In part 1 of this series, Dr. Martin looked at obvious signs you have a sluggish thyroid. In today’s episode, he looks at secondary signs that may be contributing factors.
Dr. Martin has often called the thyroid a puppet as it reacts to other things happening in the body. Doctors will often dismiss symptoms a woman is having because their test results come back as normal.
Join Dr. Martin as he sheds light on this condition affecting millions of women!
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. How are you? Once again, welcome to another live. Hope you're having a good start to your day. Okay, let's get going because we'll never get going if we don't start. Okay. Now I did want to finish up on the thyroid. So yesterday, we talked about obvious signs when you have certain things, look to the thyroid primarily. And there's a lot of secondary ... When I say that word, secondary issues, that you wouldn't relate to the thyroid, but the thyroid often is involved in anything in the body, especially guys, related to women. And like I said yesterday, medicine, they focus so much on thyroid numbers and focus in on if your thyroid numbers are not out of whack compared to what they call normal, well, then they dismiss the thyroid, which is a huge, huge, huge mistake.
So we talked about obvious signs yesterday. We talked about [Spanish 00:01:53], hair, obvious. Not in men, men never get balding because of thyroid. So I don't get too uptight with men and their hair because even if I lust after hair, it's only because I see some men that they might be all gray, but they got all their hair. That's actually rare comparatively to women because women, your hair is your glory. Never normal, ladies, to lose your hair. Well, you might lose hair, but you should be growing it back rapidly. Now hair, what do we talk about? Look at the skin. The skin, very much related to the thyroid gland. We talked about it, especially dry, flaky skin. And I always pretty well pick up the thyroid if I looked at a person's skin.
Now thirdly, we talked about nails. And ladies, you know your nails. And those can be obvious signs, hair, skin, nails. The fourth one of course is weight gain. Now you can have weight loss if you have Grave's or hyperthyroid and your body is running at 200 miles an hour, and you're just out of whack, and your thyroid can do that. But most of the time, your thyroid is subject to slow, sluggish. And what I'm talking about in these programs is sluggish thyroid, not necessarily what would be characterized as hypothyroidism because you have to be at a certain number for that to happen. But when the thyroid's not working properly, when it's not up to snuff, women again, especially gain weight. They don't even have to eat food. They only need to look at it. Do you know any women like that? And the primary reason I tell you this, the primary reason that people do the reset, the metabolic reset, is for weight loss. That is their primary reason.
And I understand that. I understand that. Because women are so frustrated, and if it's not calories in and calorie out, here's the world. Here's medicine. Eat less, move more. You know how frustrating that is for women. Eat less and move more. Oh, that'll do it. Not if your thyroid's not working properly. Not if you have a sluggish thyroid. That won't help. And then you add in the strings attached. Add in the strings attached to the thyroid. Remember what I said yesterday, the complication of having ovaries. You know what ovaries are? Yep. God bless you, you have ovaries, but it complicates the world because when your ovaries are producing too much estrogen, it's never the other way around, folks, I've never seen a case of it. I know what the problem is, I've got too much progesterone. Nope. I've never seen that.
All my years of practice, I never seen too much progesterone. But what I did see is an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen makes you a woman. It makes men women too. And it is a growth hormone. Estrogen makes things grow, grow, grow, including your body, ladies. You packed it on, on the hips. I used to tell women, I already tested them, but I already knew what the answer was because they were packing their weight on their hips. And I used to tell them, "You know what that is? You're too much of a woman. You've got too much estrogen compared to your progesterone." And when you have too much estrogen compared to your progesterone, things are going to grow. In breast tissue, not good. Any woman's issue, not good.
Remember now, there's three, ladies, three traumatic events in a woman's life hormonally, three major events that happen in a woman's body, very important. I could grab doctors by the throat when they don't even think about this. The first time you have menses, now that can be smooth sailing, but it can be big time trouble for a lot of young ladies, and I mean even girls because I remember when a girl came into the office, and no guff, eight years old. The poor thing didn't even understand what was happening to her. She was menstruating, unbelievable. And even her skin, and she was developing breast tissue at eight years old. And I told her mother, I said, "Man, she's got so much estrogen, it's coming out her ears. I need to fix that."
But women that have bad periods, terrible PMS, heavy, heavy bleeding, they're often anemic, that's hormones. And diet will affect the thyroid, not only too much estrogen. And then having a baby. Again, some women, smooth sailing, they're having a baby. Then after the baby, for some, smooth sailing, wonderful. But for a lot of women, it messes up their thyroid. Why is that? Well, they leave all their progesterone, all of it, in the placenta. And the body is supposed to, okay, make progesterone, make it, make it, make it because I lost it all. But sometimes there's an imbalance and you get estrogen dominance. And here's a woman who's been tiny all her life. She has a baby and she puts on 50 pounds. And she goes to the doctor and the doctor says, "Eat less and move more." Ooh, that's hormonal. It's ovary to the thyroid, direct connection.
That's why men, if a man puts on 50 pounds, let me tell you something, he is a bad eater, simple, not complicated. But when a woman puts on 50 pounds, hormones, hormones, direct link, ovaries to the thyroid gland. You know how many times I saw that? Thousands of times. And then ladies, it ain't over yet. I should write a book about this. It ain't over yet, babe, because you're coming into menopause. Men don't get menopause. When they say andropause, nah. Who believes in that? Men are big babies. We couldn't handle it. But ladies, menopause is like you're in an airplane, and most women, most, not all, some smooth. You're in a plane and there's no turbulence. But for hundreds of thousands of women, they hit turbulence, up and down, and down and up, and a lot of, remember, it's ovaries with a direct line to the thyroid. And you can get a myriad of symptoms. [inaudible 00:13:11]. Doc, I just keep putting on weight.
And that little thyroid gland, which is a puppet with a lot of strings attached is yo-yo-ing. Guys, I'm telling you, you would not believe how many patients I saw. Their thyroid was yo-yo-ing. Can I say that? And they were on the yo-yo diet. Every month or two, they'd start a new one, from Weight Watchers, to Jenny Craig, to ordering pills and starting this one, and starting that one. Guys, remember when I was in practice, I had a weight loss clinic. You think I didn't see this? I had ladies, and I'm not kidding you, crying, not because they were mad at me, or sad, they were happy crying in the office. I'm not kidding you. You know why? Dr. Martin, you're the first guy that has told me it's not my fault.
Well, I said, "It's not. It's your horror-mones. It's not your fault." It's not your fault that you hit turbulence, and you came into menopause in a rough landing. It's not your fault because you had a baby and all your progesterone was left in the placenta, and your body took off with estrogen compared to progesterone, and it messed the stink out of your body. Not your fault. Can't blame a woman for hormones. Medicine in a lot of ways, guys, I've said this to you in the past, medicine is still, in spite of the fact there's probably more women in medicine today than there are men, I don't know what the statistics are, but I know that in the medical school here in Sunbury, a lot more women than men in medicine. And yet, let me say this, medicine is still run by men. It is. And because of that, women fall through the cracks. They really do.
Doctors don't understand hormones 101. They don't understand them. They're so trained to, like I said yesterday, to look at blood work, lab. They miss what I think is obvious, horror-mones, that thyroid gland. It's not always primary. It's not always the first thing. The thyroid is, even though it's your metabolism, even though it's your furnace, it's your thermostat, it's very important, but it's when you miss obvious signs that the thyroid's not working and when you miss secondary signs that the thyroid is not working. But the obvious one is weight gain in a woman, hair in a women, skin in a woman, nails in a woman, obvious. And you need to do something about it.
Now here's another factor because we're on the thyroid, I've got to bring it up. Ovaries, direct line, remember the string attached to the thyroid, well, believe you me, the number one issue is estrogen dominance, number one in a woman. Too much estrogen compared to progesterone, [Spanish 00:18:16]. [Spanish 00:18:20] is what? The adrenals, cortisol, stress. Stress, what does it do? Cortisol robs. Now remember this, guys, because like I said, 99%, God love physicians, don't know this. Either they don't remember it from medical school or they're ignorant. What does cortisol do? I'm going to throw this out to you as a trick question. Here's what I find when I give you guys a little test. You know what I find? How smart you are. So close your books, pretend you're in school. I'm going to give you a little test. Why does cortisol affect the thyroid? Cortisol is stress over a long period of time.
Now if you get this, I mean it, it is incredible because this is complicated, but I'm looking for one word. When cortisol is high, what happens? [inaudible 00:19:53], I love you because it adds fuel to a fire. It does. You're right. There it is. Who got it? Gertie. Gertie, you got it. It robs your body of progesterone, progesterone. Gertie, you win the prize. It robs the body of progesterone. Insulin goes up. Yes, it does. You guys are so smart, I can't get over it. I can't get over my audience how smart you are. I am giving you honorary degrees, you're so smart in nutrition. Raises insulin, raises insulin, out of balance, yep, yep.
Those are all good answers. The one I was looking for though, Gertie got. Weight gain, yep. Laurie, leaky gut, yep, yep, yep because that's important too. It can give you leaky gut. You guys are unreal. I'm telling you. Nellie, yep, Nellie, listen. When you rob the body of progesterone, guess what happens, your estrogen goes up. Remember it's like a teeter totter. Estrogen, progesterone. If progesterone goes down, estrogen's going up. And that slows your thyroid down. Amazing. So you have stress, and stress is a huge factor on the thyroid. It really is. Stress. And where will you see the fact, ladies? If your cortisol is too high, remember estrogen is a growth hormone, weight gain. Where will you see the weight gain in a woman, that their cortisol is out of whack? Someone, again, you guys are smart. Where will that ... Estrogen in the hips, cortisol in maybe the hips too. And, Wendy, you got it, the belly, belly. Marcy, the belly. Deanna, the belly. You guys are [inaudible 00:22:45].
What can I say? Barbara, Laurie, Lynn. I'm telling you. You guys are unreal, you're so smart. Around the belly. Andrea, yep, hips and belly. Rita and Mike. Mike, were you in on that? Lees, hips and belly. Regina, hips and belly. Julie, belly. Linda, belly. [inaudible 00:23:18], belly. You guys. It's unreal how smart you are. Everybody's right. How do you know that? Belly fat, Kelly, how do you know that? Susan, you guys are unreal. Marine, yep, the belly. So guys, I'm going to put you in a little scenario. I'm going to make believe right now. As we close up this program on the thyroid, part two, you're walking in the mall. You go to the mall, take your sunglasses off and observe. You can do a little experiment if you want.
You're walking in the mall. Don't look at any men, ladies. Eyes off men. You're going to look at women. I want you to use your eyeballs and observe. Pretend you're with me and I'm testing you. We're doing our rounds, not in the hospital, but in a mall. What are we looking at? We're looking at women. We're looking at their hair. What do you see? They're thinning out. You see a lot of that. And you're looking at their eyebrows. What do you see? Yep. And you see eyebrows, they're thinning out. Or they got makeup on, and they got those fake eyebrows. I didn't want to go there. I'm going to just get myself into trouble. And if you can hold their hand or get them to stick their hand out, you could look at their nails. You could look at their skin. Look, look, observe. Have fun one day. Just pretend you're on rounds with me, and I'm beside you, and I got my arms folded. And I'm saying to you, "What do you see? What's that woman got? Look where her weight is, packed on her hips." What's that mean?
Well, the thyroid's not working up to snuff. But you know what's causing it, estrogen dominance. That's slowing her thyroid down. It'll pack her weight on the hips. And then you look, you're observing. Don't make it look too obvious. They might arrest you. Look at belly fat. Look at women, guys, ladies. Look at women and look at the amount of belly fat that we see. I'm telling you, guys, I'm just telling you this, in the 1970s, when I started practice, it was unheard of almost to see a woman with belly fat unless she was pregnant. Go to the mall today and observe. You'll be shocked.
Now when a man has a belly, we used to call them beer belly, but they're sugar bellies. They're sugar bellies. When kid's got a belly, he's got a sugar belly. When women have a belly, they've got an estrogen belly because their thyroid slowed down and they go together. And they have stress and their adrenals are affected. And stress gives you belly fat on the hips and in the belly. Fun being a woman, huh? Fun being a woman. I've always said to you, and I mean it with all sincerity, and I'm a man, men, we got it easy compared to women. We do. We got nothing to complain about, honey. There's a special place in Heaven for women.
Guys, that was our little teaching on the thyroid. I want to thank you for being so smart. It astounds me. It does because what you know about hormones, it's high five-ish, I mean it. I'd give you all the high fives if I could, how smart you guys are. You listen, Linda, you listen. My teaching is not in vain. Don't you think this should be taught? I just asked you a question. Don't you think this should be taught in every medical school in North America? It should be. It should be. Deep breathe, I'm breathing. Okay, you guys are great. Remember, Friday is question and answer Friday. We always enjoy that because rapid fire, it's fun. So many good questions that we like to answer, so just send your questions in. And we'll get to them on Friday. And remember if you're not a member of the Martin Clinic private Facebook group, you've got to be. You got to join the tens of thousands. It's such a good group.
If your friends or family can't see this live in the mornings, get them to look up on their smart device, The Doctor is In Podcast. It's there. You can get it. You can download it. You can listen. Again, go get it. Guys, we love you dearly. 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!