EP147 The One About Depression, Chemical Imbalances, And Other Proven Causes Part 1

Transcript Of Today's Episode

Dr. Martin Jr.: Hello. I'm Dr. Martin Jr.

Dr. Martin Sr.: And I'm Dr. Martin Sr.

Dr. Martin Jr.: And this is the Doctor is In podcast and this is episode 147. Today we want to talk a little bit more about [00:00:30] depression. Now if you go back, I can't remember how many podcasts ago, but it was a while ago. We talked a lot about brain inflammation and the effect it has on depression. We get a lot of questions and a lot of emails about depression and what we want to do today is talk about some of the most common external causes of depression. And we'll kind of go through them, look at what the research is saying and then also again, a couple of tips that you can use right now to help with depression and then you have a couple of cool stories as [00:01:00] well of patients. So let's talk about depression. Again, how common is it in your clinic now?

Dr. Martin Sr.: Well, it's incredible, right? I mean you see what we do in the office too and it's part of our biomarkers and the big thing ... I actually had a patient that wanted to fill out the biomarker ... wanted to do a biomarker testing but said, "Dr. Martin, I don't want to fill out the questionnaire." And I said, "Well look, if you want traditional medicine then there is no questionnaire involved because [00:01:30] they're just going to give you lab work. They're going to give you numbers." Right? But what functional medicine is, it's the blending. It's the marriage of the lab and the patient, right? Like, what are you feeling? What are you doing? What are your symptoms? Because you've always said this, that every condition has a story where you can always reverse engineer and bring it back. Right?

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well it's interesting that traditional blood testing, when you [00:02:00] go to a lab and get a whole bunch of tests, there's like you said, there's a little bit of ... Well really there isn't. If your doctor sends you, there's ... they'll take in Canada here, especially in Ontario, will get your [inaudible 00:02:11] card, a couple of little questions here and there, and that's about it. So their results are 100% data, right? Data and they have a set range that's been predetermined. And what's interesting is that depending on what lab you go to, that range [00:02:30] may change a little bit. But if you fall within that range, you're normal. If you fall outside of that range, you're abnormal. And a lot of people don't feel well and obviously their blood tests come back normal because they could really care less about how you feel. It's just the data, that's it. If the numbers say you're fine, you're fine. Whereas as you mentioned, functional medicine is different. We weigh what ... subjectively what somebody says. [00:03:00] If somebody comes in, we listen to their story and we place that over anything else.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. It trumps ... Right, it trumps the lab.

Dr. Martin Jr.: It does. If somebody says they're fatigued, they're fatigued, and that's their symptom. Now traditional blood testing when it comes to fatigue is useless unless they have anemia or B12 level shows up low or if they are diabetic or if they're fasting. Like there's a few little things that might explain there. But if the average person just says, "Hey, I've been tired for the last three weeks." [00:03:30] Blood testing is going to show for most part pretty much nothing, yet the person still doesn't feel well and they feel fatigued. Whereas ... And as you mentioned, so we ... We're a symptom based ... We wrote a [inaudible 00:03:41] letter about this awhile ago. We really practice more the art of medicine rather than the science of medicine.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: We listen and we take everything to account and that's so important.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Well your grandfather used to say right and my dad, "Listen to your patient. They have inside information.", and [00:04:00] a real important part of a functional medicine and what we do at the Martin Clinic. And I'm not saying we pride ourselves in doing that, but I always, always listen. I'm listening to my patient 'cause they'd give me clues. There's always clues. Right?

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well what was that last study that just came out and made news in Canada where the average doctor's visit, the patient is interrupted within eight seconds. Was it eight seconds? I know it was insane, right?

Dr. Martin Sr.: Insanely quick.

Dr. Martin Jr.: So they're interrupted very quickly 'cause-

Dr. Martin Sr.: The doctor's busy. He's usually [00:04:30] got his back turned to you-

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well, we have a lot of friends who are physicians.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah and they're good.

Dr. Martin Jr.: And they are, but they're busy.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Right? They really don't have ... The way that they structure their clinic and the way that they were set up here in Ontario and I'm sure it's like this across Canada. The way that they're set up is that they just cannot spend any amount of time. There's no time really to listen to the story so they get right to the symptoms. "How you feeling? What's your biggest complaint? It's this. All right. Here's a blood test for it. Let's go get that done and then we'll [00:05:00] go from there." And if the blood test comes back normal, they're just like, "All right. Let's see how it feels."

You know, it's funny right, 'cause I used to treat for a long time sports injuries and I used to kind of chuckle inside because somebody would come in and they would say, "Yeah, I hurt my knee before and I went to see my doctor and my doctor said, 'Okay, well let's just ... Not much I could do, but let's just pay attention to it and see how it does.' And then I never go back." So they would just assume that everything's [00:05:30] better. Right? And the reality is unless you actually treat something, most things ... Well a lot of injuries are self limiting. They will go away. It's those ones that kind of nag a little bit. But the reality is that's just how medicine works. You go in, you say your biggest complaint, you may have a few seconds to kind of explain what's going on. They'll run some tests. If the tests are abnormal, that's usually not a good thing 'cause it usually means you're heading down that disease path very quickly.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: 'Cause they're testing is designed for disease and if nothing comes back, [00:06:00] then it's like, "Well, it's just moderate. See how you feel. Come back in a few months if you're still ..." 'Cause what they're hoping eventually something shows up on the blood test, but by the time it shows up in the blood tests, that's not good news.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: So if you're not feeling well and nothing showing up on the disease testing, that's good. You have time to kind of figure out what's going on. Whereas as you mentioned, you're a symptom based, so if somebody comes to see you and they're fatigued, well you want their story. You want to dig into it, figure why they're fatigued and then run your biomarker tests.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: [00:06:30] But ... And this is what's interesting 'cause you've said this before. Biomarker testing will not trump what they tell you. You're going to listen to what they're saying and I remember ... As you mentioned, I remember your dad, my grandfather talking about listening to patients and just ... they'll tell you what's going on. A lot of times they know what's going on, they just don't know how to say it properly. And they'll tell you what's going on and by the time they're done, it's going to be almost a textbook. It's going to be a textbook.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: They'll tell you it. They just may [00:07:00] describe it differently than what the textbooks are saying, but they're going to get around to telling you what's going on with them. So it's always fascinating to hear people explain what's going on and then getting to the root of what the cause is. But anyways, when it comes to depression, that's seek ... A lot of times ... And the frustrating thing with depression, especially the current treatment for depression is medication because blood testing for the most part is normal-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Well they're looking at the wrong tests.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yes, and-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Part of it ... Most of it is because they're not even looking [00:07:30] at what could ... what causes depression.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Let's spend the rest of this time then going through some of the external causes of depression.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Each of these things has been linked in a research to depression and each of these things are treatable outside of medications. Right?

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Because ... Yeah. The medications is ... You've used that analogy before. You're driving down the highway, you hear a knock in your engine and let's turn the radio [00:08:00] up because antidepressants are not made to fix depression. They're not. They were made actually ... especially the ... You know when they originally ... If you look at Pfizer and some of the things that they've come out with, well the reason you're having trouble with antidepressants, they say what all the side effects could ... They were never meant to take longterm. Their studies were very short term and that's the way they were supposed to be prescribed. But then of course they realize that ... I mean you go back 20, 25, 30, [00:08:30] some people have been on antidepressants-

Dr. Martin Jr.: A long time.

Dr. Martin Sr.: For 30 years.

Dr. Martin Jr.: I was always surprised-

Dr. Martin Sr.: They can't even sleep without an antidepressant.

Dr. Martin Jr.: No, and one of the things that's for the better today is that there's no more ... there's not really a stigma around depression anymore. Right? I mean it's a-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Celebrated to some extent.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well yeah, to some extent. Now that's ... And what we want to do now is basically let's look at some of the external factors that once these things are fixed can definitely improve-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Will make a huge difference.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah. All right. So here's [00:09:00] a big cause of depression that a lot of people don't realize, zero sunlight.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Getting no sun whatsoever.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: If you're under fluorescent lights all day, fake lights all day, and you're not getting any sunlight ever, that does something to the brain.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Well, we know that even-

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well vitamin D in the brain, we know that depression ... severe depression has been linked to chronically low levels of vitamin D.

Dr. Martin Sr.: And you see the thing is with vitamin D, think of what it does, right? I mean just physiologically, what does vitamin D do? [00:09:30] Well the vitamin D first of all, elevates your melatonin. Right? Melatonin's a very, very important hormone. People don't realize that melatonin is something your body makes, but it does not make melatonin in the absence of sunlight. So the sun of [inaudible 00:09:47], they've made it such a boogie man. The Sun, the sun and people that get skin cancer ... I was mentioning this a well a while back on Facebook live. People that get skin cancer, just a fact ... Here's [00:10:00] a fact, they're people have the indoors. They're not people that work outdoors. It's not people that get skin cancer, especially the deadly melanoma.

Dr. Martin Jr.: No, it's the office worker.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. It's the office worker. That's why you're seeing so much melanoma today and so much basal cells carcinoma because these things yes, they're on rapid rise. The sun hasn't changed folks. The use of sunscreen has, but anyway. I don't want to go so much-

Dr. Martin Jr.: No, 'cause ... and that's-

Dr. Martin Sr.: That's a whole other thing, but all I'm saying is that if you look [00:10:30] at two things that vitamin D do ... I mean vitamin D does a lot of things. But one thing we know melatonin. Okay? So think if you're not even getting a good sleep, don't you think that that could lead to depression if you're not getting into a good REM sleep? So in the absence of sunlight, in the absence of vitamin D, you're not making melatonin. Now second thing is, and this is one of the factors in vitamin D. And this is why I tell people, "Look, why do you feel so good in the sun? [00:11:00] It is one of the greatest anti inflammatories that you can take, is the sunlight." You know what? The sun is an anti inflammatory. The vitamin D is an anti inflammatory. This is one of the ways it works inside the body. So when you're taking vitamin D as a supplement and preferably you're getting it in the sun, I say look, we live in northern Ontario. Well good luck with that. We've had-

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah, vitamin D supplements in the north is just absolutely one of those things you have to do.

Dr. Martin Sr.: And I always tell my Florida friends [00:11:30] that never go outside ... It's unbelievable. They tell me ... Well like my neighbors down in Florida, they ... For 16 weeks in the summer, it's too hot so they don't go outside. They live in air conditioning all the time.

Dr. Martin Jr.: And that's a funny thing. So we need a supplement in the winter. They need a supplement in the summer, which sounds funny to say that. Right? But that's the reality 'cause-

Dr. Martin Sr.: It's too hot for them.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah. I mean I was away not too long ago and I was talking to people that live down in [00:12:00] the south and they were just like they live in air conditioning. They played tennis indoors, everything's indoors because it's so hot.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: And I mean listen, that's understandable. But again, if they went and got their blood D levels checked, they would be low guaranteed.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Guaranteed, they would be low.

Dr. Martin Sr.: How many local are low [crosstalk 00:12:18] vitamin D? So-

Dr. Martin Jr.: Again, if you-

Dr. Martin Sr.: What is the link with depression?

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well ... And that's why study after study shows that chronically low levels of vitamin D, there's a strong correlation to ... [00:12:30] Well first of all, we know what it does for dementia, we know what it does for Alzheimer's and we know what it does for depression.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: So sunlight, which again, we already know this because there is a seasonal ... there's a sad disorder, right?

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: People do-

Dr. Martin Sr.: They actually label it. It's a medical disorder.

Dr. Martin Jr.: They actually label it. So zero sunlight, if you're indoors and unfortunately we live in a time where we work indoors. We work at a computer, it's blue light all day. We should do a podcast one time on blue light 'cause the effect that it has on the brain and all that stuff.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: But I [00:13:00] mean we work under fluorescent lights. We sit in front of a blue light screen. We look at blue light tablets at nighttime in our room. Before bed, we look at our phones. Make no mistake, that has a massive effect on our brain. And again, it's like we talked about this when it comes to for example, high circulating insulin. For some people that have high circulating insulin, they're going to have obesity. For other people they won't have obesity, but it may have heart disease. For other people they may not have that, they may have dementia.

Dr. Martin Sr.: They always have inflammation.

Dr. Martin Jr.: [00:13:30] Well ... And that's the thing, so it shows up differently. And for some people, zero sunlight won't cause depression, but it will cost something else. And for some people zero sunlight causes a depression. It would never, ever be linked to that. If somebody went into their doctor and said that they were feeling depressed, there would never be a link between the fact that that person hasn't had direct sunlight maybe for an hour and a half over the last 365 days.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Or whatever, [00:14:00] but that's the reality of it. Right? So that's a big one, zero Sunlight. We are created with a circadian rhythm. Right? And when we fight that circadian rhythm right ... I mean there's a lot of research showing people that work night shift-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: They got a lot of potential issues down the road, from the brain to their heart, to everything, and then it's the same thing. We're meant to get sunlight. We're meant to ... A lot of our hormones are triggered during the morning, different hormones are triggered at nighttime. Sun has an effect. When the sunset [00:14:30] has an effect, when it rises ... I mean we're just ... That's how we're ... That's how we are. We absolutely need sun and again, we're recording this in the summer, so it's easy to get it up north. Winter time, not so much, so you have to compensate for that, which is taking vitamin D. All right. So let's move on to the second cause, obesity.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Strong correlation again between obesity and there's a lot of reasons why, you mentioned one. Those that are obese tend to have higher levels of inflammation and inflammation [00:15:00] can be anywhere and it can affect the brain. No question. Obesity affects your microbiome, right?

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. You have a different microbiome.

Dr. Martin Jr.: That's right. If you look at the gut bacteria content of a lean person versus an obese person, there are different and that can affect the brain. There's so many reasons why that can absolutely have an effect on the brain as well. But again, not everybody who's obese is going to be depressed and not everybody that's depressed is going to be obese. We understand that. We're not simplifying it to that point. [00:15:30] We're not ignorant on that point as well.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: But for some people, if they are overweight, their depression can be directly linked to that.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Well look at in terms of another hormone that in obesity and that is usually in men and women, right? Your estrogen levels are going up-

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well and that's the next one I was gonna talk about-

Dr. Martin Sr.: [crosstalk 00:15:50] testosterone is going down, right?

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah, and that's the next one, which is excess estrogen which kind of-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Oh, you were gonna talk about it. Okay.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah. You jumped ahead. I should give you the-

Dr. Martin Sr.: I didn't get the memo.

Dr. Martin Jr.: I should give you [00:16:00] the list so you don't jump ahead. You went way out of order. That's it. This podcast is done. But yeah. Okay.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Let's talk about that one next, which is excess estrogen. Now for some people that are obese, they have excess estrogen. But again, some people that have high estrogen levels are not obese, but they got a definite estrogen dominance. It's showing up a different way and you see so many different ways that estrogen dominance shows up in people.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: For some, definitely going to affect their brain [00:16:30] when they have excess estrogen and it's going to cause depression.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Mood anxiety and I always say that that's just me and I believe this to be true, that I rarely ever see a true case of depression where it didn't start first with anxiety. So anxiety usually comes first. That's the first symptom of a depression. If you don't fix that anxiety and you know what, that's a major issue.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Oh, it's so big now.

Dr. Martin Sr.: It's so big, it's incredible. It's an epidemic today.

Dr. Martin Jr.: I think social media has [00:17:00] a lot to do with it.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: To be honest with you. I think if you look at the rates of anxiety and depression, they're definitely increasing rapidly. Why is that? I mean, we're going to talk ... We're talking about a lot of the reasons why as well.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. And physiologically, we want to [crosstalk 00:17:13]-

Dr. Martin Jr.: But I think ... I'll tell you, like social media can be awesome and it can also be a big time problem because a lot of people, whether they want to admit it or not, are highly addicted to social media. And social media again, [00:17:30] like any other addiction, if you're addicted, it can cause depression. If you're addicted to anything, you could be depressed. And social media, I'll tell you one of the smartest things ... See one of the strongest drivers in human nature is what they call the fear of missing out. Right? That's a powerful ... Look at ... I remember as a kid, remember that cabbage patch craziness?

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: They were smart. They didn't make enough of them. I mean how hard is it to make enough cabbage patch dolls? They got factories around the world. They could have made it, but they were smart, right? They just-

Dr. Martin Sr.: They just kept a shortage of it and people were-

Dr. Martin Jr.: They kept the shortage and [00:18:00] they would say ... So people would-

Dr. Martin Sr.: There were scraps in the-

Dr. Martin Jr.: Oh, fights in all the stores and they were smart. They put a hundred and then people were ... They didn't want to miss out, "I mean I got to get a cabbage patch doll for my daughter for Christmas."

Dr. Martin Sr.: Remember how much they cost even in those days?

Dr. Martin Jr.: Oh, they were insane. But it's called that fear of missing out. That's a powerful thing. See social media's smart because the feed is constant. Let's look at Facebook. The feed constantly refreshing and I'll tell you, all they have to do is put on the Facebook [00:18:30] icon, a little red dot saying that you have notification and I'll tell you. how long does the average person wait when they get that notification to check it? It controls our lives. It controls our lives. I bet you the average time between seeing a notification and checking what it is, is ... I bet you it's so short for most people. We got to know what it is. We can't miss out. There's something. There's a notification there. But again, I think [00:19:00] we're going to look back-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: In so many years and just understand the effect that it's had on us in general. Right? So yeah, that's another one.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: So we just mentioned too much estrogen. Let's kind of go through these things. Here's another massive one, process diet, because I'll tell you, vegetable oils, to borrow a line-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Extreme inflammation.

Dr. Martin Jr.: From Water Boy with Adam Sandler are the devil, right? Foosball's the devil. Well, vegetable oils are the devil. They're bad for you. They increase [00:19:30] inflammation. If you want to make a rat fat for a study, you give it a combination of vegetable oil and bad carbs and it just fattens. I think that's the secret sauce. If you were like, "I want to do a study on mice and I want to look at the effect of diabetes on a mouse." Well, you got to give the mouse diabetes. So how do they do it?

Dr. Martin Sr.: Our diet.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Fat and bad carbs, vegetable oils. The very same things that we eat when we go to a grocery store-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah, your seed oils and all this and that.

Dr. Martin Jr.: They're no good for you, and they [00:20:00] were smart because they call them vegetable oils, like they're so good for you.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Canola.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Vegetable oils. Vegetables are so good for you, so let's call these vegetable oils. Yeah, canola oils. I mean so many of them, but they are bad. But they cause inflammation big time and they also cause a ton of autoimmune disorders. There are a lot of people today ... Autoimmune disorders are climbing up and there are a lot of people that get them because of these vegetable oils. But they ... Process diet ... Make no mistake, [00:20:30] process diet can directly cause depression.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Now there's some steps in between inflammation and change the microbiome and a change of all these things, but eventually a high processed diet for a long time can lead to depression.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: But again, not everybody who has a high processed diet's going to get depression. Some will end up with heart disease, some will end up with an autoimmune disorder, but many will end up with depression.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: So that's another one. Here's another big one as well. Probably one of the biggest, lack of sleep for a [00:21:00] lot of reasons, right? We're ... So many ... Our brain ... I was reading a study on really all the different steps or phases that you go through and the importance of an REM. How it's like a ... When you go through that REME sleep and you go in and out of it all the time throughout the night right, you go through the phases over and over again, it's like a brain dump. It's like like when your computer's running slow and you clear the cache or you reboot it, that's what it does to your brain. Rem sleep does that to your brain. If you don't get REN sleep, [00:21:30] if you're not sleeping properly or getting deep enough sleep and you can't do that brain dump, it hurts your brain. It hurts your brain. And what's interesting is that a lot of these medications that people take for depression and sleeping doesn't allow-

Dr. Martin Sr.: They keep you out of the REM sleep.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yes.

Dr. Martin Sr.: They keep you out of that deep sleep-

Dr. Martin Jr.: And it's-

Dr. Martin Sr.: They sedate you.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah. There's a difference between sedation and sleeping.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Right? Sedation and sleeping are two different things.

Dr. Martin Sr.: And you get up in the morning and you're still exhausted.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah. And you didn't go through that REM, so you didn't have that brain dump.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: And one of the things that happens [00:22:00] as well in one of the ... in some of the stages of sleep is that actually encodes your memory into your brain, right? And so sleep is an important aspect of memory. Most people don't realize this, but while you're sleeping, it's like your brain is a computer and it's like now it's hard coding the data into your brain so you don't forget it. But if you don't get sleep and you're not going through the different phases properly, you're not encoding that into your brain and it can cause some memory issues, and it can definitely cause depression. [00:22:30] Plus a lack of sleep we know beyond a shadow of a doubt causes fat gain. Right? It increases your body fat, increases your estrogen levels, decreases your human growth hormone secretions-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Your cortisol levels skyrocket.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Increase cortisol ... It's on and on and on and on. So sleep is a ... In fact, it'd be interesting to see what percentage of people that are depressed started because they ... what their sleeping habits were like for a long time. But anyway, so sleep's another big one. Here's another one that's really big as well, a lack of movement or exercise. [00:23:00] I mean how important is exercise for brain health?

Dr. Martin Sr.: The true vitamin E, right? For your brain. Exercise, right? And almost any exercise is good and we always talk about the one that lowers your insulin levels.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well and that's the last one that we'd kind of end on which is high insulin.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Oh, we're not gonna talk about leaky gut?

Dr. Martin Jr.: Well see gut health ... Every one of these things affect gut health.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: But yes, leaky gut syndrome. Now again, for a lot of people leaky gut, we say that and we know they [00:23:30] fall asleep for a few seconds because leaky gut, let's be honest is not an interesting topic. We get excited about it. We kind of see that as such a cause for so many things-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Well it's a root. It's a huge root.

Dr. Martin Jr.: But we understand because for some people they don't have symptoms ... But they do, but they don't associate that with leaky gut, right? Their skin may be a mess because their gut is a mess, but they don't even understand it because they have no digestive symptoms.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: But we understand that, but leaky gut ... You're right. And [00:24:00] all the things that can cause leaky gut can eventually lead to depression.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: right? And ... But the last one 'cause we're at a time here, is just high circulating insulin and we talk about that on every episode because of-

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: The importance.

Dr. Martin Sr.: We're the one trick pony when it comes to food.

Dr. Martin Jr.: We are. If you have high circling insulin, which is a high glycemic, high sugar or crappy carbs or a high vegetable oil diet, and you have excess insulin circulating all the time. It's going to cause neuro-inflammation. It's going to cause brain [00:24:30] shrinkage, hippocampus and all that's going to shrink. It's going to affect the connections in your brain-

Dr. Martin Sr.: The triglycerides go across the blood brain barrier.

Dr. Martin Jr.: And you're going to ... It can cause depression-

Dr. Martin Sr.: [crosstalk 00:24:39] brain, causes inflammation. Absolutely.

Dr. Martin Jr.: We're 25 minutes in, so we're definitely past time here. You can just take the list that we just gave you and kind of reverse ... If you're not getting sunlight, get sunlight.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Vitamin D.

Dr. Martin Jr.: If you have insulin resistance or hyper ... too much insulin, lower insulin.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Not only by your food. Our insulin formula by the way does tremendous-

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Sr.: A lot of people [00:25:00] don't realize that, how good that formula is and if they go on our website, they can see like some of the testimonials for that. But I get great results with that everyday in the office.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Sr.: I'll just tell you clinically, that helps you. And insulin, if you can get your insulin down, that helps for everything.

Dr. Martin Jr.: That's kind of ... You know it's funny, I just started taking that one again myself 'cause I was taking it for awhile and then ... I take so many supplements a day. A lot of the stuff we make, we make it 'cause we take it as well. Right? So ... But I started taking that again and-

Dr. Martin Sr.: It [00:25:30] is good.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Yeah, I like it. Right. So ... But again, what we wanted to do today was just simply talk about all the external causes of depression. So if you're suffering with depression, look at that list that we just went through and see if any of those things are affecting you and then work on those things and see what kind of effect it's gonna have on your brain, 'cause one of the things that we hear all the time is how much better people feel. And when you feel better, your brain's better, everything's working better. It's amazing what [00:26:00] can happen and food is a powerful medicine. Food is a powerful antidepressant or a powerful depressant. If you look at everything you eat as either increasing [inaudible 00:26:12], is it causing disease or is it healing?

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah. Good or bad.

Dr. Martin Jr.: Good or bad, right?

Dr. Martin Sr.: There's very little neutral food.

Dr. Martin Jr.: No, and people ... I understand from a weight loss perspective, some people are like, "Oh, there's no bad foods." But that's not true. There are some foods that are really bad. They taste fantastic. I mean [00:26:30] otherwise they wouldn't make them. Right? There's no question. You combine sugar and fat, I mean that's gold.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Donuts.

Dr. Martin Jr.: That's gold. I mean that's a powerful ... And it does stuff to our brains. Our brains want that so bad. You combine sugar and fat, our brains just like salivate thinking about that. Right? So it's just, yeah. I mean unfortunately we live in a society today that a lot of things are working against our brain and a lot of things can then end up leading to depression. But again, we're out of time.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Yeah.

Dr. Martin Jr.: So if you have any questions, you [00:27:00] can email us at info@martinclinic.com. You can go to our website, martinclinic.com. If you're not a newsletter subscriber, again we talk about a lot of these studies in our newsletters. Go ahead and join our newsletters and again, we send a lot of emails. We definitely do. We get excited about health and we've got a lot to say. So we just send out these short emails talking about studies, giving you some practical advice in there as well. So again, we want to thank you for listening and have a great day.

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