696. Detoxing Your Liver

Did you know that 50 to 60% of North Americans have a non-alcoholic fatty liver? Your body would rather have a fatty liver than high blood sugar or diabetes.

Dr. Martin looks at a study showing that Alzheimer's may begin in the liver. They discovered that in the presence of a fatty liver, toxic proteins were released and made their way through the bloodstream into the brain. This created inflammation in the brain and caused damage.

Dr. Martin uses this study to talk about the importance of detoxing your liver.

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. And once again, welcome to another Live this morning, and hope you're having a great start to your day. We are going to talk about a newsletter that we did yesterday or Monday on something new about Alzheimer's, but I want to this morning, what I want to do is I want to focus in on the liver. And here's the statement that we made in the newsletter, and I want to make it again. Your body would rather have fatty liver than have high blood sugar or diabetes. Your body would rather have fatty liver than be diabetic. Your body would rather have high blood pressure than be a diabetic. Your body would rather have dangerous triglycerides than you being a diabetic.

Why do I say that? Because everything in your body primarily will stop you or try to prevent you from becoming a diabetic. It's really important to understand that. The reason that we do what we do, and the reason that I did what I did in my practice for years was warn people that even though you're not a diabetic officially, because you got to hit certain numbers before they diagnose diabetes, but I would always try and teach them that diabetes is the last thing that's going to happen to you. If you're a diabetic and they're saying now close to 50% of the population in North America is right on the edge of it if not already, well, that's a road well-traveled. It took you a long time, even though kids are getting close to it. And I saw even in children, type 2 diabetes. Unbelievable when you consider that your body will do everything it can to keep you away from diabetes. It will keep your blood sugar right tight. Because sugar is so toxic in your bloodstream, your body does everything it can to get it out of there.

So let's do a little teaching. It was in the newsletter. If you get our newsletter, you'll appreciate, I think, that we do a little bit more teaching on the process of what happens in your liver. Okay? So remember the statement. Your body would rather you have fatty liver than you have diabetes. Okay? Now I am going to show you a picture. So if you're on our podcast a little bit later on, this will be a podcast, The Doctor Is In Podcast. I'm just showing a picture of the liver here. Okay? And I'm pointing to it. It's ugly. Liver is ugly. I like steak, but I don't like liver, although I admit, I readily admit that it is really good for you. Okay? But look at how ugly it is. It is ugly. But boy, you can't live without it. You can't live without it. And what we have today, if you can see the yellow here in the liver, what you're looking at right there is fatty liver. 

So I am going to take out a pound of fat and put it right here. See? That's what you're looking at. You're looking at fatty liver there. Now, fatty liver is caused by... there's no exceptions to this... non-alcoholic fatty liver. I'm telling you guys, when I was in school in the '70s, I'm going to tell you something. I never even heard of fatty liver. You look at medical textbooks. It was extremely rare. Now, cirrhosis of the liver, of course. And as a matter of fact, I can show you a little bit of picture of the cirrhosis. Okay? So cirrhosis would be... See the bumps there on the liver there? See the fat? There's fat, and there's those bumps. That's cirrhosis of the liver. And we studied cirrhosis of the liver big time. But not non-alcoholic fatty liver. And today, 50, 60, probably even more than that percent of the population in North America have non-alcoholic fatty liver.

Now, in the newsletter, we talked about the liver and the brain because the new study had come out. I hope you found that interesting because we certainly did. And we flagged it. We talk about it and we say, "Well, look. This study is showing Alzheimer's may begin in the liver. In the beginning, the liver. I like that. And at the Martin Clinic, we often talk about the gut because all disease starts or originates in the gut. And Hippocrates said that, and he wasn't far from being right, but the liver's really important, guys. So if it's not number one like the gut, it's certainly number two.

And this study showed the link between fatty liver and the brain because what the author was saying of the study was there's a connection. Of course, there's a connection. We'll go over that. But there's a connection between the liver and the brain. And what they discovered was these toxic proteins in the presence of fatty liver, toxic proteins were released from the liver and they were traveling through the bloodstream up to the brain, creating inflammation in the brain, and in the process were damaging the brain for down the road, Alzheimer's. I found the study fascinating. We talked about insulin and the brain. For years, we've been talking about that because what did they call Alzheimer's? Type 3 diabetes.

So let's go over the liver a little wee bit. I want to do a little bit of teaching about that organ. You can't live without it, and you won't live well if you've got fatty liver. And a lot of people have fatty liver and they don't know it because unless you're doing an ultrasound, it's not easy to detect what happens in the liver when the liver is full of fat. And remember, your liver is a storage. One of the functions of the liver is to store energy. Okay? You know this because we teach this all the time. You eat a carb. Let's follow a piece of bread for a second. You just ate it. And within a few minutes, it's sugar. It's energy. And you're not using it right away. Insulin's job, first of all, take that sugar out, out, out, out, out, out, out. Cannot stay in the bloodstream. Your insulin is the traffic cop. You cannot park in the bloodstream. Come here, sugar. Sugar, yes. From bread. Come here. I'm going to park you, one, in your muscles. The bigger your muscles, the more parking spots you have for sugar. Two, liver. It's a parking lot. It's a parking lot. It's the Costco parking lot. 

Three is fat cells. When your muscles are full... That's why skinny people, they can be skinny, but that doesn't make them healthy. They can be skinny as a rake and very unhealthy because they have no room to store their sugars. They don't have muscle. So you know what the body does? It stores it in the liver until the liver is full. And then your body starts making fat cells. Now listen again. Even if you're skinny and your liver is full, your body isn't stupid. It will make fat cells and it'll be visceral fat. Visceral means around your organs fat. And you wouldn't even know it. Oh, I get on the scale. I can't even see it. And some people more than others have an unlimited capacity to make fat. And it'll start with visceral fat. It's putting that fat around the organs. And that is very dangerous around your liver. Very, very dangerous.

So remember, sugar is stored in the liver as fat. And when that's full, it'll make more and more and more fat. That's what insulin does. Insulin's not your friend, guys. It is and it isn't. Of course, it's your friend. It takes sugar out of your bloodstream. But oh, if you use too much insulin, you create a problem big time in your body. And it is at the foundation of every chronic disease from cancer to cardiovascular to Alzheimer's to autoimmune. It's a foundational problem. And by the way, insulin, just very simple, very simple. You only make insulin when you eat. And when you eat the wrong things, you’re making insulin go crazy and you start to develop... If you do a habit of it, you start to develop insulin resistance. Your cells don't like insulin anymore, but doesn't matter. Insulin's going to come around anyway, a bad neighbor.

Now let's talk about that liver. What happens in that picture? What happens when you get fatty liver? See that, that yellow, not the yellow submarine, the yellow in your liver. Fatty liver. When you're a carboholic, not an alcoholic, a carboholic. We only used to think of liver as alcoholic, but now we know the biggest damage to the liver is carboholics. So what happens? Well, one, you will not detoxify your liver. Your kidneys primarily are the two most important detoxification organs in your body, your liver and your kidneys. And both of them, both of them, start to malfunction when you're a carboholic. Your kidneys do. Very sensitive to insulin. And your liver is very sensitive to insulin. So if you insist on eating carbs and crappy sugars, your liver's going to pay the price, and it starts rapidly. As a matter of fact, it only takes six days. Eat a bad diet for six days, and you will start the process of fatty liver.

Six days. Six days on the road and I'm going to make it home. No, seriously. Six days. Now on the bright side, on the bright side, six days on The Reset, not on the road, six days on The Reset, and you empty that liver. So what happens? People don't even think of it. I think somebody asked me yesterday, "Should I do a detox on the liver?" Great idea. "Oh, what Doc, what should I take?" Food. Eat the right food and you'll empty your liver. And without emptying your liver, you cannot detox properly. The reason is when you have fatty liver, you are not producing Velcro. I call it Velcro. Your liver produces glutathione. Okay? That is an amino acid. Glutathione is Velcro. Your body makes it. Your liver... isn't it wonderful... produces it. It's a powerful detoxer. Cancer patients, listen to me, please. You need to do a detox because you want to produce more and more glutathione. Your body will do it if you empty your liver. 

So when you have fatty liver, you're not detoxing properly. Got it? When you go to bed at night, the night shift comes in. Your liver works. It detoxes you. You're sleeping. We talked about the brain. What happens in the brain when you sleep? They're called glial cells and they only come out when you're sleeping. But your liver too, guys, your liver at night, it does the night shift. It's like in an office building. All the cleaners come in at night. They're not there during the day to clean it. Everybody's working. But at night, the cleaning staff comes in. Your liver detoxes, but not if it's full of fat. It can't make enough glutathione. Doesn't make enough Velcro. So you can be very toxic. Heavy metals, medications, chemicals. We talked about them yesterday. People that use all those chemicals, gums up your liver. You need an empty liver for it to work properly. Detox.

Your thyroid messes up. What? "What's the thyroid here got to do with my liver, Doc?" Has a lot to do with it because inside your liver, if it's toxic, two things happen. If it's toxic, you got any form of fatty liver, you secrete thyroid binding globulin. Okay? I don't like to give you big words, but in the liver, that's toxic. The liver that's got fat in it, your body produces thyroid binding globulin. What's that mean? It stops your body from converting T4 to T3. Your thyroid slows down. You get a sluggish thyroid. Your metabolism slows down. You look at food and you gain weight. Your energy. "I'm constipated. I'm losing my hair. My nails are brittle. My eyebrows are thinning out." A lot of times... "Doc, my doctor said my thyroid numbers are normal." Did he check your liver? Did she check your liver? Your liver, guys. It does 600 things. And when it's got fatty liver, even your thyroid won't work properly.

Now I'm going to say a million times to exaggerate. But what happens when the liver is full of fat? You produce TGs, triglycerides. Triglycerides. What is that? It's dangerous fat balls. Three of them, as a matter of fact. Triglyceride, glycerides, are fat balls. Three fat balls in your bloodstream. And when your triglycerides go up, you know why they go up? Because you have fatty liver. "Oh Doc, I got high triglycerides. What does that mean?" Your liver's not working properly. It's sending those fat balls into your bloodstream. You had too much in your liver. That is very dangerous for heart disease. It ain't cholesterol. How many times do I got to say it? It's not cholesterol. It's triglycerides. So when your liver's not working properly, you're making triglycerides, and you're not making enough cholesterol. HDL. People keep trying to make me interested in LDL. "Doc, my LDL." I can't care about something that's not important. You can't make me care. 

I want to know your triglycerides. And I often send back little notes when people send me their blood work. I say, "You're upside-down, man. Your triglycerides are high and your HDL is low. It's got to be the other way around," because HDL is good cholesterol and you make good cholesterol when your liver's working properly. By the way, I just said good cholesterol. And I didn't really mean it because all cholesterol is good. Okay? Only triglycerides are bad. Okay? I don't care if your LDL is high. What does it mean? It doesn't mean nothing. "Oh Doc, my total cholesterol is high." Good. That's what we're aiming for. Cholesterol is FedEx on the highways of your blood vessels hitching their wagon to those bad fat balls. The more trucks you have on the highway, the more they can hitch their wagon to your triglycerides, guys. But you need to have a healthy liver. It don't get no respect, your liver. People don't think about it. 

When your liver is gummed up... We already talked about the fibroid, but there are other things that don't work well. Ladies, especially you, but men too, your horror-mones. It's not just your ovaries. You know where hormones get made and transported? In your liver. Cholesterol is not only HDL, but you need cholesterol. Your body doesn't even trust you. I've always said this. You guys know me. God don't trust you. "What do you mean He doesn't trust me?" Well, he doesn't because 85% of your cholesterol is made in your liver. 85%. You're only responsible for 15%. Now you're not going to die if you don't eat 15% of cholesterol that you're supposed to.

And remember, just to make a point, just to show you I'm right without bragging, I want you to think for a minute. If you are responsible for 15% of cholesterol, you need to make it. But cholesterol, 85% is made in the liver. Okay? 15% is what you eat. And just to make a statement, cholesterol is only found in the animal kingdom. Eggs, meat, and cheese. It's not found in plants. There's no cholesterol in plants. Are plants good? Yep. But cholesterol's not found in plants. So when someone tells you they're a vegetarian, you can tell them, "Dr. Martin said you're 100% wrong. 100%." Not 99, 100 because cholesterol's only found in the animal kingdom. To me, that's proof enough that we're meant to eat eggs, meat, and cheese, uh-huh, and butter. Of course. Dairy. Not milk, cream. Okay?

When your liver is full of fat, you're going to make a lot of inflammation in the body. And the study that I was mentioning at the top of the program was saying that because when you have fatty liver, you're making toxic proteins and they travel up to the brain and create inflammation in the brain, and inflammation in the brain is very damaging to your neurons, damaging to your brain cells, your memory center especially, your hippocampus. Got it? Toxic proteins. So when you're not eating enough cholesterol, you're not even going to make enough testosterone, men, progesterone, ladies. Don't worry about estrogen. You're going to make lots of that because we live in a estrogen-driven world. Our xenoestrogens, things that look like estrogen. 

So that's a teaching for today. Fatty liver, six days to make it, six days to get rid of it. Six days. Can you do The Reset for at least six days? Now I want you to do it for 30 days because there's a lot of other things that are going happen in your body. It’ll be all good. But six days to damage your liver and six days to fix it. I hope you appreciated that because I do. I still appreciate that, how you're fearfully and wonderfully made and the body is able to regenerate. I love that. Okay. Now Friday is Question and Answer. The Reset book. Get your Christmas gifts. Make a list. The Martin Clinic Facebook group. Join it if you're not a member. We love that group. And then The Doctor Is In Podcast. You can download it on your smartphone to listen to this again. Okay. We love you guys. Talk to you soon.

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