Join Dr. Martin in today's episode of The Doctor Is In Podcast.
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
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Dr. Martin: Well, good morning everyone. How are you? Welcome to another live this morning. Nice to have you on with us. Okay. So why don't we do this this morning, guys? Okay? I'm looking at my PowerPoint that I gave on Saturday at the University of Tennessee, Martin. So I think I drove by Tennessee years ago, drove through it, Chattanooga, but didn't spend time going West Tennessee. So flew into Nashville and it's about a two and a half hour drive west to Martin, Tennessee. Now, Martin, Tennessee didn't know anything about it other than our dear friend to this program, Dr. MacKewn, had organized a conference. I have the bulletin here, the 29th annual Mid-South Psychology Conference, University of Tennessee at Martin, Tennessee. Okay? There's the conference bulletin and they got even my picture in it. See that guy?
Okay, anyway, make a long story short. What a beautiful university. And they got 8,000 students. I thought it was very small part of the University of Tennessee, but it's got a pretty big campus there in a small town. Martin, Tennessee, I think the population of 10,000 and the student population is 8,000. I talked to one of the organizers there and they said by 2030, they'll be at 10,000 students. So big campus and really enjoyed our time there. Met some of our followers on Facebook and our podcasting. They also came out to the conference amongst all the students and other professors who had come down to be part of the conference from Memphis, Tennessee. Anyway, what I got time to do, and then because we wanted to have a Q&A, because you know me, I could go on for hours. So I was talking about mental health and energy, meaning 25% of everything you eat goes up to the brain.
Don't think for a minute that doesn't have a major effect on mental health. And I talked about mitochondria in the brain. And then I went to insulin and how the brain becomes insulin resistant and can lead to a lot of mental health disorders. I did some, and it was all part of the presentation, as I showed them the effects of sugar on the brain especially. And what I emphasized is diabetes of the brain, which is Alzheimer's. But before you get Alzheimer's, you can have a lot of cognitive problems. You can have a lot of emotional problems. Not all with food, but food is a big factor. Okay? And I talk to them about eating the right food for your brain. Your brain is headquarters. And guys, you know this because you're followers of this program, but the world doesn't know this. Okay? I'll give you an example.
A recent study showed that red meat actually helps to prevent Alzheimer's. So red meat makes sense, doesn't it? Red meat prevents Alzheimer's. And there's reasons for that. One, you're putting a log on the fire of energy up in your brain when you eat the right foods that are nutrient dense. Is there anything better than red meat to eat? No. Your brain loves steak, guys. And you can imagine, you got young students and you have faculty and whatever that were there at the conference. And this was not to Dr. MacKewn, but to most, this was news. What? Red meat is actually good for your brain because they've been taught. And I kind of laugh because the American Heart Association came out last week or the week before and said, because they're flipping the pyramid. In the United States, they're flipping the pyramid. And the American Heart Association that's run by cardiologists, they always get it wrong, guys.
It's amazing to me how you can have a profession like cardiologists. And God bless the cardiologist if you're having a heart attack. But they get it wrong. They got it wrong on cholesterol. They got it wrong on butter. They got it wrong on statin drugs. They got it wrong. And so they chime in because they don't like the idea that they're switching the pyramid around the food pyramid in the United States to include animal foods because that used to be, you better limit that. The cardiologists are still upside down on eggs. Everybody else, just about. Yeah, eggs are good for you, but not cardiologists. They can't get over cholesterol. It skewed their thinking. They have a predisposition to cholesterol causes heart disease. Therefore, you can't eat much of cholesterol containing foods. And cholesterol is only found in the animal kingdom. So I made this point about mental health. I said, "Your brain is the energy center. It takes 25% of everything you eat and your brain is going to react to when you eat the wrong food."
So I started out with sugar, sugar is toxic, ask a diabetic. And then I gave some statistics on diabetes. I said, "In this room, if I tested you for metabolic syndrome, if I tested everyone in this room for metabolic syndrome, I guarantee you that it's no different than the rest of the population, which is 93% have metabolic syndrome." They just don't know it because they don't test for it. They don't test properly for it. They don't look at A1C. You might get your triglycerides tested, but they don't check them because if it's not flagged, it's not significant. All they're worried about is heart disease. They're not thinking metabolic syndrome affects the brain because it's an energy center. And metabolic syndrome, metabolic, the word means how you break food down into energy. And we're overfed and undernourished in our brain. I stuck to the brain. We're overfed and undernourished. And it's an energy problem. Your brain is swimming in fuel that it can't use. It's flooded with 200 pounds of sugar a year. You think your brain was made for that? And unfortunately, a life doesn't go off on the top of your head and saying you're using the wrong fuel.
Like I said, the American Heart Association pushes back. They can't stand it. That we're talking about changing foods. They'd rather just, no, just keep your cholesterol down. They're so ingrained. But the whole issue here, okay, and this is what I explained the other day, is the mental health aspect of it. I talked about it. Kids. Do you think there was an ADD and ADHD in these kids? Yeah. Probably always been around. But today it's like it's on steroids. I said, "What's the connection between fatty liver and the brain?" Your liver. What happens there? It's not Las Vegas because what happens in the liver doesn't stay in the liver. It affects your heart. It affects your brain. When you fill up the liver with especially high fructose corn syrup, the energy gets all messed up. Your brain wasn't made for that stuff, guys. Your brain wasn't made for high fructose corn syrup. It don't know what to do with it. Like I said, 50% of young people in the United States of America are on some form of medication. SSRIs, as if depression is a lack of Prozac. It's an energy issue. And that's what I was out to convince my audience.
Now, I had a short period of time. Okay? You know me, I go down rabbit trails and I have a hard time coming back, but I just wanted them to think. I knew I had limited time, so I wanted them to think about their diet, how it affects them, how it affects their brain. I'm a food guy and people have been lied to big time about food. We're top heavy with carbohydrates, top heavy in the world. And it's been an unmitigated disaster. Are we healthier than before? Nah. We might live longer. They can keep us alive, but not healthier. And that's not even contested. There's more heart disease today than ever. There's more cancer than ever. There's more Alzheimer's than ever. There's more autoimmune than ever. There's more diabetes than ever. And there's more mental health problems than ever. Now, we live in a complicated world. I know there's other factors other than food, of course, especially when it comes to mental health. I understand that.
I brought out a new study, ketogenic diet for mental health. It really works. And the idea with it is you're lowering carbohydrates. You switch it around. Animal fat and protein become king at a castle, and carbs become the dirty rascal. Okay. Now, what I didn't get into, and I wanted to, what does cortisol have to do with all this? I started off the whole thing talking about my books. I said, "I just got to tell you what I tell my audience all the time." I've always been into energy, guys, if you're wondering, okay? Because remember, my thesis was on chronic fatigue syndrome. That was my thesis. That's an energy issue. I talked about this. Adrenal gland exhaustion. That was chronic fatigue syndrome. In 2011, at the 100th anniversary of the Martin Clinic, my son and I wrote another book called Serial Killers: Two Hormones That Want You Dead.
On Saturday morning, I spent the time on insulin. It's a hormone that wants you dead. It's a hormone that should have a part-time job. We've given it a full-time job, and the cascade of problems from insulin and insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome that hits 93% of the population has been a disaster for our health. All the tea in China, guys, all the tea in China won't fix that problem. All the money in the world because they don't know how to spend it. We don't have a healthcare system. We have a disease care system. Wait till you get sick and then they spend a lot of money. Testing, treatment. Prevention to medicine is detection. Am I against detection? No. Okay. i.e., cancer. The whole cancer industry is about early detection. That's why they want ladies for you to have a mammogram. That's why men, they want you to have a PSA test for your prostate.And then they want you to have, if you're a certain age, 40, whatever, colonoscopies. And okay, mammograms. Okay?
I never told anyone, not one of my patients not to have a mammogram. I never did. I just gave them information on the side effects and the false positives that come out of it and the needless biopsies. I used to teach them that. So I said, "You're going to get another side, but I'm not ever telling you not to get that. It's like the PSA test." I said, "The guy who invented the PSA test, by the way, he said he put on sack cloth and ashes." He was so upset. They used that test for cancer detection when it was never made for that. It was made to test the antigens for inflammation of the prostate, not for cancer. Anywho, I'm getting sidetracked again because I get excited. In 2011, we wrote a book, Two Hormones That Want You Dead, because in my practice, what we were seeing, man, the amount of insulin, the amount of insulin resistance that we are seeing in my practice. This is 2011, guys. Well, I wrote the book in 2011, way before that. It's because there was, guys, a paradigm shift.
When I talked about adrenal glands, okay, add renal on top of your kidneys. When we measured that, the cortisol. And I made this case way back when, okay? When I wrote this book on chronic fatigue here, okay? I was the first guy. And that's why this book, it was my thesis published, but we published it into a book, and I think we sold over 50,000 copies of that book. And it was all about energy because these people were exhausted, obviously. And why? Well, I didn't even talk in this book so much about insulin. I talked about cortisol, and it was mostly women who were exhausted. And I used the expression way back then, tired, but wired, running on fumes. It was an energy issue, cortisol. Cortisol is, you can hardly get a doctor to test it. I mean, they know it exists, but they don't see it like they never equate it to mental health. I mean, other than anxiety, they almost separate the brain from the rest of the body. They don't see the connection between your blood sugar, your insulin, and your cortisol. They just don't see the connection. They certainly have not connected the dots to food.
So that was my point, the big point. I didn't get into detail about cortisol. I would've liked to and how cortisol affects the body because cortisol, it's meant to have a part-time job. It's meant to be flowing with your circadian rhythm high in the morning and very low at night. And then I did get a little chance to talk about sleep for a minute. I said, "Look, the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to cortisol is if you get a good night's sleep, that helps you a lot." Because remember, in the days of chronic fatigue, and this is what I spent a lot of time with, even in this book, I spent a lot of time on the sleep disorder because there was what? Four major symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome. Exhaustion, obviously. Wired, but tired, running on fumes. Cognitive, cotton brain, like their metabolism was in a coma. They could hardly focus on anything. And I mean, it was an epidemic, guys. I spent all my research time on this topic.
And then there was the fibromyalgia symptoms because fibromyalgia is not separate from chronic fatigue syndrome. And I said this in my book, fibromyalgia, pain, unexplained, huge inflammation in the body was a symptom of that diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. People didn't like that because they said, "No fibro, the rheumatologist, they pushed back on adrenal gland exhaustion." They just said, "No, we can do the testing pressure points and whatever." And they give you the diagnosis, but they don't tell you anything about why it was there in the first place. I'm a why guy. Why does it happen? And then you have a sleep disorder. So you got pain, you got fatigue, you got brain fog, and then you can't sleep even though you're exhausted. They actually studied this, that because of the high levels of cortisol and it was exhausting, that they weren't getting into the five stages of sleep, in particular REM sleep. So I didn't even say this back then, but we know it today that if you don't get into your sleep, your cortisol is high and if your cortisol is high, you don't sleep.
I said that, but here's what I didn't say is when you're not sleeping, you don't go into your self-cleaning of it. Your brain can't get rid of the toxins. It can't get rid of the debris. Your brain has its own self-cleaning oven, but it only works when you're sleeping, the self-cleaning oven. So I did a little, little bit on that because I just wanted to say that's the low hanging fruit of cortisol. If you can get that right, get your sleep right, that helps a lot with cortisol. And then I went on to answer questions because it was time. I was out of time, but that's sort of a recap on the conference. I really would've loved to have gotten into more about cortisol and the brain, but hey, I knew time was limited. They're at a conference. I've only got an hour of their time at this conference. They got all these sessions.
Anywho, I just thought, well, look, I wanted to give you a little bit of a recap and I think we've got the video of it, so I don't know if we're going to be able to post it or whatever. I don't know. Who knows because I don't take care of that part. If you leave it up to me guys, I had to get my granddaughter to make up my PowerPoint. I'm no good at anything like that. PowerPoint and grandpa don't get along. Okay? I mean, I like them, but I don't know how to do them. And you know what I mean? I've been speaking all over the world. I used to tell people, "Don't limit me to a PowerPoint because I'm a rabbit trail guy. I'll never finish." But it was a university setting. So he said, "Okay, we better send over to Doc MacKewn a PowerPoint." Anyway, there were some good slides there. I'm sure they enjoyed though. I didn't always talk about them.
Okay. So guys, we got some new studies that I haven't talked about yet that I want to hit this week. Remember that Friday is Q&A. So I always remind you of that because people are always asking questions, guys. And on the scroll, once I start teaching in the morning, guys, I know the scroll is moving, but I'm not focusing on the scroll because if people ask me questions on the scroll, you can ask, but I can't answer because first of all, I can't see it. It's going by too fast and I'm not looking, but the questions, please send them into info@martinclinic.com. Send an email with your questions. And I know thousands and thousands and thousands over the years have asked questions. Remember, I had a radio show, 20 years. You know what it was? Open line. I talked for about 10 minutes, bring new studies or whatever, and then we just opened the phone lines. Unfiltered. Doc, what about this or what about that? What else should I do for this? What about that?
And we had such a popular radio show and now podcasting, but you got to send your questions in. We're just not equipped to do open line. Okay? I wish we could. I love answering your questions, guys. I'm a why guy and you're a why people if you follow this. Why? What should we do? What about my husband? They don't ask. You have to ask for them. Men. Okay. Guys, we love you. Okay? You know that. I hope you do. I hope you feel it. And guys, I feel your love. You know what's kind of fun when you get to meet some followers, okay? Face-to-face that came to Martin, Tennessee. And I met with several of them and to put a face with the people that follow us. And I love that. I love that. I feel the love. Okay? And I want to tell you, I'm sending it back to you guys. Okay. 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!