Heart disease is still the number one killer in North America… and it’s been this way ever since cholesterol lowering statin drugs were introduced in the 1980s.
Dr. Martin poses an important question in today’s episode… How do you keep yourself away from heart disease? He shares with listeners ways to prevent and even “mend” a broken heart. A clue… it starts with food!
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
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Dr. Martin: Well, good afternoon. Hope you guys are having a great day. I was listening to a song the other day by the Bee Gees. Put your hand up if you know who the Bee Gees are. I used to love them in the late sixties and the seventies, the Bee Gees, and they were singing one of their old songs. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?, by the Bee Gees, and of course, I was thinking about not emotionally breaking your heart, but how do you mend a broken heart? How do you keep yourself away from heart disease? Because, it's still a number one killer in our society today. Heart disease is still the number one killer in society. It bothers me because I heard one of the gurus talking about the pandemic and science and you know, folks, I tell you, the definition of science is observation.
You're always, always learning. It's interesting that so many mistakes have been made in the name of science, in the name of medicine, really. I don't know if there has been more of an abysmal failure than that of heart disease and stroke. Really. It's still the number one killer in North America. All the money in the world that we spend on our disease care system, the number one medication still today, number one selling medication in Canada and the United States is a statin drug to lower cholesterol. In the history of medicine, when you study it, study nutrition, you study food even, you saw where that came from. I was a little boy when they were talking about cholesterol. There was only one guy, really. He came out of nowhere and started talking about cholesterol, and it took off like wildfire.
Before you knew it, the food industry and then the pharmaceutical industry made cholesterol, not only the boogeyman, but they made a fortune of doh ray me dollars, pushing faulty science. Here we are in 2021, getting ready to go into 2022, and we have not even made a dent in heart disease. There was a little bend in the graph when people stopped smoking. But here we are today, and they've created a fear. Fear guys, if you've learned nothing else in the last couple of years, you really ought to know that fear sells. There's nothing that sells like fear, and you got to give kudos to the pharmaceutical and food industry, because with fear, oh, your cholesterol, you're going to have a heart attack, but they were dead wrong. They were creating broken hearts. They weren't mending them like the Bee Gees' song, because they actually recommended things that made your heart worse, made your blood vessels worse, filled them up full of plaque because they got people to change their fuel.
The whole world went for it. They went for fiber. They went for cereals. They stopped eating butter. They stopped eating bacon, because of cholesterol, and the rest really is history. It has been an abysmal failure, and here we are with the number one killer, heart disease and stroke. Do you know what the number two selling prescription is? Number one is a statin drug. You know what number two is? It's a high blood pressure medication. Number two on the hit parade, because 50% of the population in North America, I mean, it's astounding. There's what, 340 million people in the USA and almost 40 million in Canada. Divide that by two, and half of those people are on high blood pressure medication. I've always said this, and I'll say it again. Blood pressure is a symptom. High blood pressure is a symptom. It's not a disease. Hypertension is not a disease. It's a symptom.
The number one reason you get hypertension, which is very dangerous ... I'm not minimizing hypertension. I'm not. It puts an enormous strain on your blood vessels. It's not salt, and it's not butter. It's not fat. It's insulin. It's a sign that you're insulin-resistant, and the second one is dehydrated. That is really hard on your blood vessels. So, how do we mend a broken heart? The question was asked by the Bee Gees, and I'm going to answer the question. Numero uno, number one, eat vitamin K2. It's essential for your blood vessels. It's essential for your heart. I dug up a study in 2018 on vitamin K2. Let me read it to you here. 50,000 people, over a 23-year period, there was a 34% lower heart risk of heart attack and stroke for those people who were commonly eating eggs, meat, and cheese, getting their vitamin K2.
Remember, K1, you've got to split vitamin K. Okay? There's K1, found in the plant kingdom. Is that good for you? Absolutely, it is good for you. It helps in the clotting. Vitamin K1, it's good for you, but there's nothing like vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 is a vitamin that will keep you away from heart disease, and you should be eating your vitamin K2. I'm not against K2 as a supplement. I would rather you eat it. We put vitamin K2 in our vitamin D, but K2 is so beneficial for the heart and this study ... okay, this study, I just mentioned ... Actually there was a followup study that just came out, that followed up on these 23,000 people, and what they were saying is that it went up to a 50% decrease in the risk people that were eating their vitamin K2. Remember, where the highest sources are. Cheese, cheese curds, especially and butter.
Cheese, but eggs have it. So does meat, but highest in butter and cheese. That's how you get vitamin K2. So, don't believe all the nonsense about, "I shouldn't have too much cheese or butter", because they've made them the boogeymans, and that's not true at all, because these large studies have shown that consumption of vitamin K2 is tremendous for your heart, for two reasons. One, vitamin K2 takes calcium. I've mentioned this to you so many times. When you eat cheese, you eat cheese, you got calcium, very high in calcium. I don't want you to take a supplement of calcium. You don't need to. When you take a supplement of calcium, it doesn't even get to your bones. But when you eat cheese, you get calcium. But in it, see what God does. He puts K2 in it so that it'll take the calcium, take it out of your blood vessels and put it into your bones and your teeth, where it belongs.
You see, calcium doesn't belong in your blood vessels. It hardens them. Now, another one is, the second reason that vitamin K2 works and is so good for your heart, it activates an Mg protein, MGP, but it's an Mg protein, which prevents hardening of the arteries. It's a two-fold process. One, calcium out. Like I said, I'm not saying calcium's no good for you. Calcium is good for you if it's put in the right place, in your bones. You don't want calcium in your blood vessels. So, calcium out, and then this Mg protein prevents atherosclerosis in your blood vessels. So, how do you mend a broken heart? Eat butter and cheese. Two, it bugs me when I hear red meat vilified. Listen to the commercials in the USA, mostly in the USA, drug commercials, talking about statin drugs and statin drugs lower cholesterol, of course.
There's even advertisements on TV that says, "If you're taking a statin drug", instead of saying, "You should get off of it," they say, "If you're taking a statin drug, make sure you're taking CoQ10." Have you ever heard those commercials? What is CoQ10 ? Well, your body makes CoQ10. CoQ10 is specifically very important for your muscles, CoQ10. So, when you take a statin drug, like Lipitor, Crestor, Zocor, those drugs are famous for creating a condition called rhabdomyolysis, which is, damaging muscles. I had hundreds of patients over the years. They come into the office and "Doc, I can't lift my arms over my head." "Okay, and are you on any medication?" I already knew the answer. "Oh yeah. I am on statin drugs."
Well, what that is doing is taking out your CoQ10 out of your body and your muscles need CoQ10. By the way, refresh my memory, guys. You probably know the answer to this. What is your heart? I think it's a muscle, n'est-ce pas. Isn't it? Heart is a muscle. Why would you take a medication to damage a muscle? "Oh yeah, Doc. But it gets cholesterol. It gets it down, down, down cholesterol." "Why do you want to get your cholesterol down? I'm waiting for the answer." You know, when I read your blood work guys, and I don't mind, I really don't mind reading your blood work. You can send me, if it's on a sheet of paper, whatever. Don't ask me. Don't try and convince me. Don't try and "Oh Doc, my total cholesterol". I don't care. It has nothing to do with your broken heart.
How do you mend a broken heart? Vitamin K2, CoQ10. How do you get CoQ10? You eat it. You eat CoQ10. You only make CoQ10 when you eat steak, vitamin S. That's how you make CoQ10. People have weak hearts today. There's so much heart disease, and one of the biggest reasons they don't get enough vitamin K2, because they don't eat enough animal product, and they insist on not eating red meat and they like their chicken. I go, "Yeah, but chicken doesn't have CoQ10. It doesn't make your CoQ10 go up." You want CoQ10 to go up. You can eat your CoQ10. How do you mend a broken heart? Vitamin K2, CoQ10. It doesn't matter. It seems every day, every day, I get a new study on vitamin D. If not one, two, and one of the newest studies on vitamin D is how good it is.
I was mentioning this to someone yesterday, how good vitamin D is for inflammation. It is an anti-inflammatory. Did you know that? Why is that so important to mend a broken heart? Because, inflammation, left unchecked, silent in your blood vessels, damages your blood vessels. When you have low levels of vitamin D, you have inflammation in the body. How do you mend a broken heart? You need Vi-derma. You need to get in the sun, and if not, then supplement with vitamin D. The basics, basics, fundamentals for a healthy heart. Here's another one. Anti-inflammatory vitamin D, CoQ10 for the strength of your muscles, the little mitochondria within your muscles. CoQ10, you need that for your muscle, that muscle to pump. Remember, you're pumping 100,000 times a day. Pump, pump, pump, your heart. 60,000 miles of blood vessels. You don't even think about it unless it's not working.
Sure scared the life out of you when it's not working properly, or missing beats. Your heart needs K2. Your heart needs CoQ10. Your heart needs vitamin D. Your heart needs oil. I'm a big guy on oil. Slippery blood vessels, butter, oil, high DHA. That's why fish oil. I don't think there's a cardiologist in the world would argue about fish oil. I always tell everybody, I eat fish every day in a capsule. It is so good for you. You want to slide out of rooms, you're eating so much butter and fish oil. It works on the little Teflon layer in your blood vessels. Butter, butter, butter. Oil, oil, oil. Steak, by the way, you don't think of it. When you look at steak, do you think of that? People, when they eat fish, they know, I'm eating that fish. That is an oily fish. That's good for me, yeah?
So is a buttery steak. Steak? Fish."Oh, Doc, it's an oily fish." Yeah. Love it. But an oily, buttery steak has as much DHA oil as that oily fish, and the butter adds CLA too, another fatty acid that just makes your blood vessels so slippery. You want them to be slippery, so nothing sticks. You don't want sticky blood vessels, do you? How do you mend a broken heart? Lubricate. Lubricate. Oil, oil, oil. Somebody was telling me the other day that they like olive oil. I like it too. I prefer bacon, because it has the same fatty acid in it. What? Yeah. Well, olive oil is famous because it has oleic acid. Yeah, but so does bacon. Bacon, olive oil. Boy, bacon's got a bad rap, because you see all the grease. You see the fat around it. Oh, that can't be good for you, but you see how they changed the science? It started in the 1950s. My parent's generation, man, they bought that like, that lie, like nobody's business. It wasn't the bacon and eggs killing you. It was the toast.
Now, the last one I'm recommending, I'm big on this, is protecting the antioxidants. One of the greatest antioxidants that you can take for your heart is coffee. Yes. Coffee. It's a tremendous antioxidant. What is an antioxidant? It is an antiaging. It's a rust-proofing of your blood vessels. Coffee. Vitamin C. The real vitamin C. How do you amend a broken heart? Well, you want to rust-proof your blood vessels. Rustproof them. Antioxidant. I recommend drinking coffee. Drink it black. You can add cream, not milk, no sugar. I don't negotiate. Somebody said, I think it was is on Friday. "Can I put Stevie in my coffee?" Why? Why do you want to do that? Okay, I negotiate with you. So, you got the memo, guys? How do you mend a broken heart? There's too many broken hearts today.
We're losing the war on heart disease, and God bless cardiologists and all the people that work in that field. I mean it, but boy, oh boy, they've got it wrong. So, take care of yourself guys. Vitamin K2, eat it. CoQ10, eat it. Vitamin D, sun. Antiinflammatory, oil. Lubricate lubricate. You need a fatty brain, a fatty heart. Yes. Fatty joints. You want oil in all of it. Even your eyeballs need oil. Lubricate, lubricate. Steak, fish, fish, steak, steak, fish, lubricate. Then, okay, antioxidant, rust-proofing. You buy a new car. Good to have rust-proofing. It'll last longer. Coffee is a powerful antioxidant. Powerful. Enjoy. Okay, guys. That was our anniversary edition today.
Someone ... I laughed because someone said the jacket I had on in 1972, they said, "Do you still got that sports jacket?" "You mean the tablecloth I was wearing?" I posted it earlier on our Facebook group. Okay. So, tomorrow, back to our regular time. Thank you. I thank you guys again for the great success of the reset book, The Metabolic Reset. Fantastic. It works guys. You hear anybody that wants to lose weight, this is not a primarily a weight-loss program, but it's the healthiest that you can go on. For all of the reasons I just talked about in your heart, how to mend a broken heart, that's the reset. Every vitamin I talked about, including CoQ10, K2, vitamin D, oil. Got it? Reset. Best fuel in the world. Okay. So, again, regular time tomorrow. We'll see you at 8:30 tomorrow morning, Lord willing, and Friday as always, will be Question and Answer Friday. So, we love you guys. We'll 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!