1465. Decoding the Eye-Brain Connection

Join Dr. Martin in today's episode of The Doctor Is In Podcast.

 

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. Thank you for coming on with us. We appreciate it more than you know. Okay, here we go. Now, guys, again, let me just say happy Thanksgiving to our American friends. I know my son, Tony Jr. Is out doing a Turkey trot this morning with his family. In lieu of that, I thought I'd put my Turkey trot shirt on. Okay? If you guys wonder, there's my Turkey trot shirt. It's a 5K. Run our walk, okay, on Thanksgiving morning. Anyway, okay, so what do I want to talk about? Well, we actually put it in an email this morning. Two new studies connecting your eyes to your brain. Okay, so what did I do? Well, I got my little chart out that got me through school, this old atlas that I have. Okay? I love it because I'm a very visual guy and I'm just going to turn this a little wee bit here. And for those folks that are listening to this on a podcast, you can't see, but I want you to visualize in your mind what I'm talking about here. Okay? So right now I am showing you there's your eye. Okay? There's the eye. And what you see behind here is all in red, but I'll bring you to this little picture at the top here. And it's all blood, it's all supply. Now you guys know that because I've talked to you many, many, many a time. If you want to take care of your eyes, you got to think of blood supply.

And when you take an ophthalmoscope and you look into the eye, okay, I remember doing this in my practice a lot. Look into the eye, what were you looking at? Biggest thing, and it always fascinated me when I started using that, I was in Toronto, going to school, learning how to use an I scope and the ophthalmoscope and looking inside the eye. You know what I used to see? Highway 4 0 1, 4 0 7 wasn't built. The Don Valley parking lot, okay? The 4 0 3, the you name, the highway, because that's the way I remember all the blood vessels. They looked like highways on a map. And that's your eye, guys. That's behind your eye. And if you want to save your eyes, you need to protect the circulation behind your eyes. Okay? Got it. Okay. Now let me bring you to the studies. If you haven't read our email yet, it's fresh off the press came out this morning, but I love to talk about it because it talks about two studies that connect your eye to your brain, the connection between your eyes and your brain.

Now, listen to this, okay? Eye changes at 60, okay? Can predict memory loss later on in life. Eye changes, changes in the eye can affect the brain. What's the connection? Circulation, circulation. This was in the Journal of Neurology and the Journal of Frontiers of Aging Neuroscience. Two studies that talked about we can predict by looking into your eyes, the state of your memory later on because of circulation. So let's talk about that, break that down a little bit more. We even talked about this yesterday, but for those of you who weren't on with us, here's what I said. The first thing thing that sugar destroys is your blood vessels. Okay? The first little blood vessels that they destroy are capillaries. Now, capillaries are the little attachments between your arteries and veins. Capillaries, sugar hates your blood supply. Sugar will destroy your blood vessels, not salt, not cholesterol, but sugar.

Okay? But sugar, that's the key. And if you want to keep your eyes in good shape, lay off the sugar. Now, the way I prove that to people logically is I bring them examples, okay? Now, here's the example. What do diabetics have the most trouble with? Remember my dad told me in 1968, I was 16 years old in 1968, my dad said something to me, I'll never forget. You know what he said, son, it's sugar, diabetes. What? All I knew is my dad had just been diagnosed with diabetes. What did I know about diabetes? Well, I was worried. Not only did I love my dad, but I knew my grandfather actually died from it. The founder of the Martin Clinic. David Martin, but I never forgot. I never forgot, son. It's sugar, diabetes. And I watched my father cut sugar out from his diet. He cut it out no more.

My dad didn't need desserts. He stopped. My dad didn't drink soda because he used to love drinking soda or pop. He just stopped. My dad lived on steak, and I'm not kidding you. And so here's me. A few years later, I'm off to school and I'm learning something different. Not that they didn't talk about sugar so much, but you know what? Diabetes, oh, well just have a balanced diet. They were already in the 1970s trying to get away from talking about how negative sugar was. And that's because the sugar industry and the food industry were bought and paid for by the tobacco industry, and they didn't want to talk about sugar and addiction. So they couched it. And even today, if you're a diabetic, you better be careful in terms of the amount of fat you eat and you need sugar because your sugar goes low. We got you on medication for high sugars. Now it's going and you better have a chocolate bar ready to eat, and they only talk even today. Here we are in 2024, we only talk about medication and managing diabetes.

So the point I'm making down a long rabbit trail, the point I'm making is sugar is toxic. It's toxic. Your body knows that. You know that. But my friend, the world has not accepted that statement yet. Your body knows sugar is toxic, right? Because your sugar in your blood is so tightly controlled. You know me. I'll give you another example. Don't do it, but it's been done. Eat 20 donuts, okay? Don't do it, but it's been done. Eat 20 donuts and within, if you are not a diabetic, within an hour, an hour and a half or less, your blood sugar will come back to normal. It will spike crazy because you just ate 20 donuts, okay? By the way, get a plain donut or a carrot muffin. I don't care if you're in the states at Dunking Donut or you're in Canada at Tim Horton's, about eight teaspoons of sugar in there. Eight. What? Yeah. Okay. I know you folks that are going to Starbucks or whatever. I'm going to have a latte. Oh yeah. Well, you got about six or eight teaspoons of sugar in those things, most of them. Okay?

So your body will compensate for that. Your body will compensate. You ate 20 donuts. Your body says sugar is so toxic. I am going to pour an enormous amount of insulin. The traffic cop to take sugar out of your bloodstream. Can't stay there, can't park there because your body knows that if it parks in blood, it's going to start to destroy blood vessels. It's going to destroy the circulation, and it's going to start with capillaries. And I always say this, guys, don't wait till a doctor says you are a diabetic because the last thing to happen in your body is your body control blood sugar anymore. That's the last thing that happens. By the time you get a diagnosis of, oh, you're a type two diabetic. I hate that. I hate that. Type two, I don't like it. That was a word. That was type two was made up in the 1970s to get away from calling diabetes, sugar, diabetes folks. That's a fact.

The food industry, as I always tell you, hates your guts. It only loves you when you consume their foods, but it don't like you in terms of they could care less about your health. They don't care about your health. The same crooks that told us that tobacco wasn't addictive, they lied through their teeth. They knew it was addictive. You know what they did? Oh, I guess smoking. People are getting the memo not to smoke. What should we do? Well, let's take our billions of dollars and buy out the food industry. It's exactly what happened. They bought up the food industry. They don't care about your health guys. They really don't. That's an overarching principle. You have to understand that the food industry, they could care less about your health and they'll make you an addict. My name is Tony and I'm a carbo holic. They want that you're hooked on their foods.

Okay? So the point I was making a long time ago is diabetics, right? What do diabetics have to worry about? Circulation. That's why diabetics, they get diabetic retinopathy, blood supply capillaries damaged in the eye. They have much more likelihood to get macular degeneration. They get much, much, much higher percentage of glaucoma than the average population. Diabetics lose their kidneys, IE, the dialysis machines and the dialysis centers. Diabetics lose their limbs. Why do they lose their limbs? The answer circulation. Circulation and diabetics are 50% more at risk to have a heart attack. Let me just tell you, this drove me insane and gave me a migraine for a long time. When I had my radio show. I was screaming like John the Baptist, when the American Diabetic Association and the Canadian Diabetic Association were saying, you know what? Because diabetics are more susceptible to heart disease. Let's put you on statin drugs. Do you know how many diabetics went on? Statin drugs? Part of prevention.

Can you see me getting uptight? Well, I'll tell you why do you know that 50% of women that take a statin drug, they become diabetics because statins affect your insulin? Oh, I get a migraine, guys. Okay, now back to the research. Okay? That was the intro. Okay? Now, looking in your eyes, research has shown that you can tell by looking at your eyes and the circulation and the state of your blood vessels in your eyes, you can tell what's going on up here in the brain. Wow, makes sense. Makes sense, right? This is telling us something that we ought to do. First thing, I mentioned this to someone yesterday because they were a little bit negative on the reset and well, that's not sustainable or whatever, but if you don't do nothing else, you just cut out sugar from your diet. You are doing yourself a big, big favor.

Your blood vessels, your capillaries, your arteries are going to thank you. They're going to thank you because sugar destroys blood vessels that affects every organ in your body. Obviously that affects your limbs, obviously, but it affects your brain. So isn't that a good idea? Cutting out sugar for your memory, for your memory. And guys, we mentioned this in the email today. If you didn't get that email, you need to sign up to get those emails, okay? We send out a couple of emails every week with lots of information and people like to read that stuff, put out this info anyway, so circulation is affected, right? Circulation is affected. And another factor is what we call oxidation. And we use the example in the email, cut an apple in half and you don't have to wait long. What are you going to see? Oh, it's turning brown.

It's aging, it's oxidizing. We call that free radical damage, oxidation, but there's two types of oxidation, okay? There's two types really of free radicals. There's the oxidative one. Just leave an apple out there on your kitchen counter and come back in an hour or two or less and you're going to see what happens. And guys, to some extent, you might be able to slow that down in your body, but you're not going to be able to completely cut it out because we all are oxidizing and some of us faster than others, okay? Like I've said to you many, many a times, I got pictures of me when I was a kid. I got pictures of me when I graduated. I look at those pictures back in 1974, and I go, who is that?

I don't recognize that guy. What happened? Oxidation, right? You see some of these movie stars, right? Two things. One, you remember what they looked like in the eighties or seventies or even earlier, and then you see them today, holy smokes, right? And you go, what happened? He used to be a dreamboat. Now he's become a tugboat. Okay? Happens oxidation that can affect your blood supply too. So you get that free radical damage. But here's another one. It's called glycation, okay? Glycation advanced aging byproducts. It's a GE apostrophe small S. It's glycation, and I'll give you an example of it. You know what A1C is? A1C is a measurement of an average about three or four months of your blood sugars. How do they measure that? Well, they take a red blood cell that's been glycated because you know what sugar does? It hooks its wagon to hemoglobin.

Okay? Hemoglobin is in the middle of your red blood cell. It carries oxygen, can't live without it. The same oxygen, by the way, will aid you oxidation going to rust you out. But the other one is glycation and sugar attaches to hemoglobin, but it also attaches to proteins and it glycinates your skin. You age not only free radicals oxidation, you get glycation and that destroys blood vessels. So you're getting a double whammo. Okay? So what do you do? Well, you can't completely stop aging people that tell you, by the way, okay, I'm going to live till 120. Can I say something? No, you're not. No, you're not. Well, my uncle who smoked cigars every day and drank a quarter of whiskey every day and yada, yada, yada, and if my uncle did it, I'm going to do it. No, that my friend is by the grace of God, okay? That isn't, oh, because your genetics are so good and that people really get fooled by that. My mother lived till she was 95. I'm going to live till I'm 95. Well, maybe, but it'll be by the grace of God because your body is going to age.

Okay? Put your hand up if you live on planet Earth. Okay, well, you're going to oxidize, you're going to gly and you're going to eventually break down. Now, I want to slow that down. I don't want to stop it, but you can't stop it. You know what? I'm interested in you. So I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. If you want to do something anti-aging, slow the aging process down, then you need to start with your diet and you need to understand what your body already understands. That sugar, my friend, is not your friend.

It's not your friend, and you don't need it to live. I'm not saying you'll never have it, I'm just telling you, you don't need it to live. And we live in a world today where people, especially destructive, is drinking sugar, drinking it. Oh, by the way, a new study out soda. Yeah. Hello? And fruit juice. Hello? Hello. Increase your stroke risk. Yeah, I knew that. I knew that. Guys, this is why we do our program. We do it on a daily basis. Why do we do it? Because we want to talk prevention. And when you want to talk prevention, the thing that you can control is what you put in your mouth every day. The food that you eat, the choices that you make, okay? The choices that you make. Look, you know what's beautiful too, and let me just say, I don't care how old you were, you can slow things down at any age. I've seen it. I've proven it to people over the years. They got bad ice and they took care of their diet. A couple of supplements, they found that even their optometrists and ophthalmologists have said, wow, what did you do?

You were headed for severe macular degeneration and severe glaucoma or severe cataracts or whatever, and what did you do? Well, you see, you can slow things down. And if you do it here, guys, you do it on your eyeballs. You're doing it for your brain to they're connected. Slow down, oxidation, slow down, glycation. Slow down what sugar will do to your blood vessels. Slow it down. Slow it down, okay? Not that you will live forever, but that you keep your eyes and your brain biggest fear for people. My age is what? Alzheimer's dementia, blood supply are. Big, big factors in that. Okay? I had a couple of more studies, but we'll hit them. Okay? We'll hit them. I had to bring you that one.

Okay, guys, we love you dearly and sincerely. What's tomorrow already? We had question and answer Wednesday, but tomorrow's q and a Friday, so send you questions in where? info@martinclinic.com. I know people ask questions on the scroll, okay? They got a question right there. They want to ask me a question. I get it, but I don't see that during the program. I don't see your question. Send your questions in by email info@martinclinic.com. We'll answer your questions. Okay, guys, thanks for coming on with us. Much, much, much appreciated. 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!

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