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 and we appreciate you guys very, very much and hope you're doing well and having a great start to your day. Okay, let's get going. Somebody asked me yesterday and just trying to remember who it was. They said, "You know what, Dr. Martin? You didn't answer my question." Guys, if that happened, I'm sorry. Well, Sharon is asking, "Doc, I have very low iron and really high ferritin." That can happen. That's usually because you've got fatty liver, low iron.You're probably anemic. Check your B12 levels and send them off to info@martinclinic.com. We'll have a look at those levels for you.
Okay, now let me get to some studies brand new. Okay. In the USA, this is in health.com. In the US, the average woman's waist size is 38.5 inches. Now, if you're above 35 in a woman and 40 in a man, you go right across at the belly button. 38 is average. What does that mean when you have abdominal obesity? Belly fat. It's one of the primary signs of metabolic syndrome. It's not the only sign, of course. You have your triglyceride, you have your HDL. Triglycerides are high. HDL is low. It's upside down. You have usually slightly above normal blood sugar, slightly above normal, doesn't have to be that high blood pressure, but those are all signs of metabolic syndrome. Now, I add a couple to my list. When I look at blood work, uric acid, I've talked about that a lot. It's a biomarker for metabolic syndrome and doesn't have to be associated with gout whatsoever because people think of uric acid, they think of gout, but it doesn't have to be. People have no symptoms, they have no gout, but they have high levels of uric acid. That's a sign of metabolic syndrome.
But anyway, the average waist size in the United States, think about this. It's 38.5 in women. Guys, that's incredible. And you know what my saying is sort of thing. All the tea in China is not going to pay for our disease care system, whether you're in Canada or the United States. Because we have disease care, we don't have healthcare. There's no talk of prevention. So little in our budget. In Canada or the United States is based on prevention. We can't even get food right, guys. But one of the greatest catastrophes of our time is metabolic syndrome because metabolic syndrome has to do with food. It's insulin and very specifically insulin resistance. And what does that do? Well, when you get insulin resistance, you start a cascade of problems metabolically. Metabolically is just how does your body use food as energy? And when that gets messed up, guys, when that gets messed up, it really affects your future because what happens is that metabolic syndrome, 93% of the population.
I remember when it came out the first time I ever read it, 2016, I think, on the numbers of metabolic syndrome. The first time I ever saw numbers, it was at 88% and it shocked the living life. I shouldn't say that because I was seeing it so much. I wrote a book about it, metabolic syndrome. And I've been talking about it in our 100th year anniversary of the Martin Clinic. We wrote a book called Serial Killers: Two Hormones That Want You Dead. Insulin. It's your friend until it's not. When you use insulin too much, your body develops a condition called insulin resistance and insulin resistance left unattended is going to lead to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, all the big chronic conditions. It's food, guys. Food. So here's a study. The average waist size in the US is 38.5 inches. Okay. You measure right at the belly button. This is the headline, which is above the 35 inch threshold that health experts use to define abdominal obesity. I mean, think of what's happening.
I used the illustration for years now. Pretend that in the '70s you took off for Mars pretend and you lived on Mars and then we come back in 2026, you would be shocked at the size of people. And what they're saying here is women, but in men is every bit as bad, but that's the sign of metabolic syndrome, guys. We're bigger. Kids are bigger. I don't mean taller. I mean wider. And what is around that abdomen is not subcutaneous fat. It's visceral fat. It's organ fat. It's this, which guys, even this is foreign to your body. That fat in around the organs creates a cascade. It's called a cytokine storm. The body sees it as a foreign invader. And right out of the gate, when that happens, your body produces inflammation because they say, "Well, that don't belong here. It's foreign. It's an invasion." So the body's immune system starts a cytokine storm which creates inflammation in the body.
It's silent, but numbers change because this is the problem with medicine today. It's a terrible problem, guys. I use this term all the time. You guys know this. I say it all the time. Medicine got hijacked by the labs. I talked about it yesterday, i.e. the thyroid. They've misdiagnosed the thyroid because they got hijacked by the labs. Oh, the labs are normal. Therefore, we don't look at anything. They're not really saying they don't have to say it's all in between your ears, but they miss out because they got hijacked by the labs. But let me add something to this right now. Generally, medicine doesn't look at the right numbers for prevention. Okay. What do I mean by that? Well, I teach you guys this almost daily. When you get your blood work and it's important, guys, if you can, get your blood work and you look at it too. Okay? Because your doctor's going to look at it, but your doctor's looking for different things. And unless they've been taught about metabolic syndrome, they're not looking for it. They're looking for diabetes.
What's the teaching on diabetes? You guys know this. Diabetes is the last thing to happen. What's the first thing to happen? Insulin resistance. Okay? So it's insulin. Resistance. And when you have insulin resistance, that is metabolic syndrome. Doctors don't look for metabolic syndrome. Generally, you might have a doctor that's up on his or her reading. They're studying this. They're sort of alternative medicine doctors or integrative medicine doctors and God bless them. But I feel like John the Baptist in the wilderness. Hello, you out there. I'm trying to get your attention. Doctors listen. Linda, you're not listening. You're looking for diabetes. You're looking at the wrong numbers of cholesterol. You're not looking at the right numbers. Unless triglycerides get flagged and even then triglycerides is food guys. It's food and it's a marker. You have to know what your triglycerides are and you need to know what your HDL numbers are. That's the teaching that can save your life.
And, you know, physician heal thyself. Okay? We learned that in school. Physician heal thyself. Start with you. Don't start with your patients. Start with you. Okay? But physicians, they're looking for love in all the wrong places. They've been so ingrained with bad numbers, guys. Ah, your total cholesterol, you're going to have a heart attack. It's drilled into them in medical school. What's your total cholesterol? What's your LDL cholesterol? And now they're into what is the particle size of the cholesterol? I call it getting into the weeds. I told that to someone the other day. Don't talk to me about that. It's weeds. What? The way they looked at me. What do you say, Dr. Martin? You in the weeds. Well, they said it's just confusion. Who cares what your particle size is of cholesterol? Since when is cholesterol bad? The only bad cholesterol is when your HDL isn't high enough. It's not the bad guy. Triglycerides on the other hand.
This is relatively new and I've been watching it a little bit and I want to do a teaching on it and it's called the triglyceride glucose index. It's sort of new, hot off the press. Okay? And it's measuring your triglycerides versus your glucose. Okay. Fasting triglycerides, fasting glucose levels. I think you multiply them and then divide by two. Okay? I like it. I'll tell you why I like it because they're looking at the right things. Finally, medicine. And I say it's a small percentage right now. They're finally acknowledging the importance of triglycerides and they're taking that measurement and they're taking the measurement of your fasting blood sugar, your glucose, and they're getting an index. And if it's above, I can't remember now exactly four point something, you're in trouble, but at least they're thinking some of them.
But guys, okay, back to the original observational article that I'm reading in health.com. It's talking about the abdominal obesity and it's changed. It's going up and up and up and up. And the article doesn't even tell you how dangerous it is to what I've been telling you it is because of metabolic syndrome. Okay, so, guys, you know better. So I emphasize this. I've emphasized this in our book, Sun, Steak and Steel. There's a chapter in the book. This is worth the price of the book as I give you details on how you as a layperson can look at your blood work. You don't need to have it interpreted by a physician because again, unfortunately for most of them, they're looking at the wrong numbers. They're not looking at the right numbers. And it's sad, but this is the way it is. So we got to sort of physician heal thyself. Well, you, patients, heal yourself, take care of yourself. It starts with you. Don't wait for medicine to catch up to what you already know. That's true prevention, guys. Okay? True prevention.
And numbers don't lie, guys. When you look at the right numbers, they're going to tell you a story. Like I used to tell my patients all the time. This is what I used to say. You know what the worst deception is? Self deception. You're only fooling yourself. Your numbers ain't good. Well, my doctor didn't say anything. I know, but they were looking at the wrong numbers. I want to know if you got metabolic syndrome. Are you part of the 93% of the population that's on the Titanic? Because guys, it's not just diabetes. And like I said, diabetes is the last thing to happen. It's never the first. 10 years before diabetes, 10 years before you hit the iceberg. Numbers change and if you know what to look for. See, guys, that's what I did in practice. I said, "This is real prevention and your numbers ain't good. So don't be deceived. It starts with you. Go home and change your diet," okay? Go home and change your diet because you're in trouble. Your body, it's going south and you want to fix it.
And the beautiful thing is the good news is amazing what happens when you take care of yourself. I say it all the time. You're fearfully and wonderfully made. That body you have, it has an enormous capacity to regenerate, an enormous capacity. You get a brand new body all the time. Your cells, you get new ones all the time. But if you don't change your habits, well, guess what? They're coming back in the same way. But if you change your habits, especially food, it's the thing you can control. Listen, you can walk across the street today and get hit by a bus and it might not even be your fault. I ain't talking about that. I'm talking about what you can't control. Everything you put in the mouth there is up to you and it starts with you and it's worth it. Isn't it? It's worth it because we're seeing in our society today and like I said at the top of the program, I said this, all the tea in China is not going to fix what's happening in our society.
Like this article on the abdominal fat in women, they're shocked, but the article didn't go into detail on what the ramifications are of that. And what's going to happen, it's already happening, but it's going to get worse is the amount of heart disease that we're going to see. Heart disease is still the number one killer in our society today. If cholesterol, okay, let me make a statement. If cholesterol was at the root of heart disease, we would have fixed it by now. They literally wanted to put statin drugs, cholesterol lowering medication in the water in the United Kingdom. Just add the drugs to the drinking water and I'm not kidding you. They're so cholesterol crazy. The world's gone stupid. And here's the proof of the pudding. Heart disease are worse than ever. We're not winning the war and it ain't smoking. Most people got the memo on smoking. They don't smoke because that used to be a big factor in heart disease.
Cancer worse than ever. And I can point, guys, I can point to the fat in the body, amongst other things. That's going to tell you because it's one of the signs of metabolic syndrome. And by the way, this is really important. You can be as skinny as a rake and have severe metabolic syndrome. You might not be able to see that visceral fat, but it's all around your organs. So being skinny, I don't have any belly fat, Dr. Martin. Yeah, but what are your triglycerides? What is your HDL? What is your blood pressure? What is your blood sugar? What is that? Because if it's anywhere even slightly above what it should be, you got metabolic syndrome and you're in deep doo-doo. So I don't know how many tens of thousands of patients that come in and I told them they had metabolic syndrome and the only thing they thought, well, the belly fat, but I said, "You just can't see your fat, but it's all around your organs." I didn't need an ultrasound to see that because I looked at their blood work. You got insulin resistance, my friend, and you got to fix that.
I got excited. No, guys, anyway, I see the articles like this and I like it because it's so telling. But again, you read the article and I was hoping they would talk about the importance of metabolic syndrome and they really didn't go into it too much. Just people are getting bigger. Okay. But that's only a part of the story. It's not all of it. Okay, we got a great week. What's Friday? I got to get you ready because it's Q&A. Always popular, always fun. And for someone that I forgot yesterday, was it Douglas? I can't remember now. I pull up my senior card, guys, five or six times a day, every day. Here's my senior card. That's why I forgot. It saves me. People will go, "Oh yeah, you're a senior. No wonder." Okay, guys, we love you. 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!