A recent article is saying how exercise is a more effective antidepressant than any medication we have on the market. Dr. Martin likes the headline but says when a person is depressed it’s nearly impossible to get them to exercise!
Dr. Martin was around in the 1970s when antidepressants took off. They were intended to be used temporarily and not for long-term treatment. Getting to the root cause of why someone is depressed is something Dr. Martin would do in his practice.
Join Dr. Martin as he unpacks the article and shares why vitamin E, exercise is the key to battling depression!
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
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Dr. Martin: Well, good morning, everyone. And once again, welcome to another live this morning. Nice to have you come on with us. Now, let me read this. This is from a doctor Ellen Vara. The headline of the article is this exercise is a more effective antidepressant than any medication we have on the market. Let me read that headline to you. Again, exercise is a more effective antidepressant than any medication we have on the market. And you know what? I'm not even gonna argue with her. I like it. Here's the problem I have with it. When a person is depressed, you can't get 'em to exercise. They're depressed. They have clinical depression. And usually, although I agree with this dear doctor, if you can get 'em to exercise, it would be one of the best medications that they could take much better than SSR. Or Prozac than others, which by the way, were meant to be temporary.
The FDA never approved. I was there, not on the FDA, of course, but I was around in the 1970s when antidepressants really, really hit the marketplace. And they were meant to be temporary. Never meant to be long term. When I look at mental health and depression being one of the most serious issues in mental health, and I'm not discounting bipolar, I'm not discounting schizophrenia. I'm not discounting any of that. I'm just saying that depression is often talked about being a chemical imbalance. Look, I understand why they say that, but what comes first? The chicken or the egg? How do you get a chemical imbalance? And I want to talk to you today because I read this article. I found it interesting that here is this medical doctor. Who's saying something very important that exercise vitamin E you know that on our Martin clinic vitamin list, the real vitamin E is exercise because it beats the other vitamin E big time.
It's so good for everything, including your mental health. That I agree a hundred percent. And like I say, the problem is when you get someone that is clinically depressed, by the time they get to that, it's hard to get them to exercise. Now, let me say a few things, because we're going to unpack this this morning. It's not that we have never talked about it. Of course we have, but it's good to refresh our brains on depression, go in your mind's eye and think of anyone, you know, in your family or friends or whatever that are depressed here is what I observed over the years. Okay? I've often said this to you. I'm a history guy. So if someone came in the office and they were depressed and usually been diagnosed already with depression, they were on medications. They never came to see me first. They usually came to see me last and oftentimes they would come in, not even for necessarily for depression, but for other health problems, but they were clinically depressed. We used to take a list of medications and I would often ask them, well, why are you on this med? Obviously you're not on an Sri, unless you've been treated for depression and they're still on it. And here's what I found over the years. As I unpack depression, I wanna talk to you about etiology. You know what that is?
Why are they depressed? Why does a person in your family suffer with depression? I'm a why, why, why guy? Why? And here's what I found over the years. And by the way, looking forward, I'm not gonna paint a pretty picture looking forward because everything that is in the background of depression, we're not tackling. Plus we're gonna see a tsunami of mental health issues. We're already seeing it. It's not gonna get better. In my opinion, it's gonna get worse. So let's equip ourselves to understand it. Let's get into the background of it. Here's clinically. What I saw and mental health has an ideology. Now, let me say this. 90 something percent of the patients that I saw with clinical depression started the whole ball of wax with anxiety, the drip, drip, drip of cortisol, over a period of time. Anxiety leads to depression. It's very, very, very common in depression.
That anxiety comes first, anxious, stressed. The drip, drip, drip of cortisol. Cortisol is the, the uptight. Now here's what I found over the years. Clinical almost without exception, because I would test for these things. People that were depressed had a history. Most of them, not all, but over 90%, a history of antibiotic use. And the reason I knew that again, I was a history Tiner. I wanted to know your history, even of your childhood. Were you on medication as a child? Were you on antibiotics? Quite a bit. Ear infections, throat infections, whatever teenagers, acne. Were you on antibiotics? Yes. Period of time. Yes. Off and on. Yes. It was so common. You wouldn't believe it. Now. What is the link to that? Well, the link is between your gut and your brain. We call that leaky gut. You take antibiotics. Wonderful. Really they're wonderful. Medicine has done some wonderful things.
One of them is the creation of antibiotics. Wonderful. I mean it, but the double edged sword, it changes the microbiome, the bacteria, the friendly bacteria are being overwhelmed by bad guys. The change. What does that do? Well, listen, it's really important to understand this. You've got more hormones in your gut than you have in your brain. People think mental health is only brain. Your gut has a lot to do with your brain, the bacteria in your, your brain and the bacteria in your gut communicate, you got more serotonin dopamine in your gut than you have in your brain. It's the way it is. And people don't talk about that. They never talk about the gut brain connection. And then by the way, you're connected your brain to your gut. You ever had butterflies. You're nervous. Why does your stomach bother you? If you're nervous, think about that.
I got the butterflies. I gotta do public speaking or whatever bothers you, right? You're worried. You're anxious. Family dynamics. You got butterflies in your stomach. How does that happen? Well, it's the connection between the brain and the gut goes both ways. You're connected by the VA nerve, not Las Vegas, Vegas. The 10th cranial nerve. You get butterflies. And this is why for me, when I was looking at etiology why a lot of times in mental health, you look at the history and find there's a connection antibiotics. There's a connection to stress, either a stressful one time event, traumatic never been resolved. It can create a cascade of problems in mental health, the gut. And again, I used to test for leaky gut leaky gut leaky brain, right? And so that can be a big problem. It's what I used to observe constantly in the mental health area, in clinical depression.
Here's another thing that I used to see extremely low, almost invariably, with vitamin B12, extremely low, almost invariably with vitamin B12 B12. My friend is a brain vitamin B12. My friend is a neurological vitamin. You won't hear me talking about the B vitamins as much as you'll hear me talking about B12, but why is that? Because I used to test and today, even though I'm out of practice, if you wanna send me your B12 numbers, the vast majority of people are low in B12. And that can be for several reasons. One of them, you know, I was reading a food chart. It gave me a migraine. Let me just find it for a second here. I tell you guys, yeah, the ranking system. There's a conference coming in nutrition, a white house conference, big deal on nutrition. The guy that's at the head of it.
He rated food out of a hundred hundred being the best and downward. You know, when he rated number one on the hit parade watermelon. Now I like watermelon. But if that's your number one food source, you're in deep trouble. And by the way, you know what he had, number three, frosted mini wheats. They rated 87 out of a hundred. You know what was on the bottom of his scale, ground beef at 26 guys, I just got severe inflammation in the head, a severe heading. He's gonna be the head of the conference on nutrition, the white house conference on nutrition in September. Oh my word, why didn't they invite me? I would have ground beef and steak at a hundred. You know that people don't eat enough of it because they've been lied to. And here's my experience with clinical depression. They were extremely low in B12 if they weren't eating steak.
They were buying the lie of folks. Can I say something? Kale. They don't do nothing for your brain. Nothing, honey, you want brain food? Eh, don't eat kale and you can have watermelon, but don't eat it for your brain. Cause it don't do nothing for your brain. There are no B12 and not low in B12. And by the way, B12 is a very finicky vitamin. I've taught you that it's a large molecular structured vitamin on the best of days. Not easy to absorb. If you have the lack of intrinsic factor, low stomach acidity and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A lot of people are low in B12 and they don't know it because no one tells them or they get a blood test that's a hundred years old, only your B12. It's good. It's in the two hundreds. Two hundreds is good for mice, not for men and women and boys and girls vitamin B12.
It is a big factor in mental health leaky gut. Usually because of antibiotics, usually low B12, low vitamin D extremely low in vitamin D depressive. Patients were extremely low in vitamin D. Oh the great vitamin D Viderma, my friend, you and me, our solar panels. We operate on vitamin D your brain to your toes, your brain, to your immune system, your brain and your heart, your brain and your gut. Vitamin D viderma The sun course when they're depressed, they don't wanna go. The sun. It's a vicious cycle. They don't even know. Nobody tells them they're low in vitamin D. They don't even check it. We need more, Dr. McEwens out there now. Seriously, to understand the etiology of depression, mental health, schizophrenia, deficiencies. I would scream it on my radio show for 20 years. Deficiencies. It's amazing. The results we used to get, the problem was compliance.
You get a depressive patient. The problem was compliance. Get off all sugar. You have malabsorption. You're not getting vitamin D. You've got leaky gut. You're not getting B12. Of course, we're gonna supplement these things now, but you gotta do it. And doc, when I don't feel good, I just wanna have junk all the time. I need a quick fix of sugar. I can't even think about eating properly. I know, but if you wanna get out of this cycle, food is going to be everything, man. It's gonna be everything. We're gonna talk up your B12. We can talk up your vitamin D. We can help you with fixing leaky gut, but you gotta help yourself. It's not easy because like I said, their chemistry is mixed up, but why I wanna answer the why? Here's another thing that I found extremely low in essential fatty acids, extremely low in essential fatty acids.
These folks, God loved them were extremely low in good oil. They had oil in their body. They had bad oil because you don't feel good. You're a junk eater. When you're a junk eater, you're eating not only sugar and crappy carbohydrates, but the way those carbohydrates are made, the crappy carbohydrates are made with industrial high and omega six oil. What does that do? It inflames. The brain, omega six, the brain gets inflamed. Now you have biochemistry, GOM muck in the brain with the wrong oil. Now what doctors talk about that they were consuming the wrong oil. They had extremely low levels of essential fatty acids. Your fatty acid. You need the O omega three. Don't ever worry about omega six. You're getting too much of that. We live in a world today. It's omega six crazy. And those industrial oils from canola to soy, to grape seed, to sunflower seed and blah, blah, blah, blah.
You think they're natural. They're not natural. They are made in a VA. They're industrialized. You run your car on that stuff. Remember I brought to you that story where they ran a plane. They used that fuel for a plane. Wow. Well, it's not meant for your body guys. Very inflammatory. And when the brain gets inflamed, you got sparks going the wrong way. It's upside down. You're misfiring. Why do we see so much of it today? Why do we see so much? Even in kids, not only depression, why do we see so much ADD and ADHD, and so much of that kids that can't focus autism on the spectrum. They're brains. They're getting the wrong oil. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a light that would go off on the top of the head, a little sensor that said you're consuming the wrong oil. My friend, you want DHA, you don't want omega six. I saw good for my brain low in essential fatty acids, usually low in trace minerals, like magnesium.
Magnesium makes the brain relax. Listen, magnesium is really important because most people are deficient in it. They don't get it in their diet. I used to look at trace minerals, dehydration, dehydration. When I would say dehydration, you know what I think about water guys, vitamin w you know what I think about that? How important that is? And oftentimes, by the way, in depression, people were very dehydrated. They didn't realize it. Their body was yelling at 'em, but they weren't listening. They didn't know how to listen. And of course, most of these folks, they had every bad habit in the world because they didn't exercise. You know, that was the headline. This morning, exercise vitamin E is better than SSRIs.
It's better, but the problem is compliance much easier to take a pill than to take the pill of exercise. It's not easy to get moving when you don't feel good. And you know, part of my job in the clinic was to motivate, was to try as much as I could. I couldn't go home with a patient, but I tried as much as possible to make them accountable either to their family, to me, to some extent, to check in with me and the vicious cycle of mental health, it really is. And the idea is to get them out of it. And I wanted this morning just to be able to teach this because I read an article like that. And I don't disagree with this doctor. I say, thank you doc, for thinking outside the box. Look, we've tried the mental health way that we do it.
And it's been a disaster. Nobody really wants to say that, but it has been a disaster. We have more mental health issues than ever because people are not asking the question why and what is missing. What's missing in these patients. Why did they get this in the first place? It's not genetics. It isn't, you have depression in your family. Yet. It's like diabetes. I got lots of diabetes in my family. Lots of it that makes me more susceptible for sure. A hundred percent, but you gotta override genetics. We have the ability to override your genetic. Your dad had a heart attack. Your mother had heart disease or cancer, whatever it makes you probably more susceptible. It's a weakness.
You know, I was telling a friend the other day, I don't try and fool myself. Okay. I only have to look in the mirror, especially the older I get my genetics are weakness. Look in your family and see what your weaknesses are. Health wise and override them. Like I said, in me, it's insulin, it's diabetes. So what do I do? I don't fool myself. I don't talk myself out of that. Doesn't matter what I eat. Nah, it really matters what I eat. I learned a lesson back in the 1960s, watching my dad after diabetes. And if you know, if mental health issues are big in your family, eh, you gotta take care of that. You gotta fix that. You gotta override it. And that's why I brought to you today. What I saw the gut brain connection, fix your gut man, fix your gut. Everybody should fix their gut. But if you got any tendency for depression, you better fix your gut. Fix your B12, fix your vitamin D you can do it. We appreciate you we absolutely do. Thank you for our audience. We appreciate it. Big time. Okay, guys, we love you dearly and we'll talk to you soon.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another doctor's end podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin junior and senior. Be sure to catch our next episode. And thanks for listening.