Transcript Of Today's Episode
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Hello, I'm Dr. Martin, Jr.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: And I'm Dr. Martin, Sr.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: And this is The Doctor Is In Podcast. This is episode 138. Today, we want to continue a discussion [00:00:30] that we had on our last podcast, which is on the concept of brain inflammation. Now, one of the things that we want to talk about specifically today, is one of the effects of that, as well. And it's kind of like the chicken or the egg, which is sleep.
Now, when a person is not sleeping, they end up with more brain inflammation, but the more brain inflammation you have, the less sleep you'll get. Today we want to break that down a little bit more. But before we go on, let's just quickly [00:01:00] summarize for those who haven't listened to our last episode, about, specifically, brain inflammation.
What we talked about was, one of the myths ... People have kind of a funny impression when it comes to what inflammation of the body looks like, because a lot of people kind of confuse swelling and inflammation. Swelling is, you twist an ankle, you hurt yourself, and your ankle blows up to the size of a balloon, and it just looks painful, looks swollen, everything. Whereas, inflammation [00:01:30] in the body, especially in the brain, is at a cellular level. What we talked about last week was, basically what happens is, the cells get damaged or they get inflamed and they send out this little SOS signal, little cytokines, and that causes this inflammation, this cellular inflammation.
It's not like you can look at the brain and say, "Oh, the brain is swollen." In fact, somebody who has a longstanding neurological inflammation, the brain actually would probably look a lot smaller, because it would be shrinking [00:02:00] faster, which is a major issue in Alzheimer's and dementia. When the brain shrinks faster than it should, a person ends up with Alzheimer's or dementia.
But brain swelling, like we talked about last week, is very prevalent, and it has to do with the increase in sugar that we're eating, the increase in vegetable oils that we're consuming, and really, a lot of dietary. We attribute a lot of the brain inflammation to our lifestyle.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: [00:02:30] Yeah, diet.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Diet. A lot of foods that we eat, and then, plus the chemicals in the foods, and the chemicals in the water, and all those kind of things lead to this.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Elevated insulin is a big, big issue for brain inflammation, right?
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Yeah, and that's a diet ... Insulin-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: High circulating insulin-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Is a food hormone.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Right.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Without food, there's no insulin, therefore food is a big issue. The higher the insulin, the more brain inflammation. I mean, that's a major issue. You can [00:03:00] go back and listen to our last podcast if you want more information on how that brain inflammation shows up. And then we ended the podcast by talking about a few natural ways to squash or cool that brain inflammation down.
But what we want to talk about today, is one of the biggest questions that we get asked, and it's one of the biggest source of frustrations for our patients of the Martin Clinic, which is sleep. A lot of things have to happen for you to fall asleep. [00:03:30] There has to be a lot of balance going on in your hormones. There's so much that has to go on, in order for your body to shut down and go to sleep.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yeah.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: And there's a lot that has to happen for you to stay asleep.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yeah.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Some people can't fall asleep. They can't fall asleep. Other people, they can fall asleep, but they can't stay asleep. They're waking up all night. And then you get some that they can't sleep, and when they do sleep, they end up waking up all night. They just can't sleep.
[00:04:00] Then, another category are those who are sleeping, but when they wake up in the morning, they're exhausted. They didn't recharge their batteries. Those are a lot of the issues around sleep.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I've seen as high as 70% of the population that do not get a recuperative good sleep. 70%. And that's way out of whack as compared to what had been 40 to 50 years ago.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Think about-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: But in my office, well, it's about [00:04:30] 90%.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Yeah, because that's a major ... It may not be what's bringing them in there, but it's definitely a side effect of what's going on in their body. They'll list that as a issue that they're having, is sleep. But it's amazing what happens when you correct sleep. It's amazing how much better they feel. Right? And you're starting to hear this now, and research is starting to show this a lot more, it's pretty hard to have a normal metabolism if you're not sleeping properly. Right? Because we know [00:05:00] that a lack of sleep basically increases our body's ability to store fat, through a whole bunch of different biochemical processes, ghrelin and leptin and all these things. At the end of the day, the less sleep you get, the more likely you are to store fat.
And to make things worse, the less sleep you get, the more cravings you have, because of leptin and ghrelin, you're hungrier. And it's not like you're hungrier for fruit or vegetables [00:05:30] or meat. You're craving-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Sugars, salts.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Lack of sleep, not only are they fatigued, not only are they exhausted, they're not sleeping and that affects their brain. And again, it's kind of like they get a lot of anxiety, and they can't sleep, and then they can't sleep and they get a lot of anxiety. And then it leads into depression, so it creates this real storm in their brain that's kind of going on. Right?
Let's talk [00:06:00] a little bit about sleep. Because, just sleeping more, or the ability to get more restful sleep, fixes a lot of problems. But it's not like you could just say to your patient, "Well, just sleep more." because they can't.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: But it's amazing to me, again, if you're talking about ... Where does it usually happen? People have trouble sleeping, ordinarily, are women. Not that men can't have sleep problems, they can. But if a man has a sleep problem, it's because he has sleep apnea, [00:06:30] and sleep apnea is food. Sleep apnea is insulin. I've never seen an exception to it. They've got a high insulin, high circulating insulin, that's a man. But women, much more complex than that.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Now, they may have sleep apnea.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: They might. And they might have high circulating insulin, but usually they get into what we call at the Martin Clinic, sort of a little funny thing I talk about when I show women their hormones, because we test them. We don't guess. We test. But I show them, [00:07:00] "Well, you're into the Bermuda Triangle of hormones." It's just because, in a woman, like you said, a lot of good things have to line up for them to sleep. And a lot of women have trouble with what? Their cortisol is high. A cortisol high in men-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Now, would you say that that's the number one reason why women have a hard time sleeping?
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yes.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Is elevated cortisol.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Elevated cortisol and-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Well, we'll talk about the second one in a second.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Okay. Cortisol. [00:07:30] Number one.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: That's the number one reason why women have a hard time sleeping, is because they got messed up-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Their stress hormone is through the roof.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Let's talk a little bit about how or why cortisol is elevated today. It seems like such a bigger issue today than it was 25 years ago.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Well, think about it. What stresses you? There's external stress, right? Who worries more? Someone's sick in the family, or you have relationship problems, who worries more, men or women? Women. [00:08:00] Their brain don't shut off. I get a kick out of my patients, because women will go, "Well, my husband lies down, he's gonzo. He's asleep before he hit the pillow, and here I am, I'm exhausted, and yet my brain ain't turning off." I said, "Well, that's cortisol." Cortisol hits a man differently than a woman, because there's other connections, right? There's the thyroid, there's her ovaries, you got estrogen, you got progesterone. But cortisol, like I said, affects a woman differently. It's not that we don't [00:08:30] have adrenal glands. I've got a thyroid gland too. Does mine work like a woman's does? No. It's connected differently.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: That's right. And there's more hormones that can influence the thyroid or the adrenals.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yeah, but if you look at the world today, women are ... I always use this story. My mother had 11 kids. I can hardly wrap my head around that. I grew up in home where I had 10 siblings. I don't know how-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: My cortisol levels are elevated just thinking about that.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I don't know [00:09:00] how my ... The world was so different then, right? It was a lot simpler. It just was. Today, you've got two kids, and you're so stinking busy [crosstalk 00:09:13].
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Activities and stress. I've got two kids. They're older now, but we need a Google Calendar just to organize. We all have our own Google calendars.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: My mother used to say, "I'll see you at lunch, and don't come in before." I don't care if it was 40 below zero, [00:09:30] we went out and played. We got dressed and we were out ... Coming in the house to watch a video game or something, are you kidding me? Well, we didn't have them, first of all. No, and I mean-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: [inaudible 00:09:43] video games.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Life was simpler, right? It was a simpler life, and my mom wasn't stressed. She was organized, and you know what? Out-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: That's like an external stress, and the problem is, and this is something that [00:10:00] you and I have talked about, off-air especially, is stress is a generic word. Stress is an outcome, in a sense, for the body. The body perceives itself as stressed.
Now, when we think of stress, we think of external, emotional, relationships, and all those kind of things.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: And they're real.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Pressure at work and that. That definitely elevates your cortisol. It affects your adrenal glands for sure. But the body also perceives stress, anything [00:10:30] that kind of causes the body to react differently than it would want to, your body perceives that as stress. Think of all of the internal stuff that we come into contact with, such as chemicals, toxins, pollutants, all those things, inflammation, of vegetable oils, all those things.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Sugar.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Sugar. They stress our body.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: There's environmental, there's food.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Well, and here's another thing, as well. And we kind [00:11:00] of alluded to this on last week's episode, is one of the main jobs of cortisol ... Cortisol's a stress hormone, and it has a purpose, and it has a very important purpose. One of the main jobs of cortisol is to raise your blood sugar levels. And as we mentioned before, if you're walking down the street at nighttime, and you see somebody walking across the street and they seem to be pacing you, and you're thinking, "Oh no. Is this person going to rob me?" or whatever, your adrenal glands kick in, you [00:11:30] make adrenaline, which is an immediate ... Adrenaline, I always use the example of, in those Fast and the Furious movies, where the nitrous oxide and the gas, they push a button and it throws this nitrous into the ... It combusts really quickly and gives them a real boost of energy.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Turbo.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Turbo boost, right? That's adrenaline. Adrenaline is fast. As soon as your body secretes adrenaline, your heart rate elevates really quickly, your breathing picks up-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: The hair on the back of your head comes up.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: ... and you [00:12:00] produce a ton of energy, so that's adrenaline. But at the same time ... When you're stressed, you also release cortisol. Cortisol's a slower burn. It provides its energy over a longer period of time, so what happens, cortisol gets released, your blood sugar levels go up, and that's one of the-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: And they stay up.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Imagine eating a crappy diet with a lot of sugar. Your blood sugar levels are going up. They're elevated from the food that you're eating. You secrete insulin to lower it, and then cortisol kicks in a little [00:12:30] bit, as well, to bring ... Because insulin will lower your blood sugar levels. You'll get a hypoglycaemia. You'll start to crave salts and sugars and all these things, and then cortisol will elevate, and the blood sugar levels go up. Basically, what ends up happening is that cortisol is elevated all day now.
If you were to look at a graph of cortisol, in the morning, cortisol's the highest, and right before bed, it's the lowest. It's hard to sleep with elevated cortisol.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: And yet, people have it all the time.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: And that's the problem. Right? They have high, high levels [00:13:00] of cortisol all the time. Their cortisol levels are high in the morning, which is circadian ... Cortisol is a circadian hormone in a lot of ways. It's highest in the morning. It's lower at nighttime.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Lets you sleep.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Whereas, for example, on the flip side, and this is a key thing here, is you look at something like human growth hormone. Your growth hormone, which is an anti-aging hormone ... Growth hormones [inaudible 00:13:23] increasing lean mass. It keeps you looking younger, feeling younger, it's great for all these things. Human growth [00:13:30] hormone is circadian rhythm, as well, but it's secreted at nighttime while you're sleeping.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: While you're sleeping, yep. But only while you're sleeping.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Only while you're sleeping. They almost are opposite, so you have elevated cortisol, you're not going to be sleeping. You're not going to be releasing growth hormone. Cortisol, it's a pro-aging hormone. It ages you faster, as well, cortisol. It just ages you quicker.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yeah. You lose your hair.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Yeah. It just limits the amount of growth hormone you can [00:14:00] secrete at nighttime, because you're not sleeping well.
Elevated cortisol, as you mentioned, is a massive, massive cause of all these sleeping issues that we see. Here's another problem, and this is something that you and I find fascinating, is you cannot make cortisol without a key ingredient. And of course, that key ingredient is something that is the number two reason why a lot of women can't sleep. And that's progesterone.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yep. Imagine, eh?
Dr. Martin, Jr.: In order to make [00:14:30] cortisol, you have to steal progesterone. You can imagine, somebody's stressed, they got high cortisol, they're making cortisol, they're secreting cortisol. If they're a female, it's affecting their progesterone. It's messing them up big time.
Let's talk about that now. Progesterone, which is that second ...
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Do men have that? Nope.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: No, so women end up with estrogen dominance.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Sorry, ladies. We got it made in the shade.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: The [00:15:00] male hormonal system is a manual with two pages in it, right? It's just two pages in big thick writing, and then the female hormonal system is like a college textbook. It's so interconnect.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: [crosstalk 00:15:14] volumes.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: And it's so interconnected, which is why women are frustrated.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: And that's why-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: And this is something we hear. We get so many emails. You hear this in the clinic. A woman is hormonal. They've got every symptom in the book, yet their doctor [00:15:30] focuses in on one hormone producing organ, the thyroid. And their thyroid shows up normal, therefore they're normal. Man, that's like testing the smallest, minute thing, and then saying everything else is ... I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever.
Let's get back to progesterone, because one of the things that happens is, the higher your cortisol levels-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: The more progesterone you need.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: And you end up being estrogen dominant. When we say estrogen dominance, [00:16:00] it's always the ratio between estrogen and progesterone. The higher estrogen somebody has, they're estrogen dominant, the lower their progesterone is, they're estrogen dominant, or they can have a combination of really high estrogen and really low progesterone, and they're also estrogen dominant. One of the symptoms of estrogen dominance is they don't sleep. Not only are they not sleeping, they're getting all these side effects like hot sweats or night sweats and elevated heart rates-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Weight gain.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Weight gain, and all these kind of [00:16:30] things.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Mood swings, anxiety, depression.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Which, again, affects the way that they sleep. It affects sleep. Now, there are certain things that, from a practical standpoint, that people can do to help them sleep better. We'll talk about some nutrients in a second, but research is pretty clear on a few things for sleep. Dark room, pitch black. Research is looking at the effect that the light even from an alarm clock has on melatonin secretion, [00:17:00] all those things. You want a pitch black room. Cooler room. Research has shown that, as well. And if somebody has a hard time sleeping, they probably should not be looking at their blue light-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Which is their iPad.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: iPads and iPhones at nighttime.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Don't go on Facebook before you're going to bed.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Yes. Or turn the blue light aspect off. A lot of the newer tablets, you can turn off the blue light, so you can ... But, regardless, those kind of things definitely affect how they sleep at nighttime. But just [00:17:30] making a room cooler and darker is not going to reset your circadian rhythm. It's not going to help you sleep. It's not going to fix the problem, because they have to address the two biggest underlying problems, which is elevated cortisol and low progesterone.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yep.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Cortisol has to be addressed, which is why the thing that you recommend for sleep all the time, and anxiety, is our Cortisol Control.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Martin, Jr.: And again, go to our website, read the reviews on that product, read [00:18:00] the amount of people that have commented about how much better they're sleeping when they take Cortisol Control, because again, that formula was designed to help naturally lower or balance cortisol better, and they're just sleeping so much better. That's the first thing.
But a lot of women are so low in progesterone and so elevated in estrogen, they also need to address those two issues, as well.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Lower their estrogen, because they're usually dominant. We love our hormonal formula for that. The DIM. [00:18:30] It's tremendous. It lowers it. We can prove that, not only with testing with thermography, you really see it. When you can take that estrogen off the body, which can be very highly dangerous for women and men, because men with high woman hormone of estrogen, it makes the prostate grow.
But yeah, you're right. You want to look at your progesterone. Thousands of women benefit from healthy progesterone levels and taking a bioidentical, what we call, [00:19:00] our Bio-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Yeah, our Bioprogesterone cream.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: ... is really good.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: That's a natural progesterone. It's a natural ... And doing that. I've heard you say this before, and I always found this interesting, there's not a woman who doesn't benefit from taking progesterone.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I don't care what age you are.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: I mean it's-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Again, we can go back and talk about estrogen. Where does estrogen come from? Well, estrogen, your body makes it. Men, a hair of it, and women, lots of it. Because [00:19:30] you're a woman. You want to have estrogen. Estrogen's good for you. You need estrogen. The problem is, every chemical in the universe looks like estrogen to your body. Like every plastic. Read the labels of anything, and you can't even pronounce those names. They look like estrogen. They're called xenoestrogens, right? Even food, anything where they put hormones in. In dairy, and-
Dr. Martin, Jr.: And unfortunately, insulin and estrogen [00:20:00] are kind of-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: They're growth hormones.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: They're tightly related.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Very much.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: The more fat cells you have, the more estrogen-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: There you go.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: ... you have. And a great way to build fat cells is to have elevated insulin all the time. They definitely play off each other, as well. Which is why, again, when it comes to sleep, you get a lot of good results in patients with sleep. You address their elevated cortisol, you address their estrogen [00:20:30] dominance, which implies low progesterone. One of the things you recommend in your protocols is making sure that their B12 levels are optimized.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yeah.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Because a lot of people are also not sleeping properly because they got a real deficiency in B12.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Yeah. And your brain doesn't shut down properly. It doesn't recuperate properly without B12. B12 is essential, and the vast majority of people are deficient in it because they don't eat red meat, and [00:21:00] even if they do, if they got any kind of medication ... You, see, medications, okay, if you're taking a medication, even for sleeping, the problem with that is it sedates you. It doesn't get you into your ... Cortisol is not being addressed.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: There's a difference between sedation and sleeping.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: It's knocking the B12 right out of your body.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Yes.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: And your cells need B12 to function properly. Every cell in your body needs B12. It's a precursor to you metabolizing your protein. [00:21:30] You know what I mean? B12 is an essential vitamin. You can't live without B12. And the vast majority of people are very deficient. That's one.
The other vitamin is vitamin D. Because vitamin D, you do not produce enough melatonin without vitamin D. For sleep, people are very, very low in vitamin D. They don't realize it, when they stay out of the sun, and they're scared of vitamin D. They look at vitamin D as strictly [00:22:00] a vitamin they take for their bones. For 50 years they talked about vitamin D in your bones. Your bones are all right, what do you need vitamin D for? But now we know that vitamin D is essential for almost everything in your body. Right?
Dr. Martin, Jr.: We can spend a lot of time talking about ... A study came out recently, saying that most vitamins are useless. Some pharmaceutical shill doing a study, giving the minimum amounts [00:22:30] of everything, with probably crappy form of everything, talking about how these things don't work, when how many hundreds and hundreds of studies have come out just on vitamin D alone? On everything from diabetes to dementia, to Alzheimer's, to cancer. I mean, it's ridiculous. Something like that just frustrates me more than anything. They do it because they get a press release out of it, and I think it's to further an agenda. It's like an information warfare in a lot of ways, because I think [00:23:00] more and more people-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Want drug. It's big pharma.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: I think more and more people are tired of drugs. I think more and more people are educated about their health. Doctors will say, "Well, your hour of Googling doesn't overtake my seven years of medical school." But the doctor forgets the simple fact that a person living with something for 20 years outdoes their six years of, let's be honest, their one hour lecture on that disease, a lot of times. Right?
[00:23:30] People are educated about their conditions that they have. They search their symptoms. They read. People are educated, which is the best thing that can happen for healthcare. That's the best thing. And the more people are reading and getting educated, I think the more-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: By the way, is there more people today, looking at complimentary or functional medicine, or alternative medicine today? Or less?
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Well, and that's the thing.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Because there's more.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Who wants to go into [00:24:00] their doctor with a symptom, and their doctor says, "Well, you need this drug." How long do you need it for? "Well, for life. Until things get better." It's like, man, that's depressing. I think people are waking up a little bit. I think, as that happens, I'm a cynic and this way here, I think you're going to see a lot more studies coming out, funded studies, to show all these kind of, "Oh, this doesn't work, or that doesn't work." Anyways, that's a whole other episode for another time.
At the end of the day, [00:24:30] when it comes to sleep, a drug doesn't make you sleep better, it will sedate you better. It ain't going to fix the problem, and there are longterm effects. We've did episodes in the past-
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Alzheimer's, dementia.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: Alzheimer's, dementia, diabetes.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Huge.
Dr. Martin, Jr.: All these things. You cannot live on those things for a long period of time. You have to fix the problem. The problem, a lot of times, is neurological inflammation, elevated cortisol, and low progesterone, or estrogen dominance. You address those, you fix [00:25:00] those problems, you're going to sleep better. That's the bottom line. We hear it every day. Every day, we hear that.
Again, we want to thank you for listening to this episode. If you have any questions, you can email us at info@martinclinic.com. You can also join you every Thursday morning. We do a Facebook Live every Thursday morning. You can also go on our website. If you're not a newsletter subscriber, sign up for our newsletters. We answer a lot of these questions in newsletters. We go through a lot of studies in there. [00:25:30] Plus, you'll also know when we do live webinars. We like to do live webinars where we just talk about a condition and how to fix it. Again, go to our website, join our newsletter list.
Again, we want to thank you for listening. Have a great day.