What are skin tags a sign of?
Insulin resistance, in Dr. Martin's reading. Your body has been making too much insulin, the hormone that moves sugar out of your blood, for too long.
He kept a big color chart of insulin warning signs on his office wall for patients to read. Skin tags were on it.
Dr. Martin on what a skin tag points to:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 953What we're talking about today in terms of skin tags is something that would often comes first, and people don't relate it to the issue, which is insulin resistance.
Notice the word he chose. He names insulin, not cortisol. For the other signs on his list, read the signs of insulin resistance in women over 60.
Does high cortisol cause skin tags?
Not directly, and he never says it does. What he does say is that cortisol pushes your blood sugar up, and high blood sugar calls for insulin.
On what cortisol does, even on an empty stomach:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 1230Even in the absence of eating cortisol elevates blood sugar.
Cortisol is meant to be high in the morning to get you going, then fall by evening. Here is when cortisol should peak in your day, and when it should drop.
The trouble starts when it never comes down:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 1230Its job is to elevate blood sugar to get you ready for the fight or flight, but if it doesn't get turned off, you get insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance is the same problem he says skin tags point to. So high cortisol and skin tags can turn up together, with insulin sitting in the middle.
How are cortisol and skin tags connected?
Through insulin, and through your fork. He wrote a book on these two hormones together, and he says they are very much connected.
How he tells the two apart:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 1230Insulin is a food hormone. Cortisol is a stress hormone.
Stress also changes what you eat. When cortisol stays on, blood sugar swings up and down, and you get hungry for the wrong things.
He puts it bluntly:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 1230When you're stressed, you reach for junk. You want a quick fix.
Junk here means sugar and fast carbs, which call for even more insulin. So stress can push insulin up twice: once through cortisol, and again through the food it sends you looking for. More on that loop in why sugar cravings hit after 60.
Why can skin tags show up before diabetes?
Because blood sugar is one of the last numbers to change, he says. Your body holds it steady for a long time by making more and more insulin.
On why a normal reading can fool you:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 953Because remember, blood sugar is a lagging indicator.
He tells of a friend who was called into the doctor's office over high blood sugar. He had already seen the blood work, and told the friend they had been diabetic a long time.
On the new study he brought to the show:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 953But what the study is seeing on skin tags is that if you have a skin tag, you are 11 times more likely to have metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster: high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, belly fat, high blood pressure and high uric acid. He says three of them is enough. If your numbers are creeping up, see what he would do first about prediabetes at 60.
"That's your body trying to get your attention."
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 953Can you prevent skin tags?
He does not promise that. He never says a food or a pill makes skin tags fall off or stops new ones. What he says is that a skin tag is a message, and the reply starts in the kitchen.
What he says a skin tag is telling you:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 953It's your body saying hello. Hey, you out there? You're not listening. Change your diet.
Why he starts with food:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 953And remember, metabolic syndrome comes from food, it comes from sugar and crappy carbohydrates. Things that turn to sugar rapidly.
Think bread, pasta, cereal, oatmeal and juice. Bacon and eggs, he says, leave insulin on the sidelines with little to do. For drinks, he says water and coffee.
On the cortisol side, he points to sleep. The two feed each other:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 1230And when you don't sleep, your cortisol goes up, your cortisol goes up, you don't sleep, you can't get into the mode of rest and digest, okay?
He adds that sunshine helps you sleep. His fuller list is in how to lower cortisol after 60, naturally.
Can skin tags mean something else?
Yes. A skin tag is a clue, not a diagnosis, and he says as much about the signs on his list.
Partway through his list of warning signs, he added:
Dr. Martin, from The Doctor Is In, episode 953Those are indicators. Now they can be indicating something else too. I understand that.
Skin tags can have other causes. Take one as a reason to look at your plate, not as proof of anything. And if any skin growth is new, growing, bleeding or changing, show it to your doctor.
Want to hear him explain it?
Episode 953 is his talk on skin tags: the study, and the other insulin warning signs he once posted on his office wall.
Common questions
Does cortisol cause skin tags?
He never links the two directly. Cortisol is meant to rise in the morning to wake you up and be down by supper, he says. The trouble starts when it stays up all day, because it keeps blood sugar and insulin up too. Episode 1230.
Can high cortisol cause skin tags?
He never names cortisol as the cause of a skin tag. He describes a chain: stress raises cortisol, cortisol raises blood sugar, and blood sugar calls for insulin. Too much insulin for too long is what he ties skin tags to. Episodes 1230 and 953.
Are skin tags linked to heart disease?
He does not name heart disease in this episode. He links skin tags to metabolic syndrome: high triglycerides, low HDL, belly fat and high blood pressure. Those are fair numbers to ask your doctor about. Episode 953.
Read next: What Is A Normal Blood Sugar For A Woman Over 60? and Cortisol And Belly Fat After 60.
Help for the stress half of the story
If years of stress sound familiar, Cortisol Control Formula is Dr. Martin's daytime pick for women whose stress hormone runs the show. Use it next to the food changes on this page, never instead of them.
60-day money-back guarantee. A skin tag that changes, grows or bleeds still belongs in front of your doctor.
