Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Aspirin vs. prescription drugs
- Blood sludge
- Importance of water
- Restless leg syndrome
- Nitric oxide
- Lack of libido
- Excessive sweating
- Thyroid nodules
- DHA and leukemia
- Low blood oxygen
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: Well, good morning. Welcome to another Live this morning, Question and Answer Friday. I appreciate all the questions that were sent in. Okay. Let's get going. We’ll never get through these questions this morning. Now two questions about aspirin. Now, I'm going to see if I can find it. I don't know if we could post it on our private Facebook group. So if you're not a member of the private Facebook group to the new ones that are listening to me today, hey, join in. It's a great community and I will see if I can post. I did a little teaching on aspirin and it's about two or three years ago, it's got to be at least that. I talked about the FDA had come out and they were now recommending not to use aspirin on a daily basis. Now, listen, please. When we're in a public forum like this, I'm going to, and I always do, as much as I can, speak in generalities, because if your doctor puts you on an aspirin regimen, well, I'm never going to tell you to come off that regimen.
I'm only giving you information so that you can question your doctor because this didn't come from me; this came from the FDA. They were suggesting it. Again, this was two or three years ago and I think I had about 700,000 views on this teaching, if I'm not mistaken. It's crazy. Any who's, here's what I said, "The FDA is suggesting no longer to use aspirin on a daily basis." What does aspirin do, by the way? Aspirin is used, primarily, you can use it as a painkiller. It's obviously an anti-inflammatory right? It's not considered a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, although, it certainly could be. But aspirin became sort of famous. Not only because it got rid of your headache or whatever, but it became famous for thinning your blood, thinning your platelets in your blood.
So a lot of doctors, and I mean hundreds of thousands of doctors, this would have been the treatment of choice for anybody that had a stroke or a heart attack or whatever, take an aspirin every day of what they call a low-dose aspirin. Now the FDA was saying, "Yeah, but the advantages of that are outweighed by the disadvantages." Again, I'm not going to get into a lot of details I did in that teaching, but aspirin, according to the FDA was not considered safe on a daily basis, so I'm just telling you that. So the question is asked by Johnny, "Are prescribed blood thinners just as damaging as taking a low dose aspirin?" Well, if you look at prescribed blood thinners, and again, please, I'm not telling anyone to come off of their medications. I don't do that and I certainly don't do it in a public forum. I'm not going to do it.
There's too many things that, first of all, if you were under my care, but even then I was very, very careful. I would work alongside the physician in some natural realm or whatever. So are prescribed blood thinners just a damaging as daily low-dose aspirin? They'd be even more damaging. So eliquis and other medications that thin your blood they really monitor... Because one of the things the FDA was saying even about aspirin is that you're going to get internal bleeding, very, very common side effect, and you wouldn't even know about it and that can be deadly. So when you're on a blood thinner, after a stroke, heart attack, or even to prevent a stroke, because people are put on blood thinners, there's a lot of side effects and you got to be very careful. Again, I always refer to the pharmacist and, to me, pharmacists, they're the experts in the side effects of medication.
The problem is, today, I don't find they're doing their job like they used to do. They used to warn you big time. Now, some of them still do, but I find it's too busy and you pick up a prescription. You might've been on this prescription for years and years and years, and you're not dead yet, so it must be working. Well, there might be other alternatives. The other question asked about aspirin, interesting, we got two of them, Donna's asking about "Would it be better to take natural willow bark?" Well, that's what aspirin has made of. Look, almost every medication you can think of comes from a natural product, so I always get a big kick, I do, I get a big kick out of the pharmaceutical companies and all this and that and doctors and whatever, they say, "Oh, natural products, oh, no research on them," whatever.
Isn't it interesting that aspirin comes from the willow bark? Where do you think they get these drugs from and they synthesize them. They become synthetic. Look, I'm not against meds, but you'll always have to weigh the benefits versus the side effects. Again, I call on pharmacists to get back to doing their job. That's their job and they should be the ones arguing with your doctor. I remember we had a good couple of good pharmacist friends in my hometown and they used to argue with doctors, change the drugs or do something. Anyway, I don't want to get bogged down here, but you know what? Here's what I recommend, because again, there's going to be several times on this Live this morning, I'm going to mention this. I'm going to give you my experience. It doesn't mean natural willow bark is no good; it is good, but I found something better because it elevates your nitric oxide. It does thin your platelets without side effect and there's research to prove it.
I love Navitol, pine bark extract. I find it better than natural willow bark. I've told you the story of my grandfather and my great uncle who started the Martin Clinic in 1911. These guys, what do you think they used? They used natural products. There were no meds in 1911. Was aspirin around? But they used everything natural and they were amazing men, my grandfather. I still hear stories about my grandfather with the things he used to use. We've come a long way now, in terms of the Martin Clinic, we have our own formulations and things that we're quite proud of.
So, anyway, here's a good question. Pandora, "What is blood sludge? How do we get rid of it?" Well, you can get thick blood from a couple of things, what we call blood sludge and you see that microscope back there? For those who are on our podcast, I'm showing them one of the microscopes I used in my office to look at blood and we used to see blood sludge all the time. First of all, blood sludge, first thing that will affect the viscosity, the thickness, a lot of people have very, very thick blood. Why? Some of them are made like that. But more than anything, the number one reason that you would have blood sludge is you're dehydrated. You have 60,000 miles of blood vessels, one-and-a-half times around the equator in your body, 60,000 miles. It's a river. Your blood is as a river. Your blood vessels are rivers. They're rivers and streams and you need to keep your blood moving; otherwise, your heart's going to work triple overtime all the time.
One of the things is vitamin W, water and only water is water. Nothing else is water; just water is water. We've talked to you about that many, many, a time. I'm a big guy on water. It's a vitamin. It's a vitamin on the Martin Clinic vitamin list. Vitamin W is water. You need it, and only water’s water, and drink if you can, spring water is the best water. Your coffee is not water. Your tea is not water. Your juice isn't water. Fruits aren't water. "There's a lot of water in watermelon." Good for you, but it's not going directly to your bloodstream like just drinking water. Like I wouldn't even let myself have a cup of coffee this morning without drinking water. I drink 16 ounces, for my American friends, or 500 milliliters before I drink a coffee. Now, do you think I like water better than coffee? No, but I know what good habits are.
I looked at blood for 40 something years and when you got blood sludge, number one reason, you're dehydrated. A lot of people have a heart attack with no cholesterol, not even bad triglycerides for some people, because their electrical grid, their heart, they were dehydrated. They were dehydrated. It's unfortunate you don't have a light on your head like in your car, "Hey, you're low." Wouldn't it be nice, a flashing light would come on, "You're low in water." Most people are. They don't realize it. They're thirst mechanism doesn't work very well until you start in a regular way, drinking water.
Listen, you guys know me, so I'm just going to preach to the choir and then, the new folks that are on with us every day, listen to me. One thing you can do for yourself is start drinking water. You need two liters a day, okay? How do I know that? Well, you might need a little bit more. You don't need less, but you might need some more, depending on how much you sweat and things like that. But on average, I've come to these conclusions. All of my experience, most people that suffer from headaches are dehydrated. They're just dehydrated, "Ah, my doctor never told me that." Your doctor will never tell you that because there's no real tests, other than you're in the hospital and you're delirious and they got to give you an IV of fluids because you're dehydrated.
They see it a lot more, but that's in the emergency department. Well, 99% of the time, you're not in the emergency department, but you're dehydrated, you need water and water takes a direct route. Isn't that interesting, how you are made? You drink juice. Okay? It doesn't go directly to your blood. You drink a coffee. I hope you do. I feel sorry for you if you don't drink coffee, but that doesn't go directly to your blood. It's filtered. Your body's smart. Unbelievable. But water takes its own route directly to your bloodstream. Did you know that? Yeah. It's like Monopoly, don't pass Go. The reason is because you need water. Your body knows that. That ought to be a clue and dehydration is at the root of a lot of bad things and it gives you blood sludge, that's the number one thing.
Now you could get blood sludge some other ways, okay? Two. It's funny that my wife just sent me a study this morning and I was listening to another doctor answering a question about high iron. That's a big problem today. Maybe I'll bring some teaching on this next week because I got to unpack that a little bit, but they're talking about COVID, the virus, and high levels of iron. That's a big problem today. Now, one of the main reasons you have high levels of iron, it's a lot of people have low levels of iron, because women get that, menses, and they don't eat meat and they get low levels of iron. That's no good. You get anemic, but a lot of people have very thick, gluey blood because of high levels of iron. It's not from eating red meat, by the way. If you hear that, throw it out. It ain't true. It's because of the amount of... Number one reason, the amount of fatty liver. Your liver is what filters that out. When you have fatty liver, you can't filter out that iron, hemochromatosis, we call it. Blood sludge, drink a lot of water. Make sure your iron, keep your liver nice and clean. Do the Reset. Okay?
Maria is asking a good question, "For people not clinically diagnosed with high insulin, can they get Alzheimer's?" Yeah, I guess they could, but listen, let me explain Maria. A lot of people have high circulating insulin. As a matter of fact, 88% of the population have high circulating insulin. There's only 12%, Maria, only 12%. This is according to studies showing that 88%, and this is why I wrote the book, The Reset. I did. I wrote it based on the question you just asked me because on The Reset, what I was talking about, before I talked in the book about the 30-day program, which is The Reset, the eating program for 30 days to fix it. The number one thing I was aiming at, metabolic syndrome, but what is that? What is metabolic syndrome? What causes metabolic syndrome? What causes your triglycerides to be high and your HDL to be low? Very dangerous for your heart.
Somebody asked a good question. Let me answer this one, too, because who asked this? I don't even know how to pronounce that. Enyfs, okay? It's capital E-N-Y-F-S, Enyfs, I think. "Do you have any scientific evidence that sugar is actually bad for the immune system?" Yes, there is. It's a good question, Enyfs. It's a good question. But let me tie this in together. Let me separate sugar just for a second. The cause of metabolic syndrome, 88% of the population, that means 12% of the population don't have high circulating insulin. There was a study that came out yesterday that said this: 50% of the population already in North America is diabetic or pre, but what they're missing, that's diabetic or pre, meaning that, and I talked to you about this many times, the last thing to happen, just about, is diabetes. Why is that? Because your body will do everything, everything. You have an organ dedicated, called your pancreas, dedicated to keeping your blood sugars regulated.
Sugar is so toxic in your bloodstream; it cannot be left there. So insulin, the traffic cop says "You, sugar. Come here. You can't stay there. You're parked in the wrong spot." Okay. Out, out, out, out, out. What they're showing, even in COVID, the elephant in the room, are people with metabolic syndrome, the very old, okay? In Canada, it's over 85 years old. That's the average age of death. You can beat me up. You can get angry with me. You can do whatever you want to me, but that's just a fact. In Canada, the average age of people that die from the virus was 85. Now, I'm not minimizing the virus. I'm not doing any of that. I'm just telling you what the facts are. But the people that got sick and more hospitalized, almost 100% of them had metabolic syndrome, which is a pre-existing condition. That's a fact, guys.
So the connection is, yes, there's a whole pile of evidence that sugar is bad for your immune system. We know it's terrible for your heart because of what it does to your blood vessels. Alzheimer's, we talked about that, that connection between high circulating insulin and Alzheimer's. Now, let me go back to the question again. So Maria says, "If you're not clinically diagnosed... " Well, don't wait for that. Your body has check engine lights. First of all, good luck, about getting your insulin levels checked. Now, they're going to check your blood sugar levels and they'll check your A1C and by the way, I'm not against that. Blood glucose, but I like to see A1C because now they're showing you're already on the way to metabolic syndrome. If you're above 4.7, 4.8 on A1C, holy moly. That's a whole other category of putting millions and millions of people into trouble because their A1C is too high, and we talked about that. So don't wait, listen to your body. "Oh doc, I'm skinny." That don't make you healthy. You don't know what's going on on the inside of your body. Insulin, insulin, insulin, you got three main causes of disease: cancer, cardiovascular Alzheimer's, diabetes, autoimmune. What did we talk about? High circulating insulin, that's food. It's crappy carbs and sugars. Simple. Two, leaky gut and three oxidative damage rusting out of the body and all of those three create inflammation in your body and inflammation is deadly. Folks, that's it in a nutshell, okay? So very good question.
Let me get back here. Joanne, she's very frustrated because she still has restless legs and she's done everything that she knows, including magnesium, potassium and all that. Well, magnesium yeah, restless legs, magnesium, yeah. Potassium's more for cramping in the legs. So, Joanne, I get it. I'm on your side. I don't like you to be frustrated. Here's what I found with restless legs. What causes restless legs? I call them the heebie-jeebies of your legs. A lot of people, they go to sleep at night and they get the heebie-jeebies. What does that mean? Well, their legs don't want to go to sleep. That's restless legs.
Here's a few things that you ought to look at, Joanne. Maybe you've already looked at these things, I don't know. But restless legs doesn't have the same cause as spasms. That's different, where you're going to a cramp because of well, dehydration can be one of them. A lot of people don't realize that. Restless legs often is a sign of borderline anemia. Ladies, I'm going after you a little bit here and just because I love you. You have to trust me on this one, I do because sometimes, "Oh, Dr. Martin, you're always picking on women." Well, it's because I was known to be a woman doctor because I used to be famous for horror-mones, but a lot of women, they don't realize it because they don't like steak. They like chicken and salad, and what do they do? They're anemic. So a lot of them with borderline anemia, "Oh my doctor never told me I was anemic." But you got signs of anemia, so eat more steak.
We have a product called Blood Boost. I would try that, Joanne. Here's another thing... low levels of nitric oxide. Remember, nitric oxide is an explosion inside your blood vessels. You have a chemical compound there. It's called NO, nitric oxide. We didn't even know it. When I was in school in the 1970s, we didn't even know it existed. I'm serious. It wasn't until 1980, I think. A guy won the Nobel Prize because he discovered nitric oxide. Hey, our blood vessels have a little explosion inside and it opens them up. A lot of times in legs, when you get restless legs, you have low levels of nitric oxide. The best thing I've seen for nitric oxide, B12 is very important for nitric oxide, but it's Navitol. Hundreds and hundreds of patients, if not thousands, over the years got rid of the restless legs once they elevated their nitric oxide, that little explosion. As you get older and whatever, a lot of things decrease your nitric oxide.
Here's another one. We talked about this last week, “VitDerma. What is that, doc?” Well, it's your booster shot. Get in the sun. It elevates your nitric oxide. When you expose your skin to the sun, VitDerma. Hey, that's mine. Don't steal it. You can use it, but you can't steal it. Did you get VitDerma? I did. This lady, I think, it's got to be a lady, wants to talk about libido. Any children? Send them outside. No, but she's saying she never had libido. Well, that's different. So let's talk about libido a little bit. Ladies, why would you have low libido? Why would men have low libido? Horror-mones, 100%. Now, if you've never had libido, well, that could be more of a psychological problem and you need Dr. McEwen more than you need me, my friend, who's a psychologist. No, there might be other factors, but let me give you for the majority of people that have trouble with libido.
Men, you have low testosterone and that's how a man gets low libido. It's almost 100%. It can have other diseases, high insulin and this and that can have an effect on it. But men, you have low testosterone. You have more estrogen than you have testosterone. That happens frequently with men. Then, we often talked about erectile dysfunction in men and that can be low levels of nitric oxide, it's circulation, circulation, circulation. Insulin and too much sugar and a bad diet will give you low T too. Guys, I am really big on getting your testosterone very high. The higher your testosterone is, that's why I'm big on weights. It's the best exercise men for testosterone. It's the best. Steak, it's the best food for testosterone, that's in men.
Women, libido, a lot of factors there, but remember, here's the main one: estrogen makes you a woman, progesterone is pro babies and you need those hormones to be equal, never out of balance because if you get out of balance, we see low libido. Oftentimes, in women, they get low libido and they're perimenopausal and that is a fluctuation in those hormones between the estrogen and the progesterone. In this day and age, we see a lot more of it because hormones are being messed up by what we call xenoestrogens and xenoestrogens are plastics. They're in everything, PCBs, air fresheners, fragrances, all this chemical stuff, your body thinks it's estrogen. Women are sitting ducks for this, but you wouldn't believe how many patients over the years, women in their 20s, that were perimenopausal.
The other thing, and again, I could go into great detail, if your thyroid ain't working because of estrogen dominance, usually, too much estrogen, thyroid slows down. Guess what? Your sex drive goes down, very common. You guys know me. I built that pyramid and within the thyroid, to the ovaries, to the adrenals, and then in the middle, your pancreas, it's in that Bermuda Triangle there. It's horror-mones, and when you balance those out, start with the Reset. It really helps. Now, you might need DIM to lower your estrogen. You might need our menopausal formula to up your progesterone levels and food, though. Food is very, very important as to get that.
Okay, Wendy, "What do you do if you have a hiatal hernia and it's not being put to sleep?" Well, you got to live with it. A lot of people live with hiatus hernias, Wendy, and one of the best ways to live with a hiatus hernia is to not eat at night. Practice intermittent fasting, meaning look, you do intermittent fasting if you don't snack at night. You want to have a hiatus hernia go into remission without it bothering you? Eat low carb, do the Reset and don't eat at night. That is the thing that I found. Now, you might want to elevate your pillow and see if you feel better doing that. Some people do that, a couple of pillows, they elevate their head a little bit, sleep that way. But I find the best thing for it is don't eat at night. Take digestive enzymes with every meal, Wendy. Don't leave home without them. They're like the American Express. Okay.
Sharon's asking, "What about excess growth hormone or pituitary gland tumors with the relationship to excessive sweating? Yeah. Well there's a lot of things and again, Sharon, these are horror-mones. The pituitary gland, you can have big problems. That's why we always say that thyroid is like a puppet. The thyroid does not work on its own. You have the hypothalamus, you have the pituitary gland, and there can be trouble up there. That is why our thyroid balancing formula helps the hypothalamus. It helps the pituitary and the thyroid. Thyroid nodules, somebody asking, Charlene, about thyroid nodules. Well, look it. Charlene, listen. Doctors don't worry about nodules too much unless your blood work is going south, okay? But here's what I know about nodules. Keep your insulin down. Insulin and estrogen are growth hormones. Insulin is a growth hormone, that's why you get fat, insulin. It's a growth hormone. Estrogen is a growth hormone. Keep those two things down. Lower your estrogen and lower your insulin. Insulin is food; estrogen is a hormone, but a lot of it comes from the xenoestrogens. And I would put you on my hormonal formula and thyroid formula.
Now, Mary, "Would DHA help with chronic lymphocytic leukemia?" Well, leukemia is different. Leukemia is a cancer of the blood, right? Red blood cells, our white blood cells, bone marrow, leukemia. Guys, wasn't that unbelievable, blow your socks off day, I didn't even know it. That DHA, the long chain fatty acids, it destroys tumors. It's poison for tumors. But for leukemia, well, look. It's not going to hurt you, but with leukemia in the bone marrow, I'm much bigger on higher doses of vitamin D. Get sugar out of your bloodstream. Don't eat any sugar at all and probiotics for leukemia, okay?
Louise, ionic foot spa. That's not my expertise, first of all. If you really want to do... Because ionic foot spas more for a detox and the best way to detox, guys, there's nothing better detox than doing the Reset. Why do I say that? Because it empties your liver. Your body will detox itself if you empty the liver, take the strain off your kidneys, it's liver and kidneys guys. It's liver and kidneys. It's liver and kidneys, kidneys, and liver. What stresses the kidneys and the liver out? Sugar. Want to do a detox? Lower your sugars and crappy carbohydrates. You'll do a detox, okay? You want to do an ionic foot bath? I got no problem with that. I'm just telling you, you're not really doing a detox because ionic foot bath isn't going to clean your liver. It won't do it. You got to do it. Empty your liver. The first seven days, actually six of the Reset, empties your liver and people, I know, I know, I know, I know. "Oh, doc, I'm not getting any results on the Reset. I thought I would lose 30 pounds or whatever." Well, look, the big thing is on the reset. The first thing is you're emptying your liver and you're fixing insulin resistance. That's what I was aiming for. There's nothing more important, in my opinion, than doing those things, okay?
Darlene, low blood oxygen down to 88. Well, listen, eat steak because steak, vitamin S, gives you oxygen because it elevates your B12 and your heme iron, okay? So we talked about it, too much iron, fatty liver; too little iron, you're not eating enough steak. A lot of people are anemic. They're borderline, or they're low in oxygen. You want to oxygenate your blood? Eat steak. You might have to take a supplement of B12 too.
Laura, about the gastric bypass. You know what, Laura, I'll do a session on it because that's big today. Isn't it? Right? Gastric bypasses and I will talk about the pros and cons of that, okay? Let me do a teaching, Laura, on it, okay? I've made a note of that.
Dr. Martin, Dawn on dextrin? It's a thing that, you'll see maltodextrin or whatever and in a small form, usually. What do I think of it? It's all right. It glues up your food. That's one of the reasons I'm not so much into keto, guys. It's just, you can make keto junk too, you know that. It might be low in carbs, but it's got lots of other stuff in there that I don't like. "What about hydrolyzed collagen peptides in our coffee?" Yeah. Yep. If you use bone broth, you get collagen peptides because you get collagen protein. "Can you have some carbonated drinks?" I call it Christian beer. Yeah, I like Perrier and stuff like that. Don't let it substitute for water though. It's not a substitute for water. It ain't water if it's carbonated. No, it's all right. I like it. I like the taste of it. Like I say, I call up my Christian beer and my grandchildren always laugh when I say that. I like it. I like the taste of it, but I don't let it substitute for water.
Look, I got a few other questions there, but I'll try and answer them personally, okay? Now, you know me, I get onto rabbit trails. Have you ever come to a live seminar with me? We used to do stuff like that. Before COVID, there was Live seminars. I always liked it, but boy, oh boy. I can go on a rabbit trail and I had a hard time coming back because my brain goes like that, "Oh yeah. You brought up something I want to talk about," off to the rabbit trail. My wife, if she was with me, would be going, "Come back, come back. You forgot to answer the question." So guys, we love you dearly and we thank you. What participation. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Tell your friends about The Doctor is In Podcast, because these are all made into podcasts. It's unbelievable how many downloads we have of that, but invite your friends, okay? If you like it, give us a good review. That helps. We 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!