444. More Dangers Of High Cortisol

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. Hope you're having a great day. We're going to talk this morning, part two of drip, drip, drip, cortisol. Okay? So we're going to focus in on that [00:00:30] this morning, finish off what we were talking about yesterday. Just a quick recap, we talked about that these things start in the brain.

Now stress can come in different ways, okay? So when I talk about stress, it can be relational, and that's probably the number one thing, family dynamics, past, worry about the future. These are all things that can stress [00:01:00] and sometimes you don't realize it and you can have the major symptoms of stress. We talked about this yesterday, but one of the biggest things is fatigue. If you're fatigued, okay? And especially if you look at what chronic fatigue is and fibromyalgia, these are disorders and they were new. Think about it.

You never heard of chronic [00:01:30] fatigue syndrome until the 1980s, and then it seemed like women were dropping like flies. They had to even name a disorder. Chronic fatigue started with the yuppie flu, they called it. They also named it Epstein-Barr virus because of 50% of the people that had it, had Epstein-Barr. But it was never really the virus. Because think [00:02:00] about this for a minute.

It's like the herpes virus. You get the chicken pox as a kid, you got that virus and what it does, it goes to bed. It has a snooze. It lays dormant. And it's not until the body either through stress where you can get herpes zoster. What is herpes zoster? Shingles? What happened? It's the immune cell.

That very virus that was there [00:02:30] all along, that was asleep gets activated. Cold sores. That's a herpes. It gets activated. Stress. It's always a major factor. When I was writing about chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia in the late '80s, I think I was the first guy. Now, maybe I wasn't, but I think I was that talked about the link to cortisol.

[00:03:00] And years later, I wrote another book, Two Hormones That Want You Dead, Serial Killers. One of them is food, insulin, and the other one is cortisol. I should write another book on the three serial killers, insulin, cortisol, and estrogen, because that's a growth hormone. Cortisol is adding fuel to the fire, and this is why, "Oh, I got shingles. [00:03:30] It came out of nowhere." Yeah, but stress will suppress the immune system.

Because if you think about it, when you're in the fight or flight mode, your body is not thinking about fighting an infection, it's thinking about fighting, maybe another person. Fight or flight. So it's a distraction to the body. We talked about it yesterday, but just coming back to chronic fatigue, [00:04:00] like they called that Epstein-Barr. Yeah, but everybody has the Epstein-Barr virus. Your body is made to live with viruses. If your immune system is good, and this is why I've mentioned this so many times in the last several months about COVID. The world is focused in on the virus.

I'm more focused in on your immune system. I want your immune system to be strong. And so stress can have a major [00:04:30] effect. We talked about it yesterday, what it does to the cardiovascular system. I just want to spend another few minutes on the digestive track and why so many people have digestive issues. Stress has a big effect on that. If you go into medical school, they'll be the first ones to tell you that stress related ulcers like peptic ulcers [00:05:00] are often stress induced.

What does stress do? It makes those gastric juices. It can burn a hole in your stomach, develop an ulcer. But the other thing it does, so it can give you GERDs. It can be an accelerator. I usually find with GERDs. The acid reflux like one of the problems, it's a sign of insulin, but it can be you add insulin, bad eating and [00:05:30] cortisol, now you have a perfect storm for acid reflux. But it also in the gut does three things.

It creates a diversion in the gut, and then you get that overgrowth of bacteria. You get an overgrowth of yeast. That is why it's so important that you understand what stressed does, because stress is adding fuel to the fire. People take an antibiotic, they kill the friendly bacteria, [00:06:00] they're stressed, and now they have an overgrowth of yeast. And stress promotes that overgrowth.

There's a condition in medicine, not even well-recognized, although it should be called SIBO, S-I-B-O. Well, I call it S-I-F-O C, SIFO not SIBO because I'm not so concerned about a bacteria. I'm not saying the bacteria is not there. Ladies, [00:06:30] in your urinary tract. I'm not saying that bacteria isn't in the urinary tract, but that's not the big issue. The big issue is yeast in the urinary tract. It comes from the gut. It comes from an overgrowth. And in women that get urinary tract infections have a yeast infection. 100% interstitial cystitis.

It is yeast. It's candida [00:07:00] albicans and stress has a play in this. So getting back to chronic fatigue, this is what I... You know how I got to this? Questionnaire, questionnaire. I'm a history guy. What's going on? And these were women 95 to 99% women who were... You give something to a woman, she'll get it done. I married a woman [00:07:30] like that.

They never stop. Go, go, go. And then you add stress. And like I said, it doesn't have to be... It can be stress from past, worried about the future, finances, family dynamics, children, hormones. That can give you stress. Your body is out of balance. The environment can stress you. The environment can [00:08:00] stress you. We live in a toxic soup today and good luck getting away from it.

I don't worry too much about the toxic soup I live in. I'm trying to figure out where can I go. Costa Rica, Barbados? Probably not. So we live in a toxic soup. So I'm all for the environment. I am. But are you going to stop living until the environment is perfect. Good luck [00:08:30] with that. Over a hundred thousand chemicals have been created since World War Two. And the vast majority of them are in their homes. You really can't get away from it. "Doc, I eat everything organic and I have... Everything is..." Well, what do you do? Live in a bubble?

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm not saying don't eat organic. I'm not saying that. People criticize me from drinking out of a plastic [00:09:00] bottle. I like to measure my two liters of water a day. I like spring mater and you know what people criticize me for that. I get it. I'm not a purist, I'm a realist. I just want people to start making changes in their homes as much as they can. It's not perfect because you can't get perfection on this planet. It's not going to happen.

Plastic is in the oceans. [00:09:30] Plastic is in the air. Look, I don't think we're ever going to clean it up totally. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try, I'm just telling you the... What are you going to do for yourself in the meantime? Protect yourself every way you can. So go back 30 years more. When I was talking about chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, I talked about stress. I talked about the adrenal glands and nobody else was doing it. They were looking for a virus.

I said, " [00:10:00] Nah, it ain't no virus." Now a virus might've got activated, but why? This was me. That's the way I think, cause and effect. Cause and effect. And the gut gets changed. So one of the biggest things in the gut, you get leaky gut. Why is that? Not only does it promote because it's a diversion, but the mucosa, the lining of your gut gets changed because of blood supply. Stress [00:10:30] diverts the blood supply and it changes the microbiome.

This is why stress... Anxiety. When you get true anxiety, it can lead to depression. So pain, anxiety, depression, these are common. Tired of being tired. Well, you got to look at these things. You have to look at it. And a lot of people don't realize because they think they're calm, but they don't realize how their body is reacting to cortisol. I'm telling [00:11:00] you, it's made... Even though I specialized in the '80s and '90s in chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, the modern woman's curse. Boy, that's an old book.

You should see the picture of me on that book, on the cover. I did another one called Energy Robbers and the Fatigue Cure, happened to be a major best seller. And I talked about again, the cortisol, how it drains [00:11:30] the living life out of you. Because one of the things it does, and we talked about it yesterday is it creates insomnia.

It affects your sleep and sleep is so important for your regeneration. We talked about the glial cells. They work the night shift. What if you don't sleep at night? Ooh. And I'll repeat this. If you're taking a sleeping pill, you're not sleeping, you're sedated. [00:12:00] You ever had an operation and they sedate you. Do you feel real good after that? Did I ever have a good sleep? Because I was knocked out, sedated. Nah, you usually don't feel pretty good like, ooh. You feel like you got hit by a truck, more like it. That's sedation guys. That's not sleeping.

It really isn't. There's no regeneration of the body occurring when you're sedated. Your glial [00:12:30] cells were put to sleep by the sedation. They're supposed to be working the night shift. Your liver, it detoxes. It works at night especially. I always use the example of the cellphone. You can put it in airplane mode. That means there are no data coming in, right? They tell you, you get into an airplane. Do you know what an airplane is? Have you forgotten?

I wonder if anybody's ever going to fly again. But [00:13:00] seriously, your airplane mode on your cellphone is for you never... You don't get any data. Well, your body at night, when you're sleeping, goes into airplane mode. Only the things that need to work are working. Everything else is sleeping and resting. You're recharging the batteries of your body, but it doesn't happen when you're sedated. That's why I'm against that stuff.

Look, if you got to take it for one night, [00:13:30] knock yourself out, literally, but I just got to give you the goods because I don't know thousands of patients over the years. I said, "Well... Look, you might... You get hooked on that stuff very quickly. The problem is down the road, when your glial cells don't work, you're on your way to getting Alzheimer's or dementia. It's about 80%. Unfortunately a lot of physicians give [00:14:00] those stuff out like they're candy. They're not candy.

One prescription after another, after another. It's not good for you. "Yeah, but doc, I can't sleep without it." Yeah, but you're not sleeping. You're sedated. It's different. Anyways, I don't want to get too much into that. So we talked about fatigue and one of the main things to look for when you're tired. Get at the root of it because I've had people even on the reset [00:14:30] say, "Well, I'm fatigued."

Yeah, well give it time because fatigue didn't come out of nowhere. And plus cortisol is being secreted. I'm telling you, it's in the mix there somewhere and it can play with your heart. It can play with your gut. It can play with your immune system. It can play with your muscles. I mean, it branches off and almost every area of the body, the lungs. So watch for anxiety. [00:15:00] Watch for that cortisol.

We live in a world, I think... Again, my practice has changed so much that it was incredible. The paradigm shift that occurred. The modern woman. A lot of it... And I was going back to... I use an example in the book, I was thinking about this yesterday, that my mother. We came from a family of 11 kids. [00:15:30] The young people aren't having kids anymore. They're having dogs. When I see a young couple out and they're walking their two dogs, I said, "When I was a kid in the 1950s..." I was reading about yesterday, John F. Kennedy, the president of the United States, what do they have? 12 kids?

Well, he came from a family... I mean, Joseph Kennedy, his father, I think they were 12. Incredible. [00:16:00] My mother, she had 11 kids. God bless her, but they didn't live... Life was simpler. Today, everything comes out at a thousand miles an hour, it seems. 24 hour news. Want to get rid of COVID? Turn the news off. Don't turn me off, okay? Please. But seriously, you know that. I was listening to a report yesterday that said, today, [00:16:30] because of the social media, people are used to speed. Remember yesterday? I had trouble with my technology here.

It seems to me I got the best wifi in the world, but I was freezing. Remember that yesterday? Well, I had a technician come and tell me some of my wires were diverted or whatever. Hopefully, it's all fixed now. But we want instant. People today are angry. I've never [00:17:00] seen so much anger as I've seen today. I think part of it is the mass. I think it's the new normal. I hope not.

I'm a people person. I like smiling and talking to people. You go to the store today and, "Put your mask on." I said, "Who are you? The COVID police?" I mean it. I had the mask on. I guess I didn't have it right up over my nose. People are angry all [00:17:30] the time. Have you noticed that? Boy, that's not good for them. Anger is not good for you. It's not. It will elevate your cortisol right through the roof.

Like I said cortisol has a huge, huge effect. And I talked about it yesterday. It's effect on the thyroid and weight gain. Did I talked about that? Probably not. Cortisol slows the thyroid down. Well, you think it would speed it up. [00:18:00] No, but after a drip, drip, drip, it slows the thyroid down. That's why a lot of people get obesity or they get weight gain. They're stressed. The thyroid, you have a trouble converting T4 to T3. And T3 is the thyroid hormone that you need. The thyroid slows down.

You want to [00:18:30] know what that does? Your hair starts falling out, ladies. Men, they... I mean, stress enough. Stress affects men, okay? But it doesn't affect our horrormones because we don't have horrormones. We have hormones, but not horrormones. Women have horrormones. Why they're so complicated. You have a lot of connections. Men, nah. But stress is not good for a man. Most men that get heart attacks, [00:19:00] the main thing is not cholesterol. It's inflammation attacking the blood vessels. But inflammation add fuel to the fire.

Cortisol and men generally will get attacked in their heart. Women will get attacked on their thyroid. They'll gain weight. "Oh doc, I can't lose weight." "Yeah? Well, your cortisol is too high and it's messing up your thyroid gland. There's a big connection there." [00:19:30] And then you add estrogen on top of the package and estrogen is a growth hormone. Guess what it loves? Fat.

So that's another symptom, possible symptom. You have to look at that. Is it possible cortisol? Yes, it could be. Fatigue, pain, anxiety, depression, weight gain, hair loss, thousands of times I've seen that. Decrease immunity, digestive [00:20:00] issues. These are all connection to... And then you get intolerances, food allergies. You never had them before. Your gut-gut chain. The microbiome gut chain. Antigens, okay?

Everything that comes into your body, your body looks at it and says, "Oh, friendly or foe?" That's how your immune system works. Everything that comes in. Food? Oh, that's [00:20:30] friendly. You had a piece of steak, friendly. But what happens if your microbiome is disturbed now? Then it looks at something that's supposed to be friendly like dairy. And now you can't have dairy. What happened? Stress can do that because it can change the microbiome. And now your immune system inside your gut, you got 80% of your immunity is in your gut. And now it becomes auto- [00:21:00] immune.

Any allergy really is auto-immune. Some are worse than others like MS, Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, Sjogren's, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, gut skin. You know what acne is? We always talk about it. It's an overgrowth of bacteria. But it's a gut. It's a gut issue. Often, often stress related. Even young people. I know they get a perfect storm, but they're stressed.

[00:21:30] Stress adds fuel to the fire. It's a big, big factor. So fix it. That's why vitamin E is so good. What is vitamin E? Exercise. It helps. Now, don't overdo it. You don't have to be at the gym for two hours. You really don't. I think people overexercise and that's stressful on the body. I always used to be against marathon. I was a runner. My dad ran in 1967 [00:22:00] and I followed them. I learned to run early.

My dad was the first jogger in the world, I think. There wasn't even a word for it. The only time you ran in the early '60s or in '67, you know when you ran? When the police were chasing you. You didn't go run. You didn't go outside. Let's go for a run. There was no such thing as jogging when I was a kid. My dad started when he found out he was diabetic.

I ran [00:22:30] for years and years and years, but I never ran long distance, 30 minutes. And people would try to get me into marathons. I said, "Nah, that ain't good for you. It's too much. You're not a horse. You're not made for long distance. You're not. Walking, better. But vitamin E, exercise. Very good for you. Ladies, exercise. It'll lower your stress. Get in the sun. Why? Because the sun [00:23:00] gives you melatonin.

Your body makes melatonin and melatonin is going to help you sleep. You know how you get melatonin? You got to get in the sun. "Oh, doc. The sun, skin cancer." And I mean that. I didn't say go burn like a lobster in the sun. You need the sun. And if you can't get the sun, you better take vitamin D. It helps. Okay, okay. Enough [00:23:30] pontificating for today.

Friday is question and answer. So if you have any questions and you can ask them tonight, then talk to us. Send in your questions. We'll be happy to answer them on Friday. Join the private group, Martin Clinic Facebook private group. Great group. It really is. I don't have to answer half the questions. Some folks know the answers to them and they're already giving them back to the group members. I like that. I like [00:24:00] that. Okay. We'll talk to you soon.

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.

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