642. Microbiome and Brain Health

THE DOCTOR IS IN Podcast


Dr. Martin continues his discussion on brain health in today’s episode. He summarizes the study from the Dementia Research Institute out of the UK that found a healthy microbiome can trigger the formation of new adult brain cells.

In medical school, they teach you that things don’t regenerate. If you damage your heart or lungs or brain or spinal cord, for example, the damage is permanent. But, according to this research, your brain will regenerate, especially at the hippocampus level, if you take care of your gut.

Dr. Martin discusses the ways we harm our microbiome, and how sugar is the most destructive. If you do nothing else in your lifetime, eliminate sugar from your diet and you’ll be doing yourself a huge favour health-wise.

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:  Good morning and welcome again to another Live. I hope you're having a great start to your day. Yesterday, we talked about the microbiome and the importance of neuroregeneration. You remember that? We talked about that yesterday, how to regenerate that brain, and they're finding out a real connection between the healthy microbiome and your brain. And that was the United Kingdom Dementia Research Institute found that a healthy gut microbiome triggers formation of new adult brain cells. And I sorta mentioned yesterday that when you learn things in medical school, here's what you learn. Things don't regenerate. Some organs won't regenerate. If you damage your heart, you got heart damage. You damage your lungs, you got lung damage. You damage your brain, you got brain damage. You damage your spinal cord, you got spinal cord damage and it is permanent. But, according to this research, your brain will regenerate, especially at the hippocampus level, your memory center will regenerate if you take care of your gut. Take care of your gut.

The gut-brain axis is now well-established. And I talked to you a lot about it. It's important that you take care of your gut and the microbiome. We talked about that yesterday. We talked about as much as you can, avoid antibiotics. As much as you can, avoid nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, even over-the-counter ones like Aleve. Tylenol really isn't one of them in the sense that they don't classify, but aspirin... Look, I'm not telling people not to take that. Just understand what I'm saying. What I'm saying is when you take those things, you are much more susceptible to damaging your microbiome. 

I mentioned yesterday, avoid artificial sweeteners. They damage the microbiome. We didn't know exactly what they did when they came out with those in the 1960s, aspartame and things like that, but now we know. They damage, they change the microbiome, and whatever changes your microbiome will have some effect on the brain. Now, what I want to emphasize today, and oh yeah, we talked about PPIs, proton pump inhibitors. I didn't go into it very much, but when you have to take something for acid reflux, what they're showing is, one, when you reduce your acidity, think about it. "Oh doc, I got acid reflux. Oh, it's no fun." Sure isn't. But, I always try and get to the root of acid reflux because that's usually a sign your body is screaming at you. It's one of the signs of high insulin, high-circulating insulin or insulin resistance. Your body is screaming change fuels, change your diet. Okay? And it really makes a difference for thousands and thousands and thousands of my patients over the years. Get to the root cause.

But, when you're taking an acid-suppressing medication, a proton pump inhibitor, the list, they're huge because they're big sellers. You do not get away with eating bad food. You don't get away with it. "Oh doc, I'm not a diabetic." Yeah, but maybe you are and you just don't know it. "Oh, you know what? I got high blood pressure." But, that's insulin most of the time and so is acid reflux. Your body is trying to give you clues. Hello? Listen, Linda. Listen. I'm talking to you. That's why you got acid reflux. Proton pump inhibitors, what they do, when your acidity in your stomach, it turns off those pumps. You got pumps in your stomach that are pumping out acid. And you say, "Well, doc, I got too much acid." Nah, you don't have enough acid. And your body is trying to make up for the deficit. The problem is when the body overreacts to your lack of acidity, it usually sends that acid up your esophagus. And that's why you're getting heartburn, acid reflux. And it's so common today because we're eating junk food, we don't realize it. At least the world doesn't. You guys do. Those are symptoms. They're not causes, guys. They're symptoms. Your body's screaming. Listen, listen to your body. It will talk to you.

Now, the problem with proton pump inhibitors, as they decrease the amount of acidity, so you get relief. I hate commercials on TV that shows somebody, "You know, let me just pop a purple pill," Nexium or whatever, "then I'm going to eat whatever I feel like eating." That gives me a headache. It's so crazy. "I better have one of these and then I'm just going to continue on the same diet." Your digestion starts in your mouth, but once it gets to that acid in your stomach, the more acidic your stomach is, the better it is to break down all the foods. And then, of course, when your gallbladder is healthy and you're sending bile and passed the stomach and then everything's mulched to a mulch, I mean literally, the more mulch there is, the better it is.

The problem is candida, yeast, it can form in your gut. We talked about that yesterday when you don't have enough friendly bacteria. But, there's another way it can form is when you don't have enough acidity in your stomach. Yeast should be broken down with the high acidic stomach, and even bacteria or whatever can get into the small intestine, and now you develop a condition called SIFO. Medicine calls it... I shouldn't even say medicine. Some doctors call it SIBO, small intestine bacterial overgrowth, but we, you and I, have named it SIFO, small intestine fungus overgrowth, because really guys, that's what it is. But, that can be caused from two ways. One from the gut, and the other because you don't have enough acid in your stomach. You take care of that, because you're thinking your gut and regenerating up here, your gut and regenerating, especially in the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain. 

These are new studies coming out that are so significant, guys. These are significant. These are things that can make a huge difference. Don't wait for the world. The world generally will be hooked, lined, and sinkered to the pharmaceutical industry and the food industry. Don't wait for the world. Don't wait for all that. "I'm waiting for a drug to prevent Alzheimer's." Guys, don't do that. You know better than that. It ain't going to happen. It's not going to happen because medication isn't the cure. Food is the cure. Food. It's what you put in your mouth every day. You want that microbiome. Now, let me just go over something that should speak to you. I talked about this a little bit yesterday. Those crappy oils, we know what they do now. Crappy oil. What do I mean by that? The seed oils. They call them vegetable oils. They're far from vegetables, guys. They're seed oils, and they're in the middle aisles of your grocery stores and they are in your fast food. That's what they cook your chicken nuggets or your fries or whatever. They're using seed oils to cook and to recook. And guys, these things are dangerous because they're not oils at all. They're synthetic. And what they do is they spike your omega-6 compared to your omega-3, that creates inflammation. But the other thing it does, it changes the microbiome. It changes the microbiome. 

Now, we talked a little bit about this yesterday, but I want to do it again. Sugar. Why is sugar so bad? "Doc, why do you always talk about sugar? Poor sugar." Well, I want you to be less sweet. You're sweet enough as it is. You don't need to add any sweetness to yourself. Okay? Because sugar is so destructive. And I've given you the history of sugar. A hundred years ago, people were consuming 25 pounds of sugar a year at the most. It was expensive, but today, it's 200 pounds. A dump truck load of sugar. And guys, your gut was never made for that.

Sugar is addictive. You think the sugar industry is stupid? You think the food industry... They want to hook you and they are good at it. They add sugar almost to everything, from ketchup to you name it. Sugar added. And the worst of all, as I wrote in the book, The Reset, the antichrist of sugars is one that is so destructive to your microbiome. What's it called? High-fructose corn syrup. That should have never, never, never passed the smell test at the Food and Drug Administration. It did in... I think it was 1982. And ever since, we have had a 300% spike in childhood obesity. The food industry, they want kids because once they get kids, they hook kids. And once they hook a kid, they got a customer for life. Guys, you got to understand these people sit around in board rooms and you can buy shares in their company.

And look, it's the bottom line. I'm not saying there's no good people in there. I'm not saying that. But, at the end of the day, the food industry is out to make customers and to keep you loyal, and they've discovered a sugar. It was cheap, it's addictive. It goes to your brain like cocaine, the same center, the deep centers of your brain, the feel-good centers of your brain. High-fructose corn syrup. It's a terrible sugar. I outlined it in the book. What did I talk about? It takes away even your minerals. High-fructose corn syrup. You know what it does? It decreases your magnesium. Why do we see so much deficiency in magnesium? Well, it's kidneys. "Oh yeah? Well, what happens at the kidney level?" It ain't salt. It's the stupid high-fructose corn syrup. It's the worst of all sugars. So destructive to kidneys.

And the kidneys, you know what they do? They secrete your magnesium. They secrete your chromium. Why do you need chromium? Chromium helps to balance out your blood sugars. It's a very important mineral. Magnesium. You need magnesium for everything, from your brain to your toes, from your brain tissue to your muscles, from your brain to your bones. You need magnesium, and we're so deficient today. We'll go back and talk about the deficiency of magnesium, what it does to you. But, the high-fructose corn syrup is a terrible, terrible thing. Do you know that when you consume too much high-fructose corn syrup, you don't even absorb vitamin D properly? It affects your absorption of VitDerma. Imagine your diet affecting your levels of vitamin D. And it works both ways too. Let me explain this.

I looked at a blood test yesterday and someone had high vitamin D. I said, "Well, when you have high levels of vitamin D, I mean, extremely high, your kidneys are not working." You're going to get low levels of vitamin D because you're consuming too much high-fructose corn syrup. And you're maybe not in the sun, but let's say you are in the sun and you might even be taking a vitamin D level and you could have leaky gut and other things, but one of the things that's happened is at the kidney level, which is in the process of you absorbing vitamin D so it's low. Oh, but then you get high, not too many people have high levels of vitamin D but some do. Well, you know what? You got kidney stress. It's a vicious cycle. You got kidney stress, and maybe liver stress too. But, why do you get kidney stress and liver stress? Sugar. You're eating too much sugar.

I always tell people, "Look, if you do nothing else, nothing else in your lifetime, get rid of sugar and you've done a huge, huge, huge favor to yourself health-wise." Now, that ain't going to be easy. I know that. Not going to be easy in your life, but I'll tell you something. I don't care who you are. I mean it. You and sugar don't get along. You might like it, but it does not like you. The days of sugar are over. We live in a completely different world now, completely different than what was happening a hundred years ago. I mean, they had their own problems. No doubt about that. But, we live in a different world. Our kids are being exposed today to stuff that you and I were not exposed to. And it's the amount of sugar and crappy carbohydrates and crappy vegetable oils, seed oils that are terrible. It's an unholy trinity for heaven's sakes.

Now, what's going to happen? I'm not a prophet nor the son of one, but I'm going to tell you something. If we don't get off this train, the amount of Alzheimer's, the amount of dementia is incredible, incredible. And guys, until we tackle this, and I'm not optimistic... Can I tell you? I'm an optimistic person first of all. I really am. I don't look at the glass half empty. I look at it half full. I do. But, you can only take care of yourself first. That's why I'm more optimistic because you can take care of yourself, you know the answers. But, when I look at society in general, even when it comes to food, they want a quick fix. They want to get rid of meat. They want to get rid of what's good for you. "Oh, Dr. Martin, ditch the meat." This meatless craze, it is terrible. There's not an ounce of science behind, not even an ounce, guys. 

Guys, you got to take care of your microbiome. And there's nothing that influences the microbiome more than food. Food. It's the thing you can control. Sometimes, you're going to get an infection, you have to take an antibiotic. Okay, don't worry about it. Make sure you're taking your probiotics and make sure you're eating well and lay off the sugar, and you're not going to feed the bears. And therefore, you will make a big difference in the gut. It's what you can do. And teach anyone that's ready to listen to you, okay?

And we know what insulin does. Insulin’s a growth hormone. And there's nothing that will spike your insulin faster than high-fructose corn syrup. In the book, I wrote down 92 names that the food industry uses to cover up their sugar. 92 names. And the reason is because the food industry can be liars, liars, pants on fires. They don't have to tell you they're using high-fructose corn syrup. They don't. The government, they wanted them to have true labels, and the government came a long way, both in Canada and the United States, for labeling foods. But, the food industry was able to get away with lying about sugar. Not how much sugar, they have to tell you how much sugar they're doing. But, high-fructose corn syrup has about 92 aliases.

It's the one they use, guys, why? It's cheap. It's cheap, it's addictive. It does things to your liver like nothing else, guys. It fattens up the liver in a nanosecond. I've taught you this in the past, but when you consume high-fructose corn syrup, so from ice cream to ketchup to even bread, when you got high-fructose corn syrup... Remember the word "fructose". What makes the word "fructose"? It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? "Oh, that sounds like fruit sugar to me." It's different because it takes a beeline to the liver, and it only takes one little quick detour on the way to liver. Because, listen, your body, you know what it knows about high-fructose corn syrup? Yeah, it's sweet, it'll hook you real quick, but your body sees it as a foreign invader.

It's like margarine. You know what? You're having margarine. "Oh doc, yeah but, my cholesterol. I got to have... I can't use butter. My doctor said don't eat butter." But, your body knows what butter is. And butter will only make you cholesterol, good cholesterol grow. You want good cholesterol, don't you? You know what? Your gut sees margarine. You eat margarine like millions do, even today. Are they not listening? It's artificial crap. Your gut goes, what is that? What is that? That's why it changes the microbiome, because your body says, I don't even know what that is. It's not food. It's plastic. I don't like plastic. "Yeah, but it's low fat." But guys, listen, when you have high-fructose corn syrup, your body says, what is that? That's not fruit from an apple. It's not fruit sugar from a berry. That is from Satan. What is it? I don't know what you are. Why are you coming into my gut? So, what it does, it doesn't let it land.

I should look up the podcast so I can tell you exactly which one to go listen to in the new research on high-fructose corn syrup. It causes leaky gut because what it does, you've got a little barrier between your gut and your blood. The gut-blood barrier, and it's just a single line of cells, little smooth endothelial cells. And they're on guard and they're protected by your good bacteria. But, what happens is high-fructose corn syrup, when it gets into the gut, it destroys that. It creates leaky gut. Now, you've got a bunch of garbage going into your bloodstream. It don't stay there long, guys. It is off your liver to elevate your triglycerides. That's why we see so much heart disease. It's not steak, it's sugar. It goes over to your liver. It packs in fat in that liver in a nanosecond.

Why do you see kids with a sugar belly? Why? Observe. Use your eyeballs, guys. Observe. Why do you see people with bellies? High-fructose corn syrup. There's nothing like it to make a sugar belly. Because, when you got a sugar belly, it means your liver... Remember now, when you consume sugar, you either use it as energy immediately, and the problem is with high-fructose corn syrup, you know what I'm going to tell you about it? You can't even use it for energy. It doesn't convert, because it's not a sugar. It comes from a lab. It's industrialized. You can run your car on it. It's synthetic. It's not real. It isn't. So, what happens, your body can't even use it as energy. As a matter of fact, it'll decrease your energy. The good that you would get out of a sugar plant, and I don't recommend that to anybody anymore, you don't need it. It don't give you the energy, as a matter of fact it decreases your energy because, one of the things is it goes to that liver so rapidly to be stored. Your body will store it because it sees the fructose chain. Fructose gets stored in the liver. So, what does that do? It elevates your uric acid levels quickly. It does. It's metabolized so differently than a normal sugar. 

Guys, read your labels and look for the aliases. None of it is good for you. None of it is good for you. So, just understand that it's not good for your kids. I never want people to leave the planet, so I understand kids. My kids are older, but I got 11 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter and another coming, I hear. I don't know about a granddaughter or not, but my grandson told me the other day. "Grandpa, you're going to be a great-grandpa again." Bring them on. If I had known grandchildren are that much fun, we would have had them first, and great grandchildren. You know the only problem with being a great-grandfather? I can't get at that baby. I can't get at her, because I got to wrestle with the four grandparents. My daughter... it's a race to get that baby and I can't get there in time. I know what's like, I'm a grandparent, right? But when you're a great-grandparent, you have to line up, and you're in the back of the bus there because those grandparents are going crazy.

Anyway, but guys, listen. When I talk about this, this is so important, what it does to the microbiome and the original story was restoring the brain. Did you have fun? So, Question and Answer Friday, right? Send in your questions. I already saw a few. Great. Send them in. We'll answer all of them. I'll try and hit all of them, guys. I really do. Our private Facebook group, thank you. Wonderful. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And you know, folks are great. They're so smart. You guys are smart. We love you. Big time. I say that then you guys are thinking, "Ah, he says that too much." Yeah, maybe you're right but I do love you. I mean it. I appreciate you guys taking your time out of your busy schedules to hook up with me, okay? And I don't take that lightly, guys. I really don't. Okay, love you guys dearly and will 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!

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