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. I want to talk to you about your kidneys. Now, if you I think went to probably nine out of 10 physicians and asked them [00:00:30] what could possibly be giving your kidneys problems? They would say too much protein. One of the reasons that they would say that is because having high levels of protein, for example, in the urine is certainly an indicator of problems with the kidneys. The problem is protein doesn't cause protein to be [00:01:00] excreted in the urine. It doesn't come from protein. It comes from sugars. Yeah.
Dr. Martin: Now remember this. In your bloodstream, four or five liters of blood. You should never have more than one teaspoon of sugar at any time in your blood. Your body does everything to take sugar out of your bloodstream. The reason is is because [00:01:30] sugar is very toxic. So sugar left inside of the bloodstream is a destructive force. The problem with your kidneys, think of your kidneys, you can't live without kidneys, you need kidney function. Kidneys are very susceptible. Kidney damage, very, very susceptible to sugar and especially [00:02:00] the hormone that gets rid of sugar. If you are carbolic and been eating sugar, drinking sugar, drinking juice, drinking soda, these things are very, very, very destructive to your kidneys.
Dr. Martin: I want to go over today how to protect your kidneys. Just remember this because your kidneys, much like your heart, much like [00:02:30] your brain, much like your eyes are very dependent on circulation. Now we have been talking about over the last little bit especially in our podcast and even some of the videos, some of the signs that you should look at outside the box for when it comes to your heart. We talked about inflammation, get your CRP, your inflammation [00:03:00] markers. We talked about fibrinogen. We talked about homocysteine, which is a breakdown of amino acids. If those levels are high, inflammation levels are high, those are serious concerns for your heart, but also serious concerns for your brain. Heart, brain, very much similar because [00:03:30] we're always going back to circulation.
Dr. Martin: Circulation is very, very important and for your kidneys it is essential. Anything that damages circulation, think about what sugar does. Sugar is very destructive to the endothelial level of your kidneys. Kidney function really is relationship to the circulation [00:04:00] going to your kidneys. The micro circulation that is going to your kidneys is affected by the amount of insulin that is secreted in your body. Remember, you are going to secrete an enormous amount of insulin when you eat carbohydrates. So it's not protein. Protein does not stress your kidneys. I know you get protein in your urine if your kidneys [00:04:30] are stressed, but it doesn't come from eating protein. It comes from eating sugar, crappy carbohydrates. They are very, very, very hard on your kidneys.
Dr. Martin: Let me just talk about a couple of things with kidney function and what we should look for. Listen, when your insulin is high, insulin has a job to do. Insulin must, [00:05:00] must, must take sugar out of your bloodstream, and then it stores it. It sends your sugars and stores them in your liver, in your muscles, and in fat cells. It'll make the amount of fat cells [inaudible 00:05:18]. You might be skinny and still have a lot of fat around your liver. You wouldn't know it. Most people don't know that they have fatty liver starting or whatever. But what's significant [00:05:30] is stress on the kidneys that insulin creates.
Dr. Martin: What happens? When you have high levels of insulin, what we call at the Martin Clinic high circulating insulin, there are several things that happen at the kidney level. One of them is the microcirculation. What happens? You have within your blood vessels going into the kidneys called your endothelium. It's a little, little thin microscopic [00:06:00] layer along your blood vessels. When your insulin is high, it starts to damage it. Think of endothelium like Teflon. Okay, so blood flows there. Nice and slippery Teflon. The problem is when your sugars are high or your insulin is high, it starts to get endothelial dysfunction. Now those blood vessels become sticky, [00:06:30] and you need a lot more blood. You need a lot more pressure to push that blood inside the kidney. Well, where do you get ... one of the biggest things is high blood pressure.
Dr. Martin: When you have trouble with blood pressure, oftentimes it comes from endothelial dysfunction. Because of the high circulating insulin, because of the sugar in the diet, so it's not protein, it's sugar. [00:07:00] Here's another thing that happens. So you get endothelial dysfunction. It affects the Teflon layer and your blood becomes thicker. It's stickier. It starts to damage the blood vessel. Another thing that happens along the blood vessel is inflammation. Inflammation doesn't come out of nowhere. Inflammation, which a lot of doctors [00:07:30] would agree, it's at the root of a lot of disease, but it really isn't the cause. Inflammation is an effect. It's an effect of high circulating insulin or leaky gut even where you get yeast or fungus. That can have a major effect on the kidneys, and where you get oxidative damage, where you get free radical damage due to chemicals.
Dr. Martin: Again, due to glycation, which is the effect [00:08:00] of sugar that it has. It ages the body, it ages your blood vessels. Your blood vessels are not as pliable. Remember kidney is circulation, guys. It's very important that you understand that. Now high circulating insulin will also cause damage to the kidney, and now the kidney does a couple of things. One, it excretes a lot of magnesium. So think of what magnesium is. Magnesium makes the [00:08:30] blood vessels relax. Think of the word relax. Again, blood supply when your insulin is high, your kidneys secrete an extra amount of magnesium. This creates havoc in the body because magnesium is an important mineral. Secondly, you secrete a lot of chromium, and chromium is an important mineral for [00:09:00] diabetes. You secrete an extra amount of vitamin C, so vitamin C leaves your body much quicker. The fourth one is vitamin D. Vitamin D is secreted a much more rapidly. You're not holding onto it as much. These create deficiencies, so that you can see how important kidney function is. So it's really important.
Dr. Martin: Your [00:09:30] kidneys, you want to protect your kidneys. How do you protect your kidneys? By eating a low carb diet. If you do nothing else to protect your kidneys, not protein, so steak doesn't affect your kidneys. It only makes your kidneys better. So when you hear, "Oh, you're eating too much protein," it's the opposite. You're not eating enough protein. You're eating too many carbohydrates. Think about [00:10:00] this for a minute. Why do you think that kidney problems are in epidemic proportions today? It's not protein, guys. It is sugar. It's insulin. Insulin the hormone out of your pancreas, hyperinsulinemia, or what we call high circulating insulin has a big effect on your kidneys. What do you do? [00:10:30] What do you do? Think of circulation. Think of micro circulation. Make sure you get your insulin down. Change your diet. If nothing else, take the sugar out of your diet as much as possible. Try and keep sugar down.
Dr. Martin: The other thing that affects your kidneys is uric acid. Uric acid is a byproduct of fructose. Here we go again. Good, bad and ugly sugars. So [00:11:00] cut your sugars down. If you have any problem with kidneys, you must, must, must get your insulin down. Secondly, kidneys are like Niagara falls. Think about it because, "Doc, I'm going to pee more often if I drink more water." I know you're going to pee more often, but you must flush those toxins out of your kidney. As your kidney function goes down and the micro [00:11:30] circulation is affected, it's very important to drink more water. You need to drink at least two liters, and for my American friends, 64 ounces of water a day.
Dr. Martin: Now I know there's a lot of stuff on the internet about water and you don't need water. Nothing else will flush your kidneys except water. Only water. Only water is water. You can drink coffee. I don't care. [00:12:00] But water is water, and don't drink any fruit juices. If you have trouble with kidneys, I would never, never even have a fruit smoothie. Don't do that. It's too much. You will need too much insulin and high circulating insulin will damage your kidneys. Get your vitamin D levels up. Get your vitamin C levels up. I like pine bark because what it [00:12:30] does for the blood vessels surrounding the kidneys and the microcirculation. I really find that it's very, very effective, but the number one thing you can do is change your diet to protect your kidneys. Okay. Thanks for watching.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin Jr. and Sr. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening.