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 how are you? And once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a wonderful start to your day. We appreciate you guys coming on as usual and we love to say hello. Okay, what do I start with today? I have so many studies I don't know where to start. Let me do this, okay? Because I was reading an article yesterday and I said, you know what? I got to just comment on this because it's talking about estrogen dominance and that's a big problem in our society today, guys. Both for men and women. Big problem in our society is estrogen dominance.
Now, guess what I got to do? I got to take out my chart. Okay? Let me get it out. Now, here's a pyramid that I showed thousands of patients over the years and the problem with hormones. And it's really important, really important that you understand that hormones, they work together. If you separate, and this is where there's so much confusion because they're separated all the time. So even endocrinologists, they separate. So when you get doctors, thyroid, and they leave it there. And so they isolate the thyroid and that's a big mistake, guys. It's a big mistake because again, the teaching on the thyroid is it's like a puppet. It's got a lot of strings attached to it. So when your thyroid is not working properly, there's reasons for it. It's not just the thyroid.
Now, let me give you an example because again, I read stuff and then it sort of chews me off a little bit because I get upset that here we are in 2026 and it's so hard to move the needle with doctors to get them to look at the big picture. And that's why so many women especially, but it happens in men too, they miss the boat because they don't take everything else into account when it comes to the thyroid. So when estrogen becomes dominant in a woman, it's always in relationships. So you see the two at the bottom here, it's always a relationship between estrogen and progesterone. Okay? Estrogen, because I had ... and even doctors go, "Dr. Martin, of course estrogen. Estrogen is coming down. What are you talking about estrogen dominance? They're in perimenopause. They're in menopause. Their estrogen is nonexistent." I said that's not true because you're not measuring it compared to progesterone. That's the key. They have to be balanced for a woman to feel good. And in a man, estrogen dominates testosterone.
So when you get estrogen dominance in a man, it's because that testosterone has gone down and estrogen is higher and it never should be in a man that testosterone is. In a woman, the estrogen is higher than progesterone and that messes up this pyramid. And when you understand that, it makes a difference. So what happens when you have estrogen dominance, especially in women? It disrupts the thyroid, the signaling in the thyroid. So that's number one. It disrupts the thyroid. They don't feel good. Okay? It increases. When estrogen is dominant, it increases inflammation in the body, silent. It impairs, because I often would draw a circle right around here and circle the liver because the liver can't clear the excess estrogen.
And by the way, in your liver, T4, most of the T4 that is converted to T3, which your thyroid needs to function properly, happens in the liver. You get estrogen dominance, it disrupts the clearance of estrogen that disrupts the conversion of T4 to T3, your thyroid slows to a crawl. Your metabolic output, your metabolism, your thyroid is your gas pedal guys. It's a fat burner, but not if it's slow to a crawl. And women, especially, they get weight gain, they get fatigue, they have poor recovery either from infection or even an injury and they have low motivation. I saw that a gazillion times estrogen dominance and that is really important. That's really important. And in a man, estrogen and by the way guys, estrogen is a growth hormone. Men, the prostate, your thyroid, yes.
But men, your prostate, it's so important because men, especially nowadays around the age of 50, they got more estrogen than their wives. What does that do? Yeah, it slows the thyroid too and it creates inflammation in the prostate and it grows and that can have a major effect on prostate cancer. But benign prostate hyperplasia, like where the prostate grows and grows in frequent urination and for a lot of men ED, it's part of it. And again, guys, just the point because we live in an estrogen dominated world. The world is dominated by estrogen because most of the chemicals that are found in your home that are found in the soil, that are found in the air, that are found in the water mimic estrogen. They're called xenoestrogens. Your body thinks it's estrogen. Your body says, okay, come you're estrogen, but they're xenoestrogen. So you have estrogen dominance compared to progesterone, estrogen dominance compared to testosterone in men and it creates a habit inside this pyramid here.
And like I said, it bothers me that the connections haven't been made. And this is why if you're in a hormonal storm and ladies, do I have to tell you, you know it. Even if your doctor doesn't know it, you know it. You're not up to snuff. Your body's not working like it used to. And you look at food sideways and you gain weight. And like people used to tell me in the office that women tell me, "Doc, my metabolism isn't slow. It's in a coma." And so what we did in the office, we worked on all of this to balance this out. And one of the biggest things, and I put it right here in the middle, because that's where your pancreas is. And that's a hormone too. Insulin's a hormone too. And people, they never put that together with the rest of the chart, but you have to start with food. You're going to eat anyways.
So if you understand that insulin and insulin resistance, it's carbs, man. It's the sugars and everything that turns to sugar rapidly. You need to get that cleaned up because otherwise the thyroid will not respond properly. If you eat right, you're going to empty your liver and your liver will now be able to clear the extra estrogen. And if that happens, your thyroid will start functioning properly because T4 will now be able to be converted properly to T3 and your thyroid will start to work properly again. So you have to get the estrogen progesterone balance. Men, you got to dim out that estrogen. And then I didn't even talk to you about cortisol the adrenals, but again, it's part of that equation because what happens with cortisol, this is very significant, especially in women, because cortisol, the stress hormone left unattended, meaning it's out of control, will rob progesterone. Well, what does that do? Well, estrogen goes up even more compared to progesterone.
If you, for example, you do a blood test or hormonal testing for estrogen progesterone, okay, you can do it. But if your practitioner doesn't get the clear picture here of how your body operates, oh, your estrogen's in normal limits, but not compared to progesterone medicine. So anyway, I know I go over this all the time, it drives me badly because I just know there's millions of women out there in North America and they fall through the cracks and men have no idea, no idea that estrogen is even a factor in their lives. Nobody's told them that, but men have more estrogen than women in our society. It's crazy and their testosterone sinks like the Titanic and they don't feel good.
All right, what else was I going to do here this morning? Okay, there's a new article in the publication Neurology, okay? Let me read the headline to you. The associations between ultra-processed food consumption and adverse brain health outcome. Hello? Hello? They're finally talking about it. Processed foods, sugary snacks. You know when I go through the grocery store, guys, okay I have to be careful because I almost want to stop people with their carts and say, "Don't do that. Don't eat that. Don't give that to your kids." And you know what? I get it. I understand groceries are so stinking expensive today and people, they're just trying to survive and I understand that, okay I really do and therefore I have to shut my mouth. I have to shut my mouth and I don't want to be pushy, but it hurts when I watch people choosing foods or so-called foods and they're putting them in their basket and they're feeding their family. Man, it kills me. It kills me.
But like I said, I got to go zip it, shut up. My wife often has to put a lasso on me and the other thing is she can't get me out of the grocery store because I'm reading labels. You read that label 10 times. I know, but it takes me an hour to read it with all the ingredients in it. That ought to be a clue, guys. Okay? It ought to be a clue. And so these foods, they're characterized by long lists of ingredients, okay, artificial additives, sweeteners, artificial and high fructose corn syrup. You know what I think about that preservatives and colors. They put colors in food and drinks artificial. It takes you an hour to read the label and you can't pronounce half the stuff that's in there. When you can't pronounce it, usually not too good.
And these foods, I feel sorry for people though too, I do, because they're palate friendly. You know the story here. The food industry, guys, I kind of chuckle because the tobacco industry, it's a true story guys. The tobacco industry, biggest one was Philip Morris. They got into the food industry because the tobacco industry was going down and they were liars and they brought all their scientists, what I call addictive scientists, because they knew how to addict people with tobacco and they said, "Oh, it's not addictive." They lied, they got caught. So you know what they did? They took all their gazillions of dollars and they bought food companies and they brought their scientists with them. And when you go in the middle aisles of your grocery store, you look at the foods there from cereals to pretzels. You know what they did? They designed those foods scientifically to make them addictive.
You think those people weren't smart? You think they didn't know what to do? They're scientists in the lab saying, "How are we going to make this food so that people will be addicted to it?" Oh, I read something on the FDA the other day and I wrote it down and maybe we'll talk about it some other time, but just suffice to say this, the FDA lied. The Food and Drug Administration lied. They covered up the addictiveness of processed foods to protect the food industry and to protect big pharma because big pharma, the sicker you are, the more money they make. Big pharma don't make money if you take care of yourself. Do you know that? They don't make any money off of you. I'm not saying there's no good people in big pharma. You need a medication, okay, but they make money when they sell their medications.
You think the makers of Wegovy, Ozempic, do you think for one minute they want you to be healthy? Those are diabetic drugs. You think they want to get rid of diabetes? That's why they don't talk about food. And the FDA, let them get away with it. Prove it. So guys, these foods, they have a long shelf life. When people are busy and families are on a budget, what do you think they do? Well, I got to feed them. They're lacking in nutritional value, high and unhealthy fats. The poofas, the polyunsaturated fatty acids, oils. There's oil in there. There's fat. But it is bad fat. Sugars and fat. They don't go good. Insulin goes crazy, right? Okay. Here's the study because now I gave you all the preamble. Associations between ultra processed food consumption and adverse brain health outcomes in the publication Neurology.
Now here's the findings I wrote them down. Four things. Cognitive decline. People that eat that, mainly that. The brain function cognitive down. Brain structure changes. It's not just cognitive. The brain changes. The structure of the brain. The increase, this is what the study said. Risk of dementia. Where have you heard that before? And number four, inflammation. It increases inflammation markers in the brain and oxidation. The double-edged sword. Inflammation, destructive. If it doesn't go away, oxidation, destructive. Premature aging of the brain. That's oxidation. Okay? Why are they so harmful again? The processed foods. Lack of nutrients. Guys, I'm telling you the nutritional value of those foods are almost nonexistent and they got no essential vitamins that your body needs. They try and fortify some of those foods, but they're not bioavailable vitamins.
You know what I mean? Especially I think of B12. I think of omega-3. They're devoid of that. It doesn't have the vitamins and the minerals and the antioxidants that you need. High, high sugar content. We know what that does. It increases insulin and insulin resistance, which is metabolic syndrome, which affects everything, guys. When you think about it, right? We talk about this every day, every day, every day. Insulin goes up. Cells become resistant to it. They're sick and tired of seeing insulin coming around. Insulin doesn't care. It has to come around because it can't allow sugar to stay in the bloodstream. It says, "Open up, open up cells, open up." And the cells go, "We hate you. We hate you. We hate you. Get away from me." And that leads to a cascade. Your triglycerides go up, your HDL goes down, your blood pressure goes up, your blood sugar goes up. You get belly fat. Your uric acid levels go up. Your vitamin D goes down. Your B12 goes down all part of metabolic syndrome. It makes you much more susceptible to heart disease to cancer.
And this is the one they're saying. They only looked at the brain and they said, "Yeah, Alzheimer's, dementia, cognitive. You know what, guys? When I was able to clean up a child, it was never easy. But if you could clean up a child, ADD, ADHD, kids on the spectrum of autism and if they would buy into it with the parents on eating right as much as they could, the difference was incredible. Teachers used to call me in my office. "Dr. Martin, I don't know you, but I love you. What do you do?" Okay. "You love me? Why?" "Well, you saw so- and-so. And the difference is astounding, Dr. Martin. It's astounding. Focus. Unreal. And what'd you do?" Well, I got their little face and I said, "Are you always in trouble?" "Yeah." "Do you like it? " "No." "You want to change that?" "Okay, let's do it together." The first thing I'd start with was breakfast. I said, "You need a foundation. Let's start with that. You like bacon?" "Yeah." I said, "well, you can have it every morning. You see that cereal you like? The frosted flakes? Ah no. No? That's why your brain's going crazy. Okay? See those drink boxes that your mommy gives you? Don't drink that no more." "No?" "No. Don't drink that no more. That's not good for your brain." "Yeah?"
Getting the memo? Kids are smart, by the way. Man, they're smart. First of all, they know when you're lying to them. And then you got that lack of nutrients, high sugar content. We know what that does. Bad fat. We know what that does from inflammation to oxidation. But you know the other thing that is mentioned in this article and I almost passed out the gut brain connection. They mentioned it. It messes up. It messes up the gut brain connection. They're admitting there's a connection between the gut and the brain and they get leaky gut with bad food. I was shocked. Are they listening to The Doctor Is In podcast? I don't know. Probably not. Although millions do.
Anyway, isn't that interesting, guys? Okay, what's tomorrow? It's Q&A. Always fun. It's popular. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't, but you guys are asking questions and we want that. We encourage it. So send in your questions to info@martinclinic.com. Don't be shy. Okay? Don't be shy. Love your questions. Okay, overwhelmed with studies. I love it. Okay. 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!