1864. Are You Protecting Your Brain Every Day?

Join Dr. Martin in today's episode of The Doctor Is In Podcast.

 

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. Once again, welcome to another live this morning.

Hope you're having a great start to your day. And we appreciate you guys coming on.

Okay, now, I want to talk about the brain because there's a new study out that I read the ketogenic diet. Okay, so you know what keto is, right?

Become very popular. And the ketogenic diet, which means you're burning fat, rather than sugar, you're burning fat as fuel.

Ketosis, okay, scares the living life out of most doctors, because they don't understand it. What they learned in school was ketoacidosis, okay, which is very dangerous, very serious.

And so whenever they think of ketones or ketoacidosis, they get confused. Like ketoacidosis is a very serious side effect of diabetes, for example.

It can happen especially in type 1 diabetes, where the body turns on itself, and the muscle starts breaking down and very serious. That's called ketoacidosis.

Okay. And I don't know how many times I had to explain to physicians, no, no, no, we're not talking ketoacidosis, we're talking about ketosis.

If you lower your carbs, almost down to nothing, your body has no choice but to switch fuels. And you guys know how much I like that, because it's part of the eggs, meat and cheese, EMC, 30 days, you're going to change fuels, your body's going to go into ketosis.

It's actually good for you. Okay, here's the study.

Metabolic improvements with a ketogenic diet in schizophrenia and bipolar. Does food affect your brain?

Big time. Ask a teacher when they feed kids sugar.

Ask a parent, do you give sugar to your kids at night? Generally, you know enough about food, and especially sugar, you're going, yeah, well, we're going to lay off the sugar tonight.

Because otherwise, you're going to be wound up kids. And we don't want that.

We want you to go to sleep. Therefore, we're going to lay off the sugar.

It's amazing to me. Okay, guys, it's always amazing to me that parents, they know.

Teachers, they know. Dentists, they know.

Sugar ain't good for you. Medicine, not so much.

Moderation. Moderation.

And they don't get the memo. You guys do, but I'm dulled.

It's always shocking to me. Here we are in 2026.

And in the United States, at least, I give them credit. I think one third or two thirds of the medical schools are going to actually give a course on nutrition to medical students.

Hello? Hello?

Nutrition to medical students. You mean, they don't get nutrition?

No. Food and disease.

No connection? Oh.

Guys, you would think a hundred years ago, they would have been teaching nutrition in medical school. Therefore, even today, you get the idea in a lot of doctors' minds, keto is bad.

Because all they can think of is ketoacidosis. Okay, so I want to talk to you about habits that sabotage your brain.

If you're anything like me, you want to protect your brain. Okay?

If you're anything like me, and guys, I know you are. Well, you wouldn't be on here this morning.

If you weren't into prevention, into nutrition, into taking care of yourself, you wouldn't even be on. You wouldn't bother.

Okay? So I'm preaching to the choir this morning.

But I want to talk to you about specifically taking care of your brain so it lasts. It's very important, isn't it?

And when you get my age, I tell you, I take out my senior card at least two or three times a day. Oh, sorry.

I'm a senior. Okay? I forgot. I love that card.

Okay? But I'm usually joking.

Not always. But I don't want to lose my memory.

You? Do you?

No. Well, let's talk about that.

Okay? Not that we never have.

Of course we have. I think everything I'm going to say is all repetition.

But repetition is good. Okay?

That's how I learn. Rinse and repeat.

Rinse and repeat. Refresh my memory this morning, doc.

Okay, this is what we're going to do. We're going to refresh your memory on how bad habits sabotage the brain.

Okay? Now, where do you want to start?

Well, we can start. Let's start with food.

Okay. Okay.

One of the biggest problems you want to sabotage your brain is eat a low-fat diet. That'll sabotage your brain.

Your brain is what percent fat? 60%.

Fathead? Isn't that a beautiful compliment?

Hello, fathead. You ever seen an autopsy of someone with Alzheimer's?

Their hippocampus has shrunk like a prune. Yeah, that's what happens.

And people are so silly because they've been lied to. All their lives they've been lied to.

Fat makes you fat. No, it don't.

No, it don't. Okay?

Ketosis, burning fat is a good thing. Well, how do you burn fat?

Well, you cut down on your carbs, not on your fat. Scientists embedded food, scientists embedded with the Inuit, with certain tribes that live on fat.

They live on organs. They live on blubber.

They live on anything they can get their hands on to eat that's got fat. They do well.

Their brains are sharper. So you want to sabotage your brain?

Cut out the fat. Cut out the fat.

Stop eating butter. Stop eating eggs.

Stop eating dairy. And I mean eat the dairy.

Don't drink it. Okay?

Look, you want to have some cream? Good for you.

Okay? You got a cow in the backyard, drink milk.

Otherwise, I don't want you drinking milk. I'd rather you not drink it.

I'd rather you eat it. Okay?

Butter and cheese. Okay?

Full fat yogurt. If you can find it, like it just drives me crazy.

You go in the grocery store and good luck trying to find full fat. Man, the world went stupid.

The world went stupid. Fat don't make you fat, fathead.

Okay? I can call you guys fathead and you don't even take it as an insult.

You go, Dr. Martin's complimenting me.

Yep, I am. My audience.

Hello, fatheads. Okay?

Now there is a bad fat. You want to sabotage your health?

Eat the bad fat. Eat those vegetable oils.

Go down the middle aisles of your grocery store and eat those foods. And you're going to get a lot of linoleic acid.

You're going to get a lot of bad fat made from so-called vegetable oils. You know, your soybean and your canola.

Canada's gift to humanity, canola oil, bad oil. It don't belong in your body and it creates an inflammatory response up in the brain.

That's bad fat. You want butter.

You want eggs. And eat the whole stinking egg.

Eat the whole thing. Eat the yolk.

If you want to have a full brain full of good fat, right? Don't sabotage your brain.

You know how much I love DHA fish oil. High DHA, the higher the better.

I've been preaching that for 40 years. Okay?

Don't eat the wrong fat. And by the way, okay, you guys know this, but again, just repetition.

You know what? When you have a piece of meat, you have eggs, meat and cheese, okay?

EMC. Remember, you're getting healthy fat.

Okay? Okay.

You're getting healthy fat and you're getting cholesterol. As if that's bad for you.

Oh, we got to lower that cholesterol. Yeah, if you want to have no brain left, you want that fat to be saturated.

Eat fat. Don't sabotage your brain.

Eat from the cholesterol kingdom. Well, that's the animal kingdom.

Anybody tells you to be a vegetarian or a vegan, run, forest, run. Get out of there.

Don't argue. Just leave.

Okay. You want to sabotage your brain?

Don't get enough sleep. And we've been teaching here for a long time, something that I didn't even learn in school.

I didn't learn this. We didn't know the importance of sleep in the 1970s that we know today, the studies, because we discovered that your brain has a self-cleaning oven.

Yep. The brain is headquarters.

The brain is a manufacturing plant. The brain has hundreds of thousands of mitochondria, battery packs.

When you have energy, you've got debris. You've got waste.

And the only way to get rid of it out of your brain is you better be sleeping. That's when the night crew comes in.

When you're actually sleeping, not sedated. You want to sabotage your brain?

Sedate your brain. Don't sedate it.

Oh, Dr. Martin, I can't sleep.

You're not sleeping. You're sedated.

And your self-cleaning oven isn't turned on. You like that expression, self-cleaning oven?

But I made it up in relationship to what happens in your glymphatic system when you're sleeping. Okay?

You're sleeping. The night crew comes in.

They do the cleanup in the brain. That is very important.

They detoxify the brain because the brain has its own lymphatic system. You have glial cells.

G-L-I-A-L. Glial cells.

The night crew. I like that.

Okay? I like that.

I don't know if you like my analogies, but I like that one. Okay?

Don't sabotage your brain. Sleep.

You know, sun, steak, steel, and sleep. Because sleep is very important.

Okay? It's another vitamin S with steak.

Steak and sleep. Steak and steel.

Don't steal things. You steal to get stronger.

Anyway, we'll talk about that. Getting the self-cleaning oven.

Don't sabotage your brain. Don't sabotage your brain by not working your muscles.

Don't be sedentary. Okay?

Don't be sedentary. One of the worst things you can do for your brain.

Who knew? We didn't even know.

Guys, I have been exercising. I mean, regularly since I'm 16 years old.

I told you my story. I started jogging with my dad.

I was talking to somebody about this the other day, and they said that he was exactly the same age as me, 74. I said, well, in 1968, I was 16.

I started running. Why?

He said. Were you in a race?

No. Were you playing baseball?

No. You play football?

Like in 1968, you were jogging? Yep.

My dad got me going. When you move your muscles, especially, okay?

When you strengthen, it's miracle grow. BDNF.

Okay? Miracle grow for your brain.

Move. But like I was teaching this week, the importance of muscle, it's an endocrine organ.

We know so much more today than we used to. Guys, just get stronger.

Every time you get a little bit stronger, you're growing your gray matter. It's miracle grow.

It's like fertilizer for your brain. Isn't that something, guys?

Okay? So don't sabotage your brain.

Okay? Don't sabotage your brain.

Don't sabotage your brain by sugar. You don't need sugar.

Eat steak and your body will produce sugar out of it if it needs it. It's like, well, I still hear it today.

There's still people that talk about, well, you need sugar. Your brain needs glucose.

Well, you don't have to eat glucose for your brain to have glucose. Okay?

Your brain does a lot better on ketones than it does on glucose. Okay?

Your brain does a lot better. So don't sabotage your brain by eating sugar.

You don't need it. Okay?

You'll find that out when you do the reset. 30 days.

Your brain will say, thank you. Because I used to tell my patients this.

Do what I tell you and you'll thank me later. Okay?

I used to tell that to my kids. Do what I tell you and you'll thank me later.

You might not thank me now, right? Because you think daddy's hard on you.

But you'll thank me later. When you go, you know what?

That was actually good for me. Okay?

So lay off the sugar. Watch what happens to your brain.

You'll thank me later. I said, when you come back, we're going to bring you back ASAP from our first visit, usually within six weeks or whatever.

You were doing a follow-up with me. I said, you'll thank me on the second visit.

I guarantee it. Okay?

You think I'm crazy, but you got to trust me and then you'll thank me later. I said that a thousand times.

Okay? I know what I'm talking about.

You got a bad relationship with food and you're going to understand it much more once you do the reset. It's going to take you 30 days to figure that out.

Maybe not quite the full 30, but you'll see. You'll see.

Okay? You'll see.

See? Don't sabotage your brain.

You sabotage your brain when you get fatter. And this is a fact, guys.

Okay. I'm going to say location, location, location again.

Because you guys know that here I am. I got five pounds.

Look at the size of this fat. Okay?

A foot long, a foot long and six inches wide. Fat.

Now this fat, when it's in your brain, it's all right. It's when it's not.

Okay? Okay, guys.

Fat in your brain is good. Fat around the other organs is fat.

Okay? We call that visceral fat.

You know what? That's so bad fat in your body shrinks your brain.

Sugar that makes fat shrinks your brain because your brain is swimming in fuel that it can't use. Okay?

So you want to burn fat. You want to burn this fat, right?

To grow your brain. So don't sabotage your brain.

Don't sabotage it. You got extra weight on your body.

Do everything you can to lose it. Okay?

Do everything you can to lose it. Obesity is not your friend.

It's not your brain's friend. Okay?

And by the way, going back to sugar for a minute, think of a diabetic. You know, diabetics, they're 50% more likely to have a heart attack.

They're 10 times the national average. And they're the ones that are most likely to get Alzheimer's.

What's diabetes got to do with Alzheimer's? A lot.

Swimming in the wrong field. And by the way, okay, because they call Alzheimer's type 3 diabetes, right?

What a Nobel prize for naming Alzheimer's type 3 diabetes. And then they sort of buried it.

The food industry didn't like the memo. They buried it.

Okay? And that's why even in 2026, your doctor's not talking to you about your brain and food.

Sugar is very, very damaging to your brain because of blood supply, vascular disease. They call it a small vessel disease, Alzheimer's.

Yep, it damages blood vessels. Sugar is so destructive.

Dentists know it. Teachers know it.

Mothers know it. Doctors, not so much.

Okay? Don't sabotage your brain.

Don't sabotage your brain if you're low on these two vitamins, B12 and vitamin D. Your brain needs B12 and your brain needs vitamin D.

It needs the sun. In the absence of sun, it needs vitamin D.

Compris-y? How can somebody that lives on vegetables and fruit try and convince people that that's good for their brain?

It ain't good for their brain at all because you've got no B12 in it. In food, you have no vitamin D in it.

Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. It's found in eggs, meat and cheese.

Now, ask an Inuit. They don't see the sun.

Well, they do in the summer, but it's a million miles from them. They're not out sunbathing usually, so they've got to get their vitamin D from their food.

They top it up every day because they eat a lot of blubber and they eat a lot of organ meat and they eat the fat. If it don't have fat on it, it don't get eaten by the Inuit.

They discard it to their dogs. Don't sabotage your brain by staying out of the sun not getting enough vitamin D and not enough B12.

Don't sabotage it. Keep learning.

That's another one. Don't sabotage your brain.

Don't stop learning. Keep reading.

Keep studying. I know many of you.

I mean the vast majority of my audience. What do I tell you all the time?

I'm going to give you an honorary degree. You deserve it.

You know more about nutrition than your doctor. I give you a high five, but this shows you something.

My audience and people like you, they're interested in their health. You know that that's good for your brain.

Not only what you're learning, but the fact that you are learning you're stretching those neurons. That's a fact.

So keep studying. Keep researching.

Keep talking about it. Someone asked me the other day, what are you doing?

I said, well, do you have an hour? I thought you were retired.

Well, from practice, yes. I don't see patience anymore, but oh boy, I haven't stopped studying.

I haven't stopped studying. I spend more time reading, research, and studying.

Stretch that brain, guys. Okay, stretch that brain.

It's one of the best exercises for your brain that you can do. Keep learning.

That's why we love our audience. This is why I do it on a daily basis.

Somebody asked me, don't you get tired of it? Tired of it?

I said, I have more fun. I have a ball every day on this program.

Don't sabotage your brain. Okay, now what is tomorrow?

What is tomorrow? Q&A.

Number one program of the week. It's always Fridays.

I mean it. The numbers tell us people love Q&A Friday.

Okay, and so do I. I've told you my background in radio.

I had a radio show 20 years and you know what it was? Most of the program was Q&A.

Open line show. Call in.

Love them. Popular.

Can you ask anything, Doc? Yeah, ask anything.

Well, if it has to do with health. Okay, guys, we love you dearly.

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!