It was Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, who said, “All disease begins in the gut,” nearly 2500 years ago. He was onto something, because many metabolic, autoimmune, and cognitive diseases share one thing in common… a leaky gut.
Dr. Martin discusses two studies in today’s podcast that show the dangers of gut permeability. He explains how there’s an invisible war going on in your gut. We have a thin lining of epithelial cells in the gut, and when this barrier is gone, excess permeability is caused… which is leaky gut!
Listen to today’s podcast to learn the 3 things causing gut permeability, and what you can do to fix the problem! A hint… it starts with food!
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. I hope you're having a great day. We're going to talk about two studies this morning that were done. Let me read the two studies to you so that we'll go into a little bit deeper dive this morning. “The Gut Microbiome Is Altered in Postmenopausal Women with Osteoporosis and Osteopenia. The Gut Microbiome Is Altered in Postmenopausal Women with Osteoporosis and Osteopenia” We'll go into some detail on that. Here's the second one. “Processed Foods Drive Intestinal Barrier Permeability and Microvascular Disease.” So, so important. We talk about this all the time, and that is the vast majority of disease starts in the gut, starts in the gut. Study after study after study, I'm telling you, I don't think I go a day without a study on the importance of your bacteria in your gut. Now, the first study talked about postmenopausal women who have osteoporosis or osteopenia. Osteopenia is just the start of osteoporosis.
This happens to be, again, I hate to throw the word epidemic around, but osteoporosis is like an epidemic today. It really is. In a country in Canada and the United States where we drink more milk per capita than anywhere else in the world is right here in North America. You would think with all that calcium that our bones would be super strong. It's just the opposite because the calcium, first of all, that you're drinking in cow's milk that is in the grocery store. Again, you know me, if you have a cow in the backyard, drink the milk because that's all milk. That is wonderful milk, it really is, if you can drink it right from the cow. But by the time it gets to the grocery store, you've got white Pepsi, terrible stuff, in my personal opinion. I do not like milk in the grocery store, avoid it like the plague.
But the gut microbiome is altered in people that have osteoporosis and osteopenia. Now what comes first? The chicken or the egg? I have no doubt in my mind that the gut microbiome comes first. You don't get osteoporosis and then it changes your gut. Your gut has changes and then you get osteoporosis. Now we know that it's not limited to osteoporosis because we'll go over the importance of your gut here. Okay. Look at the second one. This is the key, in my opinion, processed foods drive intestinal barrier permeability because leaky gut is excess permeability. Let me remind you. I'll just give you a little teaching on your gut. Okay? You can't see in there, but here's what's going on. Okay. One, the war, the war. It's constant. It's always there. There's a battle going on in your body. I've used the example of the Bible that tells us, even though we can't see it, there's an invisible world of evil in the world. You can't see it.
The apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter 6, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places." You can't see it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Right? You can't see inside your gut, but there's a war going on there. It's not only in your gut, but it's mostly in your gut where you have at least three pounds and about three trillion bacteria. It's a war between the good guys and the bad guys. As long as this, what we call biosis, it's just the way it is. Guys, I've said this many a time too. We have an overemphasis on bacteria in the sense that bacteria is bad, germs. House cleaners, it says on them, it kills 99% of all germs, but you don't want that. You don't want that. That's what an antibiotic does. An antibiotic kills 99% of all germs. If you could put it on the label of an antibiotic you get on a prescription, it says it kills 99% of all germs. Well, you don't want that. You don't want to kill all your germs.
You see germs, not you guys, but the world sees germs and viruses as the bad guy. Okay. There's the bad guy. It's a germ. Let's clean and let's kill it. No, it's not a bad guy. It all depends on the state of your immune system. A huge part of your immune system is inside your gut. It's that battle. That's one thing. It's good bacteria and bad bacteria. Got it? Okay. As long as it's balanced, and your body is very smart, it knows how to balance these things. The second thing is it's called permeability. Now you have a little barrier. You can't see it. It's microscopic. It's also called epithelial cells that make up a little barrier between your gut and your blood. Number one, you go to war. Number two, you have a little lining inside your gut. It's submicroscopic. It's so small. You can't see it, but it's there. It's just like the blood-brain barrier, it's there. Can't see it. It's invisible, but it's still there.
What this barrier does, this barrier does not allow garbage to come into your bloodstream. You see, when you eat, okay, let's follow food. Last night you had a steak like I told you to. Right from your mouth, you got enzymes. You got things breaking down that food, gets into the furnace, your stomach, the furnace, and it mulches it. You got high acidity, or at least you should in your stomach, and that breaks down. Then you got your gallbladder that's releasing bile. It's coming from your liver but your gallbladder is a little reservoir. It's allowing bile to come in and it emulsifies the fat, so you can pick up the vitamins from your steak. But once it gets into the small intestine, you have an invisible layer there that it only allows like steak... Let's follow B12. You're eating steak and you're getting B12. Well, your body says, hey B12, come here. I need you. Isn't your body unbelievable that it knows exactly what to do?
Hey, B12. Come here. Hey, heme iron out of my steak. Come here, I need you. Come into my bloodstream so that you feed all my cells. That's how your body works. Now, when you're healthy, you have a barrier there. It's very thin. It's microscopic. It's partly made up of bacteria too. They're on your side. What they do is they say, hey, you, yeast. I saw you. You're not coming in here. Get out of here. You bum. That's what your body does. Then it sees a bacteria that's no good. It's a bad guy. Let's say strep. It says, hey you, you, you can't come in. They're bouncers. Have you ever gone to a nightclub where they have bouncers? They're big guys standing there going, no, you come in, and you, stand in line. Okay. Or, you're a bad guy, you're never getting in here. Okay. That's how smart your body is, guys. It has bouncers at the door to your bloodstream and it says, no. Good riddance. You're out of here. That's when things are working well. But what happens if you have two things, one, you have a dysbiosis, big word, meaning that you got more bad guys than good guys.
Now you got a invasion of a third army, it's called fungus, it's yeast, it's candida albicans, and medicine, that is coming to a theater near you. It's coming in and it's knocking at the door of your bloodstream. The problem is what if the bouncers are not there, what would happen that would not allow your bouncers to be there? You've been eating junk food. You've been eating processed foods. Here's what it says. Let me read the headline to you, because I'm going to tell you about another thing too. Processed foods drive intestinal barrier permeability. Big word. Medicine loves big words. Intestinal barrier permeability, it means the bouncers are not there. Bouncers are not there, so what happens? You are eating processed foods made up of sugar. We talked about it yesterday, even chicken dishes happens to be number three on the list of calorie. The foods that North Americans love. I'm not against eating chicken, but I'm against eating chicken balls or chicken fingers that are made in vegetable oils. That's what kids eat.
Oh yeah, I go to Wendy's or I go to McDonald's and I get the chicken. The problem is the oil they cook it in. Do you know what that does? It destroys the bouncers. The bouncers are not there. One is your diet. Sugar does the same thing too, by the way, because processed foods are made with the wrong oils. Number two, it's sugar, babe. It sugar, babe. Okay. All these sugars added to foods, especially in the middle aisles of the grocery store. Number two. This is really important for the permeability. The permeability, meaning that your bouncers get killed. They're gone. They're gone, so when you use antibiotics, when you use antibiotics, okay. One five day antibiotic will wipe out all your good bacteria and destroy your border guards or your bouncers. They're gone. Now, you got garbage that should go in the toilet coming back into your bloodstream. Guys, this is exactly why at the Martin Clinic we've said it a million times that leaky gut is one of the causes of disease.
Hippocrates said it 2,000 years ago, the father of medicine. All disease starts in the gut. Was Hippocrates know what we know today about the intestinal barrier and about the bacteria in the gut? No, but he must've been some kind of prophet. Wow, unbelievable. The more we study the gut, the more we realize Hippocrates was true. But guys, for the sake of teaching, it was one of the courses I taught to psychology students this semester at the University of Tennessee. I wanted them to understand that even in psychology, even in depression, because I talked to you about osteoporosis and osteopenia, but I'm going to tell you something. When they examined the gut, the microbiome of people who have anxiety, people that have depression, people that have mood swings, guess what? You got more hormones in your gut, feel good hormones like serotonin in your gut than you have in your brain. That is the gut-brain connection.
I was teaching that this semester to them. It's well established now. You, my listeners, you've known this for a long time. Isn't that crazy how your body works? You have a barrier. It says no enter into, you cannot come in. Nada, [foreign language 00:15:57] in good French. You can't come in. It's wonderful until you don't have it. You take antibiotics, and people don't realize this, you don't drop dead right away from taking antibiotics. Please, please, please, don't come after me for this. Because if you're new on this program, I have been telling you this for years and years and years and years, but here's what I'm saying. Antibiotics were the greatest discovery of the 20th century, saved millions of people's lives. They still do. Am I telling you not to use an antibiotic? No. I'll never tell you that, but it's a double-edged sword. It can save your life and then it can slowly kill you. Because antibiotics wipe out your friendly bacteria that make up part of that lining that makeup your boarder guards. Got it?
The other thing, okay, because it's not just antibiotics, although that's the number one cause. This is why I've said to you in the past that I believe the biggest problem when you look at autistic children or whatever, is mommy on antibiotics or baby in the first year or two on antibiotics. It strips away the lining between their gut and their blood. It strips away the lining between the blood and the brain that you have a protective barrier up here. It's invisible, but you got border guards up here, until you don't. Don't allow anything in the brain. You know what they see with Parkinson's? Fungus, yeast. How the heck did that get into the brain? Because antibiotics or non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. When you take your Advil and when you take your Aleve and when you take different over the counter medications. Guys, again, I don't want to tell you never to take that. You got a bad headache or whatever.
Come on. I'm not telling you not to take it. Just understand what happens. When you eat bad, one of the biggest reasons I started the reset was to reset your microbiome, to reset the bouncers back in your gut. I was on the other night and looking at the private Facebook group. Look, guys, we love you and we want you to express yourself in there but don't be nasty. We won't allow that. No, no, but seriously, you guys are great. You have no idea how smart you are. Okay. I mean it. How much you know. You see health? It's almost shocking that my generation and the generation preceding me, my parents, I mean, it was health. Man, whatever the doctor said. But today, the world's different today. We've got the internet. We've got all these tools that people educate themselves. You know what? I like it. Question, study. The Bible says that, study it. Don't let it collect dust, study it. Guys, study health. It's important. You guys understand this.
I know I'm preaching to the choir this morning, but good for you. I'm pumping your tires. You should study these things. A bad diet. And this is the studies. It's saying processed foods, a bad guy, carboholics. Carboholics drive intestinal barrier permeability. It's just a big stop to say this. The border guards are gone, or the bouncers aren't there. It's one, food. Food. Two, antibiotics. Three, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. Those are the three big ones. They live on Advil. Tylenol, really, really is hard on the liver and that gets down into the gut level too. Anything that's like an anti-inflammatory like that in terms of medication over the counter. Probiotics. This is what I want to talk to you a little bit about. What do you do? Well, first of all, you got to clean up your diet. Don't feed the bears because the bad guys, especially yeast, you want to fix that barrier. You want to fix the microbiome. Okay? What do you do? Change your diet.
Do you know that yeast, fungus, candida albicans hate steak and loves bread. It loves sugar. Got it. It's the way your body works, that's the way your body works. Don't feed the bears. It only loves sugar. It looks for sugar. They're like cancer cells. Cancer cells are fueled by glucose, sugar. You need to replace that lining. You need to replace it. You start with food, and then use probiotics. There's a blood test you can use, by the way, to decide whether you need probiotics or not. Oh yeah, Dr. Martin. Yeah, there's a blood test. Prick your finger. If it comes out red, you need probiotics. If it comes out any other color, the blood, then don't worry about it. Probiotics. You need them. We got trillions of them. They're being wiped out all the time. You need probiotics. What are the best probiotic? The best are multi-strain because different strains do different things. I love broad spectrum. 30 years ago or more, I told patients when nobody knew anything about probiotics. I used to tell patients, shut up and take them. I didn't say it like that. Okay. Then they'd ask me, why do you want me to take a, what is it called? Probiotics. Okay.
Now they're very popular today, but in those days they weren't popular. I didn't say shut up. Okay. You know how my sense of humor is, okay. I said, okay, dear one, little lovely, you need to take probiotics. Why? Because I said so. No, that's the doctors of the old days, right? You don't do that anymore. No, but you need broad spectrum. What does broad spectrum mean? It has at least 10 different strains, and every strain does different things. They each have their own job to do. That's why when you tell me, somebody says, oh doctor, I eat yogurt. I'm not talking yogurt. The second it's pasteurized, you wouldn't have a bacteria left. If you take one little cup, you'd have to eat 16,000 yogurt to get what you get in one little capsule. Make sure it's broad spectrum, meaning it's got at least 10 different strains.
I love strains like L. Reuteri and L. Rhamnosus. Why do I like those strains? Because they kill yeast. They kill yeast. They kill fungus, candida albicans. Now, before I go on with probiotics, let me just say something that's very important. Your good bacteria, by the way, you know what they do? We talked about permeability like allowing garbage into the thing, but your good bacteria, when your microbiome is in good shape and when that barrier is in good shape, you know what happens? You are now picking up your vitamins and your minerals. This is why they're saying there's altered microbiome with osteoporosis and osteopenia. It's not that you're not eating calcium. It's you're not absorbing calcium. Do you know that vitamin K2, for example, that you get in butter or cheese, vitamin K2 and vitamin D, you need a good gut even to absorb these things. A lot of people, they eat, but they don't... It's not what you eat that is, but it's also what you absorb.
If you don't have a good intestinal bacteria, you see what we mean by leaky gut and how dangerous that is? Leaky gut depression, MS. Every autoimmune. People ask me every day, oh doc, what about autoimmune? You got leaky gut. What about my skin? You got leaky gut. What about my brain? Well, you got leaky gut. What about my lungs, doc? I got bad lungs. Well, you got leaky gut. I got bad sinuses. You got leaky gut. I got allergies, doc. You got leaky gut. I don't care what kind of allergy, environmental, from the outside or from food you eat. Gee, doc, I can't eat eggs. Well, you got leaky gut. You got leaky gut. Joints. You got leaky gut. Now, if you got an injury running well, it's different. Joint pain, you got leaky gut. Leaky gut, leaky joint. Oftentimes, thyroid. I was reading the other day on the Facebook group. I didn't even finish the last one. Did I? I do that a lot of times. I went down a rabbit trail and I don't finish what I meant to say.
What I was reading was, you know what? She did the reset and she wasn't too happy. Because she didn't feel there was any spectacular results. I don't want to mention names, but I felt very sorry for her. Maybe I should have jumped on and said, look, don't give up because I'll tell you what, you, first of all, that lady who was saying she didn't get all those great results from the reset. You know, first of all, she was looking at weight loss and the reset is not for weight loss, although it is the best weight loss program available. I guarantee that, but that's not the point. The point is it's the reset. It fixes your insulin. If you do it, it will fix your insulin. That's a huge thing. Also helps to fix the gut. Now, it may take you to completely regenerate the gut, the lining and the border guards and the bouncers, it might take you longer than that. That's the health journey for some people that they are so metabolically unwell, even their thyroid.
Do you know that inside your gut, you convert T4 to T3 thyroid hormone, but not if you have leaky gut. You see, your thyroid is a puppet. It doesn't act on its own. This is why guys I tell you, it's so key that you understand these things. Heavy metals. Like I was saying, even with Parkinson's, heavy metal, it's not heavy metals the number one thing. Although lead and cadmium, they see a lot of that in the brain, even in children. How does it get there? How can it get across the blood-brain barrier? The same way it gets into your bloodstream in the first place, inside your gut because of leaky gut. Use a multi-strain probiotic with multitude of different strains of bacteria. It's essential, the best are soil-based bacteria, not ones that have to be refrigerated. Look, all probiotics are good, but some are just a lot better. You know me, I've been consistent. I've said it and said it and said it for well over 30 years. Well over 30 years. Different ones do different things.
Get your broad spectrum probiotics. I wanted to bring those two studies out to you this morning. It's incredible. It's incredible. What they're finding out now about the gut and the lining of the gut. Tomorrow is question and answer Friday. Okay. Question and answer Friday is tomorrow. Send your questions in. It's not too late. I'll try and touch on all of them. I got sidetracked last week. I got on a tangent, which is not unusual for me, but I really tried my best to try and answer all your questions. Don't be shy. Don't be shy. Send in your questions. Okay. Join the Martin Clinic private Facebook group. What a beautiful group it is. Love the feedback, love the interaction between our members. Then The Metabolic Reset. Number one selling book in Canada, we got... Thank you for making it number one. We appreciate it. Tony Junior and I want to say thank you. 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!