms of health and linked to every disease that you can think of, heart disease still, number one. And guys, why are these diseases, I'm just going to mention five of them are so right now and why today, here we are in 2024. Remember when I was a kid and if I said the year 2000, I said, man, am I ever going to be old in the year 2000? Okay? And here we are in 2024, but in 2024, every disease that I will mention right now is on the increase, and you guys know why.
Heart disease worse than ever. Cancer, worse than ever. We're losing the war on cancer in spite of all the millions and millions, billions of dollars we spend. Alzheimer's. Not only have we not made a dent, it's getting worse and worse and worse. Diabetes, I read the other day, we're spending in the United States, they're spending over three, am I crazy or billions of dollars? Billions with a day on diabetes and the side effects of diabetes. It fills the hospitals up. And again, guys, it's because we are sort of looking for love in all the wrong places, and we're not talking about nutrition. And we really went into a deep dive about insulin. And 93% of the population, if you get insulin, high circulating insulin or insulin resistance, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. You're on the broad road that leads to destruction.
And that is why we're into so much of prevention, and prevention, a big part of prevention, my friend, is education. Just understanding these things. And Tony Jr. and I looked at each other last night and said, it's good to go over these things even for us, because it just hammers home the importance of controlling insulin, how it is at the forefront of metabolic syndrome. So we talked about that last night. Now, what I want to do today a little bit is, and we really touched a lot on this last night, we talked about, look, how do you control insulin? Okay, well, insulin is a food hormone, right? And so there's a reason for our madness. There's a reason that I talk low carb all the time. There's a reason that I talk to you about eggs, meat and cheese. Nutritionally, the best food for your insulin is what? Eggs, meat and cheese. That's the best food. And if insulin and high circulating insulin and insulin resistance is the problem, well, you have to start in the kitchen. That's number one. You have to start in the kitchen when it comes to insulin.
But the other thing that we talked about last night was muscle. And guys, this is new. This is new research in a lot of ways because they never really understood. When I was in school. I know in the days of Noah, that's what you're thinking, okay? But when I was in school, guys, I mean, we learned muscle. You have to name every muscle in your body. I can't remember how many there are and all Latin names, and they drove you crazy. But if you didn't memorize it, you couldn't pass exams. So every muscle in the body, but they never thought of muscle. Let me give you a quote here, okay? I am going to give you a quote, and I put this in our book. Sun Steak and Steel, muscle is the most metabolically active tissue that we have. The more muscle you build, the better your metabolic health will be. That statement never would've even crossed my mind in the 1970s.
Now, listen, I started exercising in high school. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. My dad got diabetes, and my dad was my hero as a kid, and I wanted to do what he did. And when my dad found out he was a diabetic, he started exercising. He started jogging. The only people that ran in the 1960s we're running away from the police. But my dad started running, jogging. We didn't even call it jogging. I said, dad, whatcha doing? I was in high school. He said, I am a diabetic. I have to get in shape. I got to control my blood sugar. I didn't even understand half of what he was saying, but I said, dad, wake me up in the morning and I'll go with you. And that really started a lot of, for me, a real pattern of discipline in my life, and you form habits. That was a real good one. And I've been faithful all my life since then in the gym. And I love moving. I love walking and all this, but I didn't know about muscle. I didn't know metabolically what it did. I didn't know that it was like an endocrine organ onto its own. I didn't know that. Now we know so much more.
As a matter of fact, I'm sure I've talked to you about this before, but just your grip strength. Do you know that they've talked about, when I say they, people that do this kind of thing, they want to make a vital sign. So your blood pressure is a vital sign. Your pulse is a vital sign, right? These are vital signs. Your respiration rate is a vital sign and all that. They want to make hand grip, they want to make that, or they've talked about it, a vital sign. If you have a good grip, it tells you a lot. And you might shake your head and go, no, because muscles, strength is a real important vital sign. Now, I don't know if it'll ever be incorporated, but they're talking about it. You can tell a lot by your grip. And as you get older, especially seniors, seniors need muscle. Look, you never get osteoporosis ever without sarcopenia. Okay? Everybody thinks osteoporosis, calcium, I'm losing my calcium.
And then you got these drugs on the market that build bone. Man, oh man, they've been a colossal failure because if you understand how your body works, muscle is the most important thing for your bones. And sarcopenia, which is muscle wasting, is one of the root causes, not only of osteoporosis, but it is really important when it comes to your metabolism, your metabolic health that we talked about last night. Muscle get strong. I don't care if you're 80 years old, get stronger than you are. It's worth it. And I'm just going to bring to you, okay, you know me. I like to use illustrations. That's the way my mind works. I use this illustration, build bins, especially in your legs. I like to fool around with my grandsons and say, look at grandpa's pipes here. Okay? You need a license to bring them across the border.
But really guys, metabolically, your bins are really important when it comes to insulin. Insulin because it lowers insulin resistance. How does it do that? Well, the more space you have, the more storage space you have. Remember, sugar is going to get converted to glycogen. Okay? That's how your body works. How does it transfer that to your muscle? Triglycerides, they transport that stuff. Triglycerides are not bad. They're only bad when they get too high, and you don't have enough cholesterol to go get them, HDL. Now, so the more space you have in your bins, the more metabolically healthy you will be. Because when you have bins, you giving your liver a break, because like we emphasized last night, your body has three places to put glycogen, stored sugar. It has three things, three places to do muscles, liver, and fat cells. Look at the world today. Look at the world today. Use your eyeballs that God gave you. Observe the world today. We seen an enlargement of people. It's almost like someone pumped air into people and we got bigger.
The reason is is because we're carboholics and the body has to store sugar, has to get it out of your bloodstream. We went over that last night how toxic sugar. Isn't it amazing how smart your body is? Medicine thinks they're smart, but they're not as smart as your body is because medicine, oh, well, we're just going to control your blood sugar with medication. Your body says, no, no, I can't have even more than a teaspoon in five liters of blood. I can't have more than that. So insulin goes crazy. And the more insulin you use, the more your cells can't stand it anymore. So one of the best things you can do to help your insulin is to give it more storage space. And I don't care if you're 80 years old, you can get stronger. Use it or lose it when it comes to muscle. And even more than moving. I love moving, by the way, I love walking, move. Yep. Nothing like it. It's fantastic.
But metabolically getting stronger is more important than your walk. I know you like to walk. If you're anything like me, I love walking. I mean it, and I know it's good for me. And I actually have two studies, brand new studies on the importance of walking and what it does for you. But guys, I can't emphasize this enough, that muscle is more important than movement in terms of your metabolic health. Muscle is an organ, an endocrine organ onto its own. And when you get stronger, you're helping yourself to get out of that 93% of the population. It's a way to get your butt off the Titanic, so to speak, okay? It's amazing. Muscle is the most metabolically active tissue we have. The more muscle you build, the better your metabolic health will be. Sun, steak and steel. Strong muscles, strong bones. Strong muscles, strong brain. Strong muscles, strong lungs. Strong muscles, okay? Really, really important. Strong heart.
Remember metabolically what's happened? We talked about it. Triglycerides, fat balls floating around in your bloodstream. Well, if you got muscles, you got storage space and it's going to lower your triglycerides, it's going to elevate your HDL. Metabolically it does that. Now, again, I can't tell you to get strong and then eat what you feel like. I won't do that because that's not true either. Okay? They go together. But I can say this with I think about 99% confidence in this statement I'm just going to make, okay? And I'm going to use 99% again. 99% of doctors, 99% of orthopedic surgeons, 99% of any physician that you can name even in sports medicine wouldn't know what I just told you right now, because they look at muscle. They're not against muscle. Of course they're not. But they don't understand the importance metabolically of what muscle does. Okay? Strong bones, strong brains, strong heart, better liver, stronger immune system.
And this, by the way, was in my book, Sun Steak and Steel, in our book, Tony, Jr. and I. When you develop muscle, okay, so we talked about how it helps in insulin resistance because it's clearing up storage space for your glucose, okay? That's turned into glycogen, okay? It empties helps to empty your liver and keep it empty. But one of the things that muscle does, that's really, really important. Muscle builds your immune system. What? Yeah, every time you use resistant training, okay, guys, if you don't have to go to a gym to get strong, okay? You don't. You can do it at home. You can do it without spending a lot of money. You can do pushups, resistant exercises. You can use those. I should have brought, I always do this. I got props. Okay? Maybe I'll show you tomorrow. I got props because I have bands. You can build muscle, resistant bands and you can get these little pushup things. You can do pushups, you get stronger. I got hand grippers where you use the grippers. And just doing that, believe it or not, helps, but it also helps your immune system. And I'll tell you why. Because when you flex muscle, when you get your muscles lifting and strengthening them.
Now, I probably told, yeah, I know I have, but you'd have to go back since I've talked about cytokines. Cytokines are part of your immune system. They flag your T cells and things like that. Say, hey, we got a virus, we got a bacteria. Come here. You got to fight this. Okay? So those are cytokines. And during covid, they talked about people getting a cytokine storm. It was their immune system went crazy. It was too much. And there was these cytokines creates inflammation, blah, blah, blah. But part of cytokines in the same family are myokines, M-Y-O-K-I-N-S-E-S, myokines and myokines study after study, after study, when you do resistant exercise and you get stronger, myokines help you to fight viruses and bacteria. Yeah, ask me if I knew that in the 1970s. I didn't know that. I didn't learn that in school. I knew about cytokines, but I didn't know about myokines.
And the more they look at it, listen to this, okay, so cytokines, rev up the immune system and the American College of Sports Medicine stated in 2020, okay? Do I have to remind you of COVID-19? Okay, listen, the American College of Sports Medicine stated that working out ought to be our first line of defense against the virus. They were closing the gyms. Why did I have migraines almost every day? Why was I getting a migraine every day? The stupidity. I was on a beach in Florida when they closed the beaches. I was John the Baptist, going stop. The best place for a virus is in the sun. What are you closing the beaches for? Are you guys crazy? At the same time, the College of Sports Medicine said, whatever you don't, don't close the gyms. Because the gyms, they knew something about myokines. The muscle building is one of the best things you can do for your immune system.
Isn't that crazy? And that's why, I mean, it's one of the reasons I had such bad migraines through a couple of years. The virus. The virus, the virus, the virus. Stay indoors. Stay away. Don't go to there. But you can go to Walmart, but you can't go to church. I couldn't get over it. No, but I was screaming. You guys know that. And I was restricted in what I could say, even on social media. Man, it wasn't easy because you had to navigate the censorship rules. I was just trying to tell people the truth. Take care of your immune system. Take care of your metabolic health. You know what, the only people that got sick, just this is just a general people that were hospitalized. You know what they had? Metabolic syndrome. They had metabolic syndrome. There was almost no exceptions to it. They were low in vitamin D if they were hospitalized and they had metabolic syndrome, they had high blood pressure, high triglycerides, low HDL, high CRP. They had all of that, most of them. Diabetics were in trouble through a virus. You know the connection. The connection between insulin and your immune system.
Guys, I get excited. I get excited. Okay, now for those who like to watch live, tomorrow is an afternoon session again, okay? Tomorrow is an afternoon and Friday, the Lord willing, we will do our question and answer morning time, okay, as per usual. Okay, guys, once again, let me thank you for the huge, huge audience we had last night. And the reason we stayed on until past nine o'clock was because people weren't leaving. You wore us out, guys. No, we loved it. Loved every minute. Thanks so much. And by the way, for those who couldn't catch us last night, we understand it's a live event. It was recorded and it will be sent out. Don't ask me how, don't ask me how they do it, but it will be available for those who weren't able to do it live. Or even for those who want to review the notes. See how many slides we had. I think we had over a hundred slides last night. Okay? And believe you me, it wasn't me. I don't make slides.
Whenever I do conferences or whatever, okay? They said, well, when you need PowerPoint, I said, what's that? You can give me a drawing board and give me a marker. I might use that, but don't ask me to do a PowerPoint or whatever. I mean, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. If I've got touch anything or start anything or do anything like that, okay? That's just me. I'm so old fashioned. You have no idea. And Tony Jr. he's a gadget freak. I mean, there's nothing that boy can't fix, okay? He said, dad, just you want to do live. Just touch there and then stop. Don't touch anything else. I've set it up for you already. Okay, son. I got it. Okay guys, we love you dearly, and we'll talk to you soon.
Announcer:Â 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!