Transcript Of Today's Episode
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Dr. Martin Sr.: Well, hello, I'm Dr. Martin Sr. and once again flying solo today as we do episode 208. This [00:00:30] particular podcast might be, well we might even do two because there's so much information I want to share with you today and that is about your gut. Now, do you ever get tired of hearing? It seems at the Martin clinic we're always talking about your gut and the importance of it but you know I don't want to boast, I really don't, but I want to tell you I've been talking about the gut for so long. I almost feel like Hippocrates. [00:01:00] I am not quite that old, couple of thousand years old, but he said that all diseases start in the gut and you know what? The more we study the gut the more we studied that this micro biome, the bacterial in your gut oh man it's just unbelievable.
Dr. Martin Sr.: The stuff that comes out, it seems that everyday, everyday, everyday I am reading a new study about the [00:01:30] bacteria and about the lining of your gut and I want to just reemphasize that in this podcast and maybe even going into another one I'll see where I get with this one but there's two things about the gut. Okay, let's split them up but they're very, very intertwined but let's just talk about that. There's the micro biome that is your three pounds, on average, 100 [00:02:00] trillion bacteria. Wow. Unbelievable. And guess what? If you don't think there's a God I don't know. I just can't get over it. These bacteria, they have their own DNA. They're very, you've got your own bacteria, I have my own bacteria. We have our own, our bacteria have a personality it's unbelievable. And it's sort of like an ecosystem inside [00:02:30] your body and it's very fragile as we'll talk about as we go through these podcasts today.
Dr. Martin Sr.: But you've got three pounds. So when you step on a scale just say to anybody that's if they're watching or say it to yourself. We have a scale at the office. So, when patients jump on the scale I always say, "Well, take three pounds off for your bacteria." It makes them feel better right away. So yeah, you've got three pounds of bacteria, [00:03:00] good, bad, and ugly and they have their own DNA. And as long as you have enough good ones it really just is, it'll keep you very, very healthy it's unbelievable and we'll discuss that in this podcast today.
Dr. Martin Sr.: So, you have your micro biome and then you have your intestinal barrier. It's a lining of the gut. It's very, very thin microscopic lining called your epithelial [00:03:30] cells and it's very important. It is very, like I said, microscopic, it's the barrier between your gut and your blood. So, when we talk about leaky gut we're literally talking about your gatekeepers, the border guards. You know I've used that a lot. They're border guards. Do you ever go, I'm Canadian and I'm going to head down to Florida for a bit and have a little holiday in [00:04:00] November. And one of the biggest thing for us Canadians to go into the United States is we've got to go through customs. And I guess you Americans have to come through customs the other way but I just find the American guys and women they're miserable all the time. Hey, I'm coming to give you money. Now I can understand they don't want any bad guys coming in. I can understand that they don't want any terrorist or whatever.
Dr. Martin Sr.: So, you're border [00:04:30] guards at the border are your security. And guess what? You need gatekeepers between your gut and your blood. And when you don't have enough gatekeepers we call that leaky gut because the intestinal wall is now being compromised and you can have bad bacteria of viruses, I call them terrorists, and especially yeast. This is the most insidious terrorist that you can get is yeast [00:05:00] that comes into your bloodstream. I remember doctors and even every once in a while I still hear it from my medical friends. They can handle when you hear, if one of my patients for example goes and sees their doctor. "Well, Dr. Martin, says I got yeast in my blood." And I mean they're thinking like they're still back in the 1960s and 70's and, "Oh if you get a yeast infection in your blood it'll kill you so that's impossible." [00:05:30] No, it's very possible as a matter of fact.
Dr. Martin Sr.: It's just because and again I don't want to be negative but a lot of doctors just never see yeast. I mean, unless it bites them coming from the skin they don't really see it too much. If you've got a toe fungus, oh yeah well they take that seriously, don't they? They'll give you medications for a toe fungus. Literally I mean, very, very powerful [00:06:00] anti fungal medication. Why are they worried about a toe fungus? Because it doesn't look good on your toe? Are they worried about it coming into your bloodstream? Yeah, I think it's the latter. Anyways, I don't want to get bogged down with that but let's just talk about some lifestyle factors that can affect your micro biome and the lining of your gut. They're very, very similar by the way. I don't separate them too much because what [00:06:30] is good for the goose is good for the gander. If you take care of your things that we'll talk about here that you will affect both the lining of your gut and the micro biome, those trillions of bacteria that you have within your body.
Dr. Martin Sr.: So let's do everything about the gut. Let's talk about some lifestyle factors that can really, really affect you. Number one, number one, number one, food, food, food, food. So, you want [00:07:00] to be careful with the new smoking. You know I've been very consistent about this always talking about if you do nothing else for your body and just cut back on your sugars, good and bad and ugly sugars cut back on sugars because sugars feed your bad bacteria. Sugars feed yeast. So remember there's a war going [00:07:30] on in your gut between good, bad bacteria. If you don't have enough good ones and your micro biome is compromised and we'll tell you why it can be compromised, one of them is sugars, it literally feeds the third army that loves to invade and get across the gut blood barrier and that is fungus. So you won't hear this much because a lot of doctors never talk about it but I'm telling you it is very, [00:08:00] very important. So cut back on your sugars if you do nothing else and read your labels. Cut back on your sugars, you will make a huge difference in your gut health.
Dr. Martin Sr.: What's another one? Industrial seed oils. It started folks with Crisco. You guys might not remember this but I do as a kid. Mama used to use Crisco and [00:08:30] Crisco was something that was hydrogenated, it came from seed oils. I believe in those days it was cotton seed oil, very industrialized, very inexpensive. And we started using it in the 1950s, probably the late 40's as a cooking oil. We replaced butter with Crisco. We replaced [00:09:00] good butter and natural foods with something that was very synthetic and certainly wasn't good for you. And now we today almost every processed food that you can think of soybean, it comes from soybean oil or canola oil and it's funny we're shipping canola oil over to China. We're going to kill them if we ... You want to destroy the population of China? Give them canola oil.
Dr. Martin Sr.: [00:09:30] And I don't blame the farmers for growing it. They're getting paid to grow canola oil and there's a big demand but it's certainly not good for you. Wraps seed, which is a wrap seed oil by the way, canola oil is made from that, corn oil, soybean, soft flour. These are all seeds that promote big time gut inflammation, creates free radical oxidation within the gut, destroys your friendly bacteria, [00:10:00] and causes leaky gut because it affects the lining of the wall. The other one, gluten and I often say gluten [inaudible 00:10:11] because gluten is not the primary thing that affects the gut although it's gotten a lot of bad ink today but I'm a big guy on lowering insulin because insulin through sugars and you're just a bad diet of consuming [00:10:30] way, way, way too many processed foods and carbohydrates. I believe that creates more inflammation and the auto immune response within the gut.
Dr. Martin Sr.: But gluten can for certain people, certainly with celiac and today we do see gluten and especially with people with thyroid, with Hashimoto's, they do well when they avoid gluten. But the way I get them to do it it's not so much gluten I just get them to go very, very low carbohydrate. Like quit [00:11:00] eating, I get a lot of patients saying, "Dr. Martin can I have? I like rye bread." Like light rye is very low carb. It's only got about 12 grams of carbs and no sugars added. Well, "I said look if you, you don't have any trouble with gluten." And you will know it, listen to your body. You've got a lot of inflammation just get rid of all rye, and wheat, and barley, and don't have [00:11:30] any breads, don't have any noodles, don't have any of that stuff and see how you feel.
Dr. Martin Sr.: So it could be gluten although like I said I'm more thinking about carbohydrates in general. But hey, you figure it out, be your own doctor when it comes to your gut in a lot of ways because listen to it. It'll talk to you. If you've got an angry gut you've got a problem there and this is why [00:12:00] I really try and emphasize the importance of the gut. So, some of the lifestyle factors, sugars, industrial seeds, perhaps gluten, food additives like artificial sweeteners, and for a lot of people that really affects their gut big time. And not only does it affect, elevate insulin but a lot of foods, a lot of processed foods especially have a lot of food additives. So if [00:12:30] you can't read, if you can't pronounce the names you've probably got food additives that are added to the food.
Dr. Martin Sr.: But if you stick pretty well to the produce side of the grocery store you'll do a lot better. You know me, I'm big on eggs, meat and cheese. And some people say, "Well okay doc, I can't have eggs. They bother me. They bother my gut." Okay well then don't have them. If it bothers you, you've got to be your own doctor and just say, "No. You know what? I don't [00:13:00] do well with that." And I love cheese. And cheese is so good for you. And cheese, it's got no carbohydrates. So, you know me I talk about eggs, meat and cheese all the time.
Dr. Martin Sr.: So, the other thing that can affect your gut are infections like h-pylori and SIBO, h-pylori. Most people have h-pylori and the reason it's present is because we don't have enough acidity in [00:13:30] our stomach. So you know what? If you don't have enough acidity in your stomach then these bacteria can come orally, can come from foods, and can come from all sorts of ways into your digestive track. But you know your furnace there, your stomach needs to be a furnace, very, very, very acidic, very, you need that acid. A lot of people, "Doc I've got acid." Well, if you've got acid it's usually because [00:14:00] you don't have enough acidity in your stomach and your body's tried to produce more of it.
Dr. Martin Sr.: So, let's really look at gut infections that come in. Here's a new one on the block a new kid on the block I call it SIBO and SIBO is a bacterial ... Well okay, let me say what medicine says it is. It's a bacterial infection of your small intestine. Well, I beg to disagree [00:14:30] a little bit. I do agree that there's a bacteria there. There's no doubt that there's bacteria but in Dr. Martin's opinion it is a fungal infection primarily in the small intestine. Well, the small intestine isn't, first of all, isn't that small but it's very wide and it is there to, this is where the primary absorption of your food takes place after it goes through your stomach. [00:15:00] All your nutrients are picked up in the small intestine and if you have an infection in there like SIBO.
Dr. Martin Sr.: And one of the signs of SIBO or at least some of the signs are you've got belching, gas and food seems to get stuck, it doesn't want to go down. Have you ever had that? I ask my patients, "Well, what bothers you? "Well, when I eat. [00:15:30] If I don't eat it it don't bother me." I say, "Well you probably have SIBO and one of the common causes of that is, well it's fungus so it's leaky gut but also can be caused by low acidity in the stomach." And this is why I love digestive enzymes and this is why I really, really tell people look like, "Take a little balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar. It helps to increase the acidity [00:16:00] in your stomach so you can kill h-pylori and the fungus that's in SIBO in the small intestine."
Dr. Martin Sr.: So, another factor is stress. What does stress do inside the gut? Well, think about it. Stress, you're uptight and look, you've got, everybody has stress but sometimes when stress, high levels of cortisol especially, [00:16:30] the stress hormone goes on for a period of time, this affects your intestinal permeability. It actually affects the little mucosal wall, that very thin layer of endothelial cells that are there. They get affected by stress and then you get extra bacteria that adheres to the wall and it creates inflammation. It allows what we call LPS which is a lipopolysaccharide [00:17:00] to ... Lipopolysaccharide by the way is just, it's an inflammatory component of bacteria, it's a byproduct. And that's all right. I mean your body, as long as you don't get too much of it but if you have a lot of stress this can cause systemic because what happens is that these LPS' they go across your gut and they get into the lining, get into your blood [00:17:30] therefore causing an inflammatory response. Your inflammation levels go up and this can be a major, major factor.
Dr. Martin Sr.: What else can affect you? Well, sleep can affect you. This is a byproduct of cortisol. If you don't sleep properly your cortisol goes up. If your cortisol goes up you don't sleep properly. It's a vicious cycle, it affects your circadian rhythm. Your body works on a circadian rhythm. And [00:18:00] you know what they're finding now? That if you just get, you miss two days. And I really am sensitive to sleep myself. I am, I always tell my patients I mean it. I thank God I'm very, very, so far, 67 years old and very healthy. Well I am and, but I'm, if I miss a night sleep or a couple of nights or whatever I don't get the amount of sleep that I need I'm telling you it has [00:18:30] a major effect on me.
Dr. Martin Sr.: But here's what science shows that it really has an effect on your gut. It changes the micro biome within two days. Yeah, that eco system within your gut gets effected. It alters it already within a couple of days. And what are they saying now? Somewhere around 70% of the population, no wonder people get gut inflammation and then systemic inflammation coming from that.
Dr. Martin Sr.: [00:19:00] Another factor of course and look this is probably a major, major factor is that the use of medications especially antibiotics. Listen, you know me I talk about the importance of [inaudible 00:19:14] but look you've got an infection, you're in the hospital or whatever, you go to emergency, you need an antibiotic. c'mon it's going to save your life man. But the problem becomes when, especially in children this is a big, big issue. [00:19:30] Children taking antibiotics for ear infections which are usually viral by the way.
Dr. Martin Sr.: And I don't blame you mommy, baby's screaming I mean you will do anything for that child like ear infections and a severe strep or whatever. Come on I understand that. Most of them are viral by the way but it doesn't matter. I mean, the doctors to me are, they're quick to pull the trigger and give you an antibiotic and they know full well [00:20:00] that it's viral instead of maybe just giving you an anti histamine to get the inflammation down in the ears and in the sinuses or throat or whatever and giving you some painkillers temporarily they give you an antibiotic. Well, what does that do? That disrupts the micro biome.
Dr. Martin Sr.: And I'm telling you, I'm telling you, it is incredible. This will come back to haunt [00:20:30] your child as the child grows up. Well, first of all, one of the biggest things that antibiotics do, there's a huge link to asthma, huge, huge, huge link to asthma. Huge link to food intolerances, allergies, huge link to later cancers and whatever. I'm telling you it's incredible. I just see it so much in my office because I'm a history [00:21:00] guy. I'm a history taker with my patients. If they have a certain condition I go, "Let's go back, let's go backwards. Let's reverse engineer." And even when they're filling out forms in my office they are telling me, "Did you have antibiotics as kids?" One five day antibiotic can strip away trillions of bacteria in five days. And so, you need to replace that bacteria but I'm just telling you these are factors of having [00:21:30] digestive issues later on. I'm telling you it disrupts your gut, can give you leaky gut, give you IBS, give you inflammatory bowel disease, can give you Chrome's later on, ulcerative colitis, I'm telling you, there's usually a major link to antibiotics.
Dr. Martin Sr.: So, the greatest discovery of the the 19th century and well the 20th century story and has become the curse of the 21st it really has. And I'm not against [00:22:00] them so don't come to me afterwards and say, "Dr. Martin's against antibiotics." I'm not. I'm against the overuse of antibiotics and I'm against the fact that medicine when they give you an antibiotic should give you a probiotic with it. I mean they should absolutely so that you have less disruption of your bacteria.
Dr. Martin Sr.: Here's another one and it's very common today, much more common today than I used to see, C-sections. [00:22:30] Okay and I talked about that. If you go back to an earlier episode it wasn't very long ago I talked about autism and some of the new studies that were coming out on autism and some of the, if you just look at the history of autism it's a very new phenomenon really. I mean it is like an epidemic today. And one of the factors, I always talk about leaky gut, leaky gut, leaky brain, I have no doubt in my mind that ADD, and ADHD, [00:23:00] and these things are more common today because of leaky gut. And what does C-section do? It does affect the infant's gut and you don't get the bacteria from mommy that you need because the baby is not going down that birth canal. And look, I mean C-sections again have saved many women's lives and they've saved babies lives. I understand that. I'm just telling you the, [00:23:30] giving you the facts that C-sections today can and often do make the child much more susceptible to gut problems later on in life.
Dr. Martin Sr.: And even even formula fed babies. Just sticking with babies for a minute. Do you know that your lactobacillus and your bacteria like bifidi are, they're on mommy's breast baby gets [00:24:00] that. And I mean not only are they getting their colostrum and their lactoferrin which is a tremendous immune builder and feed your friendly bacteria even within the baby. See they get that lactoferrin and that is a tremendous, tremendous, like a prebiotic that feeds those bacteria and it is so incredible what it does. So, these are factors for [00:24:30] sure in terms of your gut health.
Dr. Martin Sr.: So, thanks for listening today and we really appreciate it. If you have any feedback please go to martinclinic.com, send us an email at infoatmartinclinic.com. Or, if you have not joined our Martin Clinic Facebook group, a tremendous group. I just love reading some of the, I just love our patients because they [00:25:00] know so much it's incredible how they get it and they're so proactive in terms of their health. So, if you haven't joined that then please feel free to do, to join our Martin Clinic Facebook group and we sure love it. Okay. Have a great day.
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