Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Neuromyelitis optica
- Absorption of nutrients
- Glomerulonephritis
- Phototherapy patches
- Shingles & skin treatment
- Creatine
- Healing of nerve damage
- Cannabinoids
- Phlegm in throat
- Iodine
- Celery salt
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. Welcome to question and answer Friday. And we're always eager and all geared up for that. Judy's asking about neuromyelitis optica, which is a rare disorder. Why it happens, I don't know. And can it be cured? Well, look, if it's autoimmune, I like to get autoimmune before they get going. You know, because you can be sure it's started autoimmune. The body turns on itself. It's a leaky gut thing, and it just happens to hit the neurology, the nerves, and especially the nerve endings in the eyes. No fun.
Look, usually when it's advanced, it's management. I have a protocol. You got to start with the gut, Judy. You got to plug up the leaky gut. Usually that Trojan horse, the fungus gets in, gets into the brainstem and it can create havoc, neurological havoc, and that's why Parkinson's, MS, even neurodegenerative optica. Start with the gut. I go very anti-inflammatory, meaning lay off all the sugars. High DHA for the eyes, for the nerves. B12 for nerves. Remember your nerve vitamin is B12. Okay, so somebody's asking a question about B 12 later on down the road, we'll answer that. Can it be cured? Probably. I don't talk about curing. I talk about put your body in the best position, let your body do the talking. And the best way to do that is to put your body in its best position, anti-inflammatory, anti insulin, because insulin's inflammatory and patch up as much as you can the leaky gut and the neurological problems that go there.
Margy or Margie, "is there any way you can test to see if your body is absorbing nutrients?" Well, for, yeah, sure, you can. First of all just do a CBC. Just get a routine test done and that'll give you a lot of indications if you're absorbing nutrients or not. For example, if someone is a meat eater and their B 12 is low, eh, you're not absorbing it. If you're a red meat eater and your B 12 is low, you're not absorbing it. Now that can be a many of things, could be medication, could be stomach problems. You don't have the intrinsic factor. It could be a lot of things, but generally, good question, Margie. Generally, you can tell a lot by just getting routine blood tests, if it's interpreted. Unless it's flagged, it may be within normal limits, yet low. We can tell a lot, like if you're anemic, you're low in ferritin. You can tell a lot by blood tests and you can get very specific testing done. But generally, if your blood test the normal routine C, B, C and whatever with your B 12, and yeah, you can tell a lot about whether you're absorbing, are you anemic? And without having massive periods or whatever, if people are anemic, I said, man, you're not absorbing. And so yeah, for sure, Margie. Good question.
Okay, Doreen, "Dr. Martin has been talking about kidneys. Would he be able to talk about also people with kidney disease such as glomerulonephritis? Doctors claim to say only eating a small amount of meat is very hard for kidney to digest. I also have rheumatoid arthritis." Well, look, Doreen, I'm going to tell you what I tell everyone with kidney disease, and I've been consistent. I've never changed. Here's why a doctor would tell someone with chronic kidney disease not to eat meat because they don't know anything about nutrition. They just don't. They don't take nutrition in medical school. So I hate to be negative, but if you don't know anything about nutrition, and then you get a narrative that's been going on for 50, 60 years about meat and kidneys and protein and kidneys, look, God bless your doctors, but I'm sorry they're wrong about kidney disease.
Kidney disease has nothing to do with eating protein. Protein is king of the castle. What kills your kidneys are the dirty rascals. Carbohydrates, sugars, crappy carbs. That's what kills your kidneys. If you don't believe me, you ask a diabetic. Now, you are not diabetic. No, you're not saying that Doreen, you're saying you have rheumatoid arthritis. So you have already an autoimmune disease, which is very serious. You have leaky gut or had leaky gut, guaranteed. Guaranteed. And look, here's what kills kidneys. Sugar kills kidneys because it destroys blood vessels. And I know why they say protein. They've been saying protein and especially red meat for years. Why do they say that? Because when they test, they do a urine test or do a blood test and you get elevated proteins. They say, well, if you eat a protein and you got protein coming out in your urine from your kidneys, well, it must be what you're eating.
Nah, it's not okay. It's not not protein. Protein is a sign that your kidneys are under stress, but protein coming into the urine is not because you're eating protein. It's usually 99% of the time because you're eating sugars. Now you can have a chronic kidney disease that has nothing to do with food, but when you want to take care of your kidneys, here's Dr. Martin's plan to take care of your kidneys. Drink lots of water, remember Niagara Falls. Two, lay off all the sugars. Sugar destroys your kidneys. Be careful with oxalates because oxalates are little glass particles that come from foods that have oxalates, almonds, spinach, chocolate. Be careful with that stuff. They create oxalate.
The other one that can be very hard is uric acid. Uric acid is very hard on kidneys. We all have uric acid. It's a byproduct of your krebs cycle, but when it gets high, uric acid can be very damaging to kidneys because of crystals and because of stones. Okay? So again, you can stop eating meat. It will make your kidneys worse. It will make your kidneys worse. The best thing you can eat for kidneys is steak. And again, it goes back to when you don't understand nutrition, that's what you get. And so on this program consistently 20 years on the radio, what did I used to tell people? I'm sorry. They're wrong. And they've never fixed one person with kidneys. Never have they fixed kidneys by laying off meat. Never. There's no cases of it, but it's still the narrative today.
Boy, it's hard to change narratives, isn't it? Right? We're dealing with one right now. It's called climate, okay? And it's indoctrination. I'm sorry. I've been on the planet long enough to know the climate gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter. And now look, it's not my area of expertise, that's why I don't talk about 'em too much. But I am very, very, very suspicious when someone tries to tell me the world is ending in the next five years unless we stop driving our cars, that I don't necessarily buy that. I want you to show me facts not propaganda, okay? And that's what happens in medicine. It's unfortunate. I've talked to you till I'm blue in the face about cholesterol. It was never true from the get-go. It wasn't true. So what did you want me to do? I couldn't stop myself from telling people, no, I'm sorry. It's not true. Cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease. It doesn't. What are you supposed to do with that? Well, am I going to change the world? Nope. The number one selling medication of all time is a cholesterol lowering medication. Am I going to change that? Nope. But I'm still going to talk about it. I'm still going to give you my opinion.
I'm still going to say, nah, they didn't get it right. And if they had got it right, we wouldn't have heart disease anymore. But they didn't get it right. And that's the same thing with the kidneys. I've been hearing that since the 1970 protein bad. You know how many times a week I hear that protein bad for kidneys and it's hard to change a narrative. So I don't try and change a narrative. I'm not aiming at the world. I am aiming at you. I'm aiming at my audience and then you guys decide. Look, you might think I'm a quack. Okay? That's all right. You're entitled to your opinion. And I still have an enormous amount of respect for medicine. I do. If you get hit by a bus, don't call me. I mean it, well, you can call me, I'll pray with you. But what am I going to do?
What I mean is, look, I got my lane. It's food. But when they tell you that kind of stuff, what do you want me to say? And Doreen, I want people to ask me questions so that they can understand where I'm coming from. There's only one real food. There's a couple that destroy your kidneys. And again, I always use common sense. In all the population, who consistently has the hardest time with their kidneys? Kidney disease? Diabetics. Who consistently have the hardest time with their eyeballs? Diabetics. With their heart? Diabetics. Yeah. And why is that? Because they have an allergy to sugar. It's called sugar diabetes. Sugar destroys kidneys, not meat. I'm sorry, my vegetarian friends. I'm sorry, my vegan friends. I love you. I do, but you're wrong. Okay, but that was a rant. Doreen, thank you very much.
Joanne. "Phototherapy patches." Yeah. Yeah. Using light to improve the health of your body. I agree with that. But the best phototherapy patches is sun. Nothing else. Look, I know I'm not against that. It's really not my area of expertise in the sense that I didn't ever get a chance to use that in my practice. I used to like U V B therapy. My dad used to do it on skin conditions. And that the sun. The sun, it's good for you. There's another narrative. Sun, bad. Sun, cancer. Sun, aging, right? Is that not a narrative? Am I going to change it? No. But one person at a time, I'm trying to convince them your friend is the sun. That's the light therapy that I like the best, Joanne. Okay? I haven't seen anything that is better than the sun. Now I know there's blue light and all this and that. Yeah, I like it. There's practitioners are very good at that stuff. It wasn't my cup of tea per se. It doesn't mean I didn't like it. I, I tried to stay what I was good at, okay? I tried to stay in my practice what I was really good at. Okay, thanks Joannene.
Pamela, "does ubiquinol have to be taken with a fatty meal?" Well, not really, but a lot of people like to take their supplements with food and that's fine. At the end of the day, like some fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin D, is it better with fat? Maybe a little bit. Okay, I like that. But like me, I have my supplements with my coffee in the morning. I might sneak a little peanut butter too. And it's natural. Not that icing sugar, the other stuff. Okay, thank you very much, Pamela.
Lillian, "I have shingles." No fun. One thing for sure. Lillian shingles is a perfect storm because you and I and everybody that has the chicken pox, you have herpes. So do I. Who doesn't? You got the chickenpox as a kid. You got the herpes virus. It stays in your body, it goes to sleep. It has a long hibernation except for people that don't have an immune system or especially this is where I would see shingles the most as seniors, especially seniors. But now it's happening even younger. Man, we live in a stressed society and the Martin Clinic, we talk about cortisol all the time and what stress does. One of the things it does, you're thinking fight or flight. If you are thinking fight or flight fear, you're getting ready, somebody scared you or whatever, that's alright. You got glands that take care of that. You have little size of a chestnut. Adrenals on top of kidneys, adrenals. They do other things but biggest thing is cortisol.
And my practice in the last 20, 25 years, it took a drastic turn. And I mean that because I measured cortisol, it was going through the roof with people. Crazy. And what does cortisol do? It pours gasoline on the fire of inflammation, of oxidation. But one of the things it does when you're, somebody scares you, well, your body's not thinking about a virus or a bacteria. Cortisol's a diversion. It gets your body thinking one way. And now you have that herpes virus that was dormant, was sleeping, wasn't your enemy, but then it raises its ugly head. That's what herpes zoster is. That is shingles. And that is no fun.
Now let me answer the question, Lillian, "what would you recommend to put on the skin?" Well start taking oil of oregano internally because oil of oregano is an antiviral. Probiotics or antiviral? Start on the inside. Okay? Start on the inside, on the outside. I like our Revera with the formula, that pine bark right on there. And if the wounds are healing up or whatever, I know it's no fun, but I like oil of oregano right on it. If you've got to water it down a little bit, dilute it with maybe a little bit of coconut oil or whatever. Put that right on the skin. I love that stuff on the skin. Put some probiotic on there. Probiotic is antifungal. It's antiviral. It's antibacterial. Make yourself a little sap. Okay, Lillian, thanks.
"What does Dr. Martin think of creatine?" Okay. "And massage." Like together? I didn't get the question, Evelyn. And that might not be your fault, okay? It's just the way it's written here. What does Dr. Martin think of creatine? Okay, let's do that one because I don't know why they're together. And massage. You mean creatine and massage or just creatine? And then what do I think of massage? So, and not your fault, Evelyn. Creatine. Look, creatine is a supplement that usually bodybuilders or whatever they use muscle. I like steak. Preferably you'll always hear me talking. Usually first food and then supplementation. I'm not against supplements and oh, look what's going to happen in Canada. They want to get rid of supplements. I can't get over that. And the population hasn't been made aware of it yet. It's going to happen. And Health Canada going to take it away from us. It's crazy. Imagine you wouldn't be able to take creatine.
Now, like I said, I would rather eat creatine. You get that when you eat steak and eggs and cheese. Did you know that? Okay, but as a supplement, I got no problem with it. I don't. Some people they like it. Now massage. What do I think? Massage. Love massage, right? Good for you. Get a good massage therapist. Hey, wonderful. I'm hoping that's what you were asking, Evelyn, okay?
Annette, "I would like to know what Dr. Martin's thoughts about choline as a supplement." Here we go. Okay, number one source of choline. I'm asking the question. Somebody give me an answer to that. What is the number one source of choline? Okay, you guys know this. Steak, eh, close. Meat, close. Eggs, yeah Marilyn, eggs. Eggs, meat and cheese. Egg yolks have the highest source of choline. Am I against choline as a supplement? No. But would I rather you eat it? Yes. Just eat more eggs and eat the yolks. That's where the vitamins are and that's where choline is. And I wrote in the book Sun Steak and Steel, and I mentioned five Cs, and choline is one of them. Your brain don't work without choline. Your little synapses, they don't message each other in the brain without choline. So when someone is a vegan, how could they be right? How in the world could that be right? When you're not getting choline, is it right? No. Eggs, meat and cheese and I mean it.
Okay, Marilyn, "is there any way to heal nerve damage?" Well, it goes back to the first question. Look, I've seen nerve damage reversed. I really have. Okay, not easy, depends how bad it is. But I'll give you an example of it that I used to see in my office. I get a diabetic, they have diabetic neuropathy, nerve damage, and I was a guy for deficiencies too. Here's what I found. Generally these people, obviously diabetic sugar, if you don't believe it, this doesn't destroy anything. Ask a diabetic about diabetic retinopathy, okay? That's nerve damage from sugar. It used to be called sugar diabetes, right? But when I would get those patients and they would understand what I was telling them about food. I said, you and carbs, I know the dietician is telling you, well, your blood sugars, you know you're going to take medication, your blood sugars are going to go down. You're going to need to take some carbohydrates to get them back up. No, I went to the root of the problem. I said, well, you don't get along with them. Stop eating them. Nada no more. No, you can't have them.
And if they bought that, I said, you got to trust me. Remember my sermons to my patients, okay, I'm a preacher. 30 days, trust me, 30 days. I never told them to throw out their meds. I never told them anything like that. Honestly, I never did that. I said, trust me, you already hit the iceberg. I'm going to put you in a lifeboat and you have to trust me. We're going to change your eating and you're going to live on nutrient-dense foods and your body's going to respond to it. Now, I've seen it in my office with neuropathy and they got better, not all cases, but most of them. And that was just by changing their diet. And then of course I looked at deficiencies. If they had low B 12, I fixed that and they almost always did because if they're on metformin, guess what? They have low B 12, a hundred percent. And most people have low B 12. Why do they have low B 12? Well, they buy the nonsense that meat's no good for them and they don't eat any red meat. And even if they do, they don't digest it properly or whatever.
And let me come back one more week. I know I do this, but guys, I've got to do it again. Your stomach in a human being was made to eat meat. That's why a human being's pH is very acidic in their stomach until they don't eat meat. And then they live on carbs, they live on sugars and the pH of their stomach becomes like a rabbit. Your stomach wasn't made for that because you ain't a rabbit. Guys, that's biochemistry. It's the way you're built. We have a whole conglomerate of chronic diseases because we're eating like rabbits when we're not rabbits, including your kidneys. You're not a rabbit. Dr. Martin salad, you've been lied to. I'm not saying you can't eat it, but don't tell me how good it is for you. Okay? Ooh, I get excited. Okay. That was Marilyn.
John's asking about the old cannabinoid, cannabinoid system. Yeah, I got look. I mean, listen, I talked about hemp seeds before people even knew what hemp seeds were. Okay? And the C B D oils and all that. I didn't practice that. Okay, John, I didn't. I was sticking more to nutrition. I saw it. I understood it. I watched those oils. I I know about C B D and I used to tell my patients this, okay, here's why I used to tell 'em. I said, go to someone that is going to guide you in that area more than I will. And for pain, for sleep or whatever. I don't know. This is just me. Okay, John, this is just me. I'm an old geezer. Okay? But this is just me I found for sleep, pain, cancer, treatment, whatever. Could they use it? I got no problem with it. I mean, I got no problem with it when it's monitored, whatever.
But for me, okay, it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Now I know some doctors that would disagree with me and I would say to them, with all due respect, and I mean my patients would come back to me and whatever, sometimes they got relief. Sometimes it was very dramatic and I was all for it. You know what I used to tell my patient, John, if I thought, and I used to look at them and say this, and I probably got tired of hearing it, my staff did. If I thought hanging you upside down from my building, if I thought it was going to help you, I'm going to go up to the top of the roof and I'm going to hold your feet. I don't dismiss stuff. And like I said, the oils and cannabis, the C, B, D and I, look, I was all for it, but I wanted other people to be specialized in that. Let them do it.
But here's at the end of the day what I wanted to see. I find my protocols with food and deficiencies, I found them better in the long run. That's just me, John. That doesn't mean I didn't like it. I let other people do it and I've got patients that swore by it for pain, chronic pain and all this. I mean even digestive issues for some people, whatever. And I like it. But like I said, I like what I was doing even better. That's me. Okay, thanks. And we could go into more detail, but I used to talk about hemp seeds and hemp oil and this kind of thing.
"What is the difference of Lewy body and Parkinson's?" Very, very close. Very close in terms of symptoms and Lewy body dementia. Parkinson's could lead to dementia. They're both autoimmune. They both start in the gut, in my opinion. And they're both fungal based. Yeasts carries heavy metal, carries it across the brain. Neurological, some people, nah, very, very similar. Dorothy.
Sonya always got phlegm in her throat. No fun, huh? Well look, there's a couple of things. Always tell people, okay? It's either down and up or up and down when it comes to sinuses, okay? What do I mean by that? Well, when you're always clearing your throat, okay? That kind of thing. Here's me. Leaky gut, leaky sinuses. Leaky sinuses can lead to post nasal drip. It's usually fungal. Okay? Usually. And that can be draining even downwards to the back of the throat. Low acidity in the stomach can create a reflux that can go up even to your sinuses. Create a lot of phlegm. I start in the gut and the stomach and clear that up. Find out if any foods are bothering you. Be Dr. Sonya. See if any foods make you worse. A lot of people, when they lay off the carbohydrates, they're not feeding the yeast anymore and they find their phlegm is so much better. Okay? Thanks for the question, Sonya.
"Is alga good for bone loss?" That spirulina in it, that'd be all right. Wouldn't be the number one thing for bone loss, Arlene. I like alga.
Okay, Susan, "menopausal formula two per day with food. Is there more benefit if you take four depending on your symptoms?" Susan, okay, what does menopausal formula do? It elevates your progesterone. That's the number one thing it does. It also DIMMs out your estrogen. Okay? And the excess estrogen. Remember that? Okay, people get this idea, doc, I need more estrogen. No, you don't. You need more progesterone. Gale Xanthomas. Yeah, those are like lipids that come into your skin. High triglycerides. Some people just get those things. Has nothing to do by the way with food. Okay? Nothing to do. Now I found high D H A can be helpful in those things and fix leaky gut again, empty the liver. Really important in my opinion by the reset. I find that can be helpful. Does he get rid of them? Meh, not always.
Sue, "what other meats besides red meats have B 12?" None. Well, you get a little bit of pork, but pork is considered a red meat even though it's not truly red. And salmon has some B 12. Oysters. Is that a meat?
Okay, Darlene, quercetin. "Can you take quercetin while taking iron supplements?" Yeah, you can drink coffee with iron. Coffee has quercetin in it. The reason we came out with quercetin, by the way, I used to use it in the office a lot. I just never had my own in a sense that I would tell people that, especially if their lungs were bad and their sinuses were real bad, very bad allergies. I like to combine keratin with Navitol. I find the double whammo people used to love me for that. Okay? They used to. I don't know if they love me so much anymore.
Jeannine and Joanne are asking about iodine. Himalayan salt is a naturally iodine. Well, look, it has some iodine in it, okay? Himalayan salt. But let me tell you this, okay? What's the best source of iodine? But first of all, there are no iodine in the soil anymore. And they used to use iodine in bread because in the 1800s they used iodine, but now they use bromide and that kills iodine in wheat. Okay? Bread is a fast food today. It's a fast food today it turns to sugar rapidly. People have this idea that the only way they're going to get any iodine is if they use table salt. Nah, you eat eggs. Yeah, I do. Well, that's got lots of iodine. You eat meat? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. Well, that's got lots of iodine. You eat cheese. Yeah, well that's got iodine in it. It's not just seaweed that has iodine in it. Now, if you are extremely low, this is why we have the iodine in the thyroid formula. Your thyroid can't work without iodine. Okay, Joanne and Jeannine, very, very good question.
Okay, Patricia, "what helps with hand trembles?" Well, I think I answered that, Patricia. Any tremors? Look at Parkinson's. Start with B 12. Start with leaky gut. I know gut, tremors. What's the connection? Could be yeast. The invasion of the Trojan Army or parasites even.
"What does Dr. Martin think about the use of microwaves?" Be careful with that. You don't want to zap all the nutrition in the food, but it zaps a lot of the enzymes. So be careful with that. I don't talk about it too much because I want people, again, it's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Let's get things first. Get a person turned around and then I talk microwaves. I'm not that fond of them.
"Why am I so tired in the morning?" Well, could be a lot of things. You may not be getting all of your sleep, Babika, your cortisol might be high. That's the first place I would look at. And you're not getting into a deep sleep. You could have anemia, you could have blood sugars. And again, that usually goes to cortisol. You better look at your B 12. You better look at your vitamin D levels. You got a lot to look at the B 12. Okay, but send me your blood work.
Fran, "wondering what causes white spots on the arms and legs that don't tan." It could be fungal. I always look at the skin. Anything you see on skin, go back to the gut. Leaky gut fix. It can take a long time to fix leaky gut by the way, depending.
Victor, "does liver count as red meat?" Absolutely. Liver's better than steak. But you'll never hear me say it. You won't hear me say it, Victor. I don't like liver. I like it. Okay, but you won't hear me say it. I'm sorry. I like steak better.
Alanis, "I buy bacon with celery salt." Well, so what? That's all right. You know when people talk about nitrates in the bacon, it's got celery salt. Okay, I thought everybody likes celery. What's wrong with celery salt? It's a preservative that they use. Salt preserves. Read your Bible, you'll read about salt. They didn't have refrigerators. How did they store their meat? Salt. Yeah, they used salt. Okay, should I buy only bacon with sea salt? Well, again, okay. Again, I talk about if you're on the Titanic, we'll worry about the deck chairs after. Okay? We'll worry about the deck chairs after. Get the big picture first. Turn the ship around first, and then we'll talk about organic. We'll talk about better salts, we'll talk about better, yada, yada, yada. Okay?
But like I said, you have to understand, okay, this podcast, we're up to about a million and a half downloads. So I talk to a lot of people. I want them to get the big picture first. Get the big picture. There's gurus out there. They would have you eating nothing. Everything is tainted. If it's not organic and you don't have a garden in your backyard and you don't have a cow in the backyard, go shoot yourself. Well, I'm not like that. You got to go to the grocery store. You've got to budget. You think I don't understand that. Right? You got a budget and you can get healthy. If you make the better choices in today's grocery store, you can. And then you can get even more specific if you want. Okay?
Guys, I think I got to every question. Good. Okay, guys, thanks so much for being such a great audience, putting up with my shenanigans, and we appreciate that. Okay? Don't be shy. Ask your questions. You found out. I don't mind answering your questions. Okay? I don't. I love it. Okay. We love you guys. We'll talk to you soon.
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!