1915. CDC: 3 Out of 4 Adults Are Running on Fumes

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

 

TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE

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Dr. Martin:  Well, good morning, everyone. Once again, welcome to another live this morning. We love having you on. And we appreciate you more than you know.

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Okay. Let's do this this morning because this came out of the CDC, the Center for Disease Control in the U.S. Sub-A. And it says three quarters of the adults in the U.S.A.

report running on fumes. Running on fumes. Okay. Listen to this.

Mood. 3M. Mood. Mobility. And memory. Down. Mood. Low. Memory. Not good. Mobility. Not getting around.

They're too tired. Not much. Okay. Mood, mobility, and memory are all down.

One third say, okay, not only they're running on fumes, but one third of those people, okay, are saying exhaustion limits their ability to work. Okay. I'm glad you asked why. Okay.

We're going to get into the why this is happening in our society. Okay. This, guys, is right up my alley. Okay.

So I've shown you this book. Let's do it again. Okay. I can hardly recognize who this guy on the back of this book is.

If you don't believe in free radical damage and oxidation and glycation, look at me. Agey. But, okay, so I wrote this book, Steps to Fight Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, The Modern Woman's Curse. Okay.

The Modern Woman's Curse. This book's almost 40 years old. Yep. Just about.

Okay. Now, what am I saying? I've been talking about energy for a long time. There was a whole period of time, and it started in the 80s, where there was a phenomenon going on in North America in particular, and it was called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, right?

They didn't actually name it that at first. They called it the yuppie flu. Okay. And it was 90-something percent women.

I saw it in men, but it was rare in men compared to women. It was like an epidemic. Exhaustion. Okay.

I wrote about it. And I always sort of define my practice in, you know, different periods of my practice. Okay. Number one, exhaustion.

That energy, low energy, and it was a syndrome. It happened, and I saw thousands of these patients were diagnosed. I actually wrote about it. When I did my PhD, okay, in nutrition, clinical nutrition, my thesis, and I published it.

I actually have it here. Okay. I published this theory. Okay.

Here it is here. Okay. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. That was my thesis, and that was written in 1996.

That was my thesis for my PhD. Okay. And my dissertation. I actually published this dissertation into a book, and you're looking, okay, there's the dissertation, and there's the book on chronic fatigue.

Okay. People ask me, oftentimes what my qualifications are. Well, I've been around a long time. That's one qualification.

The other is I studied energy. I wrote about it. And I believe I was the first guy to talk about adrenal glands and energy way back when in this book. Okay.

What did I call it? Adrenal gland exhaustion. So it's one of the first people to connect the dots type of thing. I was talking even in that book about leaky gut.

So when I hear, here we are in 2026, and the CDC is reporting three quarters of adults in the USA say they're tired. And one third of them are saying out of those three quarters, they're saying their exhaustion limits their ability to work. Now guys, even back in the 80s and 90s, I talked about a lack of energy generally, and in particular a syndrome.

Okay. And I talked about the mitochondria, food. Food drives your mitochondria, your battery. Every cell in your body, they got battery back.

Their mitochondria, your brain's got a lot of mitochondria, your brain cells, your neurons, they have a lots of mitochondria. Your heart has a lot of mitochondria, battery back, your muscles, a lot of battery back. And I said, all this gets affected. Okay.

By food numero uno. And you remember this from your high school biology class, guys. Okay. Mitochondria take food and turn it into energy, ATP, right?

ATP, octane. And the problem in our society then and today still, number one, food. Okay. Food.

When you live on the wrong fuel, big problems. Okay. When you live on the wrong fuel, you're going to encounter big problems. There's no light on top of your head that's going to tell you, oh, you know what?

You're eating the wrong food. You're getting the wrong fuel. There's no light that's going to go off. And that's unfortunate in a way, because it's just like I always talk about thirst.

Don't wait till you're thirsty to drink water. Just drink water and you'll thank me later. I used to tell patients that all the time. Drink water, two liters a day, and you'll thank me later.

When you find out what water does for you, when you find out what good food does for you, you'll thank me later. So in our clinic, I didn't guess I'd test it. Okay. I didn't guess we'd test it.

When we found people, patients, that had low energy, they never even got in the clinic until they filled out a questionnaire. A lot of patients used to get the questionnaire sent to them, fill it out, because it's going to take you about a half an hour to do it. Maybe a little less, but generally around there.

Like I want all your history. I'm a history bug. World history and your history, I want to know, because it's very important to me. And here's what we found.

Okay. You're exhausted. Here's what we found. Generally, always exceptions.

Okay. Generally, here's what we found. Okay. They were living on the wrong fuel.

Nobody told them, but they had their macros upside down. Nobody told these people. They were living on carbs, not on protein, and they were living on carbs, not on protein and fat. They were burning the wrong fuel.

Their ATP, okay, the output, their energy, went way down. One of the big reasons was they were eating the wrong food. They were carboholics. Nobody ever told them.

They never looked at it like that. They lived mostly on the plant kingdom and a lot of processed foods that they didn't think were bad for them. For example, cereal. I always ask the question, what do you start your day with?

Okay. And in the 80s, it was yogurt. And I said, well, that would be all right. Ladies, if there wasn't fruit-filled yogurt, sugar-added yogurt, do you eat eggs in the morning?

No. Do you eat bacon in the morning? No. You should, but they weren't.

Almost invariably not. So they started their day with the wrong food. They were having a bagel. You have a Dr.

Martin in, it's whole grain. It's everything bagel. Well, there's nothing in a bagel that's going to give you energy. It's just going to crash your energy.

They didn't know that. Nobody told them. Okay. Well, they were told the wrong thing.

And even today, and even today, guru after guru will tell you fiber is more important than meat. Fiber is more important than an egg. Fiber is more important than bacon. And bacon's bad.

Bb, bacon bad. No good. It's got fat. You see the fat in bacon?

You see the nitrates? That's a salt. It ain't salt that's killing you. I can tell you that.

It's not a celery salt or whatever that's killing you. It's the sugar and their favorite drink. Okay. Their favorite drink.

You know what their favorite drink was? Orange juice. I said, you're crashing your mitochondria. You're crashing your mitochondria.

Your ATP is heading south down because you're starting your day with the wrong food. And I said, food is king, man. You got to start there. It's the foundation of health.

You know, because what happens in medicine, food is the last thing they talk about because they don't know anything about it. I'm still reading. I get a migraine, guys, in 2026 and I read dieticians. They're so stinkin' hung up on fiber, even today, and keeping you away from bacon and eggs and sausage and eggs in the morning.

They're crazier than who else. They're keeping people exhausted because they don't keep up to what is food science. Okay. You have minerals.

You have vitamins. You have amino acids. And you're missing those. You're not getting any B12.

You're getting very little B vitamins. You're not eating the right foods and you don't start your day with the wrong foods, guys. You've got to build a foundation for your day. You're secreting enormous amount of insulin right out of the gate in your day.

And almost every yogurt even is low fat. How stupid is that? Low fat yogurt. So that's a start.

We saw insulin high, insulin resistance. Okay. It's consistent. We saw low levels of magnesium, low levels of B12, almost without exception, low levels of without exception, low levels of vitamin D, almost without exception.

B12 needs to be optimized. And doctors go, oh, your B12 is high. It's high. Good.

That's what you want. Your vitamin D. As if the hospitals are full of people with high vitamin D. I know what your problem is.

Your vitamin D is high. You want it high. You want it optimized. And they scare the living life out of people.

And I always used to tell my patients, I said, do you know you have you? Okay. If it was a plumber in front of me, I said, do you know that you, you, okay, you have more education on vitamins than your doctor has? Your doctor didn't take anything about vitamin D other than to scare the life out of you.

Your doctor doesn't even know what B12 does. They don't give B12 anymore. They used to. They don't anymore.

They don't know anything about it. All they know is they get blood work. And I've always said this. Medicine, and one of its biggest mistakes in medicine, is that they're hijacked not only by the pharmaceutical companies, because they're hijacked.

Pharmaceutical companies educate doctors today. Okay. Listen, I'm not saying it's all bad. They're very smart.

But they've hijacked that because they don't talk about vitamins. They don't study nutrition. They don't study minerals. They wouldn't know a mineral if it slapped them across the face coming out of medical school.

They just don't get taught. They're hijacked by the pharmaceuticals, and they're hijacked by the labs. Because they're trained. It's like a horse with blinders on.

Okay. Here's physicians, most of them. I want to look at your blood work. And if it ain't flagged, I'm not looking at it.

It ain't important. Okay. That's what they do. They got blinders on.

They want to look at labs, and they rely on the labs. They rely on the lab for thyroid. They never flag cortisol, but they don't test for it. B12.

What do you want to know your B12 for? Why do you want to know your B12? Who cares? Doc, can I get my vitamin D done at least?

Why? You don't have osteoporosis. Why do you want to get your vitamin D levels checked? Why do you want to get your cortisol checked?

They focus in because they're taught in medical school. Okay. See the blinders? They're on.

They only want to know is your cholesterol. What's your cholesterol? They've been so trained. They got blinders on.

I feel sorry for them. They don't care about your HDL. They don't care about your triglycerides. All they want to know is cholesterol.

What's your LDL? And now they got the APO. We got to put you on a statin. You're going to die of a herd of time.

The blinders are on. They're focused in on that. And if you talk about low energy, they're focused in on labs because they're going to go, well, your blood work's not showing me nothing. Your thyroid's within normal limits.

Normal is from the North Pole to the South because they rely on labs. And I don't dismiss labs guys. You know that. So don't throw the baby out with the bath water with me.

I look at labs too. I wanted history. I observed. I want to know why you're exhausted.

So I'm going to look at different things. I'm going to look at your hormones. So this is what we found. Women, their estrogen was dominant compared to their progesterone.

Their thyroid was sluggish, not disease. They weren't disease, but it was dis-ease. Their thyroid wasn't working properly. I had thousands of women tell me, doc, I just look sideways at food and I gain weight.

I got no energy and I look sideways at food and I'm gaining weight. How can that be? One woman said to me, my metabolism isn't slow, doc. It's in a coma.

I was on the ground dying, just the way she said it. And she went very funny and I'll never forget that. My metabolism, she said, doc, is in a coma. And I said, yeah.

But guys, if you don't get that in men, men would come in with low energy. They had more estrogen than their wives had. Their testosterone wasn't even registering on the Richter scale. They had none.

Their wives had more testosterone than they had. But if you don't get to that baseline, guys, with food first, it's amazing when their diets change. What would happen? Doc, you know, here's another thing, Art.

How come nobody told me about food? How come nobody gave me an education on what carbs do? Why was I told salad is better than a steak? Why was I told that?

Why was I told that eggs, have a few. They're full of fat. They're full of cholesterol. Why was I told that bacon was no good for me?

That it was better that I had frosted flakes, which aren't great, by the way. Like Tony Tiger, he's not great. Did I tell you they used to call me that when I was in school as a kid? Tony the Tiger.

For frosted flakes. But they're not great. You're asking your mitochondria to die a slow death when you eat that stuff. Your little batteries are screaming for energy.

Give me fuel. I said, as you're leaving this clinic, OK, and we're going to follow up. Don't you worry. We communicate here.

You're going to communicate with me and we're going to communicate. The clinic will communicate with you. And then we're going to follow up and we're going to see. I said, trust me, I'm going to change your diet because we don't start there.

We're not going to get nowhere. And you're going to have to just trust me on this. OK, you've got to trust me on this. I'm going to give your body the fuel that it needs.

When I say eggs, meat and cheese, I mean it. You like eggs? Oh, I like eggs, Doc. Well, good.

You're going to like me then. You like meat? Yeah, yeah. OK, well, then you're going to love me if you love me.

What kind of meat, Doc? Well, red meat's the best. You like steak? Oh, I love steak.

You like hamburger? Yeah, me too. OK, you like hamburger? You can have it every day.

The only thing I don't want you to have is the bun. Not the bun. When you can have hamburger, hamburger's got lots of B12, lots of carnosine and carnitine and arginine and CoQ10. I said, your batteries need CoQ10 and you're not eating it.

You're not eating it. You've got to eat it. I said, listen, I know this goes against the grain, but you have to trust me. I didn't get a PhD in nutrition for nothing.

Steak is better than salad. Salad. It's a thousand times better. Take the nutrients.

OK, in red meat, take a steak and take broccoli even if you want. Or spinach. I don't care. Take it and go, what's the difference in the nutritional profile?

Guys, it ain't even close. What you've been lied to. Your raspberry yogurt isn't better than having an egg. It just ain't.

It's the sugar we're going to eliminate. OK, temporarily we're going to eliminate sugar because you're going to find when your cells burn another fuel, it's rocket fuel. So that's what we did. And then we worked always, OK, I'm excited.

Did I ever see a case? I don't know. Maybe I did. I don't remember.

Ever seen a case? OK, remember what they were low in. They were low in B12. They were low in vitamin D.

They were low in magnesium. 100%. Their insulin was high almost invariably. Their mitochondrias were running on fumes.

And another factor, which was a big factor, was their cortisol was high. Their stress hormone was high. It was training them to. OK, and so it was consistent.

And cortisol will wipe out your thyroid. You'll run on fumes because your cortisol is not meant to be running 24 hours a day. And they were upside down when it comes to cortisol. The cortisol was coming out in droves.

And especially at night when their cortisol should have been down to almost nothing. And now, of course, then they're not sleeping. Right. So this is what I'm saying, guys.

When I read the CDC report just out, three quarters of adults in the USA report they're running on fumes. They have bad moods or low mood, low mobility, and low memory. And one third say exhaustion limits their ability to work. I'm quoting the study.

Quoting the study. Crazy. Anyway, I thought I'd bring that to you because it's hot off the presses. Not surprising to me.

Been around for a while, guys. But here's the good news. When you take control of your own body, you can't control everything in life, guys. You really can't.

But you can control what you put in that mouth every day. And I always tell my audience this. You guys got a PhD. I'm giving you an honorary PhD in nutrition because you know more than the average bear.

And you know more than 99% of every physician I've ever met. I love those physicians. I mean it. I love them dearly.

You know, they need a spanking on their bum bum that they don't listen and they don't get taught. And a lot of them are not teachable. Some are. Teach me, doc.

Teach me. And most know that. I said, are you open to a discussion? Probably not.

I said, that's fine. You know what I used to tell people? My girls were always okay in the office. They were sharp as tacks.

And they go, why didn't you spend more time trying to convince that patient, Dr. Martin? They'd look at me after I saw a patient and they were in on the consultation with me because they were doing lab work and whatever. They would write the report up, not me, of the findings.

And then they said, why didn't you try and convince them more? I said, well, they weren't listening, Linda. Oh, they weren't? No, they weren't listening.

Their eyes were glazed over because I was telling them they had to change. I thought you were, doc, you were going to give me a pill to fix everything. No, no such pill. You can't out supplement a bad diet.

You have to, have to, have to start with food. I am, and I don't like steak. I feel sorry for you. I don't like water.

I feel sorry for it. I don't like coffee. If I can't convince you, what can I tell you? Okay.

Now, Rose, because you know I love you. Okay. I didn't mean not to answer your question. I read it three or four times.

I did. I didn't see a questionnaire. I, saw more that you were saying that, you know, you were having trouble and you just had no taste for food anymore, especially meat and this and that. And knowing what you take, it's kind of surprising to me.

You're unique, not weird, unique. And you saw there's a few people that scroll said, yeah, I'm the kind of the same way. So you might be the type, Rosalinda, and it's very rare. You might have to just implement a few more vegetables and things like that in your food.

I got no problem with that. Okay. You can take more from the plant kingdom. Just make sure you're staying away from sugar.

Like stay away from those crappy carbohydrates. And is there anything missing? I'd have to see your blood work. I don't know.

You could be, I don't think so, but it could be a missing, possibly B12 or whatever, but I don't think so. Cause I think you're taking it. Anyway, that's the reason I didn't answer it. Okay.

Now, cause I don't love you. Cause I didn't really see a question there, but anyway, okay. Guys, don't be shy. Okay.

Don't be shy. Send your questions in. And I mean it. Cause I don't try and avoid anything.

I really don't. Okay. I guys, I love you guys. And you guys know that I'm trying to answer all of your questions sometimes because I'm a senior.

I might miss them in the case of Rosalinda. I didn't know exactly what to say. And you know, maybe I should have taken the time anyway, but I love you guys. Okay.

And you guys know that I think if you don't, I'm trying to reinforce it. Okay. Love you guys. Talk to you soon.

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