There’s a new study out showing that being insulin resistant increases your chances of kidney failure by 50%, even when fasting glucose is normal. This is a significant finding and Dr. Martin says it’s another reason why you want to avoid fructose.
Dr. Martin also shares a new report saying that kids now consume on average 126 grams of sugar a day! Join us in today’s episode.
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. Welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Okay, so couple of studies I want to look at this morning. One of them is on fructose again, here we go. Now, I talked to you, I don't remember a couple of weeks ago about when you consume fructose. Now guys, there's a big difference between eating a fruit and drinking fruit. Okay? Talk about that all the time. Plus high fructose corn syrup is the sugar of choice for the food industry. It's cheap, it's addictive, okay? It's a liquid. What does that mean? Beeline to the liver. Okay? So we've taught that the antichrist of sugars.
So when I say fructose, look, if you had cancer, I would tell you not to have any fruit, at least for a while. Don't give cancer any kind of fuel at all. But I'm not against having some berries or having a little bit of fruit. I'm not. They're God's candies. Just don't eat too much. But when I talk about fructose, I'm really talking about high fructose corn syrup or drinking fruit juices. Now listen to this study, and I had brought to you a couple of weeks ago, fructose consumption leads to vitamin D deficiency. Another reason that we're so deficient in vitamin D, which we talk about every day, just about why are we so deficient? Well people are scared of the sun. We talked about that yesterday. Skin cancer and the sun is the boogeyman and yada, yada, yada. But now this study showed, and we talked about this like I said a few weeks ago, that when you're consuming fructose, high fructose corn syrup, especially, your vitamin D levels are going down. And the reason is, is the breakdown of fructose increase of the production of an enzyme, which in turn breaks down the body's ability to process vitamin D. You want to talk about bad news of high fructose corn syrup?
But guys, I'm going to tell you something. It's here to stay. I feel sorry for kids, people that. What did I read? Let me just get this to put this in context, I made a note of this. How much sugar are we consuming in a day? Okay, and this is a new one out. It comes out, guys, I'm telling you to quote, 126 grams of sugar a day, the average kid eats in North America. 126 grams and I'm telling you, the vast majority of that is high fructose corn syrup. Okay? So high fructose corn syrup. Terrible stuff, right? Here's a new one. Fructose and prostate cancer in men. Study done. Very interesting that fructose increases the risk of prostate cancer. They're saying one and two, if you have prostate cancer, fructose helps it to grow, grow, grow. Not good, not good. Another reason to avoid high fructose corn syrup, okay? And like I said, go down the middle aisle of the grocery stores. Any sugar that's added, believe you me, is high fructose corn syrup.
Now, here's another one on cancer. High insulin. High insulin is the biggest cause. Listen to this, of a cancer that is growing, it's unreal in our population, the amount of pancreatic cancer that we see today, and they're finally saying that pancreatic cancer is a high insulin cancer. Pancreatic cancer is a high insulin cancer. And how do you get a high insulin when people eat refined foods, bread, pasta, rice, cereal, sugar, sweets, pastries, juice, milk, skim milk, and insulin goes up and pancreatic cancer goes up, prostate cancer goes up, and every other cancer, cancer needs fuel. Okay? Now let me bring you another study on kidneys. Insulin resistance. Okay, so we all know what that is. We all know what insulin resistance is. When people insist on eating carbs, they develop insulin resistance. 93% of the population have insulin resistance, okay? And insulin resistance is when your cells are sick and tired of insulin being secreted all the time.
So, insulin resistance, okay? Increases the risk of kidney failure by 50% according to new studies. Insulin resistance increases the risk of kidney failure by 50%. Even, listen to this, even when fasting glucose is normal. So guys, the best indicator is not your glucose indicator because a lot of people, I'm not a diabetic, okay? I'm within normal limits. But what they don't know is that they have insulin resistance. That is a different puppy altogether. Remember, your body would rather have anything go wrong rather than let you have high blood sugar. The last thing to happen in your body is high blood sugar because your body is so smart, your body is so intelligent, it is so fearfully and wonderfully made. Your body knows that sugar left unattended in your bloodstream is unbelievably dangerous for blood vessels. Okay? You got the memo?
Okay, got it. Your body would rather have fatty liver than have diabetes. Your body would rather have anything than diabetes because sugar is toxic and you empty out your blood. You can have 20 donuts, don't ever do it, but it's been done. Eat 20 donuts and within about an hour, your blood sugar will be normal for most people that are not diabetic, okay? Your blood sugar will come back to normal because everything you own, especially insulin has a job to do. It will not allow sugar to be left unattended in your bloodstream. It starts to destroy blood vessels, capillaries, okay? So your body does everything it can. It's secretes enormous amount of insulin because insulin's job, one of its primary jobs is to tell sugar here, you can't park in the bloodstream. You're in a no parking zone. So you eat a donut, donut turns to sugar in a nanosecond. Insulin from your pancreas is secreted and it says to sugar, come here. Can't park them. Okay? You can't park them.
Now, insulin resistance is when your cells stop responding to insulin. They hate it. You're always coming around. Why do you eat so many donuts? Why are you eating high fructose corn syrup? And your cells don't like it because insulin's always coming around and so it resists, but it doesn't matter how much they resist because insulin has a job to do. The sugar that it took out of the bloodstream must be stored. Got it? That's insulin resistance. Now, listen to the study again. Insulin resistance increases the risk of kidney failure by 50% in spite of having normal blood sugar levels. Blood sugar levels are normal, but you have insulin resistance. Okay? Insulin resistance, and that will damage your kidneys. Okay?
Now, it's important because doctors don't do this or they don't do it enough because they're interested to find out if you're a diabetic or not. And listen, the last thing that happens is diabetes, not the first, the last. Your body would rather do anything than allow you to become a diabetic. So can you imagine a diabetic, how long this process has been going on, going on a long time, but they weren't listening and they didn't change their diet and they weren't eating enough eggs, meat and cheese, and they were eating too many carbs and drinking fruit juices or drinking soda, terrible stuff. And yeah, oh doc, my blood sugar is alright. Yeah, but so what? Now the best thing to do is to test A1C or fasting insulin. Okay? Doctors usually don't test it, but I love A1C because it's an easy test on insulin resistance. If you are 5.4 or up on your A1C, you have insulin resistance. You're on your way to diabetes. But listen to what happens in the kidneys.
I've always said I wish I would've invested in dialysis machines. Can you imagine if you'd have put money in a public company on the stock market that was making dialysis machines? They are so popular today, and it drives me crazy because even though they're so popular, nobody asked the question, why are they so popular? Why is dialysis so prevalent, so popular today? Why? What happened? Why are we seeing so much kidney failure? They don't ask that question. 50% kidney failure increase when you have insulin resistance. That is a pre-diabetic thing. It's not even diabetes. Listen, if you're a diabetic, the chances of your kidneys failing are increased a hundred fold. Why? I'm a why guy. Why does that happen? Why? Because sugar left unattended will destroy blood supply, and your kidneys is all about blood supply. The kidneys are like your eyes. You know how your eyes function? By blood supply. Yeah, there's nerve supply too, of course, but blood supply. Your nerves can't even work properly without blood supply.
Why do you think people get neuropathy? What is neuropathy? Nerve pain, diabetic retinopathy. What is that? Eye problems, nerve eye problems, but it's the blood supply to the nerve. You get it? The first thing that happens is blood supply is damaged. Now with insulin resistance, what they're saying is even with normal glucose levels, kidney failure is increased by 50%. Guys, don't blame protein for what sugar has done. Don't blame protein for what sugar has done. Let me give you another one on the kidneys, because this is attached to it. What insulin does, it causes the reabsorption of salt in the body. If you eat too much salt, you know what you're going to do? You're going to pee it out, okay? You're going to pee it out. If you eat too much sugar, you're not peeing it out.
Insulin, one of its jobs is salt retention, okay? It retains salt. What does that do? It increases your blood pressure. This is why so many people have trouble. I mean, we're at almost half of the population have some form of high blood pressure, my friend. It is catastrophic to have high blood pressure. Do you know that? Your blood vessels, it puts so much pressure on your blood vessels. Why do you think people get strokes or heart attacks? Blood vessels are damaged when you have pressure in there all the time. But the biggest thing, the biggest thing is when insulin, its job at the kidney level is to retain salt. It's not the salt that you're eating. It retains salt. So what happens, now your blood pressure goes up. You can eliminate salt all you want. That will do nothing for you.
You know how many people, especially my parents' generation, my generation too, but my parents' generation. Oh, we better lay off the salt. Dr. Martin, I've got to limit salt. I said, why? Because I got high blood pressure. I said, that's got nothing to do with it. Well, my cardiologist, I said, your cardiologist is wrong. In all due respect, salt has nothing to do with high blood pressure except it's the retaining of salt. But that comes from the fact that you're eating sugar and crappy carbohydrates and your insulin resistance is up. Insulin causes the kidneys to retain salt. Guys, that's how you get high blood pressure. You can eliminate the salt all you want. I feel sorry for people that don't put salt on their meat. Now, I don't like table of salt, but I sure love a good salt. You are salt. Your saliva is salt. Your tears are salt. Your blood is salty. That's all right. It's good for you.
But it's the problem with sugar and carbs that turn to sugar in five seconds. That causes your kidney to retain salt, elevates your blood pressure, okay? Elevates your blood pressure. It's amazing, isn't it? When you think about it, think about the process of getting healthy for a minute. What's the first thing that we need to do? Eliminate sugar. For someone that wants to turn around their health, that is the number one step. It's not moderation. It's elimination. Elimination of sugar. And like I said, you form a habit in three weeks. Three weeks, you form a habit. And people, they find that journey difficult, especially if they've been a carboholic all their lives. But friend, listen to me. If you want to save your kidneys, if you want to save your kidneys and never go on dialysis, that's got to be a goal, guys. There's nothing wrong with having goals and they're doable. You've got to start in the kitchen. You have to start with the choices. Every day you're going to have choices to make, every day.
And probably, I don't know, 20, 30 times a day maybe, because we live in a world where we're surrounded by food. So 20 or 30 times a day, you're looking at a fridge or you're looking in the cupboards, or you're even seeing the cupboards or food is around you, and you got to make choices every day. Every day. It gets easier once you formed a habit. I used to tell my patients, they come in to see me for the first time. Let's say for example, I saw sugar in their urine. I said, you're in deep trouble. I always use the Titanic story. You're on a Titanic and you know what the band might be playing. You think you're having fun? But I said, you're on the Titanic. You got sugar in your urine. Now listen to me. You got to cut out the sugar. Doc, I don't know if I can do that. I said, well, listen, do you trust me? Do it for 30 days. By the third week, you'll realize how much better you feel. It'll come even before that. But I said, listen, you got to form a habit.
Have I ever told you when I started drinking coffee? I love the smell of coffee, even as a kid. We had percolated coffee at home. I used to watch my parents drink that. I go to my grandma's and she made percolated coffee. I would die for the smell of it, but the only way I could drink it when I was about 12 or 13, whatever. My grandmother, you know what grandmothers do? They never say no. My mom, she wouldn't let me drink coffee, but my grandma, you want to have a coffee? Okay? And I put four or five sugars in it just to be able to drink it, okay? But when I really started drinking coffee, I was about, I remember I was in grade 13, okay? Remember grade 13, there was a little coffee shop. It was actually a corner store, but they made coffee. And we'd go out there in between classes, me and my buddies and I go in and get a coffee, and I kind of liked it, but I had at that time about three or four sugars in it.
And I told you the story of my dad becoming a diabetic. My dad just spelled it out for me. It's called sugar diabetes, my son, it's sugar. So I got the memo from my dad and I went down to about a half a teaspoon of sugar in my coffee in the 19, late 1960s, early 1970s. And then one day I just said, why am I even putting the half of sugar in there? And I just said, no more. And my patients would often do this. They knew I loved coffee. And so patients said, hey, I'm going to be real nice to Dr. Martin. I'm going to bring him a coffee. But they didn't ask me. So they tried to guess, well, I wonder what he likes, regular or whatever. And if it had sugar, even if it touched a spoon that had sugar on it at one time, I couldn't drink it. I'd tell 'em, nah, I just can't stand the thought of drinking sugar. You see, I formed a habit and now I'm not attracted to sugar. I find things sweet. If it's got any sugar in it, just my taste buds have changed. You know what? You can change your taste buds.
There's thousands of people that will watch this podcast, and many of them could give a testimony on how they licked the sugar habit. It's called elimination and determination, because when I talk to you about your kidneys, I'm talking to you about your eyeballs, and I'm talking to you about your brain, and I'm talking to you about your heart. This is just one study where insulin resistance increases the risk of kidney failure by 50%. Isn't that something? Okay, guys? You know what tomorrow is? Question and answer Friday. Are you ready? Send in your questions. We love you. Okay, 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!