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 doctor share a lot of information. As awesome as the info, maybe it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin Sr: So welcome to question and answer Friday. Lots of good questions came in the can. I'm going to try and cover most of them. Hopefully you'll find this very practical as we go [00:00:30] through this. There's a couple here this morning that are good. One of them is asking about what about honey? Well, look. We live in a different world today so somebody was asking about coffee or tea. Can I put honey in it? Is it better than sugar? Yeah, it's better than sugar, but just understand this, that honey in this day and age when we have way too many sugars, the average [00:01:00] North American is consuming 200 sugar a year. They don't realize it. They're all hidden sugars. Read your labels. So is honey good? Well, honey is certainly better than sugar, but you know what, I would limit it big time. If you're part of the 88% that have any type of metabolic syndrome, then you need to limit honey.
Dr. Martin Sr: You need to limit maple syrup. It's certainly better. [00:01:30] It's God sugar compared to table sugar, which is just, and high fructose corn syrup, yes, they're much better and they have some prebiotics. Honey has some prebiotics and so does maple syrup. But be very careful because if you're part of that percentage that have any trouble at all with insulin, then you need to limit honey. So it is a little bit better, but be very, [00:02:00] very, very careful. Limit it. Certainly better for children. If you're going to make the muffins or bagels or muffins and different things that you might make for your children, then the honey is, certainly unpasteurized honey or maple syrup to use as a sweetener even in cooking would be better, absolutely. Okay? But again, I'm very big on limiting all sugars, even good sugars [00:02:30] like honey and maple syrup.
Dr. Martin Sr: Another question came in, what is the best water? Well, the best water is springwater, okay? Why is that? Because that's nature's water, springwater. It's better than reverse osmosis. It's better than filtered water. It's the best water because it has a better pH, okay? People have asked, should I spend money [00:03:00] on alkaline water? Springwater is alkaline water. It's already alkaline. So I like springwater. I use springwater. I drink springwater, okay? Now, filtered water, if you have, for example, you might have a water machine as part of your fridge and it filters the water, you need to filter water. I wouldn't drink tap water. Don't do that because of the... I know in summary they use about 1,200 chemicals in our hometown [00:03:30] in the water and, look, they say it's safe to drink. I don't like it.
Dr. Martin Sr: So I drink spring water. But if you have filtered water in your refrigerator or you use a Brita, takes out the fluoride and all that stuff, well then, okay, it's all right. The way to make it springwater, you can do it yourself [00:04:00] is add a pinch of Himalayan salt to it. Now you have 84 minerals that you've added to the water and so you can have filtered water, but I would recommend making it a little bit more alkaline by putting a little sprinkle of Himalayan salt, okay?
Dr. Martin Sr: Another question came in on the carnivore diet and the Atkins diet. What's the difference? Well, there's not a [00:04:30] lot of difference in the Atkins diet of the 1970s. Remember, let me just give you a little history of Atkins. Dr. Atkins was a cardiologist. He wasn't a dummy. A lot of people, especially when he came up with this diet, and even today, some people will take shots at him because they don't like the way he vilified carbohydrates. But Dr. Atkins was right. He was right because what he was [00:05:00] doing, he talked about lowering your insulin. If you lower insulin, Dr. Atkins said, because he was a cardiologist, he said that he could lower your triglycerides, elevate your good cholesterol and would be very heart-healthy. Well, he was right.
Dr. Martin Sr: So when you hear about the carnivore diet, the keto diet, well, the carnivore diet is very similar to the one that I recommend in terms of [00:05:30] doing a reset, eggs, meat and cheese. I get people in the office that are going, "Do you mean eggs and meat and cheese and only eggs, meat and cheese?" Yeah. Did you not hear me the first time? Yeah, eggs, meat and cheese. Do a reset. I'm going to come up with this very soon about all of the reasons you want to do this. Is it the carnivore diet? I guess it's part of it. I have my own reset [00:06:00] and we before the carnivore diet and at the time of Atkins, and remember, the Martin Clinic has been around a long time and I had been talking low carb for many, many, many years.
Dr. Martin Sr: The reason is because I'm a low insulin guy. Insulin is a food hormone. Insulin is a hormone that is overused today. It's the biggest problem, [00:06:30] that and leaky gut, are the biggest problems in medicine today. Elevated insulin or insulin resistance is a huge factor in cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, dementia, obviously diabetes, autoimmune, aging, anything that you literally could think of, insulin has a big effect on it. So the Martin Clinic, we've [00:07:00] been talking about low carb diet for years and years and years. We've written several books about it. Even the book on cancer, Are You Built for Cancer? We had a very, very, very low carb diet associated with reducing your risk of cancer.
Dr. Martin Sr: So yes, I am a big fan of these low carb diets including keto and keto has been around [00:07:30] for a long time, guys. It's not a new diet. It really isn't. It's been around for years and years. It's just getting popular and, well, Atkins diet was a keto diet and so what is ketosis? Ketosis means your body is burning fat instead of carb. Your body has two gas tanks. You're either going to burn fat or you're going to burn carbs and carbs is the, when you... It's like, [00:08:00] think of your body as a wood stove. If you eat carbs, it's paper and twigs. It's kindling. It will burn that first. But when you eat a high protein, high fat diet, you're putting logs on the fire. So if you lower your carbs enough, your body has to burn another fuel. It will burn fat. It will burn fat as fuel.
Dr. Martin Sr: So that's what ketosis is. That's what the Atkins diet is. That's what the carnivore [00:08:30] diet does. It puts you into a ketonic state, which is very, very, very, very, very good for you, okay? There's nothing negative about it except that it is restrictive. Because variety isn't the spice of life, not when it comes to your health, it isn't. Variety isn't the spice of life. I want to eat 100 different things. [00:09:00] You know what I tell my patients in the office all the time? I tell them, "You know what, you got a problem metabolically. You either got diabetes or you got a high risk of heart disease or cancer or you already have cancer or you already have heart disease, you already have a fatty liver, you might already have autoimmune disorder. You've got high levels of inflammation. So change your diet."
Dr. Martin Sr: [00:09:30] It's the number one thing you need to do and what I tell people to do is rope in your diet. Rope it in. Live within. You don't need to eat 50 different things, okay? Animals don't. Why do you? Because, "Oh, I get tired of eating steak." Why do you get tired of eating steak? Don't get tired of it. I have bacon and eggs, [00:10:00] what, four or five mornings a week. Somebody asked me the other day, "Aren't you tired of it?" No, I like it. I've been eating peanut butter since I'm a kid. Don't I ever get tired of it? No, not really. Okay? So I'm a low carb guy. Always have been. So just understand that. You get tired of eating roast beef? No. I don't. Have 100 [00:10:30] eggs a week. It'll only help you.
Dr. Martin Sr: So the idea is that's the idea. You've got digestive problems, rope in your diet. Quit eating salads and vegetables all the time. You're not a cow with four stomachs. You're a human being. You're not a rabbit, okay? So that's where I come from, guys. I know you know [00:11:00] that, but I got to reemphasize it all the time, all the time, all the time, okay?
Dr. Martin Sr: So intermittent fasting. Okay, because a lady asked a question, what about intermittent fasting? Do you know? I hear it's not good for you because it will put you into starvation mode. No, it won't. It'll be just the opposite. Intermittent fasting, let me explain it again for those who don't know what it is, intermittent fasting is if, for example, [00:11:30] you stop eating at 6:00 at night, you don't eat until 6:00 the next morning. You've gone 12 hours without eating, okay? Well, if you push it past 12 hours and go to 8:00 in the morning, for example, even better, 10:00 in the morning, even better, noon, even better. Now you've gone 18 hours of intermittent fasting. Anything over 12 hours, preferably [00:12:00] 14 hours because at, and then 16 hours or 18 hours, then you might have to work your way up to it.
Dr. Martin Sr: But why is that so good for you? First of all, your body does not... You're not a bear, okay? You will not go into hibernation mode and store fat. As a matter of fact, it's just the opposite. You will burn fat as fuel in intermittent fasting, okay, one. [00:12:30] Two, it's very antiinflammatory. Three, it helps to correct, and this is probably the most important thing, it helps to correct insulin resistance, okay? So what happens if you're a carboholic? You develop an outer coding on your cells. This is insulin resistance. You almost have a double coding on your cells. That is insulin resistance. Your cells [00:13:00] hate the presence of insulin. They resist it. Insulin has to take sugar out of your bloodstream. It has to. Sugar is so toxic. Your body controls its sugars.
Dr. Martin Sr: The last thing that it will ever let you do is get your sugars under control, either high or low. So what does insulin do? Insulin will take your [00:13:30] sugar and store it. But when you have been a carboholic and you have eaten for years and years too much sugar, and even children, they have insulin resistance. They're not immune to it. So what all that is is now your cells will respond to insulin. But they develop ano outer coding that... But insulin will say, "Well, look, I got to do my [00:14:00] job whether you liked me or not. I'm just going to pour more insulin at you. I'm going to pour a more insulin at you. I have to do my job," and that's what insulin resistance is and eventually that will lead to diabetes, but it leads to almost every other disorder that you can think of.
Dr. Martin Sr: So when you do intermittent fasting, you actually lower your insulin resistance [00:14:30] at the cellular level. That is why we have been pushing for a long time intermittent fasting. It works. Now, look, if you're a diabetic, you don't want your sugars to go too low. We recommend that you have your breakfast. We find that diabetics do well with a breakfast, but they can stop eating around 4:00 in the afternoon. Have an early supper. If you can, eat early and then stop [00:15:00] eating until the next morning as a diabetic. There's a lot of ways you can do [inaudible 00:15:06], but you're going to sleep anyways at night, so you might as well use that as a fast. So use that as part of your hours of fasting, but you have to go past 12 hours, actually best at 14, even better at 16 and fantastic at 18, and then I have some of my patients that are doing [00:15:30] what we call in 24 hour fast and that is a couple of times a week. They only eat once in a day. Yeah, they only once in a day and they do well.
Dr. Martin Sr: But guys, one of the tricks to doing this intermittent fasting is you better make sure you get enough protein in your diet, okay? There was a book written back in the 1990s on, it didn't even call it intermittent fasting. So is it good for you? It's absolutely good for you [00:16:00] because at the cellular level, it literally changes your cells. It helps your mitochondria. It helps you to detox. When you're not using insulin, you detox. It's very antiinflammatory. So there's several, several reasons why you could do it. It is so good for you, okay?
Dr. Martin Sr: Now, Amanda was asking about cholesterol and [00:16:30] triglycerides. So let me just teach this again. Cholesterol is not the boogeyman. Cholesterol never caused... Eskimos don't get heart disease. What do they eat? Blubber and fat. They don't even eat the muscle of the seal, all right. They don't eat that stuff, they don't like it. They give it to their dogs. They want fat and organ meat. [00:17:00] They eat the heart, they eat the liver. They eat a lot of fish and they don't know what a heart disease is. When they test Eskimos, triglycerides, they're always very low. Those are bad fats, triglycerides. What are good fats? HDL, good cholesterol. So the only two numbers, if you want to send me your blood work, I am happy to tell you what it means.
Dr. Martin Sr: But let me [00:17:30] tell you only, the only two things, if you show me your LDL, I don't care. You show me your total cholesterol, I don't care. That is made up by the pharmaceutical industry in order to sell Staten drugs, the number one selling drug all time, the Wayne Gretzky of drugs of all time sales is Lipitor, [00:18:00] cholesterol lowering medication that hasn't done one thing to save lives, not one thing. It is a lie. It is not true. What you need to look for is your triglycerides. Those are bad fats. When you get bad fats, when your liver is full of sugar. Yeah. Insulin [00:18:30] stores your carbohydrates, primarily your liver, and when the liver and the suitcase is full, your insulin will make more and more and more storage space by creating more fat.
Dr. Martin Sr: That's why we see so much nonalcoholic fatty liver, but more than that, it will send that fat into the bloodstream as triglycerides. Three [00:19:00] sugars make up a fat ball. What you need to take those fat balls out of your bloodstream is HDL, high density lipoprotein. It is a molecule that... It's a FedEx trucks. It is Canada Post. It's US Post. When it sees the triglycerides, it grabs it and it delivers it out of your body. So the higher [00:19:30] your good cholesterol is, HDL, so don't give me LDL. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Doc, my doctor said that my total cholesterol is bad. That's because that's all they know. They want to put you on medication. I hate to be negative, but it's so true. It doesn't work.
Dr. Martin Sr: Bad cholesterol is triglycerides [00:20:00] and it's food. So what do you do? Lower your crappy carbs and your sugars and your triglycerides will go down. Up eggs, meat and cheese and your good cholesterol. Look, God does not trust you enough to eat enough cholesterol. If cholesterol was bad for you, we'd all be dead. You know why? Because 85% of your cholesterol is made your liver. If you don't [00:20:30] eat enough, if you don't eat enough cholesterol, you are making a big mistake. Now your liver is going to have to produce more than 85% of it. Yes.
Dr. Martin Sr: Cecil is asking a good question. I want to have a regular bowel movement. This is another pet peeve of mine, okay? What's a regular bowel movement? Is their bowel movement police around? You didn't have a regular [00:21:00] bowel movement. That was brought to you by the fiber industry. The poop police. Seriously, I tell people, "Oh, Dr. Martin, I'm constipated." "You are? How do you know that?" "Well, I don't go every day." "Well, maybe you don't have to go every day. How do you feel?" "Oh, I feel good." "Well, then you're not constipated." You know how many people take laxatives? [00:21:30] They get so uptight about how many bowel movements they have. It's craziness. Now, listen, if you really are constipated... You know what, when you eat carbs by the way, you will have usually a regular bowel movement because carbs are sponges. They're full of water. They suck up water and you'll go to the bathroom.
Dr. Martin Sr: Well, why is that so good for you? It's going to elevate your insulin. I know that for a fact. So look, guys, sometimes I tell [00:22:00] my patients, "Look, you're so worried about having the bowel movement and you're eating so much fiber that you've created I think it's one of the biggest factors in creating diverticulosis." Yeah. Actually creating little holes or little trap doors in your bowel. That's diverticulosis. Quit eating so much fiber. You don't need it. It's overrated. [00:22:30] You don't have four stomachs. You're not a cow. Women, salad. Chicken and salad, chicken and salad, salad and chicken, chicken and salad. What do you like? Salad. There's nothing in that. A mouse can't live on salad. There's very little nutrients in there.
Dr. Martin Sr: Okay. Don't get me going. I'm just being stupid. Okay. Somebody's asking about chaga, [00:23:00] chaga tea or just chaga. Chaga is good. I was thinking of the Martin Clinic in 1911. My grandfather, David Martin, his brother Paul, they started the Martin Clinic in 1911. You know what, where would they get their medicine? Well, they'd have to... My dad used to tell me stories about my grandfather. He had all these potions. I wish I would've kept half of them, but he had all these potions that they were herbologists. [00:23:30] They go in the bush and they would make teas and my grandfather would make ointments from hemorrhoids to cancers ointments. I remember some of the stuff my dad showed me. Wow. It was incredible.
Dr. Martin Sr: But you can imagine like. I mean, there was no antibiotics or things like that back in 1911. What did they do? Well, [00:24:00] obviously they were really, really way ahead of their time. It's like the native population, the first nations. Were they? They had their remedies. They used plants and theyd use leaves and bark. When you look at the story of pine bark, it's a Canadian story that actually started with [Jean Carche 00:24:23]. It's a tremendous story. I love pine bark. So [00:24:30] what about chaga? Well, chaga is good. Is it good for everything? I think so. It's very good. So I like pine park. I'm a pine bark guy, okay? Because I can tell you clinically what it has done over the years. So tremendous, tremendous. It's so, so very good for you.
Dr. Martin Sr: Okay, so thanks for watching today. I'm going to try and do this on Fridays. [00:25:00] Have your question Fridays and a question and answers. So send in your questions. I'll try and answer them on a timely basis on Fridays. Love you guys.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin, Jr. And Sr. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening.