Dr. Martin unpacks a new study showing how high blood sugar is bad, but high insulin is worse.
Insulin resistance or high circulating insulin really is at the root of all major chronic diseases of today – heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, and of course, diabetes.
Learn why lowering your insulin needs to play a bigger role in metabolic health. Dr. Martin shares why medicine has made a huge mistake in only being interested in controlling blood sugar!
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 start to your day, hope you had your vitamin C. Now let me read this headline to you, we'll unpack it, okay. New study, high blood sugar is bad, but high insulin is worse. High blood sugar is bad, but high insulin is worse. And the study goes on to say that chronically elevated fasting blood glucose or excessive spikes in blood sugar is very damaging in the long run. And then they name the areas to your eyes, blindness, kidney failure, liver disease, interesting that they would say that, and cancer. They didn't mention heart disease, but we can certainly put that in there. So high blood sugar is bad. When you send me blood work, oftentimes you'll have fasting glucose, and I don't mind reading that, I prefer A1C. A1C is a three month average. How do they measure that by the way if you just do one blood test and they can do your A1C? Because they take the red blood cell and hemoglobin and A1C is sugar attached to hemoglobin. It hooks on there and they can measure that. And I like A1C better as far as blood sugar goes.
But what they're saying in the study is high blood sugar is bad, but having high insulin is worse, okay. And why is that? Because insulin resistance or high circulating insulin really is at the root, it's one of the main factors in all the major chronic diseases of today. What are we seeing today that we're not winning the war on? Heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, and of course, diabetes. And what I'm saying, and what I proposed in The Reset book is that medicine has made a huge mistake because they're only interested in controlling blood sugar. They develop medicine for that, like Metformin and insulin.
I'm not against those medications at all, but they don't fix the problem. They might keep your blood, but they don't fix insulin, they don't fix insulin resistance. And that is the key, it's fixing insulin resistance because diabetes is not a problem of blood sugar, it isn't, it's a problem of insulin. It's a problem of insulin. And today what we're dealing with in North America is an epidemic. I know we throw that word around too much, but we have a huge epidemic. As a matter of fact, and I've said this to you a thousand times, so it's not like this is coming out of nowhere, people that get sick with this virus and go to the hospital and that have died, either very, very old, above 80 or metabolically unwell. And what do I mean by that? When you are metabolically unwell, you have high circulating insulin.
I mean, you might have leaky gut, you might have free radical damage, you might have inflammation in the body, all those things are factors. But the number one cause of your major killers is diab-esity. Again, your body is so unbelievably made, it does everything it can to control your blood sugar. That's insulin's primary job, controlling blood sugar. So let's say for example, you had 10 donuts in a row, now don't ever do that, okay, don't do that, but let's say you did, you just decided this morning, I'm going to have 10 donuts. Okay, fine, and if you took your blood sugar two minutes after that, it would be sky high, okay? And that's just normal, your blood sugar's going to be high, but if you take it within 10 or 15 minutes, take your blood sugar again, it's gone back into that tight range, okay, it's gone back into that tight range because your body knows that sugar... Your body is smarter than most physicians, okay? Why is that? Because your body knows it can't have sugar in the bloodstream.
A person got an average of about five liters, okay, five liters of blood, like your car. You got about five liters of oil in there. I went and got my oil change done yesterday and I needed five and a half liters of oil. But your body has approximately five liters of blood. If you are to empty that out, take out your five liters, 20 minutes after you've had five donuts, you know how much sugar you're going to have in that five liters? You'll be lucky to have a teaspoon in there, why is that? Because sugar is so destructive to your blood vessels, they start damaging blood vessels in nanoseconds. So insulin coming from your pancreas has got a major job to do, it has to take sugar out of your blood vessels and store them, get rid of it, sugar cannot stay in blood, okay? So you understand that.
Diabetes, what is diabetes? Diabetes is when your cells can't stand sugar anymore and your cells tell insulin, "Take a hike, I don't like you. You're a bad neighbor, you're always at my house. Will you get away from me?" Okay? Like my mother used to say, "Visitors are great, but after a few days, they're like fish, they start to stink." Your body is intelligent, fearfully and wonderfully made, it knows how to keep your blood sugar regulated. So diabetes is not a problem of sugar in your bloodstream, it's not that, that is a symptom. Diabetes is a problem of insulin resistance or too much insulin. Because remember, even if your cells say, "Get out of here, I don't like you, I hate your guts, you're making me sick," it don't matter because insulin will go knock, knock, knock, knock, knock on the cell wall and said, "You better open up, and if I need to bring more insulin to the process, I will produce as much as I can."
So the study here is saying exactly what I said at the start of the Reset book, that high blood sugar is not good, it's very destructive. And if you have constant... Because let's say you're eating those five donuts and you never do it again, okay, but what about kids? What about people that live on juice, that live on bread, that live on sugar, that live on sweets, that live on noodles, mac and cheese, okay? The cheese is all right, it's the mac, mac and cheese, it's the mac that is destructive because it turns to sugar rapidly and your body has got to keep that in a narrow, narrow range. And your body's smarter than we are, okay? If you insist on eating bad, your body will do everything it can to protect you. And it knows it can't allow sugar to go too high, it's very destructive, primarily at the start, to blood vessels. That's why eyeballs, okay, your eyes...
Why do you think diabetics have so much trouble with their eyes? Glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, blindness, why do they get that? Because if you look in behind your eyes, I used to be fascinated by looking in behind the eyeball and seeing highway 401, 407, 403, I used to look at them like highways because there's so much blood in behind the eye and the optic nerve. But optic nerve in glaucoma only got in trouble if it had poor blood supply, and that's the problem with diabetes. But again, let me emphasize this, you don't have to be a diabetic doctor-diagnosed diabetes to understand the destructiveness of having high circulating insulin. At the end of the day, the problem is insulin. Look, every time you eat guys, you need some insulin, okay? Every time you eat, because insulin is a food hormone, you only secrete it when you eat. But depending on what you eat is equal to how much insulin you need. So if you eat a steak, vitamin S, you need this much insulin, okay? You don't need much.
You have eggs, you don't need any insulin, a little bit, squirt, squirt, squirt. You know me, I love illustrations, okay, so let me give you an illustration, okay? Repeat, repeat, repeat. Do you know that your pancreas sits right underneath your stomach? And for those who are listening to this on a podcast, I'm showing a ballpoint pen, I love showing ballpoint pens, one for the tip of it, because when I show you the tip of a ballpoint pen, I'm always pointing to tumors, takes five years for tumors to grow to this size, okay? Now your pancreas is the size of a ballpoint pen, it's almost identical, okay. It sits just underneath your stomach, it fits under there. And I like the illustration because in this pen, okay, there's ink. Think of the pen as your pancreas and think of the ink as insulin.
That's a pretty good illustration I think. Now I'm going to show you this pen, I haven't looked at that, but I'm going to show you. Oh, oh, I'm getting to the bottom, I just took out the little cartridge, okay? And you can see, and again, for those on a podcast, I'm just pointing it out, you can see that, there's not a lot of ink left. Now to some extent, I think the illustration is good because a lot of people, even kids, they've used so much insulin because of their crappy diet that they're down here in their insulin. They don't have a lot left, your cells resist it. And it doesn't matter, insulin has a job to do so it will pour out as much, and then to the point when it's got nothing left and that's when you are medically a diabetic. And then they got to give you something to replace insulin.
Metformin, you know what Metformin does? It opens up your cells. Or they give you insulin, they actually give it to you. I was reading the other day that the inventors of insulin, wow, they didn't realize what a problem it would be. I think it was 1923 or I'd have to look at it again to get the year exactly right, I think it was 1923, they sold their patent on insulin for a dollar, holy moly, okay? They sold the patent for a dollar and the rest is history. And insulin, look, it saved a lot of people's lives, okay? So I'm not against it, but understand, understand what this study is saying, if people insist on eating poorly, it never ends well. Oh, Dr. Martin, I'm not a diabetic. Really you are because you have high circulating insulin. Your blood sugar is still being controlled to some extent, but insulin, when you're using lots of it, creates a cascade of problems.
And really that's what the whole book, The Reset was about, to change your metabolism, to get you to lower your insulin resistance, to get you to quit using so much insulin because insulin is at the root of the number one killer today, heart disease. It's insulin. When you use too much insulin, remember what I said? Sugar is so destructive, it damages is blood vessels. Isn't that heart disease? Plus, they said it here, liver disease, insulin will store sugar into fat in your liver. When the suitcase is full, when the Costco parking lot is full, when the minivan is full of suitcases and there's not one more place to put it, you know what it does? It sends that fat into your bloodstream as, you guys know this, triglycerides, TG, three fat balls.
And that, my friend, is one of the most destructive fat balls that you can send into your blood vessels. Silent, you don't even know it. And then it has a double whammo what it does in your liver, it creates triglycerides. They're sent into your bloodstream. If you have high triglycerides, you don't have enough cholesterol to go get it. See, cholesterol wants to line dance with your triglycerides, [inaudible 00:18:27]. Like low fat, low fat diet, I'm on a low fat diet, my doctor put me on a low fat diet.
Oh, now you got no one to line dance with triglycerides. Okay, number one, liver, okay? Now number two is kidney. Kidneys, look guys, your kidneys, if you don't believe in God, I can't help you, okay? Because when you look at how your body operates it, the more I study it, I've been in this for 50 years, more than that, I forget how old I am, when you look at your kidneys, how they operate, they are so balanced, they know exactly what to do, your kidneys. Problem is when your insulin goes up, kidneys react to that. One of the biggest things they do is they excrete sodium, magnesium. They contract, they excrete and you know what happens there? Hello? Your blood pressure goes up. What is it? 50, 60% of the population have high blood pressure. And they never unpack it because doctors, oh, you got high blood pressure, go on a low salt diet.
I'm pounding my wood up here or cement. Go on a low salt diet? You're blaming salt for what sugar is doing, it's not salt. You're made up of salt, you cry salt, your saliva is salt, your blood is salt, you need salt. Now I'm not talking about table salt. Someone calls you salty, take it as a compliment, you're salty. That gets me messed up when your insulin gets messed up, when that neighbor comes to the cells of your kidneys and knocks on the door, "Let me in, let me in, let me in." And he gets sick of it, and then they say, "I don't care, I'm coming back, I'm coming back, I'm coming back." Now your kidneys start messing with your salts and you get high blood pressure. That's extremely dangerous. But you take meds for blood pressure, but why don't you fix it? Fix the problem, don't just take something for the symptom.
You see this study is telling you what the problem is and what the solution is. What's the problem, doc? The problem is your diet, it's not your genetics. Oh, my father had high blood pressure, well, whoopie-do. Look, I'm not trying to minimize, okay? I look like my father, okay? You want to know what Tony Martin Senior... They called me that now, okay? I'm waiting for a grandson, Anthony Martin The Fifth they're naming them, we got lots of them, okay? But you see this face? I look like my dad, okay? I do, it scares me even, geez. But my wife says I married my father-in-law, okay? Anyway, we got bad genetics, okay? Diabetes coming out our ears in our family but you override genetics with your diet, okay? You override genetics with your diet. Did I say I have a grandson coming? I got a great grandson coming, sorry. My grandson is Anthony Martin The Fourth, but my great grandson's coming in February, coming to a theater near you. And they know it's a boy and they're naming him Anthony Shay Martin The Fifth, I love it.
Okay, but guys, listen, Linda, listen, you're on to something. Why do think I'm so passionate about these podcasts? Passionate, we're onto something. You can't control everything in life, but you can certainly control what you put in your mouth. And by the way, let's do The Reset, okay? I am going to challenge the folks, you guys, to start with me. If you're having a big meal on the first, okay, for New Year's, then start with me on the second, no problemo. Let's start on the second or third for some people, but we want to coach you through. This is the time of the year... Look any time's a good time to do The Reset. Tens of thousands of people have done The Reset. It's actually made to fix the very thing that we're talking about, it'll fix your liver, it'll fix your kidneys, it will change your circulation in your body because of what insulin when you lower your insulin, it will fix insulin resistance.
It will take insulin, that bad, bad neighbor and it will take your ballpoint pen underneath your stomach and regenerate this thing called your pancreas. And it will refill it with insulin. Yeah, your body has got an amazing ability to do that, amazing ability to do that. I don't care how old you are, I'm 80 doc. Okay, join the cast, come on in, it's not too late. So this is what I want you to do, I want you to join us. Now listen, I'm going to give you a couple of options here, for those who have done The Reset before, good thing, go 30 days, 30 days to change your life. The new ones, especially, second, come on in for a week, seven days, it only takes six, but I'm going to tell you seven to clean your liver up.
If you want to do one week, you can do a week of The Reset. If you've done The Reset before, just to get your body cleaned out because your liver is your organ that detoxes, so does your kidneys, by the way, but it detoxes your body. When people tell me, "Oh, doc, I want to do a detox." Okay, you want to do The Reset. You can actually eat and you don't have to drink green juice. Oh, I'm detoxing, I'm drinking green juice, green kale or whatever it is. What does that do? That doesn't detox you, that's not a detox, that doesn't empty your liver. The only thing that detoxes your body is when you empty your liver. Your liver is an organ that cleans your blood.
You can have all the green juice you want, good for you. I hope you don't own turn green. Or, "Doctor, I'm going to do the carrot juice one." Why? You're not a rabbit. Okay, no, but if you want to join us, okay, and this is why I'm pumping this up. I mean, we're at the end of the year here guys, and we want to restart and maybe you've had a lot of donuts or donut-like food over the holidays, okay? Now look guys, and there's a lot to unpack here because I didn't even talk to you about your brain and what insulin does to your brain. I didn't even talk to you about cancer and what insulin does to cancer.
But you get the just of what I'm saying I hope. The food, guys, is something you can control. Look, there's a lot in health. I mean, I get it, unbelievable how your body's made and there's a lot, but guys, look, you don't need to be a rocket scientist, you don't even need to have a PhD in nutrition. To teach other people, teach yourself first, you're the first student, teach yourself, and then you can teach others. I was flying the other day and they said, "Put a mask on." And if the oxygen goes down, you know what they said first? Before you help someone else, put the oxygen mask on for yourself. Good idea, put the mask on for yourself and then you can help others. Yeah, do it for yourself guys. Okay now, do you know what tomorrow is? Tomorrow's question and answer Friday.
So guys send in you questions, happy to answer them tomorrow morning, okay? And The Reset, let's sign up to come on, maybe just go into our private Facebook group and saying, "Doc, I'm in." Okay? And then we'll do it together, we'll do it together. And like I said, I'm going to give you some options. For people that have done The Reset, do it for a week or two, for those who want to sign up and we'll pump up your tires for 30 days, it'll change your life, guys, I'm telling you. There's nothing like it, there's nothing like The Metabolic Reset. There's no program out there that is as good for you as that in every aspect of your health, every aspect. Okay, we love you guys. We'll 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!