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. Once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day, and we sure appreciate you guys coming on. Let's talk this morning, guys. I used to have a poster. Okay, let's see if I can find a picture of it in my office. Okay, and what is it? Do you have insulin resistance? And then I had a gauge in your car and I had this made up. It was right in my office. Do you have insulin resistance? And it was a gauge, a car gauge, and it said this check engine light. Okay, so those are early possible warning signs of insulin resistance and strong indicators of insulin resistance. So I had that chart and people would gaze at it and gawk at it, and they often asked me questions about it because nobody had ever told them.
Now you got to go back. Now guys, I know you guys know a lot more about insulin resistance than my patients did. If you go back 10 years or whatever that poster was probably put up in, I'm going to say, well, I think just shortly after my son and I wrote the book, Serial Killers: Two Hormones That Want You Dead, insulin and cortisol. So that poster was up and I wanted people to think about insulin resistance, and one of the reasons is because this is a study that was done, I don't know, I'm going to say 10 years ago, maybe more than that. They took 200 patients and they followed them for six years. Now, I've talked to you about this before, but it's worth repeating because I just want to do a little bit of teaching on insulin resistance. Okay? Now, for six years they followed 200 patients and they measured insulin resistance. Okay? You can measure it. We'll talk about that in a minute.
So they had three groups, 200 patients, and the people who had the worst insulin resistance. Okay? Now what would that be? And just, okay, strong indicators. A couple of these markers, they had high A1C, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol, okay? Those are indicators. Now there's a few more that I've added to that group and we'll talk about that but those are the things they measured. 200 patients, the ones with the highest insulin resistance had the highest group of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes. The ones with elevated A1C, elevated triglycerides, low HDL. It was amazing. Okay? Now listen, the medium group, they had very little of the diseases, but they had some of them, okay? This is after six years. The lowest group, the ones that had an A1C under 5.4, listen to this. Not one of those 200 got sick from a chronic disease. Not one of them got heart disease in six years. Not one of them got cancer. Not one of them got diabetes. Not one of them got Alzheimer's.
Now, this study was done a long time ago and it was buried. Believe you, me, buried. Because today you can barely get doctors to even talk about insulin resistance because you know why? I'll tell you why. The number one reason why, because it goes against the narrative. It goes against the narrative. When you think heart disease, what does medicine think? What does medicine think? Cholesterol, right? You think cancer. What do medicine think? Just generally? We don't know. Not food, not the environment. They don't look at that. So when you talk to them about insulin resistance, they'd have to study food and they don't do it. So these things have fallen through the cracks because people, generally, medicine, I know they're becoming more aware now, but let's face it, they're into detection, but not prevention.
So the people in the worst group of insulin resistance, guess what? The ones that got all the disease, chronic disease. The ones in the best of insulin resistance, meaning they had the lowest insulin resistance, guess what? They didn't get any diseases over six years. So check engine light, and I'll post this after. I don't know how good the picture is, if you'll see it properly on the private Facebook group, okay? This was a poster I put up in my office in, I can't remember exactly what year. I had it up there for many years and people were fascinated by it. Check engine light. Hello? If you have any of these symptoms, I'm not saying it's only insulin resistance, but it's a check engine light. It's something that should be checked. Okay, low energy, I got 16 and then I have 15 strong indicators. But in your car, if a light comes on a check engine light, it could be a lot of things, right?
I remember on my car one time, I didn't tighten the gas cap after gassing up and my light went on, I didn't know what it was, and I brought it to the dealer and they put a little machine on it. I said, you just didn't tighten your gas, but it could be your transmission, it could be your leaking fluid, it could be a lot of things. So check engine light goes on, you got low energy. Now that can be a lot of things, but you got to look at insulin resistance, weight gain could possibly be insulin resistance and other things. Poor sleep. We talked about sleep apnea. I mean, that's a condition, but a lot of people get poor sleep, and that could be cortisol too, but remember two hormones that want you dead, insulin and cortisol, okay? Digestive issues. I've seen a lot of digestive issues fixed after people do the reset and get their insulin down.
Vertigo. Well, look, it could be a virus, but again, I've seen it, and this is on check the engine light for insulin resistance. Overactive bladder, amazing, overactive bladder. Tinnitus, joint pain, skin tags. You got skin tags, you got insulin resistance. Cataracts, we talked about the eyes. There's nothing that destroys eyes more than sugar. Okay? Nothing that'll destroy your eyes more than sugar. They glycate those blood vessels, they damage the blood vessels. And your eyeballs are all about blood vessels. It's blood supply. Same thing with your kidneys. It's blood supply. Well, even your brain, blood supply, cataracts, leg cramps, weak immune system, carpal tunnel. Wow. How do you like that? Achilles tendon pain, chronic tendonitis. Any itis I used to tell patients. Well, I used to measure it so I didn't have to guess. Okay? They had insulin resistance almost invariably. Okay? The 16th one I just mentioned. Acne, acne, especially adult acne. Women get acne, they get too much estrogen, too much testosterone, and that comes from estrogen. Not enough progesterone and insulin resistance. Okay?
Now let me just go over strong indicators. Okay, so the other ones were check the engine light. It could be that insulin resistant might be something else or maybe a combination of things. That's why guys, the reset is so good. The reset is so good because you are really hitting a major, major pathway. When you lower your insulin resistance, you are lowering your inflammation. Fixing insulin is a huge, huge factor. Okay? Now, strong indicators. Now that's very strong, okay? And some of this, obviously you guys know this because we talk about it all the time. What are strong indicators that you have insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome? 93% of the population have this. What is that? Obesity, strong indicator. Belly fat, strong indicator. Okay? High blood pressure, strong indicator. High triglycerides, fat balls, strong indicator. Low HDL, strong indicator. Inflammation, strong indicator. We talked about that.
Fatty liver, big time strong indicator. It's the number one reason for fatty liver. Acanthosis, I love these big words. Those are brown spots, usually under the armpits around the neck, like large brown spots, even on the legs. Acanthosis. Why don't they just call it large brown spots? Hair loss. Well, that can be a lot of things too. Sarcopenia amazing, and I used to see this in my office all the time, okay? People that weren't very big, it was the opposite of obesity, but they still had major insulin resistance and then they were sarcopenic. They had no storage spaces for glucose. When you build muscle, guys, okay? When you build muscle, those are bins, they're storage bins. And the more we study muscle, I've been saying this for such a long time, the more we study muscle, what I knew in the 1970s about muscle and what I know today as far as metabolic syndrome, as far as, it's like you have an extra endocrine organ that's on your side.
If you have muscle, you have storage space, more storage. It takes a huge amount of pressure off your pancreas. It takes a huge amount of storage space away from your liver. Why do you think we see so much pancreatic cancer today? Why do we see so much liver cancer today? Fatty liver, sarcopenia, osteoporosis, Dowager's Hump. You know what a Dowager's Hump is? You go to T1 right in the back, just at the base of your neck and you see people and they got to hump there, right at that T1 level and just at the base of their neck, you can see it. That is a hugely strong indicator they have big time trouble with insulin resistance. ED, erectile dysfunction. That is one of the first signs in men that they have. You see, it comes to circulation again, right? It's not a lack of Cialis, it's insulin. It's a problem with circulation, microcirculation. It's the same thing with the prostate. BPH, get insulin down. Why? Because insulin is a growth hormone.
You combine in men, insulin, growth hormone, estrogen, growth hormone in men, and the prostate grows, grows, grows, and the blood supply to their privates is diminished erectile dysfunction. And so these are important. Okay? These are important symptoms. Oh, take a pill. You got ED men take a pill. No, fix your problem. Why do you have that hormonal imbalance? Yeah, any hormonal, even the thyroid. The thyroid is so finicky and it really is affected by the pancreas. Big time, the liver, big time. Gout, insulin, insulin resistance, high levels of uric acid, psoriasis, leaky gut plus insulin, psoriasis, memory problems. Yeah, big time. Okay, your memory. Remember, blood supply, eyes, kidneys, brain, heart, blood supply, sugar is toxic to those areas. Remember, Alzheimer's type three diabetes. The brain is swimming in glucose that it can't use. Okay? Pcos, polycystic ovarian disorder.
A lot of women, when they got polycystic ovarian disorder, they were put on metformin, a diabetic drug. Yeah, that was one of the treatments because one thing, medicine will agree, yeah, insulin, but they never talk to you about well food. You better lower your carbohydrates, you better lower your sugars. No, just take metformin. Well, come on. You're not getting at the root issue. It's food. So those are strong indicators. Okay, so let's just go into a little bit of detail again. What blood tests and guys, Sun Steak and Steel, the book. I have a chapter in there on blood tests that you need. And guys, it's like the commercials in the United States for drugs. Ask your doctor if this medication is good for me, and then for the next 15 minutes, they tell you about all the side effects of that drug.
Those advertisements, they must work, okay? But they don't work on me because soon as I hear all the side effects, including death, I was listening to one the other day, okay? It was on an autoimmune disease drug, and they said, man, oh man, ask your doctor if this drug is good for me. And then for the next, it seemed like five minutes, but it couldn't have been. They gave you the side effects and one of them, no, he literally said, this medication can cause death. Why would you ask your doctor for it? Anyway, guys, you know I'm being facetious a little bit, okay? But I get a chuckle out of it anyway. Why did I tell you about that? Because I want you to ask your doctor to get these blood tests done. Okay? Now, your doctor won't flag a lot of these things, but if you can get the results of your test and compare 'em to the ranges that I put in my book, Sun, Steak and Steel, you'll know where you stand with insulin resistance and a lot of other things too.
But generally, I'm so focused in on insulin, okay? I'm so focused in on insulin. So do you want to know? Well, doc, I want you to do my A1C one, okay? You're going to do a lipid profile and your doctor's going to be consumed with cholesterol. I don't want you to be consumed with cholesterol. I want you to be consumed with your triglycerides. So you go, you get your own results and you look, what are my triglycerides? And because I was saying this the other day on Q and A, because I think it was Cecille or Cecilia, I can't remember, and she was saying, well, doc, how do I elevate my HDL? Well, compared to what? I need two numbers. I need your triglycerides and I need your HDL. You need to compare those two numbers because your triglycerides should always be lower than your HDL and your HDL. You want it at minimum to be at least as high as your triglycerides, but preferably even up to two and a half times higher. Your triglycerides. What are triglycerides? Fat balls.
When you take those two numbers, triglycerides and HDL, you can tell whether you have insulin resistance or not. If your triglycerides are high and your HDL is lower than that, you got insulin resistance. You can go to the bank with it. You can go to the bank with it. So you want your A1C, you want your triglycerides and your HDL, okay? They usually do that, but don't ask, you don't get and you'll get a pile of numbers. Come back with your lipids. And people say, doc, well, my LDL was this. What does that mean? What does my total cholesterol mean? Well, they don't mean nothing to me. If you have low LDL, here's what I know, you're going to die young. I just don't know why you want to get it low. I know why doctors want to get it low. Since 1987, since the creation of statin drugs. I've watched it happen. It's been let's lower LDL. LDL, LDL, LDL, and they made cholesterol the boogeyman. Well, I don't do that. I've never been convinced of that. And hey, you want to show me studies? I've looked at all of them thus far, and they're not impressive in terms of have we eradicated heart disease? Not even an inch. Heart disease is worse than ever. Strokes are worse than ever. It ain't cholesterol.
Anyway, so you get your A1C done, you get your triglycerides done, you get your HDL done. Here's a few more that you should look at. Get your CRP done. If you don't ask, you ain't going to get it. Get your C reactive protein done. And I talk about that in the book. Get your vitamin D levels done. What? What's vitamin D? What's the sun got to do with insulin? Has a lot to do with insulin, and it's because if your vitamin D is low, you have insulin resistance. It's one that I put in there by the way. You won't see this anywhere else generally, but it just, for all my years in practice, I saw people that had low levels of vitamin D had insulin resistance. That's why I added it to the group. If you have low levels of B12, you have insulin resistance. Get your B12 checked. And guess what guys? It's not whether your vitamin D or your B12 are within normal limits.
Remember vitamin D levels. Oh, doc, mine are normal. Well, you don't want to be normal. You want to be optimal. Oh, my B12 is normal. Yeah, but that's a mouse. You're not a mouse. You have to have optimized B12 for your metabolism to work properly, for your insulin to work properly. Vitamin D for your insulin to work properly. You need optimized levels of vitamin D. And I put the numbers in there for you. If you live in the United States, I give you American numbers. If you live in Canada, I give you Canadian numbers so that you can look. Those are tests you want to get done. I like looking at ferritin because if you have hemochromatosis, like high levels of iron in your blood, you know what? Probably have insulin resistance and fatty liver. Of course, if you have elevated liver enzymes. But if you don't ask, a lot of times on the doctors, they're busy. They're not thinking of metabolic syndrome. And they'll sometimes, why are you asking me for these blood tests? Doc, just trust me. I want to know what these numbers are.
See, physicians are not used to people questioning them. My dad used to tell me, patients have inside information. You ask them questions, you want to get to the bottom of stuff, ask them questions. Good idea. And you know what I did with my patients? Do you have any questions? Now, sometimes they're in the office and they never got a chance to ask me all the questions they want to ask me. I gave them a report. They could go home and read it, and I filled out. I spent a lot of time giving biomarker reports, but I had all the information. This is what this means. This is what this means. This is what A1C means. If you have elevated A1C, this is what it means. But if you have questions after ask questions, I wanted you to ask me questions. I wanted you to be educated. I wanted you to not just take a doctor's word for it, but doctors are not used to that. One of my daughters is a nurse, and she works in a walk-in clinic. At least she was and at the time, she still does, by the way, works with her husband, who's a physician.
Anyway, at one of these walk-in clinics in my hometown, there was literally a sign on the wall from the physician to the patient. So before you got in there with the doctor, there was a sign on the wall. You know what it said? You're only allowed one question. Don't ask two, ask one. What? You know I used to do. I used to tell my patients, write your questions down. Okay, you're coming in for your second visit, a follow up, write your questions down. And when I answer them, check 'em off. Do you like that? Isn't that the way it should be? I have a lot of questions. I'm not sure what this means. What does it mean? Okay. And look, it's not like I had two hours with every patient. I streamlined everything, but then I was an open book. You could ask me questions. I wanted that. I wanted to be questioned because I wanted my patients to understand, especially about insulin resistant and what to do about it and how to fix it. I couldn't go home with them. I gave them a plan, and I always, always gave a plan to succeed. I didn't give a plan that they couldn't do. I said, look, here's what you got to do, man.
Anywho, okay, I'll post this. Okay, I'll post it up there. I don't know how it will look online because is an old picture. But anywho, okay, so send in your questions already. You've got questions. Send them in Q and A Friday. Okay? We'll take care of your questions. Okay, guys, we love you. 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!