Transcript Of Today's Episode
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Dr. Martin: Good morning. We want to talk about the endocrine system. Now in the brain, but let's talk a little bit about the brain [00:00:30] for a second. And a lot of this stuff occurs in the gut and we've talked about that, that's your second brain. But for the sake of the brain, let's talk about two areas. That's all you have to remember, your hypothalamus and your hippocampus. Hypothalamus, hippocampus. Campus is easy, your memory center. Memory center of the brain. Hypothalamus, endocrine center [00:01:00] of the brain. So the endocrine system in the hypothalamus sent down to the pituitary, then off to your adrenals and your thyroid. We talked about the thyroid yesterday.
So the hypothalmus regulates your body temperature. It regulates your thirst, it regulates your weight. That's in the hypothalamus, not in the hippocampus. Your emotions, your sleep cycles, [00:01:30] your sex drive. We talked about that yesterday with thyroid, unintended consequences of the thyroid. Blood pressure, your heart rate, your fight-or-flight. What part of the brain? The hypothalamus. They send hormones, signals down to the pituitary then off to the organs, the thyroid, the adrenals, the fight-or-flight.
But what we're going to talk about this morning [00:02:00] is the constant drip of cortisol. So you know what cortisol is? Cortisol is the stress hormone, the fight-or-flight, the temporary, or at least should be, hormone. The world has changed. Nutritionally, it's changed. We've made the case on these podcasts, on these Facebook Lives. We've made the case. The world [00:02:30] has changed in terms of nutrition. Animal product has gone down, sugars have gone up. Vegetable oils have gone up a thousand percent. Seed oils, that has played a major, major effect on our bodies. And we talked about diet and we'll talk about it until the cows come home, and that is metabolic syndrome.
Food, insulin. The world's changed. Kids are to [00:03:00] a disease process because of the amount of sugar that we eat. So that's in one side, that affects everything in your body. But the other side is stress. We live in a different world compared to what we used to, the world has changed. From social media to the rapidity of the world. It seems to be going by so fast. And then the constant news [00:03:30] cycle. Somebody said to me the other day, "You know how to get rid of COVID?" And I said, "What?" "Turn off the TV, quit watching CNN." Okay, I never thought.
But really, and you guys know this that ... But I mean, there's more to it than that. But today the hypothalamus is being overworked. It's playing with our stress [00:04:00] levels. And if I come up behind you and scare you and it's dark and you turn around and kick me, or you run, that's normal. That's why we'd been given those organs. The hypothalamus, off to the adrenals and the adrenals say, "Punch or kick or run." The fight-or-flight. So now you understand that, that's a normal part of our life. [00:04:30] Someone's chasing you, you want to respond to that. It's normal.
But I'm talking today about the constant drip, drip, drip, drip of cortisol. That tap in your adrenals, coming from the hypothalamus in the brain, never gets turned off. That is a major issue in society today, big issue in society today. Why? [00:05:00] Why? Well, because we live in a different world, and a lot of people never understand that stress has a major effect on the body. And I'll just go over some of the areas that get affected. A major effect, cardiovascular, cardiovascular. A lot of people, all their testing is normal. Their cholesterol, doctors love [00:05:30] cholesterol. I don't, but doctors do. And they go to the hospital and their test for cholesterol are normal. And that happens 75% of the time, by the way. Blaming cholesterol for heart disease is like blaming the police because they're at the crime scene.
It's not cholesterol, but a lot of times it's cortisol. It's a hormone, but it's cortisol. It's [00:06:00] stress, that creates ... We talk about the three seeds of disease at Martin Clinic, constantly, constantly, constantly. Name me the disease, cause and effect, now I'll bring you back to the cause. Insulin, food, high-circulating insulin or insulin resistance, food, leaky gut is at the root, oxidation, rusting out of the cell. Those are the three key [00:06:30] components of every disease. One of them or two of them or three of them. And that creates inflammation in the body, sickness without a fever.
And then what cortisol does, cortisol adds fuel to the fire. It's like pouring gasoline on inflammation. This is why it's so dangerous. Your body is meant, like I said, [00:07:00] if you've got fear, it's temporary, your body handles that. But if it goes on constant drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, it's going to create a bon ... Like the fires in California. They talked about the climate, but there was actually a lot of arson going on, somebody was pouring gasoline there. And then you have a perfect storm, dry weather. Anyway, I don't want to get into it because it's going to be politics.
[00:07:30] But we live in Northern Ontario with a lot of forest here and our forest, it's not that we never get forest fires and we always have to be careful, but ordinarily because they manage the forest, they do a certain amount of cut. They do preventative burning, they know how to manage the forest here. It's a big part of our livelihood here in Northern Ontario, the forest industry. It's [00:08:00] less than it used to be, but it used to be huge, that and mining. But your body's not made for that constant drip, drip, drip of cortisol. So cortisol pours gasoline on the fire.
It can affect your heart. It can affect your blood pressure. I'll tell you, it's a huge, huge component of heart attacks today. I tell you when a man gets a heart attack, they're always looking for blocked vessels [00:08:30] and all that, but why did they have blocked vessels? It's not cholesterol. Now a lot of it can be diet and triglycerides, but the perfect storm is when you add constant drip of the stress hormone. Cardiovascular, it's one of the big reasons today. Insulin and then inflammation and then cortisol, it's one of the big reasons that 50%, [00:09:00] listen to what I'm saying, 50% of the population in North America, 50% have some form of heart disease. 50%. It's crazy. Used to be 10%.
In 1910, I was looking at this research the other day, in 1910, 10% of the population had some form of [00:09:30] heart disease. 50% today. The number one killer today still is heart attacks, not COVID, yes. And that stress hormone has a big effect on that. It makes it the perfect storm for the heart, cardiovascular. Another thing that it does, stress does, it creates arrhythmias. It elevates that pulse rate because of the fear factor. I think that was a show, wasn't it, one day, one time. The fear [00:10:00] factor, is that still as show today? I kind of like that, I think I'm going to adopt that, the fear factor.
You see, that constant drip is very hard on the heart, very hard on the muscles. A lot of people understand that, tension headaches. A lot of times, fear can attack the muscles, and fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is like an arthritis of the muscles, not the joints, of the muscles. And I always talked [00:10:30] about that. And one of the books back there, I don't know if you can see it on the screen here, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. I wrote one in French too, [foreign language 00:00:10:43], let me get it. That book there in Quebec, I wrote that book in French. I'm looking at the date, can't even remember, 1990 ... I forget what year I wrote that. Yeah, this is a reprint, [00:11:00] but the first one came out ... Well, this is the third edition.
We sold a lot of those books in French. And Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sold thousands and thousands of books and Fibromyalgia, the modern woman's curse, fibromyalgia. And I talked about the connection to the adrenal glands, and adrenal exhaustion and the constant drip of cortisol, and cortisol affects muscle. Constant pain, fibromyalgia. It's a syndrome. [00:11:30] One of the key factors is the constant drip of cortisol. I talked about that in the 1990s for heaven's sakes. It's a lot worse today, it's a lot worse. It can affect the muscles, it can affect the connective tissue of course.
Now we talk about rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune disease, which is an epidemic today, autoimmune is epidemic. Now a big factor is leaky gut, but what aggravates it is cortisol [00:12:00] adding gasoline to the fire. The lungs, inflammation, then cortisol makes the lungs worse, makes asthma worse. The thyroid, we talked about that yesterday. The problem with the thyroid, if you have cortisol, the constant drip, drip, drip, cortisol needs progesterone, it'll rob a woman of their progesterone. What does that do? It creates [00:12:30] estrogen dominance, and now you have [inaudible 00:12:33] hormones. A lot of that is the fear factor. It's involved, big time, big time.
The immune system, of course, of course, because you're not fighting your body ... Well, your immune system is it's ... I call cortisol a diversion. The body is thinking of fighting and running, fleeing or fighting. Well, it's not fighting [00:13:00] bacteria or viruses, it suppresses the immune system. Another factor in autoimmune of course, it affects the GI, think about that. What does cortisol do? It diverts blood. You ever seen a stream being diverted to go in a different direction? Well, cortisol, think about it, it's the fight-or-flight. It wants all the blood to be sent to your muscles, so then you can run or you can fight.
But over a period of time, that diversion ... You're [00:13:30] not thinking of digestion when you're fighting. Well, that can really affect the digestive track. What they're proving is cortisol has a major effect on the microbiome, stress has a major effect on the bacteria. We know what it does even ... You have more feel-good hormones in your gut, like serotonin, than you have in your brain. But if you go back, you see, I look at the root. I want to know what's going on, I'm a history guy. Give me the history of [00:14:00] you. I'm always asking questions, I want to know your history.
And so it can affect the gut. It affects the gut, it causes dysbiosis. Ladies, listen, recurring urinary tract infections. Why? Well, the gut, the gut and the bladder are connected. You don't have enough friendly bacteria, they got plus inflammation [00:14:30] plus stress, perfect storm for women in the bladder. And you get a dysbiosis, you get that yeast that travels. That's one of the problem with constant stress over a period of time, drip drip, drip.
And we all know what it does for sleep, cortisol works on the circadian rhythm. Cortisol goes up in the morning, wakes you up, elevates your blood sugar. That's why it had such an effect on [00:15:00] the endocrine system, we'll talk about that in a second. But the circadian rhythm is, your cortisol goes up and starts to level off. And by night-time, it's supposed to go way down. 70% of the population have trouble with sleep, 70%. society has never seen anything like it. History of medicine has never seen anything [00:15:30] like this. The tsunami of stress which affects sleep, it's a major issue. And I'm not even going to get into what's a lack of sleep does. It affects a lot of things, including especially the regeneration of the brain.
And by the way, I'm just saying this, by the way, if you take a sleeping pill, you are not recuperating, just remember that. You take a sleeping pill and go to sleep, [00:16:00] you're not recuperating, you're sedated. You're sedated, that's different. Your little glial cells, G-L-I-A-L, glial cells, they work the night shift. They go in and repair the brain. They clean up, but they don't work if you don't sleep. The glial cells work the night shift when you're sleeping. I mean, this is incredible stuff, guys.
And this is why it's [00:16:30] so key that you understand this. It's a major, major factor in society today. Food stress, major factor today. We live in a crazy world guys, and I hope you're not being affected by it, but I know a lot of people are. And this can come out of nowhere, by the way, this can come out of nowhere. "I don't feel stress." You might not feel it, but you're getting the effects of it. "I feel like I'm calm, [00:17:00] doc." Yeah, but inside your body, you're not. And that's why it's important to understand it. That's why I do this teaching, because it's a major, major issue in society today.
JAMA, the Journal of American Medical Association, agrees with me holistically. Let's look at the whole world and its problems, instead of focusing in only on a virus. What is it doing to our children? And how long is this going to last? [00:17:30] And you know what? I don't know, I have no idea, I have no idea. So it affects the thyroid gland, it affects your urinary tract. It affects the immune system. It affects your GI. It affects your skeletal, your muscles. It affects your brain obviously, cardiovascular. We talked about that. The pulmonary system, constant drip, drip, drip.
So that's our teaching today, and now I'm going to show you what to do [00:18:00] about it. And we'll look at too ... There's a fear factor causing the fatigue factor, not only the pain factor, but the fear factor causing the fatigue in the body. See, the body wasn't made to be like that all the time. A lot of people, they have a generalized fatigue, they're tired all the time. And that same book that I showed you, and it's back [00:18:30] there in English, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a lot of it is the fear factor, making it the fatigue factor.
Again, think about this. I use that a little ... It's hard to put those in words, but at least on Facebook Live, you can see me. What am I doing right now? Okay, do this with your hand for a minute and see what it does. Just either a clench [00:19:00] fist or, "Okay. That's all right for a few seconds." But it wears it out, it tires it out. This is one of the biggest factors, and what the hypothalamus does when it sends off the adrenal, when it sends signals to the adrenals to release cortisol, it fatigues the body because the body was never meant to be in the fight-or-flight for a long period of time and that fatigue.
And if that's been going [00:19:30] on in your life for a long time, listen, for me, I'm rarely fatigued. I'm thankful for that, by the way, I'm thankful. I'm rarely fatigued. Of course, I'm tired at night. And if I travel or whatever, I need a good ... If I miss a night's sleep, when I don't get a good night's sleep, that's when I am tired the next day. But I sleep very well generally. [00:20:00] And so, I know what it's like only for a day or so, but hello, ladies, especially you, with hormones, exhausted. Tired of being tired, is that you? One of the biggest factors in that, I'm trying to give you the background is what the adrenals do. Starts in the brain, the hypothalamus, and the [00:20:30] fear factor can become the fatigue factor. I think I'm going to write another book. I get these ideas just talking.
Now tomorrow we'll continue. Friday's Question and Answer, so you can ask ... So, okay, good to have you on with us this morning, we appreciate it. Sign up for the Martin Clinic Facebook group, that private Facebook group if you're not part of it, join them. If you don't get [00:21:00] our emails, The Doctor Is In emails, newsletters, sign up for those on our website. Don't ask me where and don't ask me how. Love you guys, talk to you soon.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening.