A long-term study of 25 years has found that those who slept less than 6 hours a night had a 30% increase in Alzheimer's disease. Another study from Harvard concluded that lack of sleep accelerates biological aging by 9 years!
Join Dr. Martin as he discusses the impact of sleep in today’s episode and why sleep is so important for brain health.
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 we're happy to have you on with us here on Facebook live and we appreciate you. The Doctor Is In Podcast. We thank you for all you do for us guys. We appreciate it. Okay guys, two recent studies just caught my eye. I got to comment a little bit about them, and that's what we're going to do this morning. These are two studies, okay? One from the Journal of Nature. Let me just read to you from Edinburgh Scotland, a study out of Scotland. They looked at 8,000 people. They followed 8,000 people for 25 years. So there's a long-term look at people, and what they were looking at is sleep. And for those 8,000 people, listen to this, very interesting people who slept less than six hours a night on average, people who slept less than six hours a night on average had a 30% increase in Alzheimer's, okay?
Now we're going to talk about that. We're going to break this study down. Sleep, okay? So we're going to look into it this morning, not that we haven't, because listen, my newest book, Sun, Steak, Steel and Sleep, that's right on the cover of the book, okay? Sun, steak, steel and sleep. And thank you by the way guys for making that a bestseller. Thank you in Canada, a bestseller. Now let's make it a bestseller in the US of A. Sun, Steak and Steel and Sleep. Okay? So 8,000 people over 25 years in the Journal of Nature. This is where it's reported less than six hours, had a 30% increase in Alzheimer's, okay? Aging and sleep. Okay? Now this is Harvard. So two studies, and we'll break these down. Harvard reported looking at 4,000 patients. The other one was 8,000 for 25 years. Harvard, and here's what they found when they followed 4,000 patients, lack of sleep in people. Nine years, they said of biological aging, they aged quicker, when you don't get enough sleep. I'll tell you why in a minute.
But according to their research, okay, you age quicker when you don't sleep properly. So why don't we get into these two studies? We'll break them down. Most of what I'm going to talk about this morning is in my book, Sun, Steak & Steel. But it's good to go over these things because for most people in North America, and this was hardly the case before. You guys know me well enough if you followed me at all for any length of time, you know me. And what do you know? Well, you know that I'm a why guy, okay? I'm a why guy. Meaning that if something is much more prevalent today than it used to be, and that is one thing, poor sleep. It's not like insomnia was never around. It's been around as long as man has been around, insomnia. You might have a night or two, you can't sleep, you're stressed out or whatever, and your brain don't turn off. Okay? That's been around forever, guys.
But what we're talking about here is chronic sleep deprivation. People are deprived of their sleep. And that's an epidemic today. That's what I state in the book. We got a problem Houston because people are not sleeping. And in that chapter in my book, I tell you why we're not sleeping, why we got a big problem today, but even more importantly, well two things. One is why and then what to do about it. Okay? Why is it happening? And number two, what can we do? Because we got a problem, but how do we fix it? And it was amazing for me, at least when I was in my practice days that I had very successful tools to fix a poor sleep. Now let me go back for me, okay? For me, let me go back and just give you a little bit of background. In the 1980s, 85, and then going forward, there was a phenomenon happening all over North America. I don't know if it was around the world, I don't think so. I think it was more to North America, but there was a thing happening. And at first it was called the Yuppie Flu, okay? That's what it was called, the Yuppie Flu. And it was amazing to me, me how many patients I saw that came in and then they named it chronic fatigue syndrome. And today they call it ME because there's changes in the brain, okay? Myo encephalitis, I don't know what they call it. They gave it big name.
So I always said, well, why is this happening? And I wrote a book about it. It was part of my thesis for a PhD, and that is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The Modern Woman's Curse. Published it and sold in French and English, probably about a hundred thousand copies of that book. And I got a publicist and I traveled all over North America and even some parts of the world over into Europe talking about chronic fatigue syndrome. And one of the main symptoms, here's people that are exhausted, and by the way, fibromyalgia. So fibromyalgia, I always said this was just a symptom of chronic fatigue syndrome. Now, rheumatologists or whatever, they sort classified fibromyalgia as something separate, but I saw it as a two-sided coin. You get chronic fatigue syndrome, and most people with chronic fatigue got fibromyalgia and fibromyalgia had chronic fatigue. They were just exhausted and they couldn't sleep. Two symptoms, exhaustion, can't sleep, pain. And there were other symptoms, brain fog. I was a why guy. Remember first question when this started to happen back in the 80s, I asked the question, why, why is this happening?
And my conclusion that led to my thesis, and it was happening mostly in women, but men got it too, but not like women. It was 95 to 5%. And I said, well, obviously hormones are involved. Horrormones are involved. And there was a main one that I talked about way back then that people never even considered. And that was cortisol, your adrenal gland, they became exhausted. Adrenals are add renals on top of kidneys. You secrete cortisol every day. Everybody does. Okay? But physicians, and again, God bless them, we need them. But when it comes to fatigue, they're not good at that unless you're dying of cancer. They're no good at it because they just, one generally did not take it seriously. And number two, if they can't find it in your labs, it's between your ears. You don't know how many thousands of times I heard that from women. It's you're depressed. No, it was a hormonal issue, but it was cortisol. And let me just give you the ABCs of cortisol.
Everybody secretes cortisol. It's part of your circadian rhythm. Cortisol gets you up in the morning. It's part of you waking up and it elevates your blood pressure, it elevates your blood sugar and it gets you going. That's all right. Nothing wrong with that because it'll follow a rhythm and it'll come up in the morning. And then as your day progresses, it goes down and no problem, by the end of the day, your cortisol is down, and that's all right. When your cortisol is down, ordinarily you're going to get into a good sleep. But here's me, back in the eighties, cortisol never got turned off. These women generally, okay, what happens with cortisol when it's on too long? Why? Why? I was a why guy. Why is this happening? Well, women, they lived in a different world. And I explained this in the book back in the late eighties.
Listen to what I said. I used the example of my mother. I come from a family of 11 kids. I get a headache just thinking about it. You want to see real heroes. My mother was a hero. She had 11 kids. What? Yeah, 11. And she was beautiful. My mother was a hard worker, obviously. But by the mid eighties, okay, things changed, the world. It's not that it was so much the kids, it was the women were going back into the workforce. And look, my mother never stopped, but women, then they got pressured. They got all sorts of different pressures coming at 'em. Life became much more complicated. And I said that that's why I called it chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, the curse of the modern woman. That was back in the late eighties. And what I said was cortisol, which is normal, has become abnormal. Why? Because it's being used all the time.
And then remember, so cortisol is also your stress hormone, and so it's part of the fight or flight. And when cortisol is high, you can understand that someone scares you, right? Cortisol, the hairs on the back of your neck rise up and you get almost like an internal vibration, and you're ready to fight or flight. You're not ready to rest and digest. You're ready to fight our flight, okay? And that's all right. If someone is scaring, you want that. God gave you a protective mechanism, fight or run, okay? Run. But if that don't get turned off, you get exhausted. Your body wasn't made for that. And then you get, okay, so eighties women, they're in a different environment now, different than my mother's generation. There's all these things coming at her and him too, but guys, just bear with me for a minute. Then you get environmental problems. What do I mean by that?
Guys, I've told you this and I'll tell you a million times, I know this is a political statement, but I'm going to make it anyway. I'm not worried about the climate. It's winter. It's cold. Okay? You live in Northern Ontario where I live, it's cold. It's winter. I don't worry about the climate, I worry about the environment. I'm an environmentalist. You are Dr. Martin? Yeah, because I tell people we live in a different world. Why? Because I don't care whether you live on Mount Everest or you live in Costa Rica, I don't care. You got plastic, you got a hundred thousand chemicals, and most of them are found in your homes. They're in your kitchen, and you use them as hand sanitizers and sprays and underarm deodorants and whatever. You live on the planet, you are going to be affected by the environment, not the climate, the environment, and you ain't going to get away from it. Oh, Dr. Martin, I use everything organic. Well, good for you, but you still got plastic coming around.
And I talked about that in the eighties and the nineties. It affects your adrenal glands because you get environmental stresses coming in, and your body doesn't know if your stress is coming from a bad relationship or from the environment. You're secreting cortisol. And like I said, cortisol is on your side till it isn't, and it won't be on your side when it starts affecting your sleep. That guys is our introduction this morning. It's just the introduction because when we see these studies on sleep, how important sleep is for Alzheimer's, for aging, we'll talk more because I mentioned this way back when is that. When you don't sleep properly, cortisol goes up. When cortisol goes up, you don't sleep properly. It's a vicious cycle. Cortisol is part of the fight or flight. Cortisol needs to be down here low for you to go into the rest and digest mode, okay? And people, they're all messed up when it comes to their sleep. And the two studies saying, one, you'll age much quicker, and two, your brain, your brain will be affected, including especially the hippocampus, the memory center of your brain.
Now, let's break that down even a little bit more. Okay? I told you about the history and where I come from and look at today. I just want to give you some ideas of why we are at, okay? So one is obviously cortisol. I think you'd all agree with me. Today, people's cortisol is out of control, and even our social media and our phones and the blue light and it never ends, and we're getting information 24 and seven. We live in a different world. That's why young people, even today, they're not sleeping properly. They're not getting in to the five stages of sleep that you need for your body to repair. So let's look at a couple of things. One, our diet. What? What has our diet got to do with sleep? Well it's got a lot to do with sleep. It's got a lot to do with sleep. I wrote a book years ago called Two Hormones That Want You Dead, two. Cortisol from your adrenal glands, your stress hormone, and it's meant to have a part-time job and insulin, food, your food hormone. You only use insulin when you eat guys. Okay? And one of the reasons I created the reset, well it was the main reason was to fix insulin, okay? You guys know that. Cortisol, insulin, two hormones that want you dead.
They're on your side til they're not, and they're never meant to be overused, either one of them. And when insulin goes up, okay, you know what happens? Insulin is a growth hormone, guys. Now, I brought this to you on this program years ago. I said it and people, it almost blew them away. I was telling another podcaster the other day, a friend of mine, Nicky Ballou, okay? I was telling them this story and he could hardly believe it, okay? I said, listen, if I was a prophet or the son of one, which I'm not, okay, I would've invested in sleep apnea machines, right? Can you imagine if you would've put, let's say, I'm just giving you an example. You found a company on the stock market 20 years ago, and they were just coming out with the sleep apnea machines, and you put some investment money in there just to see what would happen. You'd be a millionaire today. Why? I never heard of sleep apnea before the year 2000, I think. Okay, don't grab me on that date. I'm just going to, I had a radio show for 20 years, but before that, I don't think I ever heard of sleep apnea.
And you know what sleep apnea is, guys? They put a machine on and they send oxygen up to your brain. You're not getting enough when you're sleeping. You can actually diagnose sleep apnea by getting sleep tests, right? I never heard of that when I was a kid. I never heard of that when I was in practice until, I'm going to say 2000 maybe a little bit earlier than that. Did you? No, you didn't. Well, what happened? See why sleep apnea machines? Ask yourself the question. If it wasn't around before, maybe we just missed it. No, I don't think so. What happened? It's insulin. What did I tell you years ago on this program? It's fatty tongue. You can get a fatty liver and you can get fatty tongue. What? Yeah, insulin. You would think I would have a fatty tongue because I talk a lot, right? Does that give you a fatty tongue? I don't think so. Maybe because if it did, I should have the fattest tongue in the world. I talk too much.
But let me tell you this, insulin is a huge factor. The main factor in sleep apnea. What? Yep. And I used to tell my patients if they would listen, I said, if you will do the reset, if you will get your insulin where it belongs, if you get rid of your insulin resistance, you are going to shrink your tongue and the oxygen's going to get up there. And I'm not telling anybody to stop their machines. You stop your machines when you fix the problem. The machine don't fix the problem. The machine helps the problem, but it don't fix it. It doesn't get rid of insulin resistance. We never used to see this before. We had insomnia, but we didn't have sleep apnea. It's a new, relatively new phenomenon. I never studied sleep apnea in school. When I was in school, I did postgraduate work, yes. Guys, cortisol, insulin, food, it's crappy carbs. It's crappy carbohydrates. It's sugar. Sugar makes things grow, like your liver, like your belly fat. People walk around. We used to call 'em in the 70s. You know what we used to call the belly fat? We used to call it a beer belly. It's not beer belly anymore. It's a sugar belly. Kids get it and their tongues swell. Everything's sleep, okay?
So cortisol, insulin, and let's talk about that study that followed. Okay? Out of Edinburgh, Scotland, 8,000 people for 25 years, less than six hours of sleep, they got 30% increase in Alzheimer's compared to the rest of the folks that got more than six hours sleep. Okay? Why? Repair. Guys, If you don't get a good night's sleep, you don't get your glymphatic system. Isn't that amazing? Every time I talk about this, it blows me away. It's another thing I didn't know in school. I didn't know that the brain had its own self cleaning oven. We didn't learn that. We learned about the lymphatic system, okay? We understood the lymphatics, but nobody ever taught me the glymphatics. We didn't even know it existed that your brain has its own self-cleaning oven. But when does it work? Only when you sleep.
Do you think sleep is important? I heard a guy or two tell me this over the years as patients, okay, sleep is overrated. I said, well, can I tell you something? Even Jesus slept. You need sleep. Your body don't repair itself properly. Remember, your brain is headquarters. 25% of everything you eat gets up in the brain for fuel. So it's an energy center. And whenever you create energy, you're going to have debris. You're going to have waste. Your brain needs to get rid of that. You have a system dedicated to getting rid of waste. You're fearfully and wonderfully made, my friend, your brain is meant to detox. When does it detox? When you sleep. You think sleep's important? Yep. That's when your glymphatics.
I've told you the story. I'll repeat it. I'm on an airplane and I'm being a bad boy. I'm texting, and they said to turn our phones off. The stewardess comes by and she says, hey, you jerk head, turn your phone off. Okay? She said, you know what you can do, put it in airplane mode. I literally did this. I handed my phone to the stewardess. I said, what are you talking about? What is that? I'm a senior citizen. I pulled out my card. I'm a senior. I got a phone, but I don't know how to use it. Okay, I can text. I can phone, but I don't know how to use anything else. She said, put it in airplane mode, you dummy. And anyway, she goes, quickly, literally. And it's in airplane mode. You know what she said? You can use your phone, but now you're not going to get any data. I like that because it reminded me of sleep. Your body goes into airplane mode. You're not getting any data and your body detoxes. The night shift comes in, okay?
Everywhere in your body, by the way, the night shift comes in. Your liver, the night shift is in. The cleaning comes in. You know those office buildings? You see them at night. They got maybe little bit dimmer lights on, or the light's still on. There's people in there working. They're cleaning. The night shift comes in and you put yourself in airplane mode and your body detoxes, especially the brain guys, especially the brain. Your glymphatic system, your self-cleaning oven takes care of waste. And what they're showing in Alzheimer's, one of the biggest factors is amyloid plaques. It's a factor. But you know what they said, and we brought this to you in the summer of 2022 when it came to mental health, they debunked everything including amyloid plaque. Now I just said amyloid plaque. And now I'm telling you it's part of it, but it's not the cause of Alzheimer's. It's an effect, but it's not the cause. One of the causes is you're not detoxing. You're not detoxing. The brain's not detoxing. And the other one, of course, we come back to insulin. Too much sugar in the brain. Your brain is swimming in a ocean of fuel that it can't use. Okay, we talked about that. So guys, that was introduction. We're going to do two days. We got to, okay, that was the intro. Aren't these two studies unreal, guys? I don't know what blows your socks away, but these kinds of things blow my socks away.
Okay, what is Friday? Question and. You know someone said yesterday, because we did question and answers to finish up from last week, and they said, why didn't we do question and answer every day? Well, guys, we could, absolutely. Okay. But I like these programs too, where I bring you what's new in research, what's new in the world in terms of studies and articles that are really, really interesting. I love flagging them, okay? But if you have questions about sleep, send them to us, info@martinclinic.com, info@martinclinic.com. Guys, if you can't, and your friends and your family, if they can't watch us live, okay? A lot of people, I mean we're, I don't know. We're at about 300 people. By noon today, we'll be at 5,000, if not seven by the end of the day at 10,000 on average people that watch this, okay? But they can't watch it live. A lot of people can't. But you can watch it later or it will be turned into podcasts on The Doctor Is In podcast, on your favorite device.
I was showing someone yesterday, they never heard of me. We were having a conversation about their health, and I said, well, why don't you listen to my podcast. Never heard of me. Who are you? I said, okay. But I said, I got a podcast. And this was a young guy. He said, a podcast, you're too old to do podcasting. I said, you watch your lips. I got a podcast The Doctor Is In. Okay, you see it behind me there. Right there, guys. The sign, The Doctor Is In Podcast. Okay? We love you dearly, guys, and sincerely. What would we do without our audience? Okay, 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!