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 afternoon, everyone. Once again, welcome to another live. Wendy saying it's coffee time. Yeah, let's talk. Well, we could talk coffee I guess, because seems like every day there was a study I brought out coffee and anti-aging, right? Did you guys like that? Anti-aging, yeah. You want to stay young, drink your coffee. How many times have I told you how good coffee is? The real vitamin C. We give it a vitamin classification and we don't take that lightly by the way. People think, oh, you're Dr. Martin, like you say vitamin W water. I don't take that lightly. We give it a vitamin classification. It is so essential.
Okay, want to talk to you about the, I call this, I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I call it the rockstar mineral. What mineral is really a rockstar? It's magnesium. Okay? Magnesium. Because it does so many things. It's involved in over 300 enzyme related things that happen inside your body, from your head to your toes. You need magnesium. And people were asking, and they asked a lot, and look, we don't mind. We love the questions. Dr. Martin, magnesium, how much, what kind? Okay, how much and what kind. Well, the problem with magnesium as far as testing for it is that blood tests for magnesium are not the greatest. The reason is unless you're very deficient, you're not going to, you know me and optimize levels of magnesium. You want to optimize your levels and blood tests for it again, unless you're very deficient.
Because most magnesium is not in your blood. It's in your tissue. I mean, obviously there's some in your blood, but it's in your tissue and it's not that easy to measure in terms of, I guess you can do it. But to get it done, I'd rather you go on a couple of premises. One that probably close to 80%. Okay, I just got to tell you this. 80% of population are low in magnesium, vitamin D, B12, and guys, by the way, it's probably higher than that. So let's be conservative and say 80% of the population. Don't be like the rest of the population. They're deficient. They don't know it. Nobody's told them. We spent quite a bit of time this past week talking about B12, and you want to give me a migraine is get me going on B12 and how it used to be such an important vitamin even in medical schools. And today, almost a forgotten vitamin is B12. Okay?
But if we were to look at what are people deficient in four things, I might add five. Very deficient magnesium, very deficient, 80% and above. How can you be healthy if you don't have good levels of magnesium? It's almost impossible because magnesium, again, like I said, is involved in almost every process of your body. It's really important for you. So magnesium, what are we deficient in? Vitamin D, very deficient in vitamin D, very deficient in B12, very deficient in omega-3. And that, my friend, you can measure, you can measure your levels of omega-3, very deficient. And one of the biggest problems with the omega-3 thing and why we're so deficient is the amount of omega-6 that we consume. Okay? We consume way too much omega-6 and not enough omega-3 and that imbalance, that ratio creates an inflammatory process within the body.
And then the fifth thing I would say we're very deficient in, and that is friendly bacteria. Just people don't have enough good guys. Way too many bad guys. They have a condition called dysbiosis. They don't even know it. Okay? So back to magnesium. I just wanted to sort of lay out why I am interested in magnesium. You can't be healthy really without it. How much? I am a guy somewhere between 500 to a thousand milligrams. Now, one of the most confusing things and just leave it to labels to be confusing. Okay? It drives me crazy, but that's the label laws. Okay? So they go, doc, if I take two capsules, how much milligrams of magnesium on my really getting it should be so clear. Okay? Every capsule is 200 milligrams. At least our capsules are 200 milligrams of magnesium. Okay?
Now I like two types of magnesium. I've always said it on the program. Go back on my radio show The Doctor Is In, go back 25 years, go back 30 years. What did I always say? The best magnesium is magnesium citrate. Any "ate" at the end is your best magnesium. Okay, like bisglycinate. That's my other favorite. And when you see ATE at the end, what are you seeing there? Why is that important? Well, that magnesium has been chelated, meaning that it's ready to be absorbed in the body. So magnesium citrate and bisglycinate to me are the two best, most absorbable magnesium. Take a couple of capsules a day. The only reason, look, I like citrate. It's very good for your bowel, by the way, magnesium citrate. But some people it creates a loose stool. And for that reason, some people have to take magnesium bisglycinate instead of the citrate. But if you tolerate citrate, eh, it's so good for you.
And let's look at the big picture here when we get into magnesium. What are the possible symptoms? And you know what guys, if you were to just maybe jot these down, it's important because when you're low in magnesium, unfortunately a light doesn't come off on the top of your head and says, just add magnesium. But generally, here's some big ones. And look, it may be something else, but by and large, usually these are signs of low magnesium. One, if you are stressed, if your cortisol is high, you're probably deficient in magnesium, okay? It's not always the case, but it happens. And the reason I know that is because I used to test cortisol and people with height levels of cortisol over a period of time had trouble with absorbing or they weren't taking enough magnesium or none at all. They were relying on their diet for magnesium.
You know what the problem is? We don't have enough magnesium in our soil. So when you say, well, I am going to eat vegetables or whatever that have magnesium in a salad or whatever, yeah, the only problem is it's very deficient in magnesium because the soil, if it's not in the soil, it's not in the plant. If it's not in the soil, it's not in the plant. And soil has been measured for magnesium. And guess what? There's not much in there. It's been stripped away. Magnesium has been stripped away by herbicides and pesticides, very devoid of magnesium. So if you're stressed, okay, you can just about bet your boots that your magnesium levels are plummeting.
The other thing, when you get a spasm, muscle spasms, that is usually a sign. Now, it could be potassium. I've seen that too, but the rule of thumb is eh, you've probably got low levels of magnesium. That's why a good electrolyte always includes magnesium in it. So muscle spasms and cardiovascular symptoms, like whenever I had a patient with arrhythmia or AFib, they were low in magnesium. They're usually two things. They were low in magnesium and low in coQ10. I would get tremendous results in the clinic when I gave them both, I get them on magnesium, either citrate or bisglycinate, and I get them on ubiquinol coQ10, and they said, boy doc, my AFib is better and usually deficient in magnesium if you've got AFib or arrhythmias.
High blood pressure. Isn't it interesting that one of the biggest problems in cardiovascular health is high blood pressure? I never want your blood pressure to be too high. Not good for you at any time, okay? We overtreat it though, in my opinion, big time. We overtreat blood pressure and we put people on meds and then they never get off those meds and they never get to the root of the problem. One of the root causes of high blood pressure is low magnesium. It's not the only cause, but it's one of the causes and it's often the main cause. You get them on magnesium and their blood pressure is better. Whenever you think magnesium, think of the word relax, okay?
I used to tell my kids, don't cross the line. Relax. Okay? Daddy used this voice with great efficiency. Okay, relax. Meaning they knew what I meant by that. You were crossing a line and I didn't want that to happen. Okay? Anyway, so think of the word relax. See, magnesium relaxes your muscles. Magnesium relaxes your smooth muscles inside your blood vessels. Don't you think that's important for high blood pressure? Relax. And again, usually I would give them 600, 800 milligrams, either of the citrate or the bisglycinate with great effectiveness. So high blood pressure, muscle cramps, muscle spasms, migraines. You know how I talk about, I get migraines all the time. I only get it when I see stupidity. Mine are induced by stupidity. Okay?
And maybe we'll talk about this. I got a migraine yesterday. Okay? Why? Because I read something stupid. It was in Texas, and they're trying to eliminate as part of programs for kids. They're trying to eliminate sugar and crappy carbohydrates, just junk food. And guess who shows up to defend junk food at this committee? I don't know if it was the Texas legislature, I think it was. Guess who showed up to defend junk and sugar? The American Heart Association. What? The American Heart Association shows up to defend consuming sugar and junk. They're bought and paid for guys by big food. I got a migraine because I read about the stupidity.
Imagine the American Heart Association, you see, but at the end of the day, let me tell you what they really believe. You know what they believe? They believe that food really has nothing to do with heart disease unless you're talking about eggs, meat and cheese, cholesterol, that's where you eat cholesterol, guys. Cholesterol is in the animal kingdom. It's not in the plant kingdom. So guess what? They'd rather you have junk than you consume cholesterol. The American Heart Association, that gave me a migraine. Now back to magnesium. A lot of people get migraines and they're low in magnesium.
Listen, when I was in practice, I saw, I'm going to put a number, I could be wrong. A thousand patients over the years that suffered with terrible migraines. Yeah, I've got to be close to that. Okay? A thousand, and they weren't all women, but most of them were women. And here's what I found. They had migraines. They were dominant in estrogen. Almost every time I would tell 'em I'd turn around, I got all their blood work, I said, you know what? You're too much of a woman. You've got too much estrogen and not enough progesterone. Estrogen will give you a migraine if it dominates. It does a lot of other things too, but one of them is migraines. Low magnesium, usually low B12. Okay? Almost invariably.
So migraines, tinnitus, okay? Symptoms, anxiety, we talked about it. High cortisol, osteoporosis and fatigue. We talked about muscle cramping, but muscle pain. When I look at magnesium, there's usually five things in my head, okay? That's just the way I operate. When I studied magnesium a long time ago. I'm a guy that just sort of likes to put things in brackets and go, okay, magnesium, whenever I think of magnesium, I already talked to you about the word relax, but I used to say, okay, what does it do? What does magnesium really do? Well, it's good for your heart. Why is that? Well, because of smooth muscle. Magnesium.
And by the way, magnesium is very, very important to, like calcium is good for you guys, okay? You need calcium. Your bones need calcium. The problem is, is when calcium never ends up in the proper destination, your bones, it ends up in your bloodstream and it hardens arteries. That's why I've always loved vitamin K2, but magnesium's important there. Okay? So magnesium and heart, I talked to you about blood pressure. Really important to check magnesium levels. Don't be scared to take magnesium, okay? If you take 600, 800 milligrams of magnesium a day, it's good for you. You ain't going to overdose on magnesium.
And like yesterday I was talking, I think it was yesterday, talking about B12, almost every medication knocks the stuffing out of year B12. And I would say that's pretty common too, about knocking out your magnesium. Okay? So if you're on medication, I would just tell you, you better be taking magnesium. Okay? So cardio very important, okay? Your bones, yeah, well, magnesium, you're not absorbing vitamin D properly. You know me and vitamin D, okay? The superstar of vitamins is vitamin D. There was another study this week, two studies on vitamin D, just let me bring them to you. Maybe we'll unpack them at a later date. Vitamin D and prostate cancer, maintaining 4,000 IUs a day. That's not much decreases prostate tumors, 60%. 4,000 IUs, okay? I personally take more than that. I'm usually around 8,000, 10,000 IUs. Now, if I get in the sun, I might cut back a little bit, but even then, there's no way you're becoming toxic at those low levels.
Okay, now here's another one on MS, on vitamin D, and I'll just mention it. This was administered in a study. Every two weeks were giving a hundred thousand. They didn't give it every day. They gave it once every two weeks, a hundred thousand IUs, and they found in MS it really reduced damaging the brain and a lot of the symptoms of MS at a hundred thousand administered every two weeks. Vitamin D guys. But magnesium's important in the absorption of vitamin D. It's part of the package. Again, I love magnesium. And osteoporosis, we usually think of calcium, but magnesium's important in osteoporosis.
So you have your heart, you have your bones, you have your blood sugar. Now this has been proven. Magnesium is really, really important. And I'll give you, maybe I'll just break that down for you at a later date again. I'll talk to you about the importance of magnesium in blood sugar, okay? Blood sugar, and that's a big problem, isn't it today? Blood sugar. But magnesium's important and diabetics, guess what? Just about every diabetic that I ever saw in my office were deficient big time in magnesium. And that might've been due to metformin. That might've been due to the fact that they were low in magnesium even before they were diagnosed with diabetes.
And mood, big time. Because magnesium elevates your GABA and it helps your body to relax. It helps your brain to relax. GABA and magnesium is proven to help that. It was my go-to with kids with ADD, okay? It wasn't the only thing I used. I loved high DHA oil and I loved Navitol pine bark extract, but I often gave them magnesium. Autistic kids, very low in magnesium. They couldn't absorb it. And so mood and anxiety and metabolic health. Again, blood sugar and all that, okay? So guys, I just wanted to go over that. Okay, now you might have some questions. What kind we answered how much we answered, some of the symptoms. Oh, by the way, I used to see this in the office quite a bit, and people would tell me, doc, my eye is twitching, my eyelid twitching uncontrollably. I said, you're probably low in magnesium. Tinnitus, ringing in the ear, oftentimes low in magnesium.
Anyway, guys, we love you dearly. Tomorrow's Q and A, okay? So send in your questions for Q and A tomorrow. We love that. It's not too late I don't think. Send in your questions to info@martinclinic.com and that gets on our program, the Q and A. Okay? We love you guys dearly. Thanks for joining us afternoon session. We appreciate it. 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!