Dr. Martin continues his teaching on anxiety and depression in today’s episode. He focuses specifically on the two areas of the brain that get affected by stress.
Our bodies are built for stress, but no one was built for chronic levels of stress. We have two organs in our body, the adrenal glands, that are built for stress. They control your fight or flight response, but when they don’t shut off, you end up with high levels of cortisol. This is bad.
Cortisol over a period of time has a major effect on the body. Join Dr. Martin as he looks at these major effects.
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
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Dr. Martin: Well, good morning everyone. How are you? How are you doing? Hope you're having a great start to your day. So, what we're looking at guys, this morning, I want to continue on depression. We've been talking about that. We talked about yesterday, the real connection in terms of taking history, looking at antibiotics, and looking down the road. We talked about the gut-brain connection, and there's a huge connection there. And the more we study the microbiome, the more we study bacteria, the more we realize that that is essential for your health. Now we talked about that yesterday. Okay? So, it's always fascinating stuff, right?
But today what I wanted to do is talk to you about two areas of the brain that get affected by stress. Okay? And we're going to talk a little bit more about depression. What I found over the years in depression. What was consistent that I saw. But I've got to bring you, and I've said this to you before, but chronic stress. And the Bible has it right because it says chronic stress, anxiety, uptight. The drip, drip, drip of cortisol has a major effect on the body because it was never meant to be. Never meant to be. No one was built for chronic stress. We're built for stress. You have two organs in your body, the adrenal glands, that are built for stress. So, not to have any stress? Come on. What planet are you going to live on? Are you taking off with Elon Musk, not to have any stress in your life?
But what cortisol does over a period of time, it's not meant to be. It's not meant to be drip, drip, drip, drip of cortisol. And you know what? It's not negativity when I say, "Why the heck don't we know more, or why isn't it tested more?" Cortisol. And again, it's hard to get physicians to change their mind. They don't look at stress the same way that someone holistically should look at it. Because when you understand the physiology of what stress does... We talked about yesterday, the SSRIs, up 600% in terms of prescriptions. 600% increase. It really has been a colossal failure. Because we have more anxiety today and more depression today than ever before, and our bodies were never meant for it. It's one of the main factors in insomnia. Insomnia is often a sign of high levels of cortisol. Remember what cortisol does. Cortisol puts you into the fight or flight. Okay? So, it's the long-lasting fight or flight.
If I come up behind you and scare you, it's dark at night, your body knows exactly what to do, run, or turn around and punch, right? Fight or flight. The problem with that is, if it continues to go physiologically, it really messes up your body. One of the things it does, and this is a little bit of a rabbit trail, but one of the things it does, ladies, it robs your progesterone. Cortisol, over a period of time, robs progesterone. That'll give you estrogen dominance. And when you're estrogen dominant, your thyroid's not even going to work properly. I don't want to get into the weeds too much, but I'm talking about anxiety. And then eventually what happens is, it can lead to depression if it's not turned off, if it's not corrected. Not good, not good.
And what stress does, it gives a toxic bath to the brain. Two areas: to your hippocampus... And remember, for the sake of any kind of testing that I would ever give you for the brain, you only have to remember two centers in your brain. One is your hippocampus. That's mostly memory. A lot of serotonin, dopamine happens in the hippocampus. But the other one, where you get a toxic bath, because you're not meant to have this for a long period of time, is your hypothalamus. And when you think of hypothalamus, okay, hippocampus, think of your memory. Hypothalamus, think of your hormones. From your thyroid to your adrenals, to... The headquarters up there is the hypothalamus. That controls your hormones, and often time they become "horror-mones."
So, anxiety over a period of time. Well, it can be deadly. Again, I'm not a prophet nor the son of one, but let me tell you the unintended consequences. We've been in laboratory for the last two years. The world was put into a laboratory. I was explaining this to my nephew last night, because he's a school teacher. And you know what he told me? He said, he's got a class of 30, and about 10 students out of 30.... He's been around a long time in teaching, and he said, "I've got about 10 students I'm really worried about their mental health."
What are they saying? Something like 60% of young people in the last couple of years have contemplated suicide? We've been in a lab. And that's what I said. I said, "We've been in a lab." The world was put into an experiment, and we flunked miserably. And the problem was, we put all our emphasis, all of it... And this is one of the things that I got to pet peeve about. When we don't look holistically at things, we get narrow vision, tunnel vision. Because what we do is, all we could focus in on was this virus. And what we did is, we allowed the World Health Organization and others...
And look, guys, I don't want to get into the politics of it, but let's just call a spade a spade. When you give public health officials... Okay, I took public health courses, and everything is about a virus, a pandemic. They're trained just to do that. Well, of course. They want to get to ground zero. They want to get to no viruses. So, now we have all the strains, and now we've got what, the monkeypox or whatever they're calling? Look. Public health officials are going to do what they do. That's what they do. You can't expect anything different from them. They're never going to change their mind, because they're focused in on viruses. That's their job.
But you can't give them control of everything. Because if you do... We were in an experiment. When you give public health all the control, what happened? You know it, guys. I've been so consistent about this, the unintended consequences. Because we have left young people, especially. We threw them under the bus.
I was telling my nephew. I said, "If I was a kid..." I majored in recess. If you would've asked me to do my schooling online when I was a kid, a teenager, I would have went crazy." All I'm saying is, cortisol over a period of time has a major, major, major effect on the body. It suppresses your immune system. It suppresses your hippocampus, your memory. It suppresses your hypothalamus, hormones. For women, it messes up their progesterone. Robs progesterone. They get estrogen dominance. Guys, estrogen, it's a growth hormone. It makes cancer grow and grow and grow.
I heard an oncologist the other day saying, "Well, you know what? Because of no early detection," he was saying, "it's going to be a catastrophe in Canada." He was talking about Canada, about all the missed cancers. But you know what I say, I take it a step even farther back. I don't want people to get cancer in the first place, never mind early detection, is that you're promoting cancer when you increase the stress hormone cortisol. Because it'll mess up.
And here's what the cortisol does, too, and it has a factor in, because when you don't feel good, when it messes you up, when you're uptight, you know your body's like that, you know what you want to do to calm yourself? You are going to choose...
Most people, they will choose the wrong fuel, because their brain is screaming, "Just give me something to pacify me." And you know what people have done? They go for the quick, quick sugar in carb. They use the wrong fuel. That creates insulin resistance. That creates a cascade of problems. Inflammation. It messes up your liver. Triglycerides go up. HDL goes down. The belly fat of cortisol and the liver fat of cortisol and insulin. The two hormones that want you dead. I should put estrogen in there, too. Insulin is a growth hormone, cortisol adds fuel to the fire, and estrogen is a growth hormone. Why do you think we see so much breast cancer?
So, you get depression, you get a decrease in the immune function, and you have a cascade of problems. Now here's what I saw in my clinic over the years, because I was big on testing cortisol. I was big on it, because I understood its significance. And a lot of people, when I used to tell them, "Your cortisol's through the roof," well, they were surprised and they weren't. They were surprised because nobody ever talked to them about it, but they weren't surprised when they were told that their stress hormone was through the roof.
"Stress? I guess it's normal." Well, it's really not normal over a period of time. Your body's not made for it. And here's some of the other things that I saw. Okay? We talked about it yesterday. One thing for sure. You see somebody with depression, anxiety, the two-headed coin, the twin tower, anxiety and depression.
When I used to test in my office, here's what I saw consistently. High levels of cortisol, so that was one, obviously, because I tested for it. What else did I see? Low levels of B12. Low levels of B12. B12 is a stress vitamin. Your stress will rob you of B12. And lack of B12 will increase your cortisol. It's a double whammo. B12 gets robbed. That's why I am so insistent on testing B12. Get your B12 tested. It's very important. It's an enormous biomarker.
I don't care about the other B vitamins. You can't make me care. It's not that I don't care per se, but tell me what your B12 is, and I'll tell you what the rest of your B vitamins are like. And then, of course, like I said, you're stressed. You got anxiety, you got depression. You're not eating steak, which gives you B12. You're eating garbage.
Kids are eating garbage, they're eating sugar. They want a quick fix. And they're eating cereal instead of bacon and eggs. And they're making the problem worse. Their B12 is going down, the cortisol is going up. Their cortisol goes up and their B12 goes down.
B12 is a neurological vitamin, and the vast majority of the society today is low in B12, for several reasons. One of them, of course, is stress. Two, they don't need it. And what do we have today? A campaign to get people to stop eating meat, and especially red meat. It's vilified. Guys, it's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. It is, because it's the most nutritious food in the world.
God put B12 in steak so that you could eat it. Not that you could say, "Oh, steak is acidic, and steak and the environment, and steak..." And better to eat what? Soy? Fake burgers? But it's the lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, and it's the young people, especially. They go over an old goat like me. They're not trying to convince me, an old goat. They're going after my grandchildren, that's who they're going after, and my great-grandchildren, and they're indoctrinating them. Coming to a theater near you in school. Climate is everything. They're going to take away my truck. Well, you're not going to be able to afford to put the gas in it. I shake my head, guys. It's a head shaker. "Red meat, that's bad for you." Every day I get it. Every day, every day, every day, every day I go, "I am the farmer's defender." There's nobody that will defend a farmer like Dr. Martin.
So, what do you see? Anxiety. It robs you of B12. You know what the other vitamin extremely low in our world today, for more than one reason, but one of them is stress, you know what I would see? Low levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D is a biomarker. It really is. Guys, I tell you. Listen, every year you should get your vitamin D levels checked. And if your doctor doesn't want to do it, then pay for it and get your vitamin D levels checked. If the government, if medicine, would wake up and smell the coffee, if they understood the importance of vitamin D for everything, viderma, the sunshine vitamin. And 80 to 90% of the population is low in vitamin D. And if you're a bad eater... I'm not talking to you because you're smart. My audience is the smartest audience in the podcast world. I have no doubt about that.
And you know me, I test you. I want to know if you're listening, Linda. Are you? Listen, listen. I know you do. Smartest audience. Tony Jr. and I were talking about that the other day. We got the smartest audience. Go to our Facebook page. Smart. Somebody will ask a question, and I don't even have to answer. I got 40 people coming. Here's the answer to it. I love it. Smart. I'm giving all of you an honorary degree in nutrition. I'm going to tell you something, you know more about nutrition than 99% of any doctor that I've ever met in the universe. And I mean it, because they drink the Koolaid.
You just say a lie long enough and people believe it. That's what happened to red meat. I hear it all the time. That's what happened to bacon. Bacon's no good, gives you cholesterol. Eggs, hey, you got to be very careful with eggs. Who told you that? "Well, they say." Who's they? It's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, indoctrination. It's just coming at you, coming at you, coming at you.
What I always wanted to do, because I used to preach it in my clinic, and then I had a radio show for 20 years, I preached it on the radio, you have to take care of yourself. God gave you a brain. You've got gray matter in between your ears. Use it. Because otherwise, the world will put you on a river and you're going to go with the flow.
And that's what happens to nutrition in the world. "Oh, moderation. Oh, just eat moderation." Where has that got us? "Let's eat fat free." No wonder our brains don't work, eating fat free. Down the river. And they pull everybody with them. The food industry, "Cholesterol. That's bad. Eat our cereals. Listen, eat our cereals. Cereal is so much better than... because it give you fiber. Fiber. You can't live without fiber."
Why? You want to have a big poop? And down the river the world goes. And it's indoctrination. "Red meat, my word. That'll give you a heart attack because it's going to clog up your arteries." Is what I'm saying true or false? It's true, isn't it.
And you guys know better. Think about this. How in the world were you not meant to eat B12 if B12 is that important? If you have low levels of B12, you're on your way to neurological problems. One of them being the chemistry in your brain, and the neurotransmitters in your brain. They need B12.
Well, B12 isn't found in salad, or chicken, in cereal. They might tell you they put B vitamins enriched. You don't absorb that stuff. Oh, I'm getting uptight. But when I see kids, and they got anxiety, and when I hear the statistics, we talked about it yesterday, of the 600% increase in the prescriptions for antidepressants.
Guys, that is a crime, in my opinion, against humanity. It's a crime. Because they're not looking at the underlying factors. Here's what I saw every time. Okay? Low B12, vitamin D, just about without exception. High cortisol, obviously, right? Insulin resistance. Insulin resistance. Insulin is food. And when the world insists on being carboholics, because that's what the world insists that the world becomes, the Pied Piper plays his little flute and he says, "Follow me to the land of carbohydrates."
Your body was never meant to eat like that. A 300% in the last 10 years or so, a 300% increase in fructose. And I ain't talking fruit, guys. Kid ain't going to get sick eating fruit, but they get sick drinking fruit. High-fructose corn syrup. It is a brain killer. It is an anxiety accelerator. It is a depression motivator.
Your brain is headquarters. It's the federal government. And if you give it carbs for fuel, it has to have energy, it'll say, "Okay, that's what you're giving me." And of course, the brain will take it, and then it will get hooked on it.
Do you think the food industry is stupid? Do you think they're not marketing geniuses? Not only are they advertising, but they know. They know how to make food addictive. When they make Oreo cookies, or ice cream, or whatever, and they put high-fructose corn syrup in it, do you think they don't know what they're doing? It's like cocaine to the brain, man. And then you're hooked, and then they have a lifelong customer.
And then they'll say, "Sugar's not bad in moderation." And Dr. Martin gets a migraine thinking about what they do, and what they've done to our society, to our mental health.
Food is a big thing, guys, in mental health. It's a big thing. Never talked about. We don't have enough Dr. [McEwens 00:27:38] around, at the University of West Tennessee, who teaches her students the importance of nutrition and their brain. I admire that. I admire that. Light years ahead of her time.
I've met a few psychiatrists and psychologists that were smart, that were talking about it. I remember in the '70s, Dr. Hoffer, a psychiatrist, talking about the dangers of sugar, and depression and anxiety, and psychosis. "Sugar, sugar, sugar," he said. "Terrible stuff. Get kids off of sugar." And that was in the 1970s. But he was a lone ranger. Medicine never accepted, even though he did research to prove it to them.
Okay. Did I get off on a tangent this morning? Guys, I'm going to leave you with this. Frosted Flakes are not great. Frosted Flakes are not great. Tony the Tiger. I love the name Tony, but Tony the Tiger's not your friend. Okay.
Fridays a-coming. Question and answer Friday. Get your questions in. Okay? It's always fun. Rapid fire. Although I do go off on tangents, I admit it. You guys must be used to me by now.
Now, our audience is growing, growing, growing, and we appreciate that. We thank you. Boy, the downloads on the podcasts, on smartphones, it's unreal. We're amazed. We thank you for that. It's you guys. Okay? We thank you for our private Facebook group. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for joining in and being a part of our community. We appreciate it. Thank you for getting up in the morning and listening to this old goat. Okay? You have no idea how much I appreciate that. I really do. Okay? When I tell you I love you, I don't say that lightly. Okay. 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!