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: Hi, Dr. Martin here. Good to have you guys come on here this morning. We appreciate it. We love you guys dearly, as you know. Love our audience. Love if you can come on live. And we know many of you share this and this gets shared thousands of times a day, but it's always fun to have you on live if you can come on. So thank you for that and we have got a big audience and thank you for all the success that we have on The Doctor Is In podcast, and we like to spread the message. So again, I feel like I'm more an educator now and I love that and I enjoy it every minute of it.
Okay, so I was explaining here yesterday the function of your adrenals, okay? Because a lot of people, I probably haven't said this in a bit, but adrenal glands are a lot like Rodney Dangerfield. They don't get a lot of respect, and I mean that because they're rarely ever tested unless they feel you've got Cushing's or Addison's unless they think you might have cancer, adrenal cancer, which is much more common today than it used to be. I can tell you that. So are almost all cancers. Just to mention again, we're not winning the war on cancer, we're losing the war on cancer, but you guys are not because you guys, not that we're against detection, but we're into prevention. We want to turn our bodies into the lean, mean fighting machine. And some of us are not maybe as lean, but we're a fighting machine, and that's what I want you to be.
So anyway, getting back to the adrenals, the Rodney Dangerfield of your body, it is a major issue today. Now you guys, again, anyone that's followed me for any length of time, I have a long history at looking at the adrenal glands, a long history. And the history is this, that years ago, late eighties, early nineties, it was like an epidemic and that was chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. Now we still see a lot of that. We still see a lot of fibromyalgia, but at the time, these were new kids on the block and people didn't know, number one, what caused it. People didn't know number two, what to do about it. They didn't know anything about it. Well, I actually did my thesis for my PhD in nutrition on chronic fatigue syndrome and natural medicine.
So I mean, I studied that like no tomorrow, and I think I was the first guy ever to mention that what was happening in chronic fatigue syndrome had everything to do with the adrenal glands. Okay, so go back a long way back and I was talking about adrenal glands. And adrenal glands are little chestnut shaped organs on top of your kidneys, okay? Add renal on top of kidneys. That's what it means. Look, they've got a major function in the body, but their number one function is the secretion of cortisol. Now, cortisol is your friend, cortisol is your friend. If it's working properly, cortisol wakes you up in the morning. It gets you going, it gets you started. And cortisol is your friend if you happen to need the fight or flight. Someone walking behind you, dark of the night and is scaring the living life out of you, well, your cortisol can save your life. Why? Because it'll tell you fight or flight like get out of here. Run Forrest, run.
Do you know what I mean? That's what cortisol, so cortisol's on your side till it's not. And that's what I determined a long time ago, that what was happening to women especially. It wasn't like it didn't happen to men, but women it was 90, 95% women, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia. And I'll tell you why in a minute, but my research showed me that what was happening, what cortisol does when it is secreted chronically, meaning long-term, it drains you because it wasn't meant to be. Cortisol is, and that's all right if someone's scaring you, but if that don't stop, it drains the batteries. You see in your body you have battery packs, okay? You run on batteries a lot because you mitochondria, they're batteries, your cells, battery packs. Cortisol, what it does when it doesn't get turned off, it drains the living life out of your battery packs in your body. That's what adrenals can do if they're out of control.
So adrenals release a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol, okay? Over a period of time, if it don't get turned off, it's going to drain the life out of your body, and this is what I wrote my thesis on. This is why I had a bestseller on chronic fatigue, the modern woman's curse and fibromyalgia, and I always said this about fibro, okay? A coin has two sides. One is chronic fatigue and the other side is fibromyalgia. Because fibromyalgia is part of chronic fatigue syndrome, it has the same cause. Okay? So what I wanted to do this morning, because I was explaining this yesterday at the conference I'm at here, I was giving them background. I wrote a book, Tony Jr. and I wrote a book in 2011, our hundredth year anniversary of the Martin Clinic. 2011, my grandfather started the Martin Clinic. 1911.
In celebration of that hundredth anniversary, we wrote a book called Serial Killers, Two Hormones that Want You Dead. Insulin, okay? Again, it's on your side. Insulin saves your life, but you don't want it having a full-time job and cortisol, cortisol can save your life too, but you don't want it to have a full-time job. And what was happening and what is happening today is you have these two hormones still kicking the living life out of us. It's still doing it. We wrote that book in 2011, and I never stopped talking about cortisol and you know me, I never stopped talking about insulin. Maybe you get tired of hearing it, I don't know, but it's a big problem. And doctors, God love them. They don't even bring cortisol into the equation unless they're an alternative medicine doctor. Like you don't have cancer, you don't have Addisons, you don't have Cushings. What do you mean I want to check your cortisol levels, and they miss the boat on so many people because it drains the batteries, it drains the mitochondria.
Wired but tired. You know how many times I heard this in my clinic? Doc, I am tired of being tired. I'm sick of it. I'm exhausted. I'm gaining weight. I'm not eating any different. I'm gaining weight. I'm exhausted. I got brain fog and I don't know what to do about it. You're my last resort. Someone told me you understand these things. I said, yeah, I do. You came to the right place because we tested your adrenal glands and they're running on fumes. So let me go over what gets hit. Okay? I thought I'd break it down like this. Mind and mood. We'll do this with cortisol. So if cortisol is, remember that and don't get turned off. It'll affect your mind. It'll affect your mood, it'll affect your sleep. We'll talk about that. You guys know that, but we'll talk about it anyway. It affects your horror-mones. Horror-mones, it affects that big time and it affects your gut big time, and it affects your metabolism in a sense that not only your thyroid and your hormones and that, but your blood sugar and blood pressure. Okay?
So let's go over that. Okay? I wrote these headings, my mind guys, I got to think like this. Okay? Like me, I like just putting stuff in categories and whatever, just the way I work. I hope you appreciate this, okay? I'm simple. I got to make it simple for me. How can I teach it if I don't understand it? I couldn't teach it to you. So let me just tell you what happens inside the body when cortisol does not get turned off and you're draining the living life out of you. What happens? Mind and mood, anxiety, fear, you never had it and now you got it. You can't turn your brain off, and yet you got like cotton on the brain because you've got a brain fog, but it can't be turned off. Wired, but tired, irritability. Think of it. You're irritated, and again, you're exhausted but irritated. Your mood changes like that. And you go, gee, what is that? Why? I'm not like that usually. Poor memory. Your memory. Short term. You go into a room, you go, why did I come in here? Well, why am I doing this? Oh, yeah, that gets really affected.
Because understand this, okay? Cortisol is the fight or flight. So let me explain it. Okay? Cortisol gets you ready to fight or to run, okay? And when that happens, it's a diversion. It diverts everything else to the task of fighting or running. So your body says, okay, let's focus in on that and it won't focus in on other things. Don't worry about memory. You're in a war. Don't worry about your memory right now. The problem is if it doesn't get turned off, those are big symptoms. Sleep. I mean, it's the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to cortisol. Why is that? Well, because when you're wired, even though you're tired, your body doesn't get into that deep sleep. Like you're exhausted, but you're not sleeping properly. You got five stages of sleep and where your self-cleaning oven comes in, okay, your body isn't that amazing. Aren't you fearfully and wonderfully made? You got a self-cleaning oven in your brain, but it only works when you're sleeping.
You don't sleep, your brain can't detox and think of it, your brain is headquarters. It's got a lot of mitochondria. Mitochondria, beautiful when it's working. Your battery packs and you're firing all cylinders, but when it gets exhausted, you don't sleep properly and your batteries are drained, plus the self-cleaning oven of your brain, the glymphatic system doesn't work properly. Brain fog, memory, you don't sleep. You don't sleep, you're tired. You're tired, you don't sleep. If you're too tired, you don't sleep. It's crazy. But in chronic fatigue, you had a sleep disorder. Doc, I'm exhausted. I certainly don't get up refreshed. You give me, "moi". You give me a good night's sleep. Oh, even at my age, I am firing on all cylinders. The next day I sleep. So trouble getting out of bed. And part of this is slow healing. You just don't recover very well. Your body doesn't recover very well. So that's part of it.
So you got mind and mood, sleep and recovery. Your immune system doesn't work as well. They've shown like one missed one night of sleep. And there's a lot of people find this out when they go on holidays, right? I got to get up like tomorrow morning guys. By the way, we're not going to do a live tomorrow because I'm traveling. I got to get up around 4:15. Now I'm an early riser, but tomorrow I got to be out of here in order to catch my flight. So I got to be up around four o'clock in the morning. People go on a holiday and they got to get up to catch flights or whatever, and they get on their holiday and they get sick. They get sick, they got a bad cold. Well, you miss a night's sleep. Your immune system is the one that pays for that. It pays for it. It's amazing.
So, what happens in chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue, they don't even get the recuperative sleep. So what happens? Their immune system is not firing on all cylinders. They just don't recover well, and they usually get every bug known to man. By the way, chronic fatigue at one time was called the Epstein Barr virus. Well, it really wasn't that I had to debunk that. It was sort of like the herpes virus just lays dormant and then people got that. Yeah, the problem isn't with chronic fatigue. When they actually looked at it, it was only about 50% of the population had the Epstein Barr. So it wasn't that it was adrenal, hormones, cortisol. "Ecoutez-moi," cortisol robs progesterone. It robs progesterone. Now you've got estrogen dominance. Okay, what's that mean, doc? Well, it means this.
When you're not balanced between estrogen and progesterone, your thyroid ladies, your thyroid, even without the blood test showing you this, your thyroid slows to a crawl. Your metabolism slows. Dr. Martin, I'm hardly eating and I'm gaining weight. I know. Your cortisol has robbed your progesterone and estrogen dominant. And estrogen, by the way, is a fat storing hormone. Plus plus, plus when it's higher than your progesterone, I don't care if you're in menopause, it slows your thyroid, your gas pedal to a crawl, your metabolism. You just look at food and you gain weight. You don't have to eat it, just look at it. Is it fair? No, it's not fair, but it's true. I had a weight loss clinic. I said, it ain't your fault. Your cortisol, it's robbing your progesterone. It's giving you horror-mones. That's exactly the language I use. Low libido, afternoon crashes, blood sugar up, blood sugar down, blood sugar up, blood sugar down. That's what cortisol does.
Cortisol elevates your blood sugar. It's getting you ready for the fight or flight. So it elevates your blood sugar. What goes up must have come down, insulin secreted. Insulin brings your blood sugar down, and you can go into what we call hypoglycemia. That fluctuation, low blood sugar. And oh, I'm exhausted and I'm craving sweet. Do you have Laura Secord's in the United States? I don't know. I used to have women tell me in my clinic when I see Laura Secord, I want to do a swan dive just to get some chocolate in me, some sugar. In the States, what would you do? M & Ms? I don't know. What do you have? Is there still Laura Secords? I know I'm an old guy, okay? Because I say things, my grandchildren look at me like, grandpa, I know you were born in the days of Noah. Laura Secord's? What's that? I don't know. I mean, is it still even around? I don't know.
But you see what happens. Mind and mood, sleep, not recuperating. Your hormones, your blood sugar, your blood pressure, think of it, blood pressure goes up, and then your body will react to that and oftentimes bring it really low. And especially if your thyroid slim and your blood pressure can go up, but then it can come down and then like you're dizzy. You can get vertigo, you can get low libido. You're just running on fumes. Muscle loss. I've seen that. You can't even exercise. You have trouble walking even. You're so stinking exhausted and your gut, think of it, it's a diversion. Remember what cortisol does? Your body says you're being chased by a lion. Well, it's not that. It might be family dynamic. Do you stress? Someone's sick in the family?
You know how many times I saw chronic fatigue after taking care of an aged parent? How many times I saw it after divorce or separation or a loss of a loved one, a loss of a child or a child that got wayward and got on drugs and became addicts or whatever and then the parents are just like, can you imagine? And it's not all between your ears because cortisol affects your digestion. Think of it. It takes blood and puts it in, it wants you to fight. It doesn't care about digestion, it diverts it, and you're not digesting properly and you're not producing the intrinsic factor that you need to absorb B12 because intrinsic factor hooks B12. It's very important. Every one of my patients that I saw with chronic fatigue had low levels of vitamin D, low levels of B12. It wasn't even a discussion. It was a hundred percent true. They were running on fumes.
So you can see why it's complex and so often missed. They don't even test for it. And a lot of times they give you meds like SSRIs. It's not a disorder of a lack of Prozac. Do you know what I mean? God love the doctors, I love them. But no, I want to grab their little faces and say, will you stop prescribing without getting to the what's going on in the body. Why do they have anxiety? Why are they so depressed? Don't you think it's possible that it's those mitochondria? It's those battery packs. See, I wanted to get to the root of the issue and not just fix symptoms. Okay? Anyway, that was part of my dissertation yesterday. And I thought, okay, why don't I just talk to you about it? Because it's a big problem today. In 2011, I saw it so much in my office I wrote a book about it, and it's not better today. It's worse. And boy did it ever explode during the pandemic. The world turned upside down. And people, the amount of anxiety we see today, it's on steroids. It's so frequent.
Okay, so make a note, tomorrow off. Okay? Tomorrow off and Friday Q and A, okay? So send you questions and we'll do the Q and A again on Friday. Okay? So guys, we love you guys. I know I just say that, but I mean it. I appreciate you guys so much, you have no idea, okay? And thank you for being so faithful followers, okay? We love you, and I take my job very seriously. I appreciate you guys so much. 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!