In today’s podcast, Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Today’s session includes questions about:
- The difference between DHA and cod liver oil
- A1C and high circulating insulin
- Leaky gut
- Inflammation and calcification
- Prostate health
...and more!
Tune in to hear the questions and answers!
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 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 question and answer Friday. Lots of questions came in and we're happy to go over these with you. Susanna is asking, "What's the difference between DHA and cod liver oil?" Okay. Now, they're both fish oils. They're both very good for you. As a little guy, I used to get, not that I would go and get it myself, but I remember my mother, even my grandmother giving me cod liver oil. The reason that they gave it to you in those days was for a condition called rickets, which is bowing of the legs. So they wanted to strengthen your bones and they give you cod liver oil. Little did they know how good cod liver oil was for your immune system because it contained vitamin D and vitamin A. Cod liver oil.
DHA is a long chain fatty acid, very specific found in steak and fish. The problem with DHA, okay, so if you go to the store and you go buy official oil, all fish oil is good, but some are much better because they're high in DHA. DHA is the most bioavailable of the fats and your brain is made up of DHA. So cod liver oil, good. High DHA oil, much better. I got no problem with cod liver oil. I guess I would bring cod liver oil and give it to all the kids in school even today, because they don't get enough vitamin A, because they don't eat well, and vitamin D. You're not going to get a high amount of vitamin D in the cod liver oil, but it's good for you. It's a tremendous oil.
But if you got a kid or whatever with any kind of cognitive, ADD or ADHD, kids that are troubled focusing, concentrating, I give them the high DHA oil. It's so concentrated. The higher the DHA, the better it is. Now, it's good for your heart. It's good for your joints. It's good for inflammation. But specifically, high DHA is tremendous for your brain. It's tremendous for your brain. There are studies out there that show DHA, there's nothing else like it for the brain, and especially in the memory center, the hippocampus. Plus, I like it with curcumin. We showed studies a while back on concussions and high DHA and curcumin. I put patients on post-concussion syndrome on high DHA, because specifically to restore the brain. So very good question. Susanna.
Faye is asking, "If your A1C is normal, can you still have high circulating insulin?" Yes. Yes, you could. Look, A1C, I like looking at it because it gives you... I can tell a person if their A1C is anywhere near 5.8 or 5.7, even around 5.6, I'd tell them, "Look, you're on your way to diabetes. You got to really turn that ship around. You're on the Titanic." What does normal mean? Those are normal numbers. I just gave you 5.6, 5.7, 5.8. Those are normally A1Cs. You can still have very high circulating insulin because the last thing to happen, remember, A1C is an average of your blood sugars. It gives you a good idea about insulin, but it doesn't give you the complete picture of insulin.
So yes, Faye, it's a good question, but you can have what they call normal... It's almost like any blood tests. You get the thyroid, for example, it says, "Oh, I'm normal according to the lab." But the lab isn't you. If you have symptoms of elevated insulin, if you have symptoms of fibroid not working properly, it's not working properly. The lab, I used to tell my staff every day in the office, "Symptoms trump the lab. Symptoms trump the lab." Don't wait for the lab. I like the lab. It's one of the tools you use. Unfortunately, and I've talked to about this many a time, many, many doctors, it's only the lab. They're not listening. Listen to your patient. They have inside information, okay? So that's what I was saying, okay? Good question, though, Faye.
Okay. Francis, "When leaky gut is cured, does that mean everything else will be cured?" Like anything autoimmune, so here's the Martin Clinic, leaky gut, leaky skin, leaky gut, leaky lung, leaky gut leaky brain, leaky gut, leaky joints. Any autoimmune, any autoimmune, MS, I think Parkinson's is auto immune, but some people... I got to answer a question about Parkinson's. So look, you get rid of leaky gut, you are getting that the root of the issue. Does that mean it's going to completely go away? Well, it depends how long it's been there. Some people I'm telling you, I've seen rheumatoid arthritis, I've seen Sjogren's, I've seen MS Get so much better, even put into remission when you fix leaky gut.
But leaky gut, that's what started the whole thing. The problem is now you had a fungal infection and got through your bloodstream and it gets into the brain. It could get into the lungs. It could get into all these things. So if there's scarring, if there's stuff that took place because the leaky gut wasn't corrected early enough, well, you're still probably going to have to deal with it, but it will be much better. Some into remission, but you improve it, you improve it. So it's a very, very good question, Francis. I know you're thinking, when you send a question like that, you want to know that Dr. Martin says that the root of all autoimmune is leaky gut. So fix leaky gut, you get rid of the autoimmune. Very good. It's exactly the way you should think, okay? So I hope I answered your question.
Sylvia, another one. I like this. You guys are listening. Okay. Sylvia says, "If inflammation causes heart disease, okay, then what causes calcification?" Now, Sylvia, there's a step before inflammation, okay? There's a step before that inflammation. Remember, the Martin Clinic is not Houdini. It just doesn't come. There's a reason for inflammation. So you'll read a lot of, even my guru friends, my colleagues they'll say inflammation is at the root of heart disease. Well, it's not really at the root, but it is a big factor. It is a result of something else, though. Either high circulating insulin, which is the number one cause of heart disease, or leaky gut or free radical damage.
So if you put high circulating insulin and free radicals, which is oxidation, okay, that will give you inflammation. Okay. Now, follow this with me, Sylvia. Inflammation then, what it does, one of the first things it does is it damages blood vessels because inflammation is the body's ambulance response and that's all right. If you have an injury or you have an infection, you want the ambulance to respond with more blood, more enzymes, more protein, more... All sorts of things go to the site of the injury. Problem is inflammation when it doesn't go away, it damages... So listen to this now, Sylvia, it damages the lining, the Teflon lining of your blood vessels.
So inflammation caused by insulin and oxidation damages the slippery lining, your Teflon lining of your blood vessels, and then calcification comes. Atherosclerosis comes from that damage. So it is as a result of inflammation, but inflammation didn't come first. Insulin resistance came first, combined usually with oxidation, free radical damage in there. Now you get calcification in the blood vessels. Follow? Okay. Very, very good question, Sylvia. I appreciate it.
Caroline, "Is vitamin D and K2." Okay, we have that. That's our supplement. "Is it safe to take if you're on blood thinners?" Yes, because what you're doing, Caroline, is you're confusing K1 with K2. Vitamin K1 is found in vegetables, in the plant kingdom, especially green leafy vegetables. You ladies and your salad. That's where you get vitamin K1. That thins your blood up, okay? It thins your platelets up. Vitamin K2 found in the animal kingdom, especially in butter and cheese, cheese curds are the highest source of all vitamin K2. What does that do? Vitamin K2 takes the calcium out of your blood vessels.
So listen, let's go back to Sylvia for a minute. Sylvia, one of the things that you would want to do not to get calcification in your bloodstream, remember the damage that's done from oxidation with insulin resistance and inflammation, vitamin K2. I call it the Rodney Dangerfield of vitamins. Why? Because nobody knows much about vitamin K2. You talk about vitamin K1 and that's all right. It's a blood thinner, natural blood thinner. But vitamin K2 is what takes calcium. Like I said to you the other day, guys, in nature, God, that way. You eat cheese, you get calcium. But you don't want calcium in your bloodstream.
You want it to go to your bones. So vitamin K2 takes calcium and puts it in your bones. It puts it where it belongs. You don't want that in your bloodstream. You don't want that sticking around in your bloodstream. So when you have butter... Somebody asked the other day, "What do you do with butter?" Well, put it on your steak. You don't have to have bread to have butter. Cook with butter. Pour it on your steak and your meat. You're getting vitamin K2. Okay. Good question.
Laura, "She has very little thin skin..." Does that mean I can't tease you, Laura? No, it cracks easily, it bleeds easily, it scrapes easily. Well, look, I mean, there's a couple of things. One, I would check for leaky gut. Leaky gut, leaky skin. I would also check for the amount of collagen. What gives elasticity and beauty to skin is collagen, collagen protein. That's why we love bone broth, okay? Collagen. I find when people have very thin skin, I don't mean when I tease them because some people do, for some people, I'm hard to take because I tease them.
Well, I came from a family of 11 kids. We had to have thick skin. Believe me because my siblings, man oh man, we could give it to each other like nobody's business. You learn to be a street fighter. I had three older brothers that pounded the living life out of me and tease me too, okay? But Laura, usually when I see that, they don't eat enough protein and the best proteins are found in eggs, meat, and cheese. Usually when people get that kind of skin, now there could be other factors. Look to the gut and look so the diet, okay? Thank you very much, Laura. Good question.
Kristen, "What to eat after the reset?" Very good question. We have it in the book. What do you do after the reset? Well, look the reset, I mean, it does a lot of things. Fixes your insulin resistance in 30 days, but you can't go back and eat the way you used to, because you're only in remission with insulin resistance, okay? It's like an alcoholic. You can't go back and drink and then, "Oh well, yeah, but I didn't drink for two years." 8Yeah. But now you're messing up again. Now, I'm not saying you have to be on the reset all of your life. Of course you don't. But the idea, and this is one of the reasons that it's a 30 day program, because it's going to enforce, not only fix your liver and get your insulin resistance fixed and blah, blah, blah, lots of things, but one of the things that does it's past the three week mark, now you're into a habit.
Go on our Martin Clinic Facebook group and just scroll, testimony after testimony after testimony. When people do this, they are so conscious now of what a carb is, and they usually don't feel good with carbs. The reason is, I talked to you so many times, it's not keto. Keto is all right, but it's not keto. So please. Because you're eating strictly from the animal kingdom, eggs, meat, and cheese. That is giving you rocket fuel. Keto doesn't give you rocket fuel. It gives you a better fuel than carbs, no doubt about that. You're eating 20 grams or whatever. You might not be in the animal kingdom. You're eating vegetables, no problem.
But listen to what I'm saying. When you have high density nutrition, because I'm going to answer a question because who was it, Marilyn asked, "Give me the complete list of nutrients of steak." You got an hour? It's a good question. But listen, when you are eating eggs, meat and cheese... Somebody asked me today on an email or whatever, "Doc, am I eating too many eggs?" No. "I'm probably having two dozen eggs a week." Well, let's not a lot of eggs. Why don't you have 100? You get what I'm saying. Okay? You get what I'm saying. So after the reset, don't stop eating eggs, meat and cheese. Add some vegetables, add a little bit of fruit, not much, only a little bit. Add some vegetables.
If you're going to cheat every once in a while, you can have a cheat meal. I got no problem with that. One of my goals was for you to be self doctoring yourself. You know what, I felt so stinking good on that. Why would you not want to feel good like that? Listen, it's anti-cancer, it's anti-cardio, it's anti Alzheimer's, it's anti aging, it's anti-autoimmune. All of that. So after reset, yeah. Introduce some veggies, introduce some carbs. Look, every once in a while you want to have a little cheat, but don't cheat a lot. You don't need to. You're not missing anything. You're not missing one thing, not one thing. Okay. So very good question, Kristen.
Let me answer Marilyn's, "Give me the complete list of nutrients found in steak." Okay, okay. Let me give you a couple first and then I'll give you some... The biggest thing in steak, the biggest thing in steak, number one food on the planet, I'm not talking about liver, I'm talking about steak... Number one, very high in vitamin D. You remember when we were talking about cod liver oil, how good it is for you because it's got vitamin A and nobody talks about vitamin A, how good that is, especially for your skin and your eyes. You know what? Carrots don't have vitamin A. Yeah, but Dr. Martin, they're good for my eyes. Not like vitamin A because there's no vitamin A.
They're a precursor. They're called beta carotenes, precursor to vitamin A, but it's not vitamin A. Vitamin A is pro-retinol A and it's founds in eggs, meat, steak especially, and cheese, but steak especially. So vitamin A. Another made famous by COVID, zinc. You don't have to take zinc unless [inaudible 00:19:29] the odd time I give a person zinc, but generally each your steak. The other one, okay, there's an iron in red meat that's not found in anything else. It's not found in the plant kingdom, whatever. It's called H-E-M-E iron, heme iron. Heme iron is the number one... You're never going to overdose on heme iron. You can take iron capsules.
Ladies, a lot of women, anemia. They're low ferritin. They'll take iron capsule. I don't like them. Can I be honest with you? Usually women got it. I know there could be endometriosis. There could be menses, heavy, blah, blah, blah, too much estrogen. I know. But you don't eat enough steak. Now, listen to this. Somebody said to me, "Doc, don't you like a B-complex?" Yeah. I like it in steak because you're never going to get a better complex of vitamin B than in a steak. So Marilyn, you don't need a B-complex. Here's another one and you guys know this, but I'm just going to... Okay, so B-complex but specifically B12, B12. B12 is only found in red meat, steak.
I had so many podcasts just about B12, how important B12 is for you. You can't live properly without B12. Your brain doesn't work without B12. Your nerves don't work with B12. Your memory don't work with B12. B12, doctors have forgot about it. My dad used to give B12 like it was going out of style. But I would rather you eat your B12 unless you're not absorbing it, but that's where do you get it, Marilyn, in steak. Is it in the plant kingdom? No, it's not. So I gave you a list, like all the B, B1, B2, B3, yeah. You don't need to eat cereal to get some B vitamins. They enrich cereal with some B vitamins, meaning they'd everything out and they put some B vitamins in, but there's nothing like steak to give you a B-complex. That's why I'd rather you eat these things.
Zinc, imagine, zinc. Well, they don't give enough of it, but the President of the United States when he got COVID, they gave him the zinc and vitamin D. By the way, there's some vitamin D in steak. It's a complete food. Nevermind the amino acids like L-arginine, L-leucine. These are so good for you and they're really not found in the plant kingdom. So there you go. Okay, there you go. Oh, one more, DHA. Remember we just talked about DHA. Well, Marilyn, DHA is found in steak. As a matter of fact, if you have grass fed beef, there's more DHA in the steak than there is in fish. Who on God's earth would say fish isn't good for? Well, listen, everybody agrees with a fish. Yeah, fish is good for you. I have fish every day in a capsule.
Okay. You know me. I am so passionate about red meat and steak because you're going to hear it every day, every day, every day, every day, I hear it. Every day I get feedback, "My doctor told me not to eat too much red meat because I got heart disease and I got this and I got that, and I got arthritis and cut out the meat." Nonsense, nonsense. It's not science. It's religion.
Okay. Steve has oily skin. Yeah. Some people, their glands... I always look when it's over abundant. Your body's trying, Steve, to compensate. Your skin is what you see, but go inside, go inside. A couple of things that I find with very oily skin, too much estrogen for a man or a woman, oily skin, leaky gut, oily skin, very dry inside. See, the gut and the organs are more dry. Your body is just trying to compensate so it overdoes it. It's like acid reflux. Well, acid reflux is not too much acid. It's not enough so then the body compensates and that's what oily skin is too. So good question, okay?
Now, Fatima is asking about bilirubin. Well, you got liver stress. A lot of times with gallbladder too, it can be a gallbladder issue. But the gallbladder is just a little pouch. It's only reserving a reservoir for bile. Bile is made in the liver. If you've got high bilirubin, you probably have fatty liver. I used to measure bilirubin in the office and I'd say you got fatty liver. You're a carboholic. Okay.
Jerry, "I find eating eggs and cheese on a regular basis enlarges his prostate." Well, Jerry, I don't want to use the word weird because I was told I can't do that anymore, the cancel culture. So Jerry, you're not weird. But you're unique, okay? Because it's just the opposite. What enlarges the prostate is insulin. Now, if for you, you find that that enlarges your prostate, Jerry, well, don't eat them. But you're not going to convince me because I've seen the opposite 99.9% of the time. Because it's insulin and estrogen that enlarges the prostate. Insulin comes when you're eating carbohydrates and sugar. So if you're an exception to that, Jerry, God bless you and you're very unique. Okay. Was I being gracious? Good question, Jerry. I appreciate it.
Nativity, tummy gurgling all day. Well, you know what, Nativity? You got... Well, there's a couple of things. It could be SIBO, S-I-B-O, which medicine calls a bacterial infection in the small intestine. I'm more that it's yeast. So what I would say to you, Nativity, is that it's more fungal. You've got a war going on in there between good and bad bacteria. Look, the other thing, IBS. IBS is when... They give you the diagnosis when they don't know what you got, right? So they say, "Oh, you got IBS." Well, yeah, my bowel, it's talking to me all day long. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to put a diagnosis of, well, your bowel is irritated. Yeah, it's irritated, okay? But by what?
Usually, Nativity, fungal. You got yeast and yeast likes to talk. You know what it wants? It wants sugar. Hey, feed me, feed me, feed me. It may be talking to you. Don't feed it. Don't feed the bears. Let them die out. If it's SIBO, it's still yeast. I mean, it's possible you could have a parasite in the lining of your gut. I mean, there's a lot of... I got to do session on parasites. I haven't talked about parasites for a long time, okay? I'm going to talk about that. Maybe next week, okay, we'll do it.
Louise is asking, when walking, she gets an imbalance. She said, "Would, Navitol help?" Yes, Navitol crosses the blood-brain barrier, opens up your nitric oxides so you're going to get more blood supply into the brain. But here's what I find with an imbalance when you're walking, okay? Usually middle ear, you've got a little almost like a measuring thing that... In an airplane when it tells you, if you're on the instrument panel, well, you have that built inside your ear. So if you're imbalanced when you're walking, it usually could be viral in the ear, okay? Could be a tinnitus in the ear.
Somebody was asking, Monique was saying, "Well, tinnitus, is why do I call that a check engine light?" It's a good question. Any itis that doesn't go away, okay, it is, right? Inflammation of, tinnitus inflammation of the middle ear, tinnitus, long standing. A lot of people suffer with that. It's a sign that your insulin is high. You have insulin resistance at the cellular level and your body is going, "Hello, Louise, I'm talking to you and you're not listening." Could be that. I mean, there's other thing. Like I said, could be viral, could be candida, all the way through your sinus in the middle ear that can sometimes give you imbalance. Here's another one, low levels of vitamin D can give you an imbalance. Low levels of vitamin D, okay? Navitol, yeah, it'd be part of my protocol to help it, okay?
Diane, "What foods irritate the bladder?" Sugar. When you get recurring infections... Okay, I know E. coli and the bacteria, yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand that. But E. Coli only sticks to a bladder that has a yeast infection underneath it. So what foods irritate that? Sugar. Lay off the sugar. No more sugar. Do not feed the bears. Stop. Okay? Good question, Diane. But only one food really irritates the bladder. Now, there are foods that are really good for the bladder, okay? Eggs, meat, and cheese. A lot of people, it's amazing. I put testimony how much better their bladder is. Even Jerry, how much better their prostate is. Getting up in the middle of the night peeing when they lowered their insulin by doing the reset, okay? Good question.
Gail, "Ankle swelling only in the evening." Usually, usually two things. One, only in the evening. So it's not circulation, okay? As much as that can be a sign that you have insulin resistance, one of the signs, ankle swelling. Two, dehydration. Oh doc, I'm drinking water. Yeah. But maybe not enough salt. Our body's smart. Body senses you're dehydrated and it'll hold on to water and don't want to give it out. It want to give it up. A lot of people don't realize they're dehydrated and they don't have enough electrolytes. Salts, you're salty. Remember what we talked about yesterday? They blame salt for what sugar does. Get rid of the sugar. Makes a big difference.
Okay. Deborah, "How does one heal stressed kidneys from too much vitamin D? Well, I think that's a falsehood. I'm not saying it's not possible, but people are not lined up in the emergency rooms with too much vitamin D. It's a ruse. It's not true. Yeah, I guess if you had too much vitamin D, it could eventually stress. But listen, 99.9% of the time, it is because you have too much sugar. Nothing stresses your kidneys more than sugar, not salt and not vitamin D. So well, if it was vitamin D, make sure... That's why we put K2 in our vitamin D to take calcium out of the bloodstream and that will help the kidneys too. But the premise, in my opinion, okay, Deborah, I don't buy it very much unless it's a rare exception.
Wendy, "Is it a dangerous to quit sugar cold turkey?" No. No, it's not dangerous, but it's not easy. I've seen people even on the reset, okay? On the reset, there's no sugar, zero, none. It's not easy because I mean, they're carbolic. My name is Tony and I'm a carbohydrate and a sugarholic and now you have no sugar. Well, your body's changing fuels. It might be angry with you, okay? Especially the yeast inside of you. It will scream at you for a few days, "Where's my food? Where's the food?" So yeah, it's a big adjustment, but it's not dangerous. It's actually good for you. Get off the stinking... Sugar's toxic. Sugar is toxic. Okay. Good question.
Okay, just three more and I'm out of here. Susie, about Parkinson's. Well, I talked a little bit earlier, Parkinson's starts with leaky gut. What they finding in the brain on autopsy with a person with Parkinson's is yeast. Well-established. It's a fungal infection starts in the gut. Two, heavy metals. But remember yeast will carry heavy metals like mercury and lead, cadmium into the brain. So it isn't the heavy metals as much as the carrier. It's fungus, it's yeast. Deadly, deadly. Good question. Okay. So get rid of that.
Margaret, "Granddaughter, six months old. Can you give them a probiotic?" Yeah. Are they being breastfed? Then mommy should take the probiotic. Then baby gets it. If they're bottle fed, you can open up a capsule of 50 billion probiotic, one of ours, and put it in the bottle. It's so good for them. By the way, you know, when you say 50 billion, that's a lot. Yeah. It's a lot, but it's nothing. You got trillions, even a baby has got trillions of bacteria, trillion. Okay.
Lucy, last question, "Is it good to take veggie in capsules?" The veggie greens and the multi... No. Well, look, I'm not telling you not to do it. But I just talked to you about what's better. The animal kingdom's got all the B vitamins. It's got all of everything that I talked about. It has all the nutrients. So I wouldn't spend the money personally on greens or whatever. To me, they're good, but there's better out there, okay? Thank you for...
Okay. So next week, okay, you'll see because we're going to put it on. I am going to be on in the afternoons, okay? I'm going to be on in the afternoons next week. The reason for that is because I got things to do in the morning next week, just next week. Okay, so we're going to be on at 4:00. That's what we're planning for next week, okay? So you're going to look for me in the morning. My regulars, we love it. Just remember for next week, it'll be in the afternoons. If there's any change to that, we'll let you know, okay? Love you guys. Talk to you soon.
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.