Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners 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, and once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. We appreciate you coming on. If you can come on live and say hello, we'd love to have you on with us this morning. I hate to miss anyone, guys, but if I don't get going on these questions, we're not going to get there. Okay, Faith is finished the reset. Her A1C is 5.7. Okay, so what was it before the reset? Well, I don't know that, but faith, let me tell you, you did a good thing. Okay? Keep going because you want to get that number down to about 5.4, okay? Keep going. You don't have to necessarily continue on the reset per se, okay? Because the reset is a 30 day program. A lot of people do it a lot more than 30 days. It'll never hurt you to go past 30 days, but if you want to introduce Faith, some fruits and vegetables now, go ahead. Not going to hurt you. And just remember that you and carbs don't get along, so don't live on them. Okay?
Now here's the question you're asking. She wants to get her triglycerides down even more. Keep going. Anyway, one of the things she's saying here is, "after many years of ultrasound saying that she had fatty liver, that has gone away." Well, that's what happens when you empty the Costco parking lot, your liver, when you cut down on carbs and sugars, guess what? You empty the liver. One of the best detox that you can ever do is emptying your liver. And how do you do that? You do it by lowering your carbohydrates and sugars, high fructose corn syrup, which is found in almost everything. When you don't drink sugary drinks and fruit drinks, don't do that stuff. You are going to empty your liver and it can happen as rapidly as six days. That's been proven. Some people it takes longer, but you're definitely emptying your liver. You empty your liver, your triglycerides are going to go down and your HDL cholesterol is going to go up, and that's exactly what you want. Okay?
Let's see. And then she's just asking about other negative effects of insulin resistance. Look, usually after 30 days insulin resistance is fixed. Okay? For some completely fixed, but again, you got to eat every day. So this becomes a lifestyle, eggs, meat, and cheese, the main portions of your plate, it becomes a lifestyle. Again, you can introduce the plant kingdom and not a lot of sugar. So you live that way and insulin resistant because insulin is needed when you're eating carbohydrates. It's as simple as that. And crappy carbs especially. Okay? Keep going, Faith, I just want to give you a high five. Keep going.
Peggy, "had blood work done because of a slight pain under my right breast." Okay? Your sedimentation rate was high. Your CRP was high. Lipase was high. I'm suspicious of two things. One, gallbladder, pancreatitis, gallbladder pain under the right breast, gallbladder, especially with lipase being elevated. And again, that can be your pancreas, so you've got to be careful of pancreatitis. I think they're taking care of that. Okay, your triglycerides were quite good. You're not giving me, guys, can I give you a memo if you are going to put your triglycerides up there, okay, and yours were at 64. Excellent. Okay. In Canada, that would be 0.64. Okay? Very, very good triglycerides, very low. Now, the only thing you didn't give me, Peggy, was your HDL. I need that ratio there, okay? You want your triglycerides to be low and your HDL to be higher than your triglycerides. Okay? You gave me LDL, but you didn't give me your HDL, okay? But Peggy, that's what I think's going on. They're looking for gallbladder, maybe stones, pancreatitis, possible. They got to rule that out. Okay? Thanks for the question and we appreciate it.
Claude is asking, "is drinking 35% cream as beneficial to health as consuming EMC?" Yes, it's part of it. Cream is much better than milk. Like whole milk is all right, but I don't like skim milk. I don't like 2%. Full fat milk is really what you want. But again, I'm not big on drinking when it comes to dairy. Guys, I'm much more interested in you eating dairy than drinking dairy. If you got a cow in the backyard, drink the milk. I've got no problem. You want to drink some cream? Go for it. Okay, go for it. You want to make a Dr. Martin's perfect smoothie? Go for it. Especially for kids. And if you want a meal replacement program, have a heavy fat smoothie. Dr. Martin's perfect smoothie. So good for you. But I'm big on eggs, meat and cheese. You guys know that. And I like butter. You guys know that. Okay, so if you want to drink some cream, I got no problem with that. Okay? The dairy's good for you guys. Don't ditch dairy. Switch dairy. There you go.
Lynn. She's been struggling with her thyroid for years. And guess what? Her blood work is coming back within normal limits, right? What's new? You and tens of thousands of other women, Lynn are going through the same thing. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. That's what my dad used to say. You got all the symptoms of thyroid. You know what? It's too bad because medicine has been hijacked in a lot of ways by the laboratory, like the labs are good. I love looking at lab work. I really do. But you need a patient's history. You need all the information to go with that lab work. And that's why so many women fall through the cracks when it comes to their thyroid because they got all the thyroid symptoms, but their TSH or their T3, T4, a full panel of thyroid, nothing's showing up. But you have to understand, especially with the TSH, the ranges of what is normal in the TSH. It's from here to eternity.
I used to tell my patients symptoms, hair loss, weight gain. I had a lady tell me one time, doc, my metabolism hasn't slowed down. It's in a coma. I look at food sideways and I gain weight. Well, the thyroid is involved, but guys, you know this. I always draw a picture of hormones because they're all together, and if you don't look at the complete picture, you are going to miss out. The thyroid is like a puppet. It has a lot of strings attached to it, okay? A lot of strings. Your thyroid is connected to your insulin. Your thyroid is connected to your estrogen and progesterone. Ladies, your thyroid is connected to your adrenal glands, your cortisol, your thyroid is connected to your liver. Why? Because your liver, this is where T4 is converted to T3. Your thyroid is really connected to your gut. What? Well, there's a lot of conversion that takes place in your gut of thyroid hormones. If you don't put that all together, you're going to get misdiagnosed a lot of times.
And just giving a woman synthroid or thyroxine, it's like putting a bandaid on something. It's not fixing it. You got to look at the whole picture. You need to look at hormones holistically. And this is why even with horror-mones, I started with food. I would empty the liver. Amazing what happens when you empty the liver. I would have a patient cut out all sugar. Amazing what happens with the thyroid when you cut out sugar. I would have a patient checking their vitamin D levels because again, vitamin D, every organ, every cell in your body needs vitamin D to function properly. So there's all of the above. And to me, it wasn't that complicated. If you looked at the whole picture, and it was amazing, the results we would get, even with Hashimoto's autoimmune, even with Graves autoimmune and the thyroid attacking itself, the diet is so essential for the thyroid.
But like I said, there's a lot of other things because the thyroid is a puppet with lots of strings attached. It does not function on its own. And this is where vitamin D I believe comes into effect because you've got the hypothalamus in the brain that sends the signals down to the pituitary gland to affect the thyroid. You got to look at that too. This is another reason why sugar, because sugar affects the brain, it affects the hippocampus and the hypothalamus. Okay, that was a long dissertation, but help you can help the thyroid for sure, and she's asking, "which is a quick way to raise ferritin?" Well, you might need some iron, but I'm big on eating steak. If you eat steak, if you like liver, eat liver, but I don't like liver, so I eat steak. It's the best way to elevate your ferritin. And never ever, ever, ever forget that not only ferritin is involved, but B12. Never ever did I ever see a patient that had low iron, low ferritin that didn't have low B12 too. Okay? They need B12. Okay, that was Lynn.
Marian, this is a very good question, Marian. I haven't been asked this in a while, but I used to get asked this almost daily in my days of practice and even on my radio show. "Is it safer to leave mercury fillings in your mouth than to have them removed?" Well, I generally did not like to have them removed. Okay, because as long as the filling didn't break, they were pretty well encapsulated within the filling. Now, I know a lot of people that have had their fillings replaced. Listen, guys, okay. You have to remember in my office, I actually tested for mercury, okay? We actually did a test for mercury, lead, cadmium. We used to test it. You can do a hair analysis, but even then you got to make sure it's a good lab. But we used to test for it, and I had patients that had mercury fillings that had no mercury in their body. They were in their teeth, but they weren't in the blood, nor in the tissue. So those patients, I would say, well, you don't want to remove that. You might make it a lot worse. I'm not seeing any mercury in your system.
And there are dentists, I don't think there's many of them, but some that specialize in taking out mercury fillings. I always said, well, I'd love to be tested first because if they're encapsulated, you'd have no need to take them out. But there's two schools of thought on that. And I'm not saying I'm in the middle there, but I used to love to test before I would counsel a patient to do one thing or the other when it came to mercury fillings. And you know what? If you can going forward with your children, with your grandchildren, try not to get mercury fillings. There's no reason for them to use mercury anymore. Get your dentist on board. That was Marian, and thank you for the question.
Siman, "what kind of foods can we start a baby on instead of padblum and fruits or freshly homemade food?" Well puree, that's what I would tell you to do. And as soon as you can, as soon as they're ready, the best way to start, of course, is breast milk. I kind of say it because it's my birthday today. This came out when I was a kid. Thank God my mother didn't listen. You know what? Let's eliminate breast milk. There's no reason we can fortify formula. Formula came out in the 1950s, guys, how crazy was that? And then I don't know what year it was exactly, probably the early eighties, maybe even before that. Then doctors sort of got reincarnated and they started saying, you know what? Better if mommy feeds that baby. Breast milk is the best for colostrum and all the vitamins and everything. The immune formula is the breast formula. Okay, now you know what, Siman is going puree of what? Well, eggs, meat and cheese, and mothers you guys answer the question here, and grandma's you're asking, you guys got any ideas on that? Okay. Yeah. There's alternatives that you can do for sure. Okay, that was Siman. Thank you Siman. Much appreciated.
Renee, "how do you keep blood thin naturally without taking baby aspirin or drinking alcohol?" Yeah, you don't want to do that. And we've done shows on aspirin, by the way. Okay? And by the way, it wasn't just me that said it. Okay? The FDA came with a edict. I don't know, 10 years ago I did a video on it and I think I got a million views of it. That's a long ago I've been doing this. No, I've been doing a lot longer than, but this was about 10, at least 10 years ago. I did a thing on aspirin and the FDA was saying, and now it's official. The FDA is saying this, the risk of taking baby aspirin compared to the benefits of taking aspirin. Because you have to understand in my day, okay, my parents' day, they used to say, instead of an apple a day keeps the doctor away and aspirin a day keeps the doctor away. Well, that was never true. It was never right. And the FDA finally straightened it out and said, the risk, internal bleeding, deafness, other side effects, they outweigh the benefits of taking aspirin.
So to answer your question about thinning blood, well, one of the things that thins your blood naturally is nattokinase. And that helps to thin your blood. Naturally, thin the platelets, makes the blood less sticky. I don't recommend taking nattokinase every day necessarily my experience and keep your blood vessels strong. If you're taking anything like Eliquis or any other blood thinning medication, if you've had a heart attack or whatever or a stroke, invariably, you're going to be on the blood thinner. Well protect your blood vessels. This is why I love Navitol pine bark extract, because it protects, it's an antioxidant and elevates your nitric oxide, which is really good for your blood vessels. So is high DHA very good because it lubricates the blood vessels, okay? And I know there's some doctors, you can't take any supplement or whatever. They don't know what they're talking about. They really don't. Oh, that'll thin your blood. That doesn't thin your blood. It protects the blood vessels. Nattokinase thins your blood. Okay?
Okay, that was Renee. Georgie talking about an 82-year-old friend, and is getting short-term memory loss. Okay? Get at this right away. Okay, guys, never too early to protect your brain from dementia. Never too early and remember this. Okay, let me give you a couple of bullet points. One cut back on sugar. Remember Alzheimer's, they won a Nobel Prize in medicine when they called Alzheimer's type 3 diabetes. Sugar destroys the blood vessels in the brain. Sugar shrinks your hippocampus. It shrinks. It doesn't make it grow, it shrinks it. So small vessel blood vessels cut out the sugar. Look, if I was her 82 years old, high DHA, why? Fat. You know what happens in Alzheimer's or dementia? The brain shrinks. Remember that. It shrinks. It shrinks like a prune, and your brain loses its fat. And what is the most important fat in your brain? It's DHA fat. That's why I love DHA. Okay? I've always loved, I love BPA too, but not as much as DHA, because your brain's made up of DHA. This is why I love DHA. I love Navitol for the brain. Why? Because it elevates your nitric oxide and it's an antioxidant. Powerful, protects the brain cells and crosses the blood brain barrier. I love curcumin for the brain. Okay, so this is what I would do. Diet. Cut out the sugar, eat more fat, eggs, meat and cheese. Okay? And high DHA. I like combining it with Navitol. Big time curcumin. Even quercetin is good for the brain. Okay, that was Georgie. Thanks Georgie.
Heidi, "what are your thoughts on postmenopausal women taking dim?" This is a very, very, very good question, okay? Because it gets into this point. Because listen, let me make something very clear. People misunderstand me. Not always, but sometimes, okay? What DIM does, DIM doesn't lower your estrogen that your body makes. It lowers the xenoestrogens in your body, okay? You need estrogen, you need it. And a lady the other day in the comments was arguing with me because she said, oh, Dr. Martin, I've been taking estrogen for many, many years. Were you taking a bioidentical? You didn't answer that, but I would ask you a bioidentical estrogen better. It's not horses' urine. And some women take estrogen and the birth control pill. And she was mad at me because she said, you're a man. What do you know? I'm just giving information. I was known though, as a woman's doctor, I talked about horror-mones all the time, okay? I was very sympathetic. But you're right. I'm not a woman.
But you have to understand something. There's two types of estrogen. Estrogen that your body makes. And there's xenoestrogens that everybody in the universe is surrounded by. Xenoestrogens. Your body thinks they're estrogen because they look like estrogen. And we live in that world and we get out of that world. That's why I love dim, because dim, okay? What it does is it blocks the extra estrogen. It's not going to block your good estrogen. And when you're menopausal or postmenopausal, yeah, you need estrogen, but you need progesterone more than you need estrogen. You need balance. And that's what I was saying. And what I don't like about hormonal therapy, I know it's popular. I understand that its HRT, but we live in a world with all these xenoestrogens. And I'll tell you what drives cancer, breast cancer, ovarian, uterine, cervix, all of those cancers are driven. Breast cancer is driven by estrogen. Oh, Dr. Martin, my cells weren't receptive to estrogen. Sure they are. Of course they are. And that's how men get prostate cancer too. They get it because they have too much estrogen. It's not testosterone, it's estrogen.
And what is plaguing our society today and the world is too much estrogen because they come in the form of xenoestrogens, look like estrogens. And that's dangerous. That's dangerous. And that's why dim. This is why I've always told you guys, I like flaxseed because flax seeds have an enormous amount of lignans. L-I-G-N-A-N-S, lignans that block extra estrogen. Do you want that? A hundred percent. It's the world in which we live in every microplastic, every freshener, every, well, less, they're natural. You know what I mean? Your cleaning products, the environment. I'm more worried about your environment than the climate. It bothers me when the world's gone stupid on the climate and they don't talk about the microplastics that are everywhere in the water, in the air, in the soil, that affects you more than the climate will affect you. That's why I want you to protect yourself. Be a lean, mean fighting machine, okay? That's why I love dim. So dim is good for you at any age, ladies and gentlemen, because you got to a prostate and breast and prostate cancer brother and sister, they're identical. They're identical twins. One's a girl and the other's a boy. And some men can get breast cancer. It happens. Why? Too much testosterone. No, too much estrogen. It's a fact.
Okay, let's see if we can get done here. Karen is asking about mast cell activation syndrome. Terrible disorder. "I am down to only being able to eat five foods." Yeah, because mast cells, remember what mast cells are. Mast cells come out when you're allergic to something. They release what? Histamine. They make you sneeze. They make your eyes water. They produce more mucus in the body. They're trying to get rid of things like antigens, things that bother you. So you got to antihistamines. That's what antihistamines are, okay? When you take Claritin or something like that because your eyes are watering, you're sneezing and you're coughing and whatever, okay? Those are antihistamines. When you have mast cell activation, you got a problem because it's like autoimmune. Your body is turned on itself. So you got to do what you got to do there, Karen. She's been eating EMC, which is really helpful, by the way. But you can eat a few blueberries. Go for it. Go for it. I got no problem with that.
Okay, Grace. Pancreatitis. We talked about it earlier. "What can reverse it?" Well look it. I mean, the biggest thing with pancreatitis, it could be an infection too, right? So get your vitamin D levels up. But at the end of the day, your pancreas, your biggest job the pancreas does, besides giving it releases enzymes. You need lipase and amylase and protease. These are pancreatic enzymes. That's very important for digestion. And the other one is insulin, of course. So cut out the sugar. Cut out the sugar. I would have you on digestive enzymes. Could be an infection though. That's how some people get pancreatitis is through infection. Vitamin D, vitamin D. I would do the hammer. 50,000 IUs for three days. That was Grace.
Arlene, "my husband is in the hospital treated with antibiotics," okay? "His peripheral neuropathy, his blood pressure has always been normal, but it's slow." Why? Infection? Oftentimes it can elevate your blood pressure, but it also can lower your blood pressure. He's got an infection. His blood pressure could go way down. If he's hospitalized, they're taking that very seriously. Try and sneak them in some vitamin D. Give 'em 50,000 IUs a day. I will deny that I said it to you, if they ask.
Mary's asking, "a seven day reset, detox the liver for non-alcoholic cirrhosis." Well, you might have to go past that for cirrhosis, right? And non-alcoholic. But cirrhosis means you have scarring. So that's more serious than fatty liver. Okay? Cirrhosis. And that could have happened through infection, viral or hepatitis or something like that could have scarred up your liver. But the reset is very, very good for it. Okay? Not interested in a 30 day detox, they said. But a seven day, well, every bit helps. Every bit helps. But at the end of the day, if they got cirrhosis, one thing you want to lay off, never have alcohol. Number one. Number two, remember what acts like. Alcohol is high fructose corn syrup. That's the sugar of choice for almost every food in the middle aisles of your grocery store. And tell your friend not to drink any juice at any time. Okay? And no soda, nothing like that. No sugary drinks. And don't go to a Starbucks and have those sugary drinks. Okay, that was Mary.
And then I think I'm on my last one. Maybe one more after that. Okay, Sally, "Dr. Martin, talk about MCT oils. What do I think about them?" Well, look, I like an MTC oil. If you're going to drink coconut oil, palm oil, those are MCT oils, okay? And they're called exogenous ketones. Do I like them? Nah, I'd rather you do it. You get into ketosis when you cut your carbs down. A lot of people have trouble with heavy, heavy oil like an MCT oil. It bothers their stomach. If it don't bother you, and you want to put a little bit the magic bullet. Remember the bullet magic bullet coffee, putting a little bit of MCT oil in with butter. You want to do that? Good for you. Enjoy. I like my coffee black, but I got no problem with them. I just don't like, do they really, really make a difference in your brain and this and that? Exogenous ketones? I'm not convinced. Okay? I'm not convinced. You want to do it? Good for you, and I mean it. I'm not against it. I'm just not convinced of the benefits necessarily that they talk about. I didn't see them consistently in my office.
Okay, one more, we're done. Okay, this is Claire. She's been diagnosed with MAI, which is a microbacterium avium intracellular. Say that fast three times. Okay? Now, 69 years old, healthy and athletic. Okay? How did they find it? On an MRI when they had for the pancreas. Okay, so they're saying you're going to be more prone maybe. But remember where I come from and let me finish today with this Claire. You're always going to be surrounded by bacteria. You're always going to be surrounded by viruses. For example, today you've got all these bacteria that have resistance because of the antibiotics and overuse of antibiotics. You've got these strange bugs, H pylori and C difficile. And let me say this one more time. Mycobacterium avium intracellular.
But I don't worry about that so much. Here's what I want you to do. Take care of yourself, make your body. And I said this during COVID. I said it 20, 30, 40 years before COVID. I said it all the time. Make your body, make your immune system because you live in a world, there's always going to be bacteria, there's always going to be infection, there's always going to be viruses. Build your immune system. That's what to do. Positive vitamin D. There's nothing better. There's nothing better than vitamin D to build your immune system on the negative side, cut out the sugar. Why? Because sugar destroys your immune system. It puts your T cells to sleep. Your Navy seals, okay? Vitamin A, wear your invisible mask. It's invisible, but it covers your eyes, covers your nose, covers your mouth. You're always going to be surrounded by bacteria. You're always going to be surrounded by viruses. So the invisible mask, vitamin A. Eggs, vitamin A, meat, vitamin A, cheese, dairy, vitamin A. Okay? Vitamin A. And people are very low in it. They're low in vitamin D. And I like the real vitamin C coffee more than ascorbic acid. I'm not against the ascorbic acid, okay? But I like coffee better because it's really good for your immune system. Proven. Okay?
We had a lot of questions and we finished up. Okay, I think I got every one of 'em. Okay guys, what are we doing this week? Okay, tomorrow afternoon session. Okay? Tuesday afternoon. Okay. I'll try and send out a memo to remind you. And then Friday is Q and A, right? Don't forget that. Okay guys, we love you and we'll talk to you soon.
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