Transcript Of Today's Episode
Brandi: -an anonymous person asking if you have any recommendations to curb sugar cravings?
Dr.Martin Jr.: I'll let you start with this, dad, because you talk about this all the time.
Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah, the best recommendation and the one that works the best is to... Cravings usually... The food industry is unbelievable how they have hooked us on [00:00:30] crappy carbs, crappy oils and crappy sugar, right? Because those foods have very little nutritional value, lots of calories, but very little nutritional value, you're being set up to crave foods.
I actually just wrote this in my book that, and I mentioned it [00:01:00] the other day on live is that there was a study... I remember actually watching this. You probably could find it on YouTube somewhere where this doctor was showing MRI visuals of cocaine taking a certain route up to your brain. As soon as you got a little bit of cocaine, it built the pathway, straight up to your feel good centers in the brain. Once that pathway was built, [00:01:30] you wanted another fix.
They showed what sugar does on an MRI and it does the exact same thing as cocaine. That's how powerful it is. It's incredible. Join the cast of millions that have cravings. I found, for me, the best way is to substitute your food. [00:02:00] If you can... That's why I love the reset or anything like it because what it does is it changes fuels. You have a nutrient dense fuel that actually fills your cells with the void they're looking for.
It can be very effective for a lot of people. Usually by the second week, no more cravings. They don't crave the sugar. They don't crave the crappy carbohydrates. The reason is because you're [00:02:30] making a substitution, you're substituting the garbage with nutrient dense foods, you're changing fuels, and your cells are not starving for nutrients.
Then there's all sorts of hormonal things too. Obviously, one of the signs that you have high levels of cortisol is that you have cravings for sugar or salt. It can be either one of them or both. A lot of people [00:03:00] that are exhausted often crave sugar and salts. The way to fix it though, I really like our cortisol formula because it's formulated to really level out cortisol for the adrenals. Then, try and change the diet. It's amazing what happens when you start replacing crap with healthy, nutrient dense foods.
Dr.Martin Jr.: [00:03:30] Yeah, you give a very good explanation there. But two things that usually I would mention is along the lines of what you said. First thing is, there's a biochemical component to the physiology of sugar. Meaning, as you mentioned, it's highly addictive, no question. Sugar [00:04:00] is highly addictive. It seems to do something, it seems to wire our brains a little differently, it seems to do something to our brain so there's an actual addiction component to it for a lot of people. Some people, they are addicted to sugar. That's the first aspect.
The second aspect is, as you mentioned, which is more physiological. Meaning, the problem is when somebody craves sugar and they eat sugar, then their [00:04:30] blood sugar levels... When you eat sugar, it's important to understand, your blood sugar levels go up pretty quickly. That's just what happens, right? We talked about this before, but if you were to drain all your blood in your body, and you were able to take all the sugar in your blood right now. If the average person watching this right now, if we were to drain their blood and take the amount of sugar in their blood right now, it's anywhere between a quarter of a teaspoon to a teaspoon. That's all you need. So, [00:05:00] it isn't much. The body needs very little glucose in your blood right now to function properly. Anything above that, or anything below that could be dangerous.
If you eat sugar right now, your blood sugar levels shoot straight up. Then as I mentioned, you don't need it. So, you have to do something with it. If you can't burn it off as energy right away, then it immediately has to be removed from your blood, and then it goes into storage very quickly, and that's what happens.
But here's the thing, when your blood sugar level shoot straight up, and [00:05:30] your body reacts, for every action, there's an equal reaction. If it goes up quickly, the body has to bring it down quickly. It can't take a long time to do it because it's deadly if it's above a certain amount. Your sugar levels go up quickly, and then your insulin gets secreted fast. Then, a lot of insulin, sugar levels go down.
But there's like a hunger line. Just imagine for example, this is a hunger line. Your sugar levels go up above it, then your body [00:06:00] brings it down. Once it goes down below that thing, you're hungry again. A person that consumes sugar is generally hungry a lot throughout the day. Because the body when it's hungry, right or wrong, perceives that it needs energy, or it craves that, guess what your body is going to crave again very quickly, which is the sugar aspect of things. That's what happens, a lot of times there and then as my dad mentioned then, there's cortisol. The more stressed [00:06:30] the person is, cortisol raises blood sugar levels, blood sugar levels go up, they dip, you're hungry, it's just up and down. It's a yo-yo effect.
That's why we talk a lot about low carb because it stabilizes that. We talk a lot about fasting. Fasting is a great way, again, to kick that sugar habit. It works for a lot of people. But that's a good question because of... It's a real problem. I know the food industry laughs at it. You'll see scientists [00:07:00] laugh at it. But usually if you read there, in the bottom part of our study what their disclaimers are, or they're usually working are in the pocket of some industry that's being paid somehow by sugar. That's how corrupt it is. But that's a great question. All right, Brandy.
Brandi: Katherine is asking how to test for fatty liver.
Dr.Martin Jr.: How to test for fatty liver? [00:07:30] Well, there are very specific tests that people can get done. There are imaging tests that people can get done. I would also argue that if a person has a problem with insulin and a lot of their biomarkers such as high triglycerides, high... The bad metabolic markers like high triglycerides, stuff like that, high inflammation, then I would argue they have fatty liver even if the testing doesn't show it. [00:08:00] Because, it's a funny thing. Is there ever an amount of fat on a liver that's good? The answer is no.
If the body is in the process of putting fat on the liver, then in my opinion, there's a lot of tests that can give us an indication if our liver actually has fat or if it's in trouble coming. We talk a lot about those metabolic markers. My dad talks about these a lot. What's the triglyceride HDL ratio? [00:08:30] What's your fasting insulin? What's your inflammation markers? Because those kind of things indicate fatty liver.
You know what's fascinating, I read a paper from this one doctor, talking about the future of heart disease. He envisions that heart disease will be treated in the future, not by cardiologists, but by liver specialists. Which is fascinating because early on in the process of every heart disease, there's a problem that's going on in the liver. [00:09:00] If you go even further back, the problem has to do with dietary, usually. Dad, do you want to add anything to that?
Dr. Martin Sr.: Well, sometimes your liver enzymes will be elevated. We used to do a test in the office that often would tell us their bilirubin or urobilinogen, that's oftentimes was early sign of fatty liver. But I agree 100% because the liver... Look, if you got belly fat, [00:09:30] you can assume you've got visceral fat and visceral fat is organ fat. The first place that fat is stored is in the liver.
I always tell people, fatty liver, and by the way, what do they say now, 70% of the population has fatty liver? A lot of integrative doctors [00:10:00] are saying well, it's even higher than that. But it's the curse, really, that we talk about is Tony Jr. was saying because of the liver itself is the Costco parking lot. It's the suitcase. I love that analogy because that suitcase gets full very quick and that can be very silent.
Even the triglycerides, that's usually one of the first things that happened. But a lot of people are not even [00:10:30] getting that test done, unless they get it done once a year, but you can pretty well tell if you... Yet, you can be skinny and have fatty liver.-
Dr.Martin Jr: I think that's one of the things that people don't understand is that fatty liver because it's internal, it's visceral fat, you don't see it. Some people when they get enough liver fat, that's where they get that distended belly, beer belly thing from or they might [00:11:00] actually start to see a change in the coloration of their skin or their face, stuff like that. But the bottom line is, my dad and I, we talk about this a lot when we're off air is, we like to reverse engineer how a lot of these diseases happen. We always talk about that three seeds of disease, which is, you know, high circulating insulin, free radical damage and leaky gut, and then that leads to inflammation. That inflammation leads to a lot of diseases.
But [00:11:30] if we were to put one step between inflammation and a lot of these diseases, it would be liver fat or fatty liver disease. A lot of times what happens if you think of the impact on the brain but especially cardio wise, like the heart, a lot of these things, from inflammation to disease, there's some kind of liver fat in there, which is why we talk a lot about liver fat, because again, that is one step closer to [00:12:00] disease for a lot of people.
Liver fat indicates there's a metabolic issue going on to the point that the body now is putting and packing fat on the liver. Again, now we could talk about reversing fatty liver. The good thing is with reversing fatty liver, it's very straightforward. You have to deplete the liver of the fat that's stored on it, you have to deplete the liver of the glycogen. Meaning, low carb.
If you could do a metabolic reset type [00:12:30] of thing that my dad is writing about and talks about and we talk about a lot in our Facebook group, then that's the best way. Low carb, ketogenic, the best way. There's no question. That's how you deplete the liver very quickly of that fat that's around it. That's how you bring your triglycerides and HDL ratio in order. That's how you do it. That's what we would say for that.
Dr. Martin Sr.: One thing too, and Brandy, I don't know if you see it faster than [00:13:00] I would, but we did a podcast, I think it was called Fructoholism. That was in children. You see, one of the worst sugars is high fructose corn syrup. Most kids, it's not that even they eat that high fructose corn syrup, is that they drink it. Either in drink boxes or fruit drinks [00:13:30] or Gatorade or whatever kids are drinking.
What happens is that goes directly to the liver. It's like alcohol, alcohol don't pass go, it'll go directly to your liver. But this is non-alcoholic fatty liver and that even children because of the amount... What was it the statistic? I think the consumption of fructose is up 300% in [00:14:00] the last 20 years. Your liver was never made for that, for that kind of an onslaught.
These children, what is going to happen down the road unless we turn the ship around, I'll tell you, that liver is such a primary organ.
Dr.Martin Jr: Yeah, and that's why we do talk about it so much. All right, go ahead, Brandy.
Brandi: C. Ham would like to know [00:14:30] if you can chat about hot flashes and night sweats in post menopause.
Dr. Martin Sr.: Hormones.
Dr.Martin Jr: Yeah, the hormones. I love how people refer to that in the Facebook group. It's funny. A couple of things. When somebody is postmenopausal, and they're still getting night sweats, and they're still getting... Is it night sweats and hot flashes, Brandy? Yeah. If that's the case, then, again, [00:15:00] you have to look at it strictly from a hormonal standpoint. That is a problem with estrogen dominance.
Now, people are always like, "Well wait a second, I went through menopause. How can I have too much estrogen? Don't I have too little estrogen?" The answer is very straightforward. When we say estrogen dominance, it has to do with the relationship it has to progesterone. You can have very little estrogen, but if you have even less progesterone, [00:15:30] then you have an estrogen dominance, it's just the ratio of one to the other.
A lot of women, postmenopausal, still have a lot of symptoms of estrogen dominance. That's usually the place to start. Usually, you have to fix that estrogen dominance because that's what's causing the symptoms; hot flashes, night sweats, all those kind of things, that's an indication of an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone. That has to be [00:16:00] corrected. That's the number one place to start for that. I don't know if you have anything else add to that, dad.
Dr. Martin Sr.: Well that's why we love our menopausal formula, even our hormonal formula with them, it levels out your estrogen. There's a huge connection again with food, and a lot of women, postmenopausal or even menopausal women find that one day watch their sugar content, you know where [00:16:30] your hormones are created, the vast majority are created within the liver, and cholesterol is important to transport those hormones. You want to balance out your diet, lower your inflammation markers in the body. It's amazing how that can really be beneficial. Food is a big, big thing too. When you clean up the diet, [00:17:00] it really helps.
Dr.Martin Jr: All right, go ahead, Brandy.
Brandi: Rita says, "My husband can't take supplements, just fish oil. In the past he would get nosebleeds. Is that normal?"
Dr. Martin Sr.: He's weird, Rita.
Dr.Martin Jr: Yeah. He can't take any supplements?
Brandi: Just fish oil.
Dr.Martin Jr: That's interesting. Boy, he gets [00:17:30] nosebleeds from taking supplements, I would think that has to be coincidental. I can't think of any reason why a person would be unable... If you look at what's in a supplement, there are so many different nutrients. Realistically, whenever a person says they can't take supplements, it's like, "Well, how do you handle digesting a lot of the foods then?" Because at the very basic building blocks of a lot of these supplements, they come from food, they come from plants, [00:18:00] they come from... That's where they come from.
It's one of those things that, it's like a nosebleed. That's interesting, now-
Dr. Martin Sr.: Yet, he can take fish oil, right?
Dr.Martin Jr: Yeah, and that's what I'm saying, and they're all different-
Dr. Martin Sr.: That's usually one... For some people that's a harder one to take-
Dr.Martin Jr: Yeah, because they have to actually break down the fat. If they're taking a fish oil, at least to a certain point they have to be able to break down fat. That's why a lot of people take fish oil with food. Ours, DHA, [00:18:30] most people have no issue with it, they don't have any of that fishy taste or nothing. They don't burp it up it just because it's a high quality one. What's the question specifically? They can't take supplements, or what do they want to know?
Brandi: They just want to know if that's normal that he gets nosebleeds.
Dr.Martin Jr: No, that's not normal.
Dr. Martin Sr.: I've never heard that.
Dr.Martin Jr: No, neither have I.
Dr. Martin Sr.: I can't think of 46 years.
Dr.Martin Jr: No, I agree. I can't even think of that consistently taking, like take [00:19:00] a supplement, get a nosebleed. It's not normal. I can't think of why that would happen. Again, there's so many different aspects to supplements. You think of all the nutrients. If he takes a B12, same thing. If he takes a-
Dr.Martin Sr: Or a liquid vitamin D, Rita? I'm asking questions, still, Brandy. Maybe you could ask her. But if he takes a liquid vitamin D for example with the vitamin K, would he still got a nosebleed?
Dr.Martin Jr: [00:19:30] Yeah, those are the kind of questions I would like, to just assess that further. There'll be a lot of questions I would have just to get a better handle on that. But, listen-
Dr. Martin Sr.: But that's not no typical at all, at all. Boy, I would have bled out a long time.
Dr.Martin Jr: Yeah, same, I'd be dead every morning. If you look at the supplements I take, I would need a blood transfusion every day. All right, go ahead, Brandy.
Brandi: Rita is one of our top [00:20:00] fans. So, she knows how to reach out to us if she wants to follow up with that question. Laurie would like to know if you can take different supplements together?
Dr.Martin Jr: Yeah. Laurie, it's a good question. Just as we alluded to, I take... Like I said, I put this in the Facebook group a while ago because somebody asked that question. I set the Guinness Book of World Records every meal for the amount of supplements I take at one time. A lot of the supplements we [00:20:30] created were for what we saw in our clinic, but in all honesty, a lot of them is for selfish reasons, we've made them for ourselves, or we've made them for... My mum's always the guinea pig a lot of times. But, that's what we do.
I take almost every one of our supplements. I do every meal. I take handfuls, and there's no problem. Now, again, some people do better taking them with meals, [00:21:00] some people do better spreading them out. There's a lot of different ways you can take it. I take a lot of them at the same time. If I'm fasting in the morning, and I usually fast in the morning, six, seven days a week. Then I usually start taking my supplements at lunchtime, is usually what I'll do. I'll make sure I get them in there at lunch.
Then if I'm taking digestive enzymes, and I'm only going to take them once a day, usually I'll take them with every meal. But if I'm only to do one meal, then I'll take him with supper because that tends to be my bigger meal. [00:21:30] That's how it works. But yes, there's no problem taking it together because if you think of what's in a... Look what's in a steak, for example, steak is superfood. It's loaded with nutrients, they got all those nutrients inside of them. Food just comes packaged with a bunch of nutrients, taking a bunch of supplements is kind of the same thing. I wouldn't worry too much about that.
Dr. Martin Sr.: My little tip is I take vitamin P with peanut butter. [00:22:00] Just an excuse to hop on. Okay.
Tony Jr.: All right. Go ahead, Brandy.
Brandi: Wendy would like to know if you have any recommendations for Parkinson's?
Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Well, first of all Parkinson's, I think we did a podcast on this quite a while back, but we talked about the link between leaky gut and Parkinson's. I always say Parkinson's is not really classified as... It's more of a neurodegenerative [00:22:30] disease. But, I'm not sure that it's not autoimmune. I would classify it more as an autoimmune disease. I've always said that autoimmune is leaky gut. I've never seen a case of autoimmune from rheumatoid arthritis to Crohn's to ulcerative colitis to Sjogrens, to, you name it. Always, always leaky gut.
One of the major findings [00:23:00] that Tony Jr. and I talked about in that podcast was that on autopsy with Parkinson's, they always found a major yeast infection in the brain. How did that yeast get there? So, leaky gut, leaky brain, we talked about that. That connection between the gut and the brain, how yeast got into the brain.
Our protocol and Tony Jr. might add to it, but I always start with the gut [00:23:30] with Parkinson's, because I find if... I always looked... Whenever I had a Parkinson's patient, I do the reverse engineering, go back to their history and usually there was antibiotic use or whatever, created a fungus, got into the brain. Try and fix that. Neuro degeneration, I'm a very big guy on high DHA oil because the brain and DHA... [00:24:00] Well, your brain is made up of DHA.
That oil, that specific omega-3 is very, very important fatty acid. Very big on that. We are big on Nembutal. Nembutal, heart and brain, even. Because Nembutal crosses the blood-brain barrier, pine bark extract that's very good for the brain. I'm very big on don't feed the bears, don't feed yeast. You got to change your diet.
It's hard because, [00:24:30] Parkinson's... Usually, when you find it, it's well advanced. If you can get it in the early stages, and when there are hardly any symptoms at all, is when these people do the best. Generally, that's the protocol and I often found they were deficient in magnesium, deficient in vitamin D. Again, all things related to the brain.
I think, [00:25:00] didn't we do, Tony Jr. a podcast plus, well, all our brain stuff, right?
Dr.Martin Jr: Yeah, we have that age proof your brain video that we did, and I would definitely recommend watching that video. But, just like I said, if you look at how the brain goes bad or how the spinal system goes bad, we always tie it back again to those three seeds of disease. [00:25:30] For a majority of people, I'll talk about Alzheimer's quickly. Most people with Alzheimer's, if I were to look at those three seeds, more than 50% of them, it's because of high circuiting insulin. They got diabetes of the brain. The brain gets messed up. The ability of the glucose uptake in the brain cells become a problem. The brain is like a type three diabetes, we call it.
You look at that; brain health and metabolic health in terms of that, very important. [00:26:00] You always want to make sure that that's fixed. If a person with Parkinson's, we would recommend absolutely assuming that they have a high circulating insulin problem, and I would eat accordingly. That's the first thing. The second seed that my dad talked about, which is leaky gut syndrome, at one point, we used to get laughed at, because we always said that there's bacteria in the brain. People used to laugh at us, and doctors used to think we were crazy, because the brain is sterile, but guess what? [00:26:30] We were right. Now, even at Harvard, they have what they call the brain Microbiome Project, because they're identifying all this bacteria that naturally lives in the brain that you need, just like the rest of our body. Your brain has its own microbiome. That's important.
How does that get there? For example, like my dad said, they found a bunch of Candida in Parkinson's brain. Well, how does that get there? Well, that gets there from the gut. The stomach doesn't kill it. The gallbladder doesn't [00:27:00] do its job, it gets into the bowels, then you have leaky gut, it gets into your blood, then it gets across that blood-brain barrier, which interesting enough, probiotics and your microbiome make sure that that barrier is strong.
But anyways, it ends up in your brain. You got to address leaky gut as a massive issue as well. Then the third thing, which you can't overlook as well, is the third seed, which is free radical damage. Some people based on [00:27:30] a whole whack of factors, their brain just got beat up by free radicals, and now you're seeing oxidative damage in the brain, and that has to be corrected as well, and that that needs to be fixed. That's why we talk about stuff like pine bark extract, we love it. It's loaded with OPCs, it's just tremendous. As my dad mentioned, it crosses that blood-brain barrier, so it's fantastic.
But from a nutritional standpoint, cut out sugar for sure, eat low carb for sure. Fix the gut, [00:28:00] and then address the free radical issue, and then there are other nutrients on top of that. My dad mentioned B12, direct correlation between B12 and brain health, vitamin D, same thing. Also, magnesium as you mentioned, same thing, and then high DHA, no question, and then curcumin and DHA combine super well for brain health. We always mention that.
But I would strongly suggest watching that age proof your brain training, because even though we talk... Well, we talk [00:28:30] a lot of brain issues in there. That's where I would go for that.