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. Once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day and we sure appreciate you guys more than you know. Thanks again guys for joining us live when you can. We appreciate it big time. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. Okay?
Corina, "what did Dr. Martin think about taking spirulina?" I like spirulina. Okay. It's an algae. Got B vitamins, good source of protein. But guys, look, this is me. Okay. This is me. And I think you guys understand me where I come from. So when you ask about a certain supplement, well, I'm good. You want to do it? Go for it. Okay. But when you can supplement or eat a food, I'd rather you eat it. So you don't hear me talking about a bee complex very much because if you have a steak, you're getting it. You want protein? Eat a steak. Eat eggs. Eggs, meat and cheese. Beets, spirulina. Okay. Again, I like it. I got no problem with it at all. But if I can tell you to eat something rather than supplement, then I will tell you to eat it. So eggs, meat, especially steak, better than spirulina. So hey, but I like it. Okay? I like it. Yep. Okay. So you understand where I come from? Corina, thanks for that question.
Chris is asking she's a 75-year-old female, had her vitamin D checked Canadian numbers, I'm assuming. It was at 200. Doctor told me to stop taking it. Well, Chris, I don't agree with your doctor. I like 200. Now remember, there's Canadian numbers on vitamin D and American numbers on vitamin D. I'm assuming just by what you're saying, those are Canadian numbers. Okay? And Canadian numbers are two and a half times those of American equivalent on vitamin D. Okay? So 200, I like 200. It's not too high. I like 200 to 250 really. And I really like getting your vitamin D levels checked. And again, when it comes to vitamin D, physicians are reticent, they're scared. They've been taught vitamin D can be toxic. Not that they've ever seen it. Okay. Not that they've ever seen. They'll say, "Well, you can get kidney stones." Yeah. And if you get kidney stones, you're usually a vegetarian. You're eating way too many plants with oxalates. You're a spinach eater with lots of oxalates, sweet potatoes. I like them, but they're full of oxalates and that's what gives you calcium in your kidneys. Calcium stones. Okay? Oxalates. Now you could have uric acid stones and those are the people usually that are drinking a lot of fructose, not vitamin D, but they love to say it.
And again, I'll give you research guys. It's been done over the years. In order for you to become toxic with vitamin D, 50,000 IUs a day every day for six months and they still didn't get toxic. Now do I recommend that? No. You won't hear me say it, but it's just they scare the living life out of you with vitamin D. And I'm telling you, it's craziness. The Canadian government here, they have a war on vitamin D. They can't stand if you're recommending more than a thousand IUs. A thousand IUs of vitamin D are for mice, not you. Okay? You get out in the sun, okay? I'm looking out my big window here this morning and it is sunny, beautiful. I love that. If I go out there and sunbathe today for 20 minutes, I'm going to get 10,000 IUs as long as I got my solar panels uncovered. What are your solar panels? The best are your arms and legs. Those are your solar panels. So is the rest of your body, but not like your arms and legs. Leave them uncovered and whatever you do don't use sunscreen. Don't put carcinogenics right on your skin. It's readily absorbed.
So there's a war on vitamin D guys and because physicians don't take any training in vitamin D other than they're scared of it. Unfortunately, guys, nothing works properly in your body without vitamin D. Your immune system, your cardiovascular system, sun is the best way to get it. But if you can't get sun and most of us can't get enough of it, you know what happens? You better supplement. There's a supplement unlike spirulina that we talked about earlier that's better for you. You can get it in food. You could. If you ate blubber, if you ate seal, if you had cod liver oil every day, that's what the Inuit do. That's why their levels of vitamin D are good. You can actually eat it without the sun, right? Because you get up north. I live north, but go way north of us and good luck with sunbathing.
But they can get it in food. But the problem with food is you have to top that up every day. That's why supplementing with vitamin D is so important. It's part of my protocol and I'm not scared of vitamin D. I've been using vitamin D for 50 years. I'm not scared of it because I understand it and I've studied it. I've read everything I can read on it. I've seen every study that there is on it and I've seen the negative stuff and the positive stuff. And at one time I was on the Vitamin D Council and I just tell you guys, it's craziness how they scare the life out of people. And doctors, again, it's amazing to me that they're scared of a number like 200 on vitamin D. What's it going to do? It's only good for you. Okay. Let's get back to the questions. I get a little excited. Okay?
Lucy, "what is Dr. Martin's advice on grounding sheets for inflammation?" Well, there's a lot better things in my opinion than grounding sheets. I'm not against them. Okay. It's certainly not my area of expertise and a lot of people love grounding sheets. I hear a lot about grounding, like get outside and walk on the grass or get outside and walk if I could get to the beach, walk on the sand. Am I against that? I love that. Good for you. How much does it do? This is what bothers me about grounding. Okay. When it tells you it fixes everything from pimples on your nose to warts on your toes. People make these grandiose claims. Grounding fixes everything. Grounding sheets. Without good food? I start with food. That's what I start with when it comes to your health. So you can't outground a bad diet. That's my point.
So what do I think of grounding sheets? Hey, you want to use them? Go for it. That's my answer. I don't know. I'm certainly not an expert at it at grounding sheets or even grounding. Okay? I read about it. I like it, but is it everything? Nope. It's not. Is it going to cure your cancer? No. No, it won't. But I love my audience because a lot of people have even more expertise on certain things than I do. And so if anybody says, oh, I love grounding sheets because here's what they do and whatever you guys, my audience, which have honorary PhDs from me. That's my audience. Okay? You guys fill this person in, Lucy. Tell Lucy what you think because maybe you got more experience in it than I do.
I read everything. You send me something or I read it. I'll read about grounding. I've read about grounding and I like it. Am I convinced? I'm not 100% convinced of it, but I got no problem with it. Okay? So there you go, Lucy.
Jamie, there's my buddy, Dr. Curry. I like him because he practices what he preaches and he's asking me a question. "I keep my macro intake at two grams of protein per kilogram of body mass." I know you are. You're religious about it, Jamie. Good for you. "One gram of fat per kilogram no matter what. I then alter my carbs based on my goals to either bulk up or slim down." And Jamie, for folks that don't know Dr. Curry, a good friend of mine, he's religious about staying in good shape. We bump into each other at the gym all the time and I love him because he practices what he preaches to his patients and tremendous. I'm trying to convince him to become a podcaster like me. Now, yeah, Jamie, I like your strategy 100% and I know you teach that. I'm just going to give you, again, me on macros and if you do it, good for you.
Here's me in an overarching principle. I'm big on protein as being the king of the castle. I love fat too because protein and fat, healthy fat, eggs, meat, good dairy, butter, cheese, that kind of thing, cream. I'm big on that because it's protein and fat. I love that. Okay? I love that. And I'm not a no carb guy. I'm a low carb guy, meaning that I like the other two macros better than carbohydrate. Carbs, especially when you're in good shape like Dr. Curry, well, yeah, you're going to have carbs for sure, but they're never the king of the castle. And people today are carboholics. I say that all the time. My name is Tony and I'm a carboholic and most people are. And me, I have to be very disciplined about carbs. I find it easier. It's never easy to start. That's why I get people on the reset because the reset starts them off on the right track and it's not easy, but there's a lot of good things that happen. I've proven that to my tens of thousands of patients over the years and then probably hundreds of thousands now who have read the metabolic reset, sun, steak and steel and whatever. They do 30 days and there's a lot of good things that happen. One of them is you find out just how little carbohydrate you need to excel.
When you do the 30-day reset with no carbs, it's just temporary but no carbs. What happens is you find out you were eating way too many carbs, number one. Number two, you find out you're not having them just how good you feel without carbohydrates. And I'm never suggesting that that has to be the rest of your life, no carbs. But you find out how little carbs you need. You want to measure that? People measure it. I got no problem with it, but I'm more of a generalized guy because I talk to the masses and I don't get into numbers as much as the big picture. High protein and fat, because that's the way it should be in nature. Protein and fat go together in nature. Eggs, protein and fat. How many carbs? Not many. Meat? Protein and fat. How many carbs? Not many. Dairy. Protein and fat. How many carbs? Not many. See what I say?
So I'm not saying you never eat from the plant kingdom. I'm not saying that. After the 30-day reset, you introduce plants back, the good ones. I'm not big on grains. I think we overdo it on grains, but I'm not suggesting you could never have it again. If you have autoimmune or you have other issues, you just be very careful. Any breads or cereals or whatever, you just be very careful. Okay? So that's where I come. And Jamie, we love you. A good buddy of mine. Smart. Okay. Smart, smart, smart. Now then he's saying, okay, "how do I stay handsome like Dr. Martin?" Jamie, I told you, you need glasses. Okay.
Okay then Carl is asking a very similar question in the sense that he says, "wondering if you have any info on how much protein I should have for someone with COPD?" Okay. Well, again, I'm not going to give you a number, a gram of protein, maybe for every pound of weight you are, but I don't have that as a rule of thumb. When someone's in the gym, someone that is really in tremendous shape, you might worry more about measuring that. I'm not into that as much. I'm more of a generalized. So for COPD, okay, protein's got to be king. You don't want to, for any reason, by the way, you want to cut your sugars down to almost nothing. You don't need that stuff. You can have carbohydrates, but I wouldn't have sugars with COPD really, really minimize your bread because here's what I found with COPD. Just specifically Carl for you. With COPD, here's generally what I found over the years. You have a major fungus, a major candida in the lung, almost invariably. And I understand there's fibrosis in there and different, but there's usually starts leaky gut, leaky lungs. And I'm really big on not feeding the bears. Candida loves sugar, so cut it out. Protein, yeah. I'm not going to tell you a number, Carl, because I don't do that generally. Okay. But live on eggs, meat, and cheese. How's that? EMC. EMC. Okay?
Shelley, "65-year-old man that has been eating meat and green veggies only since having a mild heart attack nine months ago." Okay. "He lost 10 pounds and is at a decent weight. Question, how does he get rid of tummy weight? Is that insulin stalling his progress?" Maybe. "His triglycerides is 1.23 and HDL is 1.31." Pretty good. Okay. Yeah, it's pretty good. That's a good ratio. I like what you're doing or he's doing, Shelley. You can tell him that. I like lower triglycerides than the HDL. That is a big indicator. And his A1C is 5.1. Well, that's very good. That's very good of having that low A1C. So I would tell you it's probably not his insulin on the belly fat. I think it's more of ... It may be residual and he hasn't lost it yet. He's eating a very low carb diet, which I really like, especially after a heart attack.
And the other thing is that it could be his cortisol. Cortisol will give you belly fat. So his stress hormone. Again, I don't know him, Shelley, so I'm just making suggestions. You're asking the question, how does he raise his HDL? Well, here's how you raise HDL. First of all, HDL will usually go up when your triglycerides are going down. So focus more on triglyceride. How do you lower triglycerides? How do you lower fat balls? That's what triglycerides are. They're fat balls. Okay. Well, you empty the liver. How do you empty the liver? Low carb. So focus in on the atriglycerides because it's like a teeter totter. As triglycerides go down, generally speaking, HDL goes up. So he's got good HDL. You want to get it elevated more, lower the triglycerides more. And that's with food, generally with food.
Now, here's a few things just on HDL. No alcohol. You almost got to be a teatotaler. High DHA. Okay. Elevates your HDL. Vitamin E, exercise, especially getting stronger, elevates your HDL. So exercise, go for a walk. All those things are exercise. You know me, I'm big on getting strong. Get stronger. Always work on getting stronger. I don't care if you're eating, get stronger. Always work on that. To be able to get yourself off the floor if you had to. Get yourself out of a chair. Get stronger. I mean, what happens with the muscle in your body? It is the most powerful endocrine organ that you have. The more we study muscle, the better it is. Okay. Now, okay Avoid alcohol and smoking healthy fast. So that's when you're eating eggs, meat and cheese. That's why when you eat low carbs, triglycerides go down. But when you eat eggs, meat, and cheese, your HDL goes up. Okay? So that's what I would do. That was Shelley.
Okay. Patricia, she has dupuytren contracture. You know what that is? Trigger finger. Calcified. Okay. Tendon in the hand. Here's the number one reason that look, you get trigger finger because a lot of times it's gripping, you're using that. It's an occupational hazard for some people. But here's what I found with dupuytren contracture. Usually almost invariably it was caused too by glycation. Insulin, too much sugar. It glycates the tendon. Okay. There's a good example of glycation. And I used to show a patient, work it, work it, work it, never stop, don't stop using that thing and break it down, break it down. Okay. But when it comes to diet, cut out the sugar. It makes a big difference because sugar glycates. Sugar damages tendons. Sugar damages joints. Sugar damages skin. Sugar damages eyeballs. Sugar damages circulation. Sugar is toxic. You don't need it. Okay? Usually what I found again, I think I'm right about this because I had a lot of clinical experience. I saw dupuytren contracture, trigger finger a lot in my office. Okay? Okay. And some people are more susceptible to it than others. I just don't only blame it on diet, but it is certainly a factor.
I think I answered everything. Nellie was asking about gluteus tendinopathy, both hips, bursitis on the left, no fun. "Is this caused by lower estrogen?" It may be a factor, but generally, no, that's not. It's wear and tear. Bursitis and tendinopathy, especially in the glutes. It's an area of injury. We sit way too much and we're not strong in our hammies. We need to get our hamstrings very strong because usually with those tendinopathies and remember the hips, they got very little blood supply. They're avascular and that's why you see so much damage to hips. Anywho, okay. I think I answered everything. I think I did. Okay.
Okay, guys. If I missed anything, would you let me know? I'll answer it. Okay guys, we appreciate you guys sending in all your questions. We love you dearly. You're so unreal. Okay? What an audience we have. I just got to boast about it because the most interactive audience in podcasting business is ours. I've never heard of a podcast that has much Q&A and people giving good advice is our podcast. Okay? Aren't you wonderful? Again, like I said, I give you honorary PhDs, my audience. You deserve it. Thanks for making this such a successful program. We appreciate that. Without you, where would we be? Okay. If you can't get with us live, then make sure you download The Doctor Is In Podcast on your favorite smart device. Okay? We appreciate that. And if you get a chance, you can share this. If you do, then it makes it even more successful. Okay? That's what you can do. Show us a little love by doing that. Okay, talk to you soon.
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