562. Q&A With Dr. Martin

THE DOCTOR IS IN Podcast


Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.

Today’s topics include:

  • Reducing risk of blood clots
  • Importance of drinking water
  • HDL cholesterol
  • Colostrum and its benefits 
  • Vitamin K2
  • Nutritional yeast
  • High potassium in the blood
  • Glaucoma

...and more!

Tune in to hear Dr. Martin’s responses!

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:  Good morning everyone. Once again, welcome to another live. Hope you're having a great day and we're question and answer Friday. So this is from last week. I didn't get to all the questions last week because I got on a rant. But let me just, Mimi is asking about, "Read somewhere that olive oil turns carcinogenic in high temperature. Is that true?" No, it doesn't. Olive oil has a very high smoke point, meaning that it doesn't denature. Okay? There are oils that are no good, and that's for sure. But olive oil is a great oil. Okay? I just can't think of anything negative about olive oil. Get the extra virgin cold press. Apparently, olive oil has been denatured to some extent by companies where they dilute that oil. It's in a dark bottle, very dark, don't want light at it. But olive oil is a good oil to cook with, it really is. Okay?

Edmund, I don't think I touched this last week, was asking about what is recommended to reduce the risk of blood clots. Well look, there's a couple of things. I love Navitol because Navitol increases your nitric oxide. Okay? Nitric oxide is what opens up your blood vessels, allows for a much better blood flow. I'll tell you the other thing, and I might even have mentioned this last week, I don't remember. Water. You got 60,000 miles of blood vessels one and a half times around the equator, in your body. And the life of the flesh is in the blood. You want the river to move through the blood vessels. Don't be dehydrated, and only water is water. And a lot of people are severely dehydrated.

Veera is asking, "Is tinfoil dangerous to use?" No. It maybe not be perfect, but we live in a world like, are you going to get away from everything? No, no. I'm not too worried about it. Okay? I'm not too worried about it.

So Patsy's asking, "What does your body do with extra cholesterol?" Remember, your body can't live without cholesterol. Okay? And I don't care, I'm going to repeat it a million times. Cholesterol is good for you. Your body makes 85% of your cholesterol. Your diet produces the other 15. There ain't no extra cholesterol. Your body will take all the cholesterol you're eating. And remember, cholesterol is only found in the animal foods. It's not in the plant kingdom. That doesn't mean plants are no good. It just means don't fool yourself by thinking if you are a vegetarian or a vegan, "Oh, cholesterol, I'm low." That's where that stuff came from. That's where the nonsense came from. Cholesterol is the boogeyman. No, it's not. So your body will take all the extra cholesterol. Okay? It needs it. It needs it. So it's not all the extra fat piling up and blocking your arteries because Patsy, that's not how you get heart disease.

As a matter of fact, the higher your cholesterol is, the HDL. Okay? The higher that is the better it is for your blood vessels. Remember what clogs up your arteries. It's not cholesterol, it's triglycerides. That is fat that is produced from carbs, sugars. That's biochemistry 101. It's amazing how hook, line and sinker the whole world went on the idea that cholesterol is bad for you. No it ain't. You want to die young, lower your cholesterol. You'll die young. Your brain needs cholesterol, your cells need cholesterol, your skin needs cholesterol. You need cholesterol to help synthesize your vitamin D for heaven's sakes. Ladies, your hormones, they transferred your hormones through the blood vessels. Cholesterol is FedEx. I don't mind you asking the question because I'm just going to repeat. That's all right. I have to deprogram people. They need to be deprogrammed.

Even in this day and age, I did a session a couple of weeks ago, I said the cardiologists have doubled down. For those who are speaking out about the nonsense of cholesterol, lowering cholesterol, they get slapped by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. I know for a fact, cardiologists, at least in my province, they are pretty well told to give out statin drugs. But what if the cholesterol is normal? I still got to give them out if the person has had a heart attack. Cholesterol lowering medication. Okay? Good question.

Diane is asking, "Can you talk about colostrum and its benefits?" Well, when you breastfeed a baby, colostrum is what you give the baby. You get that in the first, about six weeks of breastfeeding, the baby gets its colostrum from mommy. You make it naturally. And baby benefits. Colostrum is especially good for the immune system. Now, what about the supplement colostrum? The idea is that nature gives it to you in mama's milk. If you want to take it as a supplement, I got no problem with it, but you're better off taking probiotics and that in my opinion, than colostrum. Colostrum's very important for a baby in the early, early months of its life. And Diane was saying, "Does it prevent leaky gut?" In the baby, it probably helps. Good question, Diane.

Lees, "Does taking our increasing K2 help with preexisting conditions?" Well, you know I love K2. K2, it's job, vitamin K2, is often confused with vitamin K1. So let's just refresh your brains, guys. K1 is found mostly in the plant kingdom. So when you eat spinach, you eat anything green, you get vitamin K1. What does that do? Well, it helps with blood clotting. Okay? It's certainly good for you. Vitamin K1 is good for you. Now, some doctors will say, if they're going to get surgery or whatever, avoid K1.

And people confuse that with vitamin K2, which is completely different. Vitamin K2, the highest sources are found in cheese curds and butter, it takes calcium out of your bloodstream. This is why we add it to our vitamin D. Vitamin D helps your bones. Everybody knows that. That's all doctors think vitamin D does, by the way. But you want to that calcium to your bones, not leave it in your bloodstream. So that's why I never was big on calcium tablets or anything like that. You eat your calcium. I'm not saying calcium's no good for you. Calcium is very good for you, but you don't need it in a supplement. Eat it. But K2, if you got hardening of the arteries or whatever, it's calcium built up. You want vitamin K2 because it takes calcium. That's why I love cheese, guys.

"Dr. Martin, why do you have cheese?" Well, it's full of cholesterol, it is full of vitamin K2. What about butter? Yeah, butter. leave the bread alone and butter. Put butter on your steak. Cook with butter. Butter's good for you. It's got vitamin K2. Okay? So what is my thoughts on nutritional yeast? I got no problem with it. Again, it's a supplement. You can take it, it's got your B vitamins. You know what? You want you to B vitamins, eat steak, eat hamburger, and leave the bun alone. You're going to get all your B vitamins, plus B12. Nutritional yeast will give you a little bit of B12, but that's for the mice. You need more B12 to not. Eat steak, vitamin S. Okay?

And guys, somebody asked me this the other day. When I say steak, do I mean roast beef too? Yep. Vitamin S is broad for me because I'm talking about red meat, like even hamburger. Somebody said, "Well, doc, I'm not rich. I want to do the reset." Well get some hamburger meat. There's nothing wrong with hamburger. It's the bun that kills you. Hamburgers got a lot of B12. Steak's a little bit of higher on the food chain for sure. But listen, it's all good. Okay? What else was that someone, on nutritional yeast. Oh no, but it's on the B12. I want to bring this up here again. Where do they see this?

Roselinda, "Can you explain the difference between methylcobalamin and cyanocobalamin?" Okay. Well methyl, and always look for that on a B12, methyl is the one that your body absorbs. Okay? Cyano is one that your body has a very hard time absorbing. It's usually found in the cheaper B12s, is the cyanocobalamin. Okay? And it's a molecule that's different. B12 is a very finicky vitamin to start off with. It is a large structure vitamin. Okay? Biochemistry wise. Hard to absorb, B12. And that's why so many people are deficient in it. I say that there's an 80% population deficiency of B12.

As a matter of fact, I was looking at some blood work yesterday and I was telling that patient, they had blood work of B12 around, I think it was about 1100. And of course it's flagged as high. I said, "Well, first of all, blood tests for B12 are a 100 years old." They should have a birthday party and put it to bed because they say that's high. Well, it's optimized. It's like vitamin D, guys. You want to optimize your vitamin D, you want to optimize your B12. Okay? Good question. Okay, they're all good questions. Now here, let me just get back to where I was. Okay, I answered that.

Douglas is asking a good question, "When you're doing the reset, your liver is being detoxed. Where do the toxins go?" Well, your body's smart. That's why generally, Douglas, you have what we call the lymphatic system. Okay? What our lymphatics? Lymphatics are your lymph nodes and your lymph system. It's a circulatory system that takes your toxins out of your body. Okay? You have lymph nodes under here, you have lymph nodes here, you have lymph nodes in your gut. And that is a circulatory system that gets rid of garbage. So that's where it goes. Your body's smart, knows exactly what to do. And look, I just lay it out there a little bit. Especially when they see cancer, they want to know if, and there's two schools of thought, okay? I just want to give you mine, a little. When they say, "Oh, we're checking out your lymph nodes to see," because doctors believe that cancer spreads through the lymph nodes.

No, I think your body's getting rid of cancer through your lymph nodes. Okay? Again, it's two schools of thought and I understand their training. They look at that, that cancer is going to spread through the lymph nodes. Your body knows what to do with cancer if you help it out. Okay? And your lymph nodes, your body will drain the toxins and the cancer cells and the bad debris. What we found out in the brain, in the last few years, we didn't learn this in school. You know what science is, guys? Science is observation. So when they tell you the science is settled. "Oh, the science is settled." Science is never settled. It's never settled. What we knew about nutrition in the 1970s, I was a guru in the 1970s. I took 2000 hours of nutrition. Nobody was, in those days, learning nutrition. Very few. Even today, very few. It's amazing.

Medical school don't teach nutrition. They should, but they rarely ever do. You know what I do every day? I read, I study, I'm looking. That's science, because we knew about the lymphatic system. You know what we didn't know? We didn't know that the brain had its own lymphatic system called the glymphatics. The brain detoxes itself. Isn't that amazing? It's called the glymphatic. We didn't get that in school. I didn't know there was glymphatic. So that's science guys, always reading, observation. The more powerful our microscopes become. Listen, when I was in school, the blood-brain barrier, we hardly knew how it worked. Blood-brain barrier? What we know about the gut, what we know about leaky gut, what we know about bacteria today, we're still learning, every day, every day.

Someone was asking, let me get the question here, about bacteria, while I'm on it. Carolyn, "I've heard if you've destroyed your gut microbiome, you'll never get it back to its natural healthy state. Is that true?" No, it's not true. But if you don't do anything about it, it's true. So let me just give you one example. You take an antibiotic, sometimes you have no choice. Take an antibiotic. Five days, all your good guys are wiped out. Now your body's smart. It will help you to, even through some fermented foods or whatever, but you're never going to get it fully back. Your body compensates to some extent and you're not going to drop dead right there on the spot from not having enough friendly bacteria. But you do change the microbiome unless you replenish.

And someone was asking the other day, it may be here, I can't remember now, "How long should I take probiotics?" Forever. I take probiotics every day. Why? Well because what we know about the bacteria and what we know about good bacteria, it's essential. You ain't going to get enough of it. You need trillions of good bacteria. And we live in an environment, we live in a world. Even with the hand sanitizers, you got on your skin, you have bacteria everywhere. And a lot of it is on your side, and you need to replace that all the time. So very, very good question.

Renee is asking, "Can you discuss low cortisol?" Well look, low cortisol or high cortisol, again, it's a two edged point. Okay? People tell me that, and I want to grab their little face Renee, and say, "You think you're opposite of someone with high cortisol." It's not opposite. It's like hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, and hyperglycemia, high blood sugar. It's the same cause. It is the same cause. You have trouble with insulin if you have hypoglycemia or hyper, it doesn't matter. You and carbs don't get along.

Now. What is low cortisol? Well, you can have adrenal exhaustion and now you have low cortisol. You need to balance your cortisol. Whether it's high or whether it's low, it needs to get balanced. It's not like you're trying to increase your cortisol, you need to balance your cortisol. And people with chronic fatigue syndrome or whatever, it's high, high, high, then it goes low, low, and their adrenals are exhausted. But the fix is the same. The fix is the same. And you need to fix the diet, and this is why our cortisol formula is one of the most popular formulas in North America. It's a big issue today, high or low. Okay, let me just see here.

Okay. Theresa is asking the question, "Is it true that we shouldn't drink any liquids with our meals?" No, that's not true. Now, I wouldn't drink 10 glasses of water to lower your acid in your stomach. Okay? But actually, I talked to you about coffee. It acts just like the drug Metformin if you drink it before and with your meal. I often order a coffee. I'll have to have a decaf at night. I can't drink. But I know what coffee does, that coffee is very good. But water too. I mean, you want to produce a lot of saliva and this is part of the digestive tract, and some people need less water than others to digest. But having some liquid, I wouldn't overdo it, but you definitely need it. Water doesn't dilute your digestive enzymes or anything like that. It really doesn't. Now I guess if you had two gallons of it, it might, but it doesn't. Okay?

Yvonne is saying, "What would you do if you have potassium in the blood?" Well, you better have some potassium in your blood. I'm assuming Yvonne, if your potassium is too high, now that's different. That's kidney. You've got a kidney issue, which usually comes from sugar. Your kidneys are stressed and your potassium levels can go up, and that can be very dangerous for your heart. You can have a heart attack with your sodium, potassium and potassium, magnesium levels, you can have a heart attack because they have a big effect on the electrical grid of your heart. But that's usually a kidney issue. Now sometimes medications will do that. High blood pressure medications and that, put an enormous stress on the kidneys. You've got to watch your electrolytes, like potassium and that. Okay?

Wendy is asking, "What causes cysts and benign tumors on the kidneys?" Well, look, I mean, you can get a tumor. It's usually, Wendy, it can be several things. But here's a couple of things just to keep it in mind. Okay? When you have a growth of any kind, benign or cancerous, here's what makes things grow, insulin, estrogen. Insulin, that's food, and estrogen, both men and women. And one of the things, Wendy, that we see so much more tumors, even on the thyroid or on the kidneys, on the liver and whatever, one of the reasons we see so much of it today is the amount of insulin because we're carboholics and insulin makes things grow, grow, grow. And estrogen. Estrogen, every chemical.

Can I do a little rant? You know the masks that you buy? It's going to be an environmental hazard. They're made from plastic. You've got plastic right across your face. That's going to elevate your estrogen. See my blood pressure, the virus, the virus, the virus. And nobody's thinking of a long-term anything. There's hundreds of millions, if not billions, of masks that had been produced. I should have been in the mask business. Can you imagine the amount of money companies are making, making masks? You think they're ever going to get rid of masks? I don't think so. Part of the new normal, because you have a whole industry making them. Don't put any of that plastic around a kid. Oh, it drives me crazy, guys. Drives me crazy. That stuff's being absorbed in your body. We got enough plastic. Wendy, that's what elevates estrogen. Estrogen makes things grow, grow, grow, just like insulin makes things grow, grow, grow. Now my blood pressure has gone up.

The unintended consequences. I think I'm going to write a book. The unintended consequences of the last year, unreal. And especially for kids, I got no patience when kids are being attacked and kids can't go to school and kids, kids, kids. Okay, sorry. I'm going on my little rant. I got to get back to these questions.

Kathy, you asked the same question on the cyst on the thyroid. Fatima, good question. The DUTCH hormone tests or the CHI, do I like them? Look, yes, you can get them done. I got no problem with that. But I'm going to tell you one thing about hormones, and I use to test them all the time. Cortisol, estrogen, progesterone, we did it all. But I never relied on those tests as much as I relied on symptoms. Hormones, symptoms. They trump all testing. Okay? I'm not against getting tested. You want to get tests done, get them done. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck.

I've had thousands of patients over the years, "My doctor said my hormones are just perfect." Yeah, but that's because they're relying on blood work and testing. What are your symptoms? I want to know. Okay? Good question, Fatima.

Gabriela is putting fruit in water to add flavor. Does that add sugar? Well look, it gives you a little bit of flavoring if you just... does it add sugar? I think if you let it sit there for a couple of days with... a fair amount of sugar. So look, I know a lot of people are into flavoring their water, but look, it's not the unpardonable sin, Gabriela. Okay? You add a little bit of fruit to water, just to give it a little flavor. Look, it's not the unpardonable sin. Is it the best thing? Probably not.

How much salt is too much? Not too much. Don't worry about salt. The only time salt elevates your blood pressure, okay, is when you don't drink enough water. Because you know what elevates your blood pressure? It's not salt, it's sugar. Don't blame salt for what sugars do. Again, the only time salt will ever elevate your blood pressure is if it's in blood that is dehydrated. So the key is to drinking water, then add as much salt as you like. Salt is good for you. And use a good salt, Himalayan or a good sea salt. Okay? Because they're full of minerals. That's the way salt is. Table salt, the problem with just straight sodium chloride is it's been stripped of all its minerals. Okay?

Faye is saying, "I got sensitivity to different smells. After chemo it happened." Yeah. And you know what? Will that ever come back, Faye? Look, I'm big on eating a lot of vitamin S, steak. Why? Because then you get zinc and B12, a lot of times Faye. But you might've tried all that. And is it going to come back? Maybe, maybe not. Okay? But that's the best thing. Anytime you think of smell or tastes and sensitivities, it could be leaky gut, for sure, and it can be a deficiency in B12 and zinc, found in steak. Okay?

Donna wants to discuss glaucoma. Well that's pressure. Glaucoma is pressure. It's blood vessels. If you look in behind an eyeball, I used to do that quite a bit, and I'd look in there and I'd see the 401, the 407, all those highways. Those are little blood vessels and capillaries and all that in the back of your eyes. Your eyeballs is blood vessels. That's why DHA is so good. High DHA is one of the best things. I love it in combination.

I was telling an optometrist this the other day. The best thing for your eyes is high DHA oil for those blood vessels and Navitol. I'd put those two things ahead of bilberry, all the other stuff that you've ever done. And I got clinical experience because I used to deal with optometrists and I'd say, "Man, switch from giving them bilberry or whatever." And I'm not saying that stuff's no good, but you want something better? High DHA oil, Navitol. Eyeballs, unbelievable. What happens in glaucoma? Okay? And diabetic retinopathy and cataracts. That's all circulation, guys. It's insulin. It's sugar. Sugar destroys blood vessels. The first thing that it does, first thing that it does, it'll go after your blood vessels. That's why diabetics have so much trouble with stuff like that.

Claude is asking. Well, let me do this one first, Margaret, about type one diabetes for a four year old. Well look, it's autoimmune, leaky gut. Help that and then diet. Whether it's type one or type two, the food is the same. They have to be on insulin. Look, they got type one. The pancreas is not working. But they do better when they eat eggs, meat, and cheese. They need protein and fat, protein and fat, and low carb. Better with no carb. Okay? Type one or type two. But type one, they're going to need medication. They got an autoimmune disorder. Happens in the placenta. Leaky gut. Leaky mommy's gut, leaky baby's gut, in the placenta. I'm telling you.

Maria is asking, "Any foods that decrease hot flashes?" Well, you guys know me. I'm a flax seed guy. I love flax seeds. They got lignins, helps to balance your hormones. Flax seeds. You can eat wild yam or whatever too, that's good for you, but I don't eat them. Okay? Flax seeds are better.

Claude's asking workout drinks and protein shakes and amino acids, no carbs, no sugar. Yeah, I'm all right. I like protein drinks. I like bone broth. It's the best protein in the world, collagen protein. But if you can take whey, whey protein's a good drink. I don't like the vegetable protein so much. They're not that complete, like the pea protein or whatever. But Dr. Martin's perfect smoothie. You want to get a workout drink or a post-workout drink? Nothing better than that.

Joy's asking about wearing ankle and wrist weights. Is that weight resistant? Probably not an enough that I would tell you to do. I'm not saying don't do it. When you're walking, that'll help. But you really want to do either steel or those bands that I was showing you yesterday? Okay? Well BCAAs, okay? The branched-chain amino acids, I actually talked about this a few weeks ago. Will that knock you out of ketosis? No, it shouldn't.

Connie's asking, "How does the body react? Is it unhealthy when you switch from burning glucose to burning fat frequently, going back and forth?" Well, I don't recommend it. Your body works much better when you're burning fat as fuel. That's what ketosis is. If you're constantly going back and forth, well you're elevating your insulin, you're elevating your blood sugars. Is it good for you? No. Anytime you're going to, if you're constantly switching, no. The idea with the reset is to get you started on a new program so that you always eat low carb, the rest of your life.

How long does this last doc? Well, the rest of your life. Now, I told you. Once you come off the reset or whatever, and you want to have a spaghetti once a week or whatever, and you're in good shape metabolically, I got no problem with that. You can reward yourself if you're really good metabolically, if you fixed insulin resistance. Doesn't mean you'll never have one piece of chocolate cake the rest of your life. You can reward yourself, but only when you're doing well, metabolically and you know that this was not going, "No, going to have a little piece of it, a little piece of pie, and then I'm not going to eat the whole pie. I'm just going to have a little piece. It's my reward, and then I go back to being very disciplined." You got to have the discipline, man. And this is forever. Good eating this forever. Okay, good question.

Okay, I think I answered all the questions. Good. Okay. So we love you guys. Talk to you next week, Lord willing. And again, the book is available. Okay? So if you haven't got your copy of that, even for your friends, make a wonderful gift. You want to give them a gift of health, give them the book. Okay, love you guys. Talk to you soon.

Announcer:  You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!

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