597. Caution About Oxalates

THE DOCTOR IS IN Podcast


Oxalates are small molecules that have a tendency to pick up calcium in our bodies. You may have heard of oxalates when hearing about kidney stones. Most kidney stones are oxalates.

Dr. Martin explains how consuming oxalates can really irritate your gut and cause inflammation in the body. As part of The Reset, he wants you to avoid oxalates for 30 days so that your body can be rebalanced.

Listen to today’s episode to hear more about oxalates and lectin, and to learn which foods you should be avoiding!

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. Nice to have you on with us this morning. Hope you're having a great day. We're going to do a little history lesson this morning, okay? Now, I don't know if you know this, you probably don't, but when I was working on my PhD in nutrition, clinical nutrition, one of the things that we did was we studied the history of food. It was really fascinating. I brought you that in a lot of ways, where the world has changed. The flour has changed. The introduction of vegetable oils. Procter & Gamble. I brought that to you. Made a huge change in the world. Then the history of getting rid of cholesterol in our diets, and I brought that to you. One area, I was thinking about this yesterday, because I had read an article on oxalates.

What are oxalates? Oxalates are little molecules, little tiny molecules that have a tendency to pick up calcium in your bodies. You might have heard of oxalates if you hear about kidney stones. Most kidney stones are oxalates. So your body makes them because of oxalates... They're little tiny, almost microscopic, and they pick up calcium and they can form stones, but it's a lot deeper than that. I'll give you a little bit of history about oxalates. That, actually in the 1890s, there was a condition... I don't think I've ever read it other than when I was studying the history of food. Oxalates, there was actually in the 1850s, there was a disorder that was in the medical books, even back then. It was oxalic diathesis. Okay, so let me spell it: O-X-A-L-I-C; diathesis, D-I-A-T-H-E-S-I-S.

Now, I'm not asking you to remember that. I just want to tell you that, in the 1850s, they wrote about a condition that would occur in the summer; really, only occur in the summer, and that is where people were getting ill from eating too much fruits and vegetables. Because not that they couldn't can vegetables in those days and that kind of thing, but when it was fresh, people would eat this stuff, and it actually created a condition. The biggest thing with this diathesis is that not only kidney stones, but they were talking about getting digestive issues.

So what am I saying? One of the reasons that, for 30 days, I do not let you... I do not recommend any fruits or vegetables. Now, you know me. People would never get sick, really, if they lived on two kingdoms: the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom. Really. People would do really well. But we don't live in a world like that because there's a third category of food, and it's manmade. Manmade food from vegetable oils, especially sugars. Well, let me read something that I read. Sugar is found in 74% of packaged goods. If it's in a package, guys, two bad things: one, hydrogenated vegetable oils. You can keep cookies in your cupboard for months. Why is that? If you make cookies and leave them on the counter, you're not going to eat them in a month from now. You put them in the freezer; yes, you could. But if you just left them on the counter, you're eating that usually in a week. But when they put them in a packaged good in the supermarket, there's two bad things: one, 74% of them add sugar, and then, of course, on the label, they lie about their sugars. It's always high fructose corn syrup, but they, "Oh, no, it's malt. It's barley, malt," and they lie, lie pants on fire. That's the food industry. They hide their high fructose corn syrup. It's a terrible sugar, and I've talked about it many times.

The second thing is those vegetable oils, they're hydrogenated. They're not vegetables. They're far from vegetables, but they call them vegetable oils, made of canola oil and safflower oil and peanut oil and all this and that. These things you run your car on. Your body didn't even know what they are. Margarine, vegetable oils. Oh, they got to be good, they don't have any cholesterol. No, that's why they're bad. And plus your body don't even know what they are. Your body doesn't know what high fructose corn syrup is. You know why? Because it was made in a lab, that's why. Your body doesn't know what it is. It metabolizes it completely different. It's sent into your liver in a nanosecond after it starts to destroy your gut.

Now, the reason I'm saying this to you, even good things like plants and fruit, I want you to avoid oxalates for a month. No oxalates. The reason I say it is that oxalates, first of all, they can really irritate your gut, and if you have an irritated gut to start off with, or if you have leaky gut, guess what? You absorb these oxalates even more. What does that do? Inflammation in the body. Inflammation. So what happens, you might not even know it. Anybody with autoimmune, anyone with pain that never seems to go away, they don't heal properly, a lot of times by eliminating sugars, very destructive, very inflammatory. When people say, "I'm going to put you on an anti-inflammatory diet and then they tell you to eat fruits and vegetables," no. No. Now, I'm not telling you never to eat them, so don't come after me.

But for 30 days, I want you avoid, avoid, because they can really help flare up autoimmune. They can make leaky gut worse. So something that's supposed to be good for you can really irritate. I have told hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of women... and ladies, I don't mean to pick on you... but I have told thousands of women. They're the ones that suffer the most from digestive issues. They do, especially IBS and diverticulosis, which are little pouches. You know what happens in those little pouches? Salad gets caught in there. How many people have I said, "Look, man, no salads for 30 days," because they're full of oxalates. Spinach is full of oxalates. Plus fiber is often overrated. I know that goes against the grain, but I'm telling you, fiber scrubs the bowel. Why do you want to scrub your bowel? I would tell people, "Why do you want to scrub your bowel?" Your body knows... drink water, and you'll scrub your bowel, the right way, without irritating the bowel.

A lot of people have irritation in the bowel because they eat too much fiber and oxalates. Where do you find oxalates? Nuts, seeds. The only seed I allow, the only seed I allow on The Reset is flaxseed. Why am I doing that? Because I want to get your estrogen down. Now, you're not taking a gallon of it. A tablespoon, that's enough. If you got diverticulosis, don't do it. Let that heal first. Look, oxalates, it's well-established. So when you eat potatoes, they're high in oxalates. They're high in carbs, too. Remember, potatoes are going to be sugar in a nanosecond. Just remember that. Look, guys, I don't want you to leave the planet. I want you to enjoy food, but variety often is overrated. Again, I make the point that we live in a different world. 

So what are some of the things that have oxalates in them? Let me just give you a list here because I wrote it down. Potatoes and peanuts and nuts, spinach, chocolate, beans, soy... You know me and soy, I don't like soy... Swiss chard. Yeah, they have oxalates. Oxalates have been blamed, they are involved, and I'm not saying it's everything, but when you have an autoimmune disorder. If you go and Google autoimmune and then get one of my guru friends, they'll tell you, well, lay off meat and lay off dairy and lay off this kind of stuff, right? No. No. It's the opposite. You have autoimmune, every autoimmune disorder, every one of them comes from the gut. Leaky gut, leaky brain. Leaky gut, leaky lungs. Leaky gut, leaky joints, rheumatoid arthritis, sarcoidosis.

Leaky gut. What causes leaky gut? Antibiotics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, over-the-counter medications. What causes leaky gut? When you're taking Tums to the Tum-Tums, for your acid reflux and now you're not absorbing food properly. You're changing the microbiome in your gut, the battle, the war, and you know what? Millions and millions and millions of people are losing that war on a daily basis. They lose the war. They don't even know they're in a war. What's the worst kind of deception? Self-deception. People don't even realize it because most of the time their physicians are only worried about, "Oh, you got rheumatoid arthritis, here is a steroid. Here is prednisone. And I get it, I understand it, because prednisone is a steroid that lowers inflammation and it's like a wonder drug, but they use double-edged sword. I mean it destroys your immune system. It destroys your gut.

The problem came out of the gut in the first place. You got to fix that, guys, and one way to fix it is to take a temporary leave of absence from oxalates because when things are not right, oxalates will create inflammation in the body. Never mind just kidney stones. We're seeing that going up big time. You put a combination of oxalates and sugar, fructose, especially the high fructose corn syrup, it is so destructive to the kidneys. No wonder there's so much kidney disease today. No wonder. So I'm not saying don't ever eat vegetables, please. People can't get past the 30-day mark because they see me as some kind of quack, because I talk about eggs, meat, and cheese only. You mean only doc? I mean only. I mean it.

There's a reason for my madness. I'm aiming at things with The Reset. No oxalates for 30 days. No peanuts. No lectins. You know what lectins are? Dr. Gundry, I think his name is, and he wrote a book about lectins. Nobody even heard of lectins before he wrote the book. But I've been talking about like the lectins... look, lectins are one you find in the nightshade vegetables and tomatoes and, and peanuts have lectins, and kidney beans. They're lectins. Oxalates and lectins. Look, they're not going to kill you. They don't kill you. But I aim at getting rid of all that. Nothing to irritate your gut. Nothing, even peanut butter. I love peanut butter, but it's a lectin. It's an oxalate. I don't let people eat that on The Reset, temporarily.

No, but it's important guys because your gut, your gut, your gut, and you can have leaky gut and have no digestive symptoms. See, people think of leaky gut as I got trouble with my gut, and then a lot of people say, "Well, I don't have any trouble with my gut. Therefore, I don't have leaky gut." No, that's not it, guys. Because a lot of times, like I was saying earlier, the gut manifests itself in the brain. What do you think MS is? MS is a neurological disorder, but it started in the gut. It's not like there was never autoimmune before, but I'm telling you, it's a hundred-fold compared to what it used to be. Why is that? Well, like we just said: antibiotics, and antibiotics, they can save your life, guys.

Do you know that yesterday was my 47th year since graduating with my first degree. That's true. 47 years. May the 11th. I've been around a long time, but I've been preaching this stuff for a long time. Oh, why do we see so much MS? Doc, why are we seeing so much Parkinson's? Why are we seeing so much autoimmune disorders? Why are we seeing so much asthma comparatively? Well, we live in a different world. We live in a different world and it's really been a perfect storm. That's what it has been. It's a perfect storm. It's not just one thing. But antibiotics... and again, like I said, the greatest discovery of the 20th century, saved millions of people's lives... the problem is it disrupts the microbiome. It's the number one reason that we have new disorders, such as I have had mentioned to you. You get people that are canaries in the coal mine. They're just, for whatever... Some people take an antibiotic and it doesn't bother them. It certainly doesn't usually bother you right away.

I mean, some women understand this better than men do, but sometimes you take an antibiotic and then the week after you got a yeast infection. Anybody ever had that? I'm not putting my hand up that I have ever had it. But women, you know that. A lot of women do, at least. Ladies, you ever had a yeast infection? Where did that come from? Now, most of the time, it comes from taking an antibiotic. It might not pop up in a day or two, but don't take long. You get fungus. You get yeast. It travels through your body. What if it gets into your brain? What do you think Parkinson's is? I used to tell people with Parkinson's... Remember, I did a couple of seminars to the Parkinson's Society in Northern Ontario. Here was my lecture to them.

Here's what I find in my practice. Someone that has Parkinson's, they come into the office and I go, "Here's what I found. One, major overgrowth of candida or yeast or fungus. Major overgrowth. They're usually full of heavy metals. But you know what guys? Your body knows how to get rid of heavy metals in your body unless you have yeast. Guess what yeast does? It carries heavy metals. It'll carry heavy metals right into the brain: mercury, lead, cadmium. That's why I'm always aiming at the gut. If you've taken any antibiotics, in five days, you've destroyed all of your good bacteria. All of it. There is a way to regenerate that. Probiotics, of course, and then don't feed the yeast with sugar and crappy carbs. Don't irritate your gut anymore with oxalates temporarily. Lay off them.

"Dr. Martin, I got to have my fiber." No, you don't. You don't. Made up to you by the food industry, the cereal companies. I didn't watch their propaganda. Not only anti-cholesterol. Oh, you can’t have bacon and eggs. I just did this morning, by the way, and sausages too. By the way, Dr. Gundry, and let me show you something. I think I was looking at this the other day. Now, if you don't know what this book is, Eating For Your Blood Type. See this guy here, Dr. D'Adamo. I might have told you this story, but I guest lectured in Anaheim, California in 1999, or somewhere around there. That's when this book came out. I got him to sign it. You see, here's his signature.

Now, for those of you who are going to listen to this on the podcast, I am showing Eat For Your Blood Type book and there's a signature to me. "Dr. Martin," he says, signed by Dr. D'Adamo. I got his signature. I signed a copy of my book for him on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, The Curse of the Modern Woman. That was written in, I can't remember, 1998, or... I don't remember now. Okay, but all I'm saying is Dr. D'Adamo and I, he was lecturing at the biggest natural health conference in the world every year, except for the last two, because of COVID. Every year, for the last 25 years or more, they've held this conference and I've been a guest speaker at that conference three or four times. I think I offended them because they haven't invited me back. But I was giving a lecture on chronic fatigue syndrome. We should do that again. I can give you the newest things on chronic fatigue syndrome, but I wrote a book about it and it was very popular, but not as popular as Dr. D'Adamo's. I mean, he sold millions of copies of this book.

When I listened to him, if somebody says, "Oh, doc, I'm eating for my blood type." Okay. But I always say this: if only one guy is saying it and nobody else is saying it, if you think that eating for your blood type is a good thing, well, good for you, but I don't agree with that. I'll tell you why: steak, vitamin S, everybody needs it. True or false? Well, it's true, because in red meat you have B12. It's not found anywhere else. So if you are a blood type that says, well, don't eat red meat, how can that be true? That can't be true. Because then you would have to take a supplement of B12 like a vegetarian does, or a vegan does. If they don't take a supplement of B12, they're making a big mistake.

What I'm trying to mention is even Dr. Gundry, when he talks about lectins, and to him, you should never eat that stuff. Never have another tomato. Never have kidney beans. Never have peanuts. I'm not so much like that. I agree with them in a lot of ways. If you've got an irritated gut or whatever, well stop eating those things, and then find out what foods really bug you. But the point I'm making is that with oxalates and lectins, they can really irritate or exacerbate inflammation. That, for me, is one of the big reasons that I do what I do on The Reset. I'm just trying to explain to you why I do what I do. There's a reason for it. I'm not trying to punish people. I see a lady on the private Facebook group the other day, like, "Dr. Martin is too severe." I know, but I want you to get better, and getting better is my goal for you.

I want you to be well. I don't want to hurt you. I don't even want to hurt your feelings. I don't. But I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm going to tell you something, and, again, I think I mentioned this yesterday. Someone said to me, "Doc, your protocol for cancer, it's simplistic." Well, I said, "I'm a simple man. I'm not complicated." If you want to do a hundred things, do it. You want to go to Mexico or go to Germany, do you think I'm against that? I'm not against that at all. But I'm just going to tell you what I think and what I have seen. Sugar: No. None. You mean none? I mean none. You have cancer. You can't have sugar. You're a diabetic. What? No sugar? Really? If you're a diabetic, you have an allergy to sugar and carbs, you shouldn't be eating sugar or carbs anymore. What?

I didn't give you diabetes. You have. What do you do? Diabetes is a food problem. I believe that cancer is mainly a food problem. Now, there's the environment. There is all these chemicals that we live in, in this world, and I get that. I understand all of that. Unless you're planning on leaving the planet, you're not going to get away from all of it. You just can't. It's in the atmosphere. It's in the water. It's in everything. There's plastics now even in the placenta. It doesn't make it right. All I'm saying is that, well, good luck with that one. If you're trying to get rid of it completely, you're going to have to leave the planet. No, but seriously, where are you going to go live with? Elon Musk, on the moon, or where is he going to, by the way? Where is he trying to bring humans? To Mars or the moon? I can't remember. But my address is on planet earth.

I guess I have to put up with some stuff that's in planet earth and good luck with getting rid of it. As long as that's on your address, you live in this planet, you're going to have chemicals. You're going to have things that you're just not going to get away from, but you got to build your... This is why I'm big on you building your immune system and you taking care of yourself. I'm giving information to you so that you make changes before anybody else. Before you can influence anybody else, you make changes. So be careful with oxalates. Don't overdo it, okay?

So are we on the same page, you and I? I hope so. I give you information; you got to do what you think is right with it, okay? So tomorrow, on again, Lord willing; Friday Question and Answer. Send in your questions. If you haven't gotten a copy of our new book, The Reset, all of this about lectin and oxalates are there. So get that and join the private group. If your friends and family haven't done that, well sign them up. They'll love that community. I mean it. It's tremendous. Okay, so 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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