In 1921 (100 years ago) there were 2 major discoveries!
One was Insulin. The other was the ketogenic diet.
In today’s podcast, Dr. Martin discusses how we are still learning about these discoveries today!
He discusses metabolic health and how 88% of the population is metabolically unwell.
He talks about how insulin is supposed to work, diabetes and cardiovascular health.
He also discusses intermittent fasting and his Reset Diet!
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, and welcome again to another live this morning, and hope you're having a great day, good start to your day. We're in 2021, [00:00:30] right? 1921, what happened in that year? 1921, 100 years ago. And honestly, my grandchildren probably would argue with this, they think I'm 100 years old, because I'm always telling them story, like grandpa walked [00:01:00] to school in six feet of snow with snow shoes on uphill both ways. Do you tell your grandchildren that? Well I do. So they think I was born in the days of Noah, and 100 ago, guys, there was two major discoveries in 1921. That was three years before my father was born. My father and mother were born in [00:01:30] 1924, but in 1921, a couple of things were discovered in medicine. One of them was insulin.
Medicine up until 1921 didn't know anything about insulin. They sure knew about, the diabetes been around for thousands of years by then. It was uncommon in a sense that [00:02:00] most people didn't have diabetes, but it wasn't like they didn't know it was around. As a matter of fact, doctors, before you could test blood sugar, what they did was they smelled urine, and I've talked to you about that. Just smelling that sweet sugar in the urine. You see, your body will do everything it can not to leave sugar in your bloodstream. But what they discovered in 1921 [00:02:30] is insulin. Now not insulin as a drug, but they discovered insulin just how it works. They didn't even know that until 1921. So 100 ago, in 1921, they discovered insulin.
You know what else they discovered in 1921? And again, my background, clinical nutrition, you got to know this. So when you take history [00:03:00] of nutrition, fascinating course, and I really enjoyed looking back at the history of nutrition. I talked about that, even in my new book, in the reset, what's changed? We talk about what happened. Even in the late 1800s, the first fast food came up, bread. See, they used to mill it differently, the flour, and you'd have a lot of nutrition, all your B vitamins and all that, they used to use [00:03:30] stone ground. And then they changed it to porcelain rowers. And then you got all of the nutrition in bread pretty well was taken out of it. Now some of it was put back in, and we call that enriched bread. That happened in the late 1800s. It's fascinating looking at that stuff.
But one of the things they discovered in 1921, they discovered what insulin is, [00:04:00] what it does. And I've talked to you how many times? Well, more than any other, I don't know, more than any other hormone, insulins of food hormone. Imagine they didn't know that until 1921. But also in 1921, this is very significant, they found that the ketogenic diet, they actually invented the ketogenic diet. Well, let's face it, [00:04:30] they didn't invent it because the Inuits, and probably First Nation people, or whatever, they weren't eating a lot of carbohydrates, but they actually developed the ketogenic diet, officially named it that, the ketogenic diet, for people that were having seizures. And they found out that they can fix seizure [00:05:00] with a ketogenic diet. That's in 1921. So when people talk about keto, keto, keto, keto, it's big today, keto, keto, keto, listen, it's been around since 1921. I know for a fact that children that suffer from seizures, epilepsy. Even in Canada, if you go to SickKids, [00:05:30] SickKids will put an epileptic child on a ketogenic diet, because they know its effectiveness.
So this goes back to 1921. First of all, the discovery of insulin. Remember my book, Two Hormones That Want You Dead. Insulin will save your life. You can't live without a pancreas. You can't live without insulin, [00:06:00] because insulin's job is to take your sugar out of your bloodstream, and foods break down to sugar, some rapidly, and some very slowly. And we know so much more about insulin today. But remember, that discovery's 100 years old, so 1921. Incredible.
But we still haven't learned the lesson. We haven't learned [00:06:30] the lesson of 1921, one, the ketogenic diet. Now you guys know me, I'm keto-like. I don't really care if you're into ketosis, you can be, and it's good for you, but I'm a big guy on keto lite, very low carb, as a lifestyle. [00:07:00] And that's why I'm not against keto, because keto often people live in a lifestyle. Now some of the foods that they allow in the keto diet, I'm not that big on. I'm big on nutrition, nutritious foods.
Now, let me just talk about insulin. Insulin is at the base of every [00:07:30] chronic disease known to man now. With all the advances, imagine in 1921, that they found out how insulin works. It's almost like they forget. 100 years of it. But we've been on, not 100 years experiment, but we've been on a 50 or 60 years experiment in food, and we're failing big time.
Yesterday [00:08:00] I talked to you about the variant in COVID. You know what bugs me? I'm going to tell you what bugs me. In this whole pandemic, yesterday we touched upon it, they have something right in front of them, and that is vitamin D. We talked about that. To me it's a huge key to our health. Nevermind the pandemic, vitamin [00:08:30] D. But the other one is insulin. And it just seems to me that nobody's talking about it. We're so metabolically unwell. I don't care if you get 100 vaccinations, or whatever. Look, all I'm saying is, if you don't take care of your body, you can't ask the state, the government to take care of your body for you. People are forgetting [00:09:00] that.
We have a responsibility to ourselves, to our family, to take care of ourself. And this is why it was bugging me that McDonald's is open, you can drive through or whatever, even during the shutdown, and take that food out. But the gyms were closed. You have no idea how that bothered me. They say follow the science, [00:09:30] but they're not following the science. When you're metabolically unwell, you're in deep doodoo, and 88% of the population is metabolically unwell.
We're not focusing our resources, and we're not talking about it. We're 100 years down the road knowing what insulin does, and insulin [00:10:00] is at the root, listen to what I'm going to say, insulin resistance, meaning that you've used insulin so much our society are carbolic. We think carbs are good for us, even though 100 years ago, in 1921, they discovered the ketogenic diet. The Inuit have been eating it for thousands of years. [00:10:30] People that live off the land, were eating really a ketogenic diet. They weren't loading up on carbs, this is a modern day phenomenon. And this is why when I say insulin, it's at the root.
Insulin, remember what it is, okay, it'll save your life. How does it save your life? Sugar, come here. That's what insulin does. It looks at sugar in the bloodstream, and it says, "Come here, [00:11:00] you can't stay there. I'm moving you." The traffic cop. You bring your car here, and I want you to go over there, park. You're not jamming up the street here. See that's what insulin does. Insulin literally takes sugar out of the bloodstream, saves your life. You don't want to get a pancreatitis, or become a diabetic, [00:11:30] where your insulin is not working properly. And now you've got to take a medication to do what insulin ordinarily does. You use insulin too much, and you're going to be in deep doodoo. You're going to be in deep doodoo and the number one killer in society today, which it still is, and that's cardiovascular disease.
It's not that complicated, guys. Cardiovascular disease, which used to be about [00:12:00] 10% in the 1920s. Cardiovascular disease was around 10% in the 1920s when insulin was discovered. Do you know what it is today? It's half the population. What's more than that, because it's half of the population is what they know that have atherosclerosis, that have high blood pressure, that have high triglycerides, [00:12:30] and low HDL. Those are going to cause havoc as far as your heart, and stroke, which is still the number one killer in society today. In 1921, it was about 10% of the population. Today, it's 50 and more.
We're spending billions and billions of dollars trying to treat heart [00:13:00] disease. Do you know how many people are on high blood pressure medication? And please don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you not to take medication, I'm only telling you the background of why you would get heart disease. Listen, I know there's some genetics involved, "Oh, my dad had a heart attack." Okay, I get it. But listen, you can override genetics. [00:13:30] I always tell you the story of myself. Diabetes, see these two ears? I got diabetes coming out both these ears. Family history. But diabetes is food. Look at this face, I have to eat properly. And I tell people.
It's not going to be that [00:14:00] easy because we got food around us 24 hours a day, especially in our society today. Food, food, food, food, and most of us are addicts to some extent. And insulin is a food hormone. If you develop insulin resistance, and most people do, if you have insulin resistance, [00:14:30] you're creating havoc in the body because insulin will elevate your inflammation. Insulin will elevate your triglycerides. Insulin resistance is high triglycerides, fat in your bloodstream, inflammation. It's a double edged thing because it not only elevates your circulating lipids, your fats, [00:15:00] so your triglycerides go up because you're eating carbs, your blood pressure will go up because when your cells are resisting insulin, there's a response to that. The response is inflammation, and inflammation, remember, it's not Houdini, but inflammation starts to damage, the blood vessel.
Inflammation will affect the [00:15:30] amount of nitric oxide you have. Your blood vessels can't open the way, they're not relaxing to let the blood flow through. So you get a double whammo. And then you get oxidative damage to the blood vessels. Not only can they not open properly, but they get damaged. And they always blame cholesterol for that. It's insulin, it's not cholesterol. [00:16:00] It's sugars, it's not cholesterol. Poor cholesterol. "Oh doc, your cholesterol." Yeah, but it's not cholesterol, you don't have enough cholesterol. Look at my total cholesterol, I don't care, you're not getting enough of it. The higher your triglycerides are, the lower your good cholesterol will be.
We got [00:16:30] it upside down, guys. They're fighting the wrong thing. Heart disease, which was about 10% of the population 100 years ago, is now 50, 60% of the population, and a lot of people don't even know it because they have no symptoms. And then you get your blood work done, and they're not looking at the... the doc has been trained, "I want to see your total cholesterol, I'm looking [00:17:00] for your LDL, oh your LDL is too high." I can tell what your insulin is doing just by looking at two numbers, your HDL and your triglycerides.
Insulin, discovered 100 years ago, and we haven't learned the lesson of it. They stopped with the ketogenic diet. [00:17:30] I mean, it went from 1920s, where they realized it really was the best, best treatment for epilepsy, and then it was sort of lost until Dr. Atkins come around again. You've heard of him. And Dr. Atkins, he wasn't a dummy, he was a cardiologist. And he started to realize, he was seeing studies that went back, especially [00:18:00] German studies, that went back even before World War 2, and he was reading these stories that some of the research of the ketogenic diet, lowering your carbohydrates. And Atkins was big on fat, and he almost lost his medical license because of it.
You can imagine the pushback. I remember it like it was yesterday, [00:18:30] the pushback. He had to get in front of a congressional, they were going to take his medical license away. And you know how that stopped? He brought his patients with them, and they testified what was happening to them with the diet. And now keto is much more popular, and I get that. But the food industry pushes back on that. But they're not talking about it as far as [00:19:00] heart disease. Nevermind how it's so health in cancer and diabetes. I was telling friends of ours the other day, diabetes is a allergy. You ever had an allergy? That's what diabetes is. It's an allergy. You're allergic to carbs, get rid of them.
You want to fix diabetes, you [00:19:30] don't fix diabetes by Metformin and other. I mean, it's helpful, it'll temporarily save your life, but it's not the solution to diabetes, because diabetes is a food problem. "Doc, I got diabetes, what's my problem?" "Food." "Doc, I got diabetes, what's my problem?" "Carbs." Anybody that used to come into my office, I'd get right in their face, [00:20:00] in a nice way, I did, okay. I'm a nice guy, honest. I get in their face, I said, "You got an allergy." I didn't even wait until officially, I see sugar in your urine, I would check your insulin, and if you had insulin resistance, you got a lecture in the Martin Clinic. You got lectured to, in a nice way.
But you know what guys? I actually wrote about this in a book. [00:20:30] I said, "If you are a carbaholic, you know what you're playing with? You're playing Russian roulette, and you've got five bullets pointing right at you. There's only one empty chamber. You're eventually going to get very ill." We talked even about the virus. People that get sick from the virus are metabolically unwell. [00:21:00] Those are the people that get sick, but they're not talking about it.
We did a whole show on the flu shot. They discovered in Britain that if you had metabolic syndrome, the flu shot didn't even work for those people. This should have been the major, major, major headlines. Go back 100 years. That's how long we've known about the ketogenic diet. [00:21:30] That's how long we've known how insulin works. Now we know much more today about insulin resistance, and they didn't know all that in 1921. But I'm telling you guys, it's why I preach it to you every day, every day, every day, every day.
And you know what? There's no quick fixes. The quickest fix in the world for your insulin is 30 days. You want to get rid of insulin [00:22:00] resistance? 30 days. The 30 day program. You see, just understand where I come from. I'm an insulin guy. I know how to fix it. I know how to get at yourselves to fix the resistance that your cells have to insulin. You can do it. Not going to be easy, [00:22:30] but if you fix insulin resistance, you're getting at the number one issue in your body. You've got to eat anyways, you're going to eat. I like intermittent fasting, but you know what I like better? I like fasting without fasting, because I know how to lower that insulin resistance. Proven.
And this is why I talk about the reset everyday. [00:23:00] I'm sorry, but it works. "Doc, I only lost 10 pounds." Well first of all, do you know how much 10 pounds is? That's a massive amount of fat that you lose. And I know the scale, I get it, I understand it. I've been in this industry for a long time, I understand the scale, but the first thing that you want to do, listen to me guys, is you [00:23:30] want to lower your insulin resistance for heart disease, for cancer, for diabetes, of course, Alzheimer's, auto-immune, it's the thing you control. You can't control everything in life. You can be the healthiest person in the universe and walk across the street, and some dummy went through a red light, he wasn't looking. You can't control everything in life, but you can control [00:24:00] what you put in your mouth.
"Doc, I was looking for a quick fix." No such thing. There's no quick fix. There isn't, not when it comes to your body, it's not quick. 30 days. But just understand that. Isn't that interesting, 100 years for the birthday of [00:24:30] insulin. Of course, insulin was around, it's been in the body, they just didn't know it, they didn't understand it. Medicine has come a long way. I mean, what we know today about the body and all the discoveries, and how wonderfully made your body is, it's incredible. I can't get over it, how the human body works. [00:25:00] Unbelievable.
Okay, so tomorrow is a question and answer Friday, and we really appreciate the questions, so don't be shy. You know, look, I'm going to try and answer every one of the questions. Now if you send me a thing that only happened to you and nobody else, look, I'll answer it, but I'm not going to spend two hours on it. But that's all [00:25:30] right, ask the question, guys, we'll try and answer all your questions, we really appreciate that, and it's one of our most popular podcasts, and lives, is our question and answer. People seem to love it. Okay, good, I like doing it too. I like answering, I want you to ask questions. You know what science is? It's questioning. So when you, it's settled, don't ask any more questions, that's not science, guys. [00:26:00] Science is observation and repetition. The science is settled, that bugs me. That bugs me. Ask questions, I got no problem with that. Some people disagree with me, that's all right. I respect you. I do. I'm right. Okay, I love you guys. [00:26:30] Talk to you soon, okay.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast with your hosts Dr. Martin, Jr. and Sr. Be sure to catch our next episode, and thanks for listening.