Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners in today's episode.
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
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Dr. Martin: Well good morning everyone. How are you? Good to have you on this morning, and hopefully you're having a great start to your day. And today is Q and A. Let's get right to the questions. Okay here. Number one, Danny. "My sister doctor said to take hydrocortisone for low energy." Never heard that in all my life, Danny. I think your sister heard it wrong. Now, if your sister has autoimmune and they gave her cortisone hydrocortisone, they want to reduce inflammation. Okay? So does that help with your energy? Well, maybe and very indirectly, and it wouldn't be my choice. Certainly not your choice for energy. Okay? Inflammation, yes.
And there's a lot of side effects to that. So most doctors are quite reticent unless you have some kind of severe autoimmune or infection, usually don't give hydrocortisone. They might have given it on the skin for dermatitis or whatever, but you're not giving it for energy. I really, Danny, I've never heard that. And people's energy don't go up with hydrocortisone usually, if anything it goes down. I mean there's a lot of side effects to, it really suppresses the immune system and you have to be careful with that. And I know people that have been on 'em for years, but they had severe autoimmune. I can't figure it out, Danny. Again, I just think if they did it, I'm not questioning you. I would question the doctor. Okay? There's a lot better advice than that if it's just for energy. Okay, I need to have more details, Danny.
Arlene. Arlene is saying that she had really good results with her thyroid, with the thyroid formula and everything was working really good, but in recent years, my TSH levels have dropped significantly and I'm not feeling that good. Sweating, irritable. My sleep is broken. Toss and turning, significant anxiety. Look, Arlene, here's what is really important about your, it is so connected to everything else you own. Your adrenals. If your stress levels are up, it robs your progesterone. When progesterone is robbed, your estrogen goes up. When estrogen goes up compared to progesterone, the thyroid gets messed up. There's a lot of moving parts to your thyroid. And what I'm saying, Arlene, is I would check your cortisol. I think you got cortisol robbing your progesterone, which in turn is affecting your thyroid gland.
Thyroid is like a puppet. It's got a lot of strings attached to it and unfortunately most doctors, including endocrinologists, I hate to say this, they don't study it like that. They don't look at the body in a woman or men, but mostly women. Women are complicated. Put your hand up. You agree with me? Women are complicated. It's just because you got ovaries and when you have ovaries, it complicates things. Men we're not so complicated. Women, yes. Okay, so that's all I'm saying. So if I was you, Arlene, I'd be on the cortisol formula that has a major, major effect on balancing out your thyroid. Okay? So that's the reason you asked for the reason.
Gail, what are my thoughts on MSM body work crystals? I know what they are. Sulfur minerals that I have taken for pain and energy. Well, how did they work? Look, I'm not against MSM sulfur crystals, okay? I'm not. They work for you. Again, I always tell my audience here, I got to give you background. I've been around a long time. You name it pretty well. I've heard about it. Now I'm going to say 25 years ago. MSM was, it had its day in the sun type of thing. Everybody was oh, MSM, Dr. Martin, it is so good and whatever. And okay, if it's good, I'm happy use it. I got no problem with it, but it sort of faded the way. As a matter of fact, Gail, this is the first time I've heard of MSM in a long time. Okay? So it had its day in the sun. Now does it mean it's no good? No, I'm not saying that. If it's working for you, Gail, what are you saying it's working for? They've taken it for pain and energy. Yeah, I mean I have things that I like better than MSM for pain. I like curcumin better than MSM for pain and inflammation. I like Navitol much better for energy than MSM. What if it works for you? I'm giving you a high five. Go for it. Good for you. Thanks Gail.
Roxanne, "my husband has trouble swallowing pills." Big baby. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Men are babies compared to women. We'd never have kids. Oh, maybe one. We're not tough. Women are tough. Okay? And I mean it, some men are tough, but most are big babies compared to women. Okay? My wife is tough. I'm not so tough. Okay, anywho. "He has trouble swallowing probiotics. Can you open them up, put 'em on food instead?" Absolutely and you'll get all the benefits. Yeah, no problem with that. You want to open it up. I got a lot of children like Tony Jr. used to say his children, my grandchildren, they never knew that applesauce wasn't really brown. He used to put the probiotics in Navitol and mix it up in their applesauce to give them the supplements. Yeah, no, go for it, Roxanne. No problem at all.
Linda. "Dr. Martin mentioned dim for my husband's enlarged prostate as it's an estrogen problem, usually not a lack of testosterone." Well look it when a man's estrogen goes up, testosterone goes down. It's a double whammo, okay? So I like to lower estrogen. There's too much estrogen in the world. Men have more estrogen than their wives usually at 50 years old, and that's one of the biggest causes of benign prostate and even prostate cancer in my opinion. So I try and dim out estrogen. Flax seeds, I've got men on our menopausal formula. What? Well, it's got dim in it and it blocks estrogen. You know how many men I had on our hormonal formula? Hundreds and hundreds to block estrogen. Okay, so how much dim per day? Well, I like about 250 milligrams of dim around there and flax seeds, very good to lower estrogen.
Nadia, "what supplements help for AFib?" Okay, so AFib atrial fibrillation is a problem with the upper chambers of the heart. It's an electrical problem. You got an electrical problem in the grid of the heart and it can be dangerous AFib because it makes you much more susceptible to having a stroke. Here's what I found in practice over the years with AFib, generally they were low in magnesium, they were low in coQ10. They usually weren't steak eaters, they were eating too many carbs compared to eggs, meat and cheese. And that's where you elevate your coQ10 by the way, your ubiquinol, and this is what I found and oftentimes low in vitamin D, oftentimes low in B12. Those were the things I used to test for and AFib patients often had all of those deficiencies. And if you get diagnosed with AFib, usually you're put on a blood thinner and maybe a beta blocker or whatever, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about what I would do with a patient. I never got them to get off their meds unless we could fix the problem, which we often did. And sometimes they need an ablation, sometimes you had to fix it. Thanks for the question. And that was Nadia. Thanks Nadia.
Linda, do you know Linda? We love Linda's. Linda's listen, Larry's listen, or at least they should. Okay, Linda says, "Dr. Martin, you have said the real Mediterranean diet is good, but not the Americanized version. What is the real Mediterranean diet?" You know what, Linda? I thank you for asking that question. I get it asked a fair amount, at least I used to in my radio days. I get that question asked a lot. Dr. Martin, the Mediterranean diet is so good for you and that's not eggs, meat and cheese. Yes it is. The real Mediterranean diet is very high in meat, including fish. Look, there's salad in there, but they don't live on salad on the Mediterranean diet. They love their oils, they love olive oil and fats like butter and they don't use any margarine. And the Mediterranean diet, when you look at the real one, it's good for you. Lots of eggs, lots of cheese, lots of meat, okay, yeah, they have a few fruits and vegetables, but not many grains.
So the real Mediterranean diet is good for you. The Americanized, Canadianized version is a perversion because it's all grains, fruits and vegetables and at the bottom of the list are eggs, meat and cheese. Avoid that is the so-called Americanized Mediterranean diet. Well, it's not true. It's not the real Mediterranean diet. It's backwards. Okay? I can tell you that. So that's what, okay, and you go to again Japan or you go to Hong Kong. I've been there. Man, they eat a lot more meat than we do and they live the longest. They don't live on salads like people think they do. No they don't. They live on meat and fish and I have fish every day in a capsule. Okay, thank you Linda. We appreciate it.
Sharon. "I have had head hives for five days, went to the ER, I'm still breaking out when pills are wearing off. I'm on the EMC. Any suggestions?" Well, it may be Sharon, maybe anytime there was something weird like hives appearing out of nowhere for no reason not going away, I usually, usually I would look at the thyroid wasn't working properly and when the thyroid is off, a lot of times hives. Okay, now you got to check. Make sure you don't have leaky gut. Whatever you're eating, right? You're eating the EMC. But my rule of thumb was when in doubt with hives, I'd look at the hypothyroid, the thyroid was slowing down. Have a look at that Sharon. I'm just giving you an idea based on what you're telling me.
Mary, "I take 800 milligrams of magnesium byglycinate before bed, drink two to three liters with Himalayan salt. I get severe cramps at night and I know pickle juice is good, but I don't want to do that every night." Too bad. Well look if you're still getting cramps, because sometimes cramps is low magnesium, so you're not getting cramps in your legs from low magnesium, you're dehydrated and you're not getting enough electrolytes. Now sodium is one electrolyte. You're putting sodium in your water with the Himalayan salt. And guys, I love that. I love pickle juice by the way. Okay? You get pickle juice, lots of sodium, get the one with high, high sodium. That's a sports drink, that's an electrolyte drink. Now you can get more electrolytes if you want with more potassium. I mean there's all sorts of electrolytes for sale. You can easily find them. They're in all the pharmacies today and all the grocery stores. I don't like the electrolyte drinks so much. They're usually artificial sugars or sugar in there and Gatorade and Powerade and I don't like those things. Okay? Usually they're full of crap, unfortunately. But I would say Mary, you're still dehydrated. That's what's happening. And if you don't want to take pickle juice every night, I don't know why pickle juice are good for you. Thanks Mary.
And Carrie, Mary to Carrie. "What do you say about parasite cleanses for kids? Wormwood, cloves, binders seem to be the new fat." You know what? I'm much bigger on probiotics. Okay, bigger on probiotics because when you get probiotics, a broad spectrum probiotic, they do the job on parasites, yeast, and parasites and the research on it is pretty clear. I love a broad spectrum probiotics with L reuteri, L rhamnosus and others that are really, really anti-parasitic. I mean if you ask me, that's the choice I would make even in a kid because probiotics are good. You need billions and billions and billions of bacteria. He ain't overdosing on probiotics. Okay, Carrie, thank you.
Laura, "Can Dr. Martin answer this question regarding his menopausal formula?" Of course I can, "can this be taken by a young woman not in menopause to balance her hormones?" Absolutely, because they're dim in there and actually it's got a wonderful formula for women, even men that can take it. It's actually quite good though, to balance estrogen, progesterone. It really is good for that and for women at any age, if you are menstruating, your daughters, your granddaughters or whatever, man, oh man. And when they got too much estrogen, their periods are going to be crazy and you don't have to be in menopause to take the menopausal formula. Okay, good question Laura and I thank you for asking it.
Okay, David, "what is a good dihydroxy 25 level look in Canada?" N-M-O-L-L dash L, I like around 200 to 250 for your dehydroxy 25. In the United States, I want it to be over 60. Okay? Your numbers in the states should be over 60. I don't like anything under 60 to be honest with you. You want to optimize your vitamin D. And same thing in Canadian numbers. You want to get around 200 to 250. If you're a little bit higher than that. So what? Right, now David is saying his levels were too high. He showed 377. That's not too bad, but he was higher than that before. Okay, now David, you're asking a good question. I think I've talked about this before, but let's go over it again. Why would you have high vitamin D levels? And like I said, because listen, I looked at blood work this morning and on the blood work it said this right on the lab work for vitamin D dihydroxy. A healthy person has no need, has no need to monitor vitamin D levels. I got a migraine instantly when I read that.
The war on vitamin D, they put it right in. A healthy person has no need to monitor vitamin D levels. They're so stupid, they still don't get it. Vitamin D is essential. Looking at your dihydroxy numbers is essential for your health, but all they see is vitamin D. Here's a physician, 99% of them, they don't think you need it. They think it's toxic. Don't worry about being low, worry about being toxic. It's their training. I talked to you about that this week, in medical school. They're trained to be scared skinny of vitamin D. And if you had nothing else and only vitamin D, okay, sun, there's nothing better for your health. Like I said, I'm not holding my breath for them to catch up to the science, okay? I'm not holding my breath. So David, if your vitamin D levels are up there, you don't need to take it right now, just get in the sun.
Now I want to give reasons why your vitamin D, and I'm not saying for you specifically David, okay? Because I think you are taking vitamin D, K2 if you're not taking or eating vitamin K2, a lot of people can get high vitamin D levels in their blood. Not that it's dangerous, I really don't believe that. But anyway, when they're not taking vitamin K2 because K2 and you can eat it. Eggs, meat and cheese got vitamin K2. Okay, we put our vitamin K2 right in our bottle. Vitamin D with K2. K2 delivers calcium to its intended destination. Your bones, your teeth, it takes it out of the bloodstream. You don't calcium in your bloodstream, it'll harden your arteries. And that's why God in nature gave you eggs, meat and cheese. Why? Because it's got vitamin D in there and K2 in nature. So reasons, okay, and David, you sound like you're healthy, but I don't know that, okay?
Whenever I saw really high vitamin D levels, here's me, I go through a list autoimmune that can give you high, very high vitamin D levels, okay? I've seen that before. Kidney problems can give you high vitamin D numbers. Liver problems, fatty liver can give you a high vitamin D reading. It doesn't mean you don't need vitamin D, it just means it will skew the readings in a blood test. Okay? Hyper parathyroid, your parathyroid glands are out of whack and that can elevate your calcium in your blood first of all, and also give you a higher vitamin D levels on the test, the dihydroxy test. Prescriptions, medications, diuretics, heart disease medications, high blood pressure medications, beta blockers, big one, estrogen therapy, the birth control pill.
A lot of women, they're on it, their vitamin D levels are high, but it's not in their cells where it belongs. I've been talking about B12 for quite a bit here and B12 in your blood, what good is it? You want B12 at the cellular level, that's where it needs to be. Vitamin D is the same thing. So David, I don't know if you're on any of those medications. I don't know if you have any of those issues like tuberculosis. I don't you have that, but some people do, right? Anyway. Okay, David, thanks for the questions. I'm not worried about you at all if you're doing well, okay, thanks for the question, David.
John, "what are my thoughts on 10 drops of hydrogen peroxide to prevent cancer?" I'm not big on that. Again, there's another thing. Everybody and their dog, I'm going to say 15 years ago we're talking about you just put some hydrogen peroxide in water and you ain't getting cancer or it will be a cancer treatment. No, I don't buy it. I didn't buy it then and it had its day in the sun. People were, I said because people, there was a few gurus that wrote articles about it. Hydrogen peroxide was the best thing since I used the expression sliced bread. Don't get uptight when I do that. It's just because I like to use expressions. It's the best thing since sliced bread. No, it's not. Now hydrogen peroxide to clean, but I wouldn't take it internally. That's me. I wouldn't do it. But that's me. You ask my opinion, John. You are getting it.
Okay, Sonia, "I have recently experienced stasis dermatitis, varicose eczema, but extreme swelling on my right ankle and foot. What would you suggest? Should I remove dairy and wheat from my diet?" Yeah, wheat. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Dairy. Find out. Okay, I never say ditch dairy because you're going to find out. I can almost guarantee you, Sonia, that it ain't butter. Okay, not butter. Usually not cream. Now you might find cow's milk and other things in dairy bother you. Yeah, well get rid of it. Find out. Be the doctor, do the testing yourself. It's called the elimination testing. You eliminate and oh gee, I guess I was allergic to that. Yeah, okay, best test. I used to tell patients give me $600, okay, and I'd draw your blood, I'd send it to a lab and they do all this allergy testing and when the results came back, they would send me $200 for my part. Okay? I said, you want to do that or why don't you do it? It'll cost you nothing. So eliminate, let's find out what's bothering you. Do it by elimination. Because a lot of times that allergy testing, when you got leaky gut, everything came back. Gee, I'm allergic to everything. Everything sort of sets me off. I said nah, it's skewed. So do the process and get on probiotics big time. Okay? And get off sugars too, because that's usually a thing.
Theresa. "I got atropic gastritis, IBS, diverticulosis." Hey, you got bad gut, Theresa. Okay? When I was in practice, I saw a lot of Theresa's like that. Well, not Theresa's but other names over the years, more than thousands. Okay? I mean it. IBS, gastritis, diverticulosis. They had sunburn. I used to say this in my office. You got the sunburn of your gut. What? Well, it's irritated all the way through from your stomach to the bowel to the colorectal area. You got diverticulosis, diverticulitis. You're eating way too much fiber. I get 'em off fiber. And they used to look at me like I had two heads. Yeah, well, you and fiber don't get along. I'd tell them why too. I said, because you're not a cow. What? Well, a cow has fiber. It eats grass all day long, but they need four stomachs to eat salad. You only have one and your pH of your stomach when you get gastritis has elevated. It's not alkaline, but it's become more alkaline rather than acidic. That's gastritis. And now you get inflammation of the stomach because usually you're not eating the right foods.
Your stomach was designed to eat eggs, meat and cheese. You got more acidic or should have more acidity in your stomach than a lion does. That ought to tell us something. But anyway, I know I'm in the minority, but I'm right. Your bowel, you don't have four stomachs. So what I do, I do a complete elimination. Complete elimination of fiber, complete elimination of roughage and probiotics, you need the digestive enzymes. I would have you on bone broth. I would have you on our Gut-ease because that's got mucilages and all of the above. That's what I would have you on because a big task, it's a big task because you're going from "dan to bershiba," right? In terms of top to bottom when it comes to gut. Stomach, small intestine, large intestine, all irritated and it's no fun under the sun. Absolutely no fun, but it can be a very big help to reset. You're taking the right things. Okay?
Andrea, "my A1C is not going down," okay, "I've been on the EMC and low carb for two years." You're smart, Andrea, okay? And don't give up on that because that's what you should be doing. "My triglycerides are good." That's important. Your HDL is good. That's important. "I want to get my A1C down," but what is it? Okay, what is your A1C? You exercise, your CRP is very good. You sound good. Now, some people, Andrea, okay, I'm going to stick up a finger. You got a different fingerprint than me. What does that make you? Unique, different, not weird. I can't say that. They won't let me say weird anymore. It's not kosher. Listen, if your numbers are all good except your A1C, and again, I need to know what that is because look, you know I love A1C. I really like it, but I like the combination of numbers. I like your triglycerides. I like that. If everything else is good and you just have trouble getting your A1C down, you're unique. Don't worry about it. You're healthy as a horse. You know what I mean? But send me Andrea, what your A1C is because yeah, it may not be where you want it. I like 5.4. Okay?
Now me personally, okay, I have trouble getting mine at 5.4 even though I eat very well, I got diabetes coming out both ears in my family, me and carbs don't get along. I love them, but they don't love me. Okay? I'm disciplined. Ask anybody. I'm disciplined. I'm a gym goer. I eat well. I do everything I can, but my A1C is exactly where I want it because by the grace of God too, my triglycerides are great. My HDL is great. Okay? My CRP is good. So when I take the whole conglomerate of my testing, I'm very happy and I don't get too uptight because I can't get my A1C exactly where I want it to be. Okay? So that's all I'm saying to you Andrea. Okay? And we love you dearly.
Let's do a couple more. Why not? Okay. Kathy, "son has experienced forearm pain going off and on for four years." No fun. Probably has a tendonitis and it can be very hard, especially because forearms, think about it, okay? When you're gripping usually I used to see that in the office a lot of times tendonitis and maybe even a little tear in around the elbow. Look, couple of things. If your son is willing, get off sugar. Because sugar, I've explained this before, it can glycates muscles and bone and it can cause inflammation and other things. Okay? Anyway, be careful with that. If you get a good therapist, like sounds like you've tried physio already. Well, I mean I do more than that and I like curcumin too, by the way. Might help.
Xena is saying you clean. Okay, so Xena says you clean. Unlike most probiotics, our formula survives the trip through the stomach. Has this been proven and confirmed? Yeah, a hundred percent. It's been proven and confirmed. Independent laboratories have confirmed it. Clinically, I've confirmed it and I've been talking Xena probiotics for over 40 years. I know all about probiotics. Every one of our strains takes eight weeks to cultivate soil-based. They are so hardy, you can't kill 'em. You can bring a blowtorch to them and you can't kill those bacteria, in my opinion, the best in the world. That's my opinion. Read the reviews of our probiotic Xena. Those are independent people that put a review on our products. Every day thousands of people more than that, take our probiotics. My son and I that's our formula. It's unique. We pick the individual strains. Our manufacturer hates our guts because it's so hard to make those probiotics and it's the way it is. We will not compromise and that's what we do.
Clinically, look, I'm not a researcher per se. I'm a clinical guy. You know why I made my own probiotics Xena? Because I used to send people to the health food store in my office, go get some probiotic. And when I wasn't getting the results I wanted, you know what? I'm going to start getting our own made and I never regretted that even though it was a big pain, a big pain financially to get 'em done. But you know what? Hey, it is what it is. And I'll put up our probiotics. I always tell people this. I'll put up my probiotic against anybody's probiotics. I'm not saying other probiotics are not good, they're just not as good. Probiotics are good. The research is overwhelming on probiotics. But there's good, there's better Zena and there's best. That's me. Okay? I like the question because I want you to ask questions like that.
I was in practice. I had to look people in the eyeballs when I gave them something to take. And usually I could measure it because I didn't guess, I tested. That was my motto at the office. I don't guess I test vitamin D, B12, you name it, we tested it. See, that was me. I was a clinician. I had to get clinical results. People had to get better. And I had a good reputation in the clinic. It was because I got results and people would come from all over the world. And I mean it, I worked my best to give people results. They were unwell. And you name the condition, okay? But probiotics, I think everybody should be on. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Oh, "is it wise to give a body a break for a week?" I don't, because you're talking trillions, not billions, trillions of bacteria. Look for me, it's a good question, Xena. I don't take a break from probiotics. I haven't for years and years and years. I don't take a break. Take them every day.
Okay, two more and we're up. Evelyn. "My daughter has a benign tumor in the breast." Okay, benign, okay, so what do you do? Keep estrogen down. Menopausal formula, dim, flaxseeds. Keep estrogen and insulin down. They're the two, Evelyn, growth hormones. Insulin's a growth hormone. How do you get insulin down? Low carb. How do you get estrogen down? Flax seeds, dim it out. That's what you do.
Last one, Georgia. "Is it too late to do the reset if a person has early stages of Alzheimer's?" Never too late to start. I got to eat anyways, and I would be very aggressive. I would be changing their fuel in their brain, which the EMC does. The reset does that because now you're burning ketones and not glucose. You see their brain is swimming in fuel that it can't use. Way too much glucose there in the brain and their brain is swimming in it. Okay? So yeah, never too late in my opinion. Thanks guys. We've gone way over time, but we love you and we thank you for being so patient with us. Talk to you soon.
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