In continuation from Question & Answer Friday, Dr. Martin answers a few more questions about the common cold. There is a misconception that you can “catch a cold,” when really it’s more complex than that.
Join Dr. Martin as he explains why we tend to get sick during the winter months. A clue is that our vitamin D levels drop. That plays a major factor!
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, and how are ya? Once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day, eh? Hope you've had your vitamin C. I'm just going to spin off here and question and answer Monday, okay? There was some questions asked after the question and answer Friday, and there was some questions asked on the weekend that I got to answer. Okay, I got to answer. So this morning we're just going to answer some more questions, okay? Because some people, for whatever reason, they don't get the questions in on Friday, and that's all right, but someone was asking Dr. Martin, okay? I talked about our immune system and the viruses, okay? Any virus, any bacteria. Okay? So guys, we're surrounded day and night. Night and day. You do not live in a bubble.
If you could microscopically, have a look at almost every area of your home microscopically, well, you'd see there's a lot of critters around, okay? Bacteria. You can't really see a virus. They're so tiny, but you can have a pretty good idea that they're around. Okay, so the question was asked, and I like it, Dr. Martin, because I sort of mentioned the other day about the invisible mask, right? Vitamin A being the invisible mask. So there's a couple of questions. Let's get into it. One of them is on, well, Dr. Martin, what about hand washing? Washing your hands. Yeah, I like it. Don't use those artificial sanitizers. I can't stand them because the problem is with that, you're wiping away all your good bacteria. Again, if microscopically, you could just look at your skin, okay? Just at your skin, we're meant to live around bacteria, you're meant to.
So whatever you do, in my opinion, never use those hand sanitizers. Say no thank you. I'll tell you what I was doing during the virus, okay? When people, you went into the store or whatever, I faked it. I pretended because I won't do it. I won't put that stuff on my hands. You're destroying your immune system. You want to keep your good bacteria there. Now, different is handwashing, okay with soap, old fashioned soap, and I like that. I got no problem with that. You have to understand though, that, okay, there's no way on God's earth are you going to get rid of all the bacteria, okay? So when you wash your hands, hey, good for you, and it helps a bit, but I'm going to tell you what helps a lot more is that you build your immune system, okay?
Now I'm going to teach you something. Well, you guys know this probably already. You do not catch a cold. You don't catch a cold. I caught a cold. There's the cold virus. I caught it. It doesn't really work like that. Okay? And why do we get colds mostly? Okay, don't come to me and bring me the small percent. Some people live in exceptions. I live in generalities. I don't live in exceptions, meaning that, look, I know you can catch a cold. No, you can't. You don't just catch it. But I'm using the expression that people use. I caught a cold and I know you can get it in the summer, but it's rare. Agreed? I read an article the other day and it talks about the hospitals in Canada are full to the brim. Can I give you a little bit of information? There's never been a year in Canada in January that the hospitals are not full to the brim, okay? They're always full to the brim during flu season. They're always full. It's the time of the year people really get sick. And if you are vulnerable, if you're a senior and you've got no immune system or whatever, this is not a good time of the year, but you're not really catching a cold, okay? Let me just elaborate on that.
Why in Canada, especially, Northern United States, why is the flu season worse in December around Christmas, people get sick as dogs. January a little bit less than February, and then it starts to clear out. You didn't catch a cold. It was because your levels of vitamin D went down. There's a few other things we'll talk about in a minute, but the one vitamin that when that goes down, you are more susceptible and that my friend is vitamin D because in the winter you just don't see the sun. If you do well, that's all right for your melatonin, okay? It's all right for melatonin. Just looking on a sunny day, it helps your melatonin, but it doesn't do a thing for your vitamin D. That's why I tell you guys to supplement it's winter time, okay? And to those folks in Florida, okay, get out in the sun. You're scared skinny of it because you've been lied to. You've been lied to for 50, 60 years. Sun, bad sun, cancer, sun, no good sun wrinkles, sun, bad, bad, bad. It's crazy. You need the sun.
During the virus, was I not screaming like John the Baptist? Bring everybody to Florida and let them sit on the beach. Even if we're not six feet apart. LOL. Like guys, I had a migraine for two years almost. The stupidity that went around the world and the world bought it. Never, ever, ever talking about the immune system. Just let's stay six feet apart. Oh, that's really going to help. Let's not go visit granny because. You know how many people died from loneliness? Oh, anyway, I don't want to get into trouble, but I just got a headache for two years. The stupidity. First day in medical school, day one, masks don't work. Yeah, you wear a mask if you're in surgery, you're a surgeon. You don't want to spit all over an open wound that's not helping your immune system. If you saw how small a virus was, I mean it's craziness and every study they've ever done that you'll never hear about is that masks don't work. But you do have a mask that does work and that's called vitamin A.
And the second question was, Dr. Martin, how do I get vitamin A? Talk about it. Okay, well, the best way to get vitamin A is not from carrots, okay? Betacarotene is not pro retinol A, it's a precursor, but it's not the vitamin. Why do I talk about the animal kingdom all the time? Why do I talk about that all the time? Because the animal kingdom is where you get pro retinol A. Eggs, meat and cheese. See my hat? That's why I wore it this morning. E equals MC squared. Eggs, meat, and cheese, eggs, meat and cheese. That's how you get vitamin A, especially in steak, okay? You get a lot of vitamin A in steak. Okay, so why do you need vitamin A? Because it's the invisible mask. I've been teaching you that for eons of time. It's the invisible mask. Nothing better for your immune system than vitamin D and vitamin A, not vitamin C. Guys, look, I'm not against vitamin C. Drink coffee and you're going to get the best vitamin C and I mean it, and I double down on it, okay? I know people think I'm crazy, but I'm right. You want a good immune system. You need vitamin D. You want a good immune system. You need the invisible mask.
What was I saying to you the other day? It surprised some people. You don't catch a cold. There it is. I caught it. Okay, but when someone else has a cold, really? Okay, and that's why you were saying about somebody was asking, how about washing hands? I like it. What are you going to do a thousand times a day? Isn't it better to wear your invisible mask that really works? Because vitamin A covers your mouth. It's invisible, but it's there. Covers your nose. And where do viruses come in more frequently than anywhere else in your body? Your eyes. Well, what are you going to do? Wear a mask over your eyes? No. You need the invisible mask over your eyes, vitamin A. Eat eggs, meat and cheese. Now look, if you want to take a supplement of vitamin A, you can. I rarely ever put any of my patients.
When I was at my days in practice, I rarely ever put anybody on vitamin A, I would just send them home with the reset. And I said, you want to know how much vitamin A you're going to get? Lots, okay? I said, I'd rather you eat it than take a supplement of it, okay? Vitamin D is the sun. You don't get enough sun. You need to take a supplement of it. You should see the studies on vitamin D guys that I see every day, and a new one just came out if people every two weeks, they said if they would take one shot of 50,000 IUs of vitamin D, okay, this is just a study I'm telling you about. Their immune system is cropped up somewhere around 60, 70%. Will I talk to you about vitamin D and cancer? Do the three things to reduce your cancer by 60%. I talked to you about that the other day. My word, this is earth shattering sock blowing off your feet shattering.
Three things they said. Mega meta analysis of study after study after study. And you haven't even heard about it except here that if you take vitamin D, take omega-3 and exercise, vitamin E, your risk of getting cancer of any kind is reduced by 60%. You see, guys, what are you going to do? Leave the planet to get away from viruses or cancer? What are you going to do? Leave the planet. No, you're not. Well, I hope you're not. All I'm saying is, guys, I love focusing in on your immune system. You take responsibility for your health. Everyone else, you can bring a horse to water. You can't make them drink it. You can talk about this is what you should do. You can tell your family, you can tell your friends, you can do whatever. But initially take care of yourself. Okay?
Now, the other way, you can take a little bit of vitamin A. If you want to do a supplement, remember mum, grandma here, some cod liver oil. Okay? Now, when they gave you cod liver oil back in the day, okay, I remember it like it was yesterday. Here's some cod liver oil. They were trying to get rid of rickets. They were doing it more for bone health, okay? They weren't really talking so much about your immune system, but they should have because in cod liver oil, you got vitamin D, not big amounts, but you do. And you got a good amount of vitamin A in cod liver oil. They didn't even know why they were giving it to you other than rickets. Cod liver oil. So if you want to supplement with vitamin A, I would take cod liver oil. Okay?
So is it good? Okay, what we talked about, you don't really catch a cold. How do you like that? You don't, okay, it's an expression, I understand that, but it's when you're not loaded up with vitamin D, when your immune system, you don't have your invisible mask on, vitamin A, you're more susceptible. Your immune system is not up to snuff. Get it up to snuff. And let me remind you of this, okay? When you eat sugar, and this was proven, I got to go back and look again at what year I remember this. I actually used to show people in their blood, okay? I think every doctor should do this. Every doctor, let's just take a little sample of your blood and put it under a microscope. Let's have a look at it.
Now, it's not the be all and end all of everything. You know me. I love blood work, but I used to like looking at blood. The life of the Bible says it, the life of the flesh is in the blood. True or false? It's true. Your life's in there. I like to look at it. I didn't spend two hours on it. I just wanted to see your red blood cells. I wanted to see the shape of them. I wanted to see your white blood cells. And a lot of times I was privy and my patients were privy to a real Star Wars in the blood. I remember turning to patients and saying, see this Star Wars, what? Well, you got a bug and your T cells, your navy seals of your immune system, they're going after it. Okay? You can actually Google that guys if you want. Okay? Watch a white blood cell chase a bacteria. It's fascinating. Let's see if I can find it. There it is.
Okay, now I'm going to take my iPad and I'm showing you, I don't know if you can see it. Can you see it? See that white blood cell? See it moving. It's chasing a little bacteria. You see that? You see it, you see it, you see it, you see it, you see it. I used to show that to patients. I said, you see when I see your white cells, when I see those navy seals that come out of your lymphatic system, out of your thymus gland, I said, when you see those things moving, that's a good thing. Your immune system is working. I said, here's some bad news. Take one teaspoon of sugar and you'll put those things to sleep. And what they did is I think a Pepsi or a Coca-Cola, I can't remember exactly the experiment that was done. I'm going to say 2005, but it might be before that. I remember reporting this on my radio show, drink a can of soda and you put your white blood cells to sleep. They can't move for about five hours.
So people, I'm just going to tell you my experience in the office after Christmas. My name is Tony and I'm a carboholic after Christmas, too many sweets, too much this, too much that. 90% of the population right now, they're really susceptible because their white blood cells are not working properly. They probably weren't getting enough Vitamin A, steak, eggs, meat, and cheese, and they weren't getting enough vitamin D. And guess what? Now they're big time and they weren't getting enough sleep. I didn't even talk to you about sleep. Okay? Why do people when they travel, this is another question that was asked at another time, not on the weekend, but Dr. Martin, every time I go down to the Caribbean or whatever, I get a cold. How can that be? I'm going in the sun. It's what happened before that when you were traveling and you lost some sleep?
How many people have traveled and lost sleep? Right? Get up early. You got to get to the airport, you got to do this. You got to do that, right? You're flying and you don't get enough sleep. It's not the plane. That's another question I used to get asked. Dr. Martin I'm getting into a plane and people have a cold there, and I'm going to catch the cold. Shouldn't I wear my mask in the plane? Nope. Take your vitamin D, eat as well as you can and lay off the stinking sugar, okay? Take your vitamin A, eat lots of eggs, meat and cheese, and the plane will be no match for you. It's your immune system. It's not the closed quarters of the plane. I know there's bacteria in there. I know there are viruses in there, but it ain't the plane. It's you. I'm going to go to the Caribbean, but I'm not taking a plane. Well, good luck with that. I won't get into a plane. There's bugs in the plane. Well, good luck with that. Stay home. I know people okay. I know people, they won't travel because of it. Well, okay, but I want you to live and enjoy, okay? I want you to live and enjoy.
And look, there's no guarantee. I think I said this last week, if you never get sick, I don't want to hear about it. Don't boast to me about that because I used to tell my patients it's a good thing every once in a while that you get laid out and recharge that immune system of yours, okay? You're like a dog. When a dog gets sick, it just lies down. It's not a bad thing every once in a while to recharge that immune system. And I mean that. I don't like bragging. I never get sick, doc. I never. Be careful. Don't boast. You might not catch a cold. See, I even say it. Yeah, but you might get something worse. Okay? Look, okay. At the end of the day, I wanted to answer those questions.
Now, how many of you have signed up for tomorrow night? Okay, Tuesday, 7:00 PM starring Dr. Martin Jr. and he's allowing his senior father to come. We're going to be together and we're doing it together. We don't see Tony Jr as much, okay? But it'll be fun. We're really going to have a great seminar. And you know what we do too, is we try and stick around after we've done our thing and answer some questions. So it's a good time to ask questions too. Okay? So John says, the dynamic duo, I don't know about dynamic, okay? But yeah, okay. And if you're not signed in, Judy says she signed up. If you're not and you're asking me, don't ask me, okay? Don't ask for Peggy saying, how do you sign up? Would someone tell her how you sign up? Okay. I don't know how you sign up. I just show up. Don't ask me to do stuff. I don't know how to do it. Okay? And see, Ann's asking, where do you sign up? Okay, well, if you didn't get an email to sign up, ask the girls, okay?
Okay, guys, we love you more than you know, I mean, you don't know how much we love you, even if I tell you that I mean it. Okay? We love you. I love this audience. You guys are so great. And you ask questions and don't be shy. Ask questions. How do you get information? Ask questions. You're not sure about something? Ask questions. One thing about our staff, we're great at answering questions. I like answering questions. Like I said, for 20 years, I had a radio phone show and it was all live. We didn't even screen the calls. Ask me anything, okay? And I'll try and sometimes you know what my answer was? I dunno. Or here's often what I often said, you are weird. Why is this happening to me, doc? I don't know. You're weird. But I still love you. Okay guys, 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!