CT scans are an unbelievable technology for detecting cancers, but according to a recent study the radiation could be causing more harm than good. The 2025 study has come to a sobering conclusion that CT scans performed in the United States in 2023 could result in more than a 100,000 future cancers!
Dr. Martin says CT scans are a double-edged sword. Yes, they detect cancer, but the exposure to high radiation can also cause cancer. Join Dr. Martin as he discusses what you can do to prepare for these types of scans in today’s episode.
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. How are you? Once again, welcome to another live this morning and good to be with you here on The Doctor Is In live and soon to be podcast. Guys, thank you for coming on. We appreciate it so much. Okay, and let me read you a headline of a study there. We just talk about this for a few minutes because I find it interesting. Here let me just get back on my iPad. Okay, here it is. A groundbreaking 2025 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine had drawn a sobering conclusion. CT scans performed in the United States in 2023 could result in more than a hundred thousand future cancers. I'm just reading you the headlines. A staggering projection that may position CT scans as a source of up to 5,000 new cancers. Now, what is it saying? Okay, what is it saying?
Well, CT scans unbelievable technology, a real blessing in terms of detecting cancers, but there's a double-edged sword to that because that radiation according to this study, could be causing a lot of new cancers because of the amount of radiation. You know what guys? It's hard to win, isn't it? It's hard to win because who's against detection of cancer? Nobody's against it. I'm not against it, but at what price? I don't like to be negative. I don't know if you guys know me as an individual. I'm a positive guy, but I got to bring you the news, and when I saw this study out of California, I said, man, you can't win. It's a double-edged sword. It's like antibiotics. I've been saying this for a long time, guys, the greatest discovery of the 20th century was antibiotics has now become the curse. It's a double-edged sword. I've said this in the past about mammograms.
Mammograms, the problem with them, yeah they can detect tumors. The problem is, and this is well established, I'm not the only guy that's ever said this. You get a whole lot of radiation there about a hundred times more than a normal x-ray. Like you're really radiating, and that's what they're saying about the CT scans. They're wonderful. The imaging is incredible, but it's a double-edged sword, according to this new study. They're estimating that it could cause a hundred thousand new cancers because of the amount of radiation. I didn't say that, the study said. So we know why the amount of radiation, okay? You get a lot of it. Am I telling you not to get a scan? I'm not telling you that. What I am telling you is what I always do. Okay? Let me give you an example. There's always going to be viruses around. Do you want to get a vaccine? That's up to you. I just give out information, okay? I don't tell people what to do. I don't tell parents even. I never did. I never told parents not to vaccinate their kids. I never did that in my practice.
I always talked about, but here's what you should do. Take care of yourself. You know that my overarching principle is you. What do you do? And I always go back. I flew recently and they said it, and I almost put my hand up and say, I talk about this on my podcast all the time. Can I make an announcement? No. Listen, here's what they do. Here's what the stewardess says on all the flights. In the unlikely event of you needing oxygen, in the unlikely event that you need oxygen, the mask from the ceiling of the plane will come down. You know what they tell you to do? Put yours on first before you help someone else. Okay? Put yours on first. Guys, that is something that I talk about all the time. Take care of yourself.
I bet you there's a lot of people, your family, okay? Your loved ones or your people around you, they don't believe like you believe, okay? But it's really important that you do it. Okay? So when I hear studies or see studies about CT scans, enormous amount of radiation, I always say to myself, okay, what should I do about that? Let's say for some reason a doctor says you need a CT scan. What do you do? How do you protect yourself from the radiation? That's what I am thinking. As soon as I saw this study this morning. In my mind, the way I operate is, okay, doc, what do you do to protect yourself? It's like an antibiotic guys. What do you do if you need an antibiotic knowing it will destroy your bad guys, but your good guys too. What do you do? Right? The world out there, they still don't know this, but you do about antibiotics. It's the same thing with radiation.
Guys, we talk about this almost daily. We live in a toxic soup. We live in a toxic soup. You can't get away from it. You can maybe minimize it to some extent. I'm not even sure about that, but one thing I know is I know the human body. I know that you were fearfully and wonderfully made. Your body has an enormous capacity to take care of itself. If you take care of it, your body, take care of it. And when the more you understand and how your body's immune system, your immune system is not just about viruses or bacteria, it's about radiation too. Your body can handle it even at high doses, as long as your body is at the top of its game. That's what I think of. When I read a study like this I go, okay, it doesn't surprise me because I've seen a lot of studies on different radiation, like I was telling you this morning about a mammogram. People ask me that. I said, well, I don't like to talk in generalities. I don't like to tell people not to get any kind of radiation. I don't tell 'em that. All I tell 'em is, here's what you need to do for yourself.
How do you protect yourself from this extra radiation? How do you do it? Well, my mind goes to, okay, numero uno, we talked about this almost every day. Keep your liver clean, keep your liver working at a hundred percent. What? What's that got to do with radiation? It has a lot to do with radiation because your liver is like Rodney Dangerfield. It doesn't get a lot of ink. You know when medicine thinks of your liver. If you got cancer of the liver or cirrhosis of the liver, and even if you have fatty liver, they don't do much for it. They see that your liver enzymes are high. What do they do about it? Nothing. They don't know enough how to empty it. Well, you know how to empty your liver and I know how to empty the liver, and if you have an empty liver, okay? If your Costco parking lot, the liver is empty, it knows how to detox your body like nothing else, and how do you empty your liver? Change fuel.
Change the way you eat, because when you eat crappy carbs and lots of sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup, it's a scourge on your liver. It'll pack up the Costco parking lot like nobody's business. It stuffs up the liver. If you stuff up your liver, your liver won't work properly, and if your liver doesn't work properly, you're not going to produce glutathione the way you should. Glutathione, again, I bet you I say this almost five days a week on our programs. Glutathione is Velcro. Okay? I made that up about 50 years ago. I dunno, 40, okay? I did a radio show one time, an interview, and I said, well, your liver produces glutathione, and everybody goes, okay, what's that? I said, it's Velcro. It sticks to toxins, heavy metals, mercury, lead, cadmium, aluminum, fungus. It sticks to it, it attaches itself okay to radiation and then it takes it back to the liver for recycling. Okay?
You don't think for one minute that that's not an important part of your immune system, your liver? People don't think of that. They think of immune system. Well, doc, I don't get any colds. I must have a great immune system. Well, yeah, probably pretty good, but your immune system is very complex, okay? A big part of your immune system guys is your stomach. We discussed that the other day. You have a tremendous immune system. Part of it is in your stomach. What? If your acidity in your stomach doesn't allow bacteria, doesn't let stuff get through that acidity. That's why you want to have a very, very, very acidic stomach. The only place you don't want to be alkaline in your body is in your stomach. Your stomach has to be like big time a furnace that breaks down everything, okay?
Another part of your immune system go a little further down, is your gut, your microbiome? That is very important because your microbiome does a lot of things, by the way, but one of the things it does is it guards the gut blood barrier. It's a guardian. When you have enough friendly bacteria, they literally guard anything from getting into your bloodstream. If it does get into your bloodstream, that's when your liver takes over and glutathione. You see the importance of that? So let's say a doctor says to you, we got to get a CT scan. We got to get a PET scan. You got to take a mammogram. Again, don't shoot the messenger and I don't want you fighting online. I don't want you fighting amongst each other guys. I really don't like that where someone says, I'll never do that. Well, okay, okay, that's you and you make that decision.
But listen, I lived in the real world. I saw real patients for 50 years, real people, and sometimes I talk in generalities and do you know how many cancer patients I saw? Tens of thousands and many of them had already taken radiation therapy. Many of them. Thousands had already taken chemo. Well, I can't help you. You took chemo, you took radiation. No, I said, let's work on your immune system. Let's get your body to be a lean, mean fighting machine. Let's get you to your best possible fight. Let's get your body's immune system working in your favor. Leave medicine over here. Whatever's happened has happened, and maybe whatever happens, they're going to do this, that and the other thing. That's a decision you make. But here's what I want you to do no matter what. Take care of yourself. Start with your liver, probiotics for your gut. Make sure your stomach acidity is right at the top of its game. Vitamin D, what? Vitamin D, the sun.
The sun is out here today. Love the sun. You? It's so good for you, don't avoid it, but when you don't see the sun, make sure you're getting enough vitamin D. I want you to get vitamin D in your food. It's not enough, but I want you to get it. Everybody in my opinion, should be taking a vitamin D supplement. I mean everybody, unless if you live in Florida and you promise me, you live in Arizona and you promise me that you're going to get out at least four days a week, almost butt naked almost, and you let your solar panels, your arms and your legs take in that vitamin D from the sun, okay, good for you, and you should actually measure it. That's one thing that medicine, I wish they would get the memo, but they never do is measure vitamin D because you can tell, you don't have to guess. You should have vitamin D levels. You want to help radiation? You want to help your immune system? Not only for bacteria, viruses, you want to help everything be anti-cancer. Get your blood work in the United States to 60 NML. Okay? At least 60 and up. Anything below that, your immune system, not at the top of its game. In the Canadian numbers, get into just about I like at least 150, 200, 250 in that area, okay? In Canadian numbers on your vitamin D.
Guys, you want to make an investment. If your doctor won't do vitamin D without you paying for it, well then pay for it. They don't understand vitamin D and the importance of it, but you do. Check your levels at least once a year, preferably twice a year. You do it. It's an investment, like health guys is an investment. We make an investment financially. One of the best investments that you can make into your body is getting your vitamin D levels up. And most people, well, this has proven guys, how long have I been saying this? Most people, 80% close to 90% of the population, they might be within normal ranges. It's like B12. Oh, my vitamin D is normal. Okay, that's good for a mouse. That's not good for you. That's not going to boost your immune system. You need to get it optimized. I don't know when medicine is going to ever catch up with that. It's like B12. You need to have optimized B12, not, oh, my B12's normal. So what? Normal's for mouse. You're not a mouse.
But guys, listen, I look at the big bad world out there. Me, I'm not scared of it. I'm not scared of it, okay? I'm not scared of it. Now, does that mean I'm never going to get sick? Does that mean I might never get cancer? Does that mean they'll never have a heart attack? No, it doesn't mean that, but what it means is I am going to do everything that I know to take care of myself. I make an investment in my life. That's why I go to the gym, keep these puppies here. I love teasing my grandchildren, okay. Grandpa, he's got guns and they're illegal. Guys, I've been active. I told you the story of my father, diabetic, okay? 1968. I'm 16 years old and my dad wakes up after telling the family that he is a diabetic. I didn't even understand. I was 16. What did I know? We didn't have the internet in those days. What did I know? Diabetes. What's that? I just knew my dad. wasn't well, and my dad changed his life like that. Next morning, he's jogging. We didn't even call it that. On the spot, on the carpet in the morning. I said, dad, does diabetes affect your brain? Dad, does that mean you've gone crazy? Is that what diabetes means?
My dad was exercising, he was jogging. He said, son, I have diabetes. I got to get in shape. Okay. I always said this, in 1968, the only people that ever ran were people running away from the police. We didn't run. We played sports, but we didn't jog. Okay? Now you look outside and people are walking. I love that. I don't think we went out for a walk for exercise, did we? I don't remember. Okay but today, people go out for a walk, they exercise, and I'm sure there was some, but my dad, as far as I know, was the very first person in the world that jogged and about, I don't know, a couple of weeks later, my mom kicked him outside, by the way, said, you're ruining my carpet. Get outside. And my dad started to run around the block, and one morning I woke up. I said, dad, I'm going with you. I'm going with you. And I started for me something that I never stopped.
I jogged for years. It helped me in hockey and all the things else, and I realized the benefits of it. And then I went to school and I talked a lot of people into exercising. And then once I started practice, I said, the real vitamin E, because I was an expert in the old vitamin E, I said, the real vitamin E is exercise. But guys, it's part of taking care of yourself. You know you do this for you first and then to the extent that you can influence people. One of the best ways to influence people is by example. You can't always tell people, but you can be an example to people and you can bring a horse to water, but you can't necessarily make them drink it. I can't make people exercise. I can't make people take care of their liver. I can't make them. I can't make people change their diet. But a lot of people have changed their diet and their lifestyle because they got good advice on how to do it and why to do it.
Someone was on the private Facebook group and they were not well after starting the reset. That could be typical for some people and the reset isn't easy, guys. Your body says, what in the heck are you doing to me? For some people, very difficult. They're going from a carb loaded diet to unloading it, and your liver goes, holy smokes. What are you doing? The liver's emptying itself and the liver, when it's used to being stuffed up with fat, it might bite you a little bit. It might get angry and your body going ewww and your body's changing fuels. It's not always easy to change fuels, but it's worth it. It's worth it. And guys, it's why I never back off. Okay? If you want to know how I operate, I never back off the reset ever, because I measured and I went on yesterday, I had time. I think it was yesterday. I had time, and this one lady, and I so appreciate it. That's why we have the private Facebook group. She said, geez, I'm not feeling good. Tell me there's somebody out there that knows what I'm going through. I don't want to quit, but I don't feel well. I started the reset and I am very unwell.
I gave her about 10 reasons to stick to it. I said, you know what's happening? You're emptying your liver. Your triglycerides are going to go down, your HDL is going to go up. You have no idea how good that is for your heart. You have no idea how good that is for your brain. I said, you're detoxing. You want to do it detox? You do the reset. It's going to lower your insulin resistance. When you lower your insulin resistance, you're going to lower inflammation in your body. You're going to restart the stomach. What? Yeah, you're going to restart your stomach because when you eat the right foods, the pH in your stomach is going to change. It's going to be a very good thing for your stomach. In the meantime, maybe a little bit of a chaos until your body detoxes properly and your body resets itself. That's why it's called the reset and your microbiome. There's nothing better to feed your microbiome, the good guys than steak. Nothing. Not fiber, steak.
And guys, by the way, how long have I said that? 50 years. Your microbiome feeds on steak. When I say steak, you know what I mean? Red meat. You are resetting the body. The kidneys get a break. It's unbelievable, guys. Okay? Anyway, I was only going to talk a minute about radiation and the CT scans, but we got into a diatribe this morning, okay? Okay. And guys, by the way, going to be on tomorrow morning. Okay? That's Good Friday, but I'm on 8:30. Okay? You got something else to do? That's all right. We're going to do a podcast tomorrow, okay, and Easter Monday, too. That's what I'm planning. Okay? We'll post that. Okay? We love you 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!