Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- IGF1 growth hormone
- Why thyroid is a puppet
- Sodium deficiency
- Overactive immune systems
- Shingles
- Blood clot in the lung
- Liposomal vitamins
- Glutathione
- Mirena IUD or the new Nexplanon
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. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Welcome to another Live this morning, as we do Question and Answer. Okay, here we go. Let's get to these questions. The first question is from Gloria, "The what is IGF1? Is that bad if it's in meat?" Well, IGF1 is a growth hormone. Is it bad if it's in meat? Well, if they feed it to the cows... Look, I got to make a general statement and I think it's important that you understand, Gloria, and anybody else listening to me. You and I no longer live in a perfect world. Okay? We just don't. Whether it's meat or fruits and vegetables or whatever, almost everything is tainted today.
Now you can get truly organic grass fed, and I want all of that, but I don't talk about that so much and the reason is this. I might have told you this story before, but actually this is a true story. A patient came to see me, it's got to be 7, 8 years ago. She told me she was moving to Costa Rica and she actually had a little place on an island, it seems like all by herself. Not quite, but she was getting away from North America and she looked at me like, and I said to her, "It sucks to be the rest of us." She looks at me like, "Well," I said, "Gee, I mean, how many people can just run away and live on their own island? I mean, you know, no."
When I talk Gloria, I am going out to the masses. Okay? I mean, in a week we get 50,000, at least in a week, views of this Live and another 50,000 or so podcasts in a week. I'm talking to the general population. The first thing is, and I use the illustration, "Don't worry about the deck chairs on the Titanic. If metabolically you're in that 88%, turn the ship before you hit the iceberg." The reason I say that is because I am big on EMC, eggs, meat, and cheese. If you do that and yeah, better organic, better grass-fed, better of course.
But we live in a world… Like vegetables are sprayed. Fruits are sprayed. Try and do everything you can, but there's plastic, they're finding plastic on Mount Everest at the highest peak in the world, and in the placenta of babies. I just don't think we can get away from it. I wish we could. I'd like to undo it, but when people tell me, "Oh, you know, I never eat anything that's got anything in it." Okay. Well, good for you, if you can do it, but I speak in generalities. If you want to be healthy, the biggest thing you got to worry about is what you put in your mouth every day and meat, any meat, is better than sugar. Any meat is better than sugar. Eggs. We discussed it earlier this week. It's a superfood and so is cheese. It's a superfood and there are better quality of eggs, there's better quality of meat, there's better quality of cheese, but I speak in generalities.
Look, I want you to be aware of things and I'm not against that. I'm a hundred percent for it, but you have to understand that I don't want to make getting better so complicated that people, "I won't eat anything, because it's maybe tainted." Yeah. Maybe tainted. Okay? I get excited because I just want people to focus and then when you turn the ship around, then you read labels, understand things, ask questions. I am a hundred percent for that. Okay? I hope you understand what I'm saying, Gloria.
Claudette, "Can you explain more in detail what it means by saying the thyroid is a puppet?" Well, it really is. Okay, and Claudette, here's what I mean by that. Your thyroid does not act independently. From your brain to your ovaries ladies, from your brain to your ovaries, your thyroid is affected by many things. If you can, Claudette, listen to, I think it's on our website. Listen to Thyroid Distress Syndrome because your hypothalamus is involved from the brain. Your liver is involved, because that's where you convert most of your T4 to T3. Your gut is involved, because again, that's where you convert T4 to T3, about 20% of it. Your adrenals are involved, because cortisol has a big effect on the thyroid. Distress affects the thyroid and estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen disrupts the thyroid if it is in dominance compared to progesterone. That's what I mean. Okay?
From your gut, your liver. If you get fatty liver, if you are a carboholic and you have fatty liver, that disrupts your thyroid, that is why The Reset is good hormonally and you got to lower your estrogen. We'll talk about this in a minute because there's another question about that, but that's what I mean. Your thyroid doesn't act independently and the problem is, okay, just generally in medicine, the problem is that they look at the thyroid as an individual organ, and they test it. If it's normal in terms of blood work, then, "Ah, everything's good." Except that hundreds of thousands of women, especially, it can happen to men, but it's mostly in women. Their thyroid is sluggish. Their thyroid is not working properly because there's other factors.
Generally in medicine, they don't look at it. They look only, "Ah, no, your thyroid numbers are normal." Yeah, but that range between in blood work is like here to eternity. I'm big on symptoms. "Oh, I'm losing my hair doc and I look at food and I gain weight and my eyebrows are thinning out. My skin is dry. My nails are very fragile and you know, I'm sluggish and I got constipation and you name it." Those are thyroid symptoms. But in my days of practice, I would look at everything else too, from estrogen to cortisol, to liver enzymes. So, the thyroid is a puppet. It's got many strings attached, Marni, and I don't mind teaching that. I don't. It's a good question because I want to repeat that, because women fall through the cracks because it's complex. It's complicated and they need to be understood. Okay. Good question. Alright. Let's get back here.
Marni, "Can or does a sodium deficiency drive insulin resistance even with a low carb diet?" Yes. Marni, does it drive it? I don't think it drives it. I think it's secondary. I think insulin… Ah, look, we've often blamed salt for what sugar does. Right? I'm big on salt. I think it's a huge mistake that we've kept salt out of people, "Oh, look, I'm eating salt free." All because of high blood pressure. When high blood pressure primarily is a problem of sugar. It's carbs, man. That's why we see so much of it today.
People become intolerant to carbohydrates and I'm big on adding salt, add it to your water. I like Himalaya salt, a good sea salt. I like it. Why? It's got a lot of minerals in it. It's the chicken or the egg, Marni. What comes first? I think what happens when you get insulin resistance, it really plays with your kidneys. Then you have your body upside down. It's excreting your salts. People, they don't realize that, how the kidneys get affected. I hope I'm answering your question. Look, yes, it's involved. Is it first or is it after? That's the real question, Marni. Good question.
Leslie's asking a question about insulin resistance, "Are boils from insulin resistance?" Well maybe. You can get boils from leaky gut. Okay? Leaky gut, leaky skin and insulin is a growth hormone. Estrogen is a growth hormone and they can make things grow. Boils will grow. Are they actually caused by insulin resistance? In some cases, in some cases it will never hurt to lower your insulin, never will hurt to get rid of high circulating insulin and insulin resistance. That's why The Reset for 30 days. It does just that. Okay? Good question.
Myra, "What does an overactive immune system mean?" Well, it means it's hypersensitive Myra. It means that it's getting triggered. That's what autoimmune is. It's an oversensitive immune system. Your immune system is supposed to flag viruses, bacteria and antigens. Okay, even for pollen that's coming in or whatever, and your body goes, "I'm going to protect us from these foreign invaders." The problem is, is when it overreacts and it releases way too much histamine. Okay. You know what histamine does? It makes you sneeze. It makes your eyes water. It makes you cough. It's something to expel. Okay, that's when you think of histamine, think of expelling, get rid of something. Okay? Like pollen or allergies or mold or things that come in, in your upper respiratory tract or whatever. Your body responds to that. You’re fearfully and wonderfully made. Problem is, is when it overreacts to it.
These are what food sensitivities are. Okay. People that have food sensitivities, they're overreacting, they're hypersensitive. They eat a certain food that doesn't bother me or doesn't bother you, but it bothers them. That is an overreaction of the immune system. It creates inflammation in the body. That's what happens in leaky gut, a lot of times, because what happens in leaky gut is you have stuff getting into your bloodstream that doesn't belong there. The border guards are gone and now your body overreacts to it. Okay? That's really what it means, okay, Myra? Then you take an antihistamine for example, like Claratin or whatever, those are antihistamines, but you're not really getting at the root of the issue. You're just suppressing the immune system. That's really, you're suppressing histamine.
It's better to fix the problem, because I haven't seen an allergy yet. I haven't seen an autoimmune disorder yet that doesn't start in the gut. Oftentimes babies, because of the placenta, because of antibiotics. We talked about that last night in our podcast. Certain things that really disrupt the bacteria, the microbiome in the body, because the vast... Look, your immune system is complex, but a big part of it's right beside the border between your blood and your gut. 80% of your immune system is right in there. This is why I keep going back to gut, gut, gut, make sure your gut. Look guys, if you've had a bad gut all your life, it's not going to happen overnight. Okay? If you have a full fledged autoimmune disease, man, this is, now you're in a war and the battle is going to be every day and you just got to take care of yourself. You got to start by fixing the gut. Okay? You got to start by that. Good question. Myra.
Jan, "Starting getting over shingles and left in huge pain." Okay, "And I'm trying to decide to get a shot now or wait a bit." Well, look, I'm not going to tell you that. I don't want to do that when it comes to any kind of vaccine or whatever, I don't talk about it because that's up to you. That's not up to me. Okay? You're not my patient. I'm not in practice anymore. I just do education, as much as I can. But let me talk about shingles. Okay, shingles is a herpes virus. Remember, if you got the chicken pox, you got the herpes virus. Okay. Now that virus is put to bed. It lays dormant and I've never seen, I mean this, I've never seen a case of shingles.
Let me just say this because somebody else asked me. Sue, you ask, "Can you discuss the mind, body link with illness and stress please?" Okay. Let me bring it to Jan. Okay. Let's talk about the herpes virus. Okay, chicken pox. You get chicken pox as a kid. It's actually good for you. Okay? Because your body flags it and it says, "Okay, there's the herpes virus. I'm making immunity to it." Your body does very well. It puts it to bed. Okay, doesn't kick it out. It doesn't kick it out of the body. Remember, a virus wants to live. It always mutates downward. Okay? Not upward, downward. The herpes virus sits in your body and it's sleeping. It's like a bear all winter. Okay? It's in hibernation. It can wake up. But here's how it wakes up, the body-mind, because what happens, and I've never seen an exception to this when it comes to shingles, okay? Shingles always comes in a high stress situation. It's like a cold sore, which is the herpes virus. Okay? Herpes simplex, herpes zoster.
Simplex is cold sore, okay? People get a cold sore, "Why doc? Why did I et a cold sore?" Well, you must have been under stress and look, you can stress yourself out even by bad eating. But generally there's cortisol involved. Cortisol is... Okay, that's cortisol. If you're wondering what cortisol is, it's like that over a period of time. Again, it's the fight or flight. Somebody scares you, you want the fight or flight. You're going to punch or you're going to run. Your body's unbelievable. It's fearfully and God gave you that. Okay? But it's not meant to always be secreted. When cortisol is secreted over a long period of time… Relationships, somebody sick in your family or bad relationships, or financial, worrying and blah, blah, blah. You can't sleep and your cortisol is high and you can't sleep and your cortisol gets higher.
There's a huge connection, a huge connection. That suppresses the immune system, because think about it. If you're running away from a bear, do you think your immune system is worried about a virus or a bacteria? Nah, it's a diversion. When I wrote my books on chronic fatigue syndrome, okay, boy, oh boy. That was a main thing. That's where I became like real woman's doctor, because I studied chronic fatigue. It was part of my PhD. I was one of the first guys to say, "Ah, chronic fatigue syndrome is a stress related syndrome. It's high cortisol. It's the burnout of the adrenal glands. Two little chestnut glands on top of the kidneys." Add renal on top of kidneys. It created a cascade of symptoms, including... Because you see, in those days I remember doing a radio show, must have been in the late '80s or '90s.
Yeah. They were asking me about chronic fatigue and they said, "Well, doc, isn't that the Epstein Bar virus?" I said, "Nah, it's not a virus." A virus is just maybe the straw that breaks the camel's back. But it started way before that with stress. I wrote a book about the modern woman, because it was different. My mom had 11 kids. We think about that today and my mother was a hero. She had 11 kids. How did she do that? But my mom didn't have stress like people have today. It comes from the environment. It comes from sugars. The world's changed guys. We have so much more shingles. Did you know that? Than we ever did. Not that shingles been around long time, but today like shingles and that's why they came out with a vaccine for shingles, because we see so much shingles, but why are we seeing so much shingles? Because of stress.
Stress is different than it used to be. Not that people weren't stressed, of course they were. But today it's everything. It's compounded. It's like compounding interest. You ever owe money on your credit card? It compounds daily. Okay? Now you get a hyper sensitive system and now you can get shingles. It's like I say very common or other viruses that take over the body. It's not the virus. It's the immune system that's suppressed by the stress. Okay, Jan?
Jan to Jean. Jean or Jean, “What would cause a healthy person to get a blood clot in the lung while usually no surgery?" Well, look that usually comes from deep vein thrombosis in the leg. Healthy person can get that. Sitting too long. It's usually a deep vein thrombosis and it can travel from the leg to the lungs. That's how usually it happens and that can kill you. A lot of it occurs with people, healthy as horses and they travel and they're 10 hours in an airplane, or sitting all the time at their job. We're very sedentary today. Here's another one, I'm going to tell you and people will argue with me. One of the biggest things where you get blood clots, is people are dehydrated. Remember you got 60,000 miles of blood vessels and a lot of people have thick blood, like molasses and that's because they won't drink water. They'll drink anything else, but they won't drink water. That makes you more susceptible. Okay? Very, very good question Jean or Jean.
Debbie, "Does getting your tubes tied affect your hormones?" Yeah. Yes, of course. It does play with your estrogen and your progesterone. But remember even with your tubes tied, your body adapts. Okay? It adapts and it's like a man getting a vasectomy, okay? Does it affect them? Yeah. It's not really normal. It's surgery, but the body adapts. Okay? But it can play with your hormones, for sure it can. Okay?
Anna's asking a question, "My friend had a blockage in her stomach, turned to infection and traveled to her brain and passed away. Why would this happen?" Well, she got a condition and God bless her, sepsis. You get an infection and it gets into your bloodstream. That's what happens. Sepsis is the infection went from an organ to the bloodstream and can be very deadly, very deadly. That's what happened. Okay, it got into the blood and it travel to the brain and that's what sepsis can do. It'll shut your body down and can be very, very deadly. I've seen it after a bowel blockage, sepsis can happen in many different ways. You can get a cut on your finger in people that have an infection, a small infection and then they get a super bug in there or whatever and that can kill you. That's what happens, Anna, good question.
Hela, "What does Dr. Martin think of ozone therapy?" Well, I'm not against it. Okay, it was never my specialty, but certainly I like it. Seems to have some good studies behind it and I got no problem with it. Okay, Anne, "I would like to know what's the best vitamin C." Now Anne, you set me up. The best vitamin C, and guys, I mean it, I mean it, I'm not joking the best vitamin C... Well, I don't have much left. I have my coffee cup and vitamin C, the best vitamin C is coffee. True story. It's real. A thousand phytonutrients in coffee, a thousand. Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, okay, coffee has it. Then 999 other things.
What's better, vitamin C and a capsule and you get vitamin C if you eat an orange, you have an apple there's vitamin C in it. Okay? Am I against that? No. I'm just telling you that the real vitamin C is coffee. Okay? It's coffee. I put the acerola cherry, I like that in vitamin C. We put it in our Navitol vitamin C, because that vitamin C with the Navitol becomes much more bioavailable. Your body takes it up. Problem with a water soluble vitamin like C, like ascorbic acid, it's got a very short time in your body. Doesn't last long. Because it's not that bioavailable. That's why drinking coffee, guys, and I mean it, is better for you. I'm telling you. Okay, Anne?
Wendy, again, talking about vitamins. "Liposomal vitamins, really, are they better for you," the question Wendy is asking. It's claiming to be more absorbable. Well, listen. That's how in some pharmaceuticals, that's what they do. They put it in a lipid for the body to absorb it. Yeah. I like that. I like that. I don't think that's wrong, in a liposomal format. I like it. Have it with peanut butter and you got liposomal. Liposomal means it's fat. That's why I like my little peanut butter with my supplements, okay?
Somebody asked me the other day, "Dr. Martin, why do you like peanut butter?" Because I do. I didn't say it was good for you. I just like it. Okay? I do. I like peanut butter. I've always liked peanut butter. Somebody said the other day, I just got to say this in passing, like EMC. Okay? The Reset, eggs, meat and cheese, "Oh doc. There's no variety." Well, gee, I'm going to be 70 very shortly. Okay, I've been eating peanut butter since I was a kid. I've been drinking coffee since I'm what 15 or 16. I don't get tired of that. I've been eating bacon and eggs since I'm height of a grasshopper. I'm not tired of it. I just had some bacon this morning. I'm not tired of bacon. You? I'm not tired of it. I'm not tired of eggs. "How do you like them? Scrambled?" Yeah. "Sunny side up?" Yeah. "In an omelet?" Yeah. "Poached?" Yeah. I'm not tired of it. Why would you get tired of it, if you like it?
Okay. Mary, "What does Dr. Martin think of glutathione?" Well, I like glutathione. I talk about it all the time. Your body makes glutathione. Okay. I love it. Navitol elevates your glutathione. Your glutathione is like Velcro. It attaches to garbage. It attaches itself to heavy metals. It attaches itself to things that don't belong in your body and will take it out of there. It's like Velcro. I love glutathione, but remember your body makes it. The problem with any supplement of glutathione, is that your body don't take it in very well. It's not really bioavailable. I love glutathione. That's why I love Navitol, because it elevates your glutathione. So does probiotics. Okay?
Now, Debbie. Okay. Now you're getting into women's issues. Well, we've been talking a lot about women's issues today, Debbie. "I'm wondering what Dr. Martin thinks, which is better, the Mirena IUD or the new Nexplanon?" I think I said it right Nexplanon. Nexplanon is just a little device that you put in your arm, right, and it's secreting hormones. You got to be careful with it. Okay, because it really makes you much more susceptible to blood clots. If you're going to take Nexplanon, be careful with it. I would tell you to take Navitol with it because it'll protect your endothelial layer of your blood vessel. Endothelial. Okay. What is that? That is the Teflon layer in your blood vessels. That's where you get blood clots. That's how it gets damaged. That's one of the things with this new IU... It's not an IUD because it's on your arm, I believe they put it.
Well, I don't know. I'm not a woman, but the Mirena IUD gives you progesterone. I think I liked it to some extent better than the birth control pill. The problem is there's a lot of side effects with that too. It's a device, put right into your body. Listen guys, I understand a lot of women had such bad periods and the doctor put in the Mirena for the progesterone, but always protect your body from the side effects of that. Okay, always protect your body. That's why, because blood clots and you know, when you put a device in the body like that, okay. Be very, very careful with it. But again, I'm not telling women not to get these devices. I'm not, but protect yourself.
Okay guys. I think I got them all. That was it. I think I answered everyone. I hope I did. Okay. Guys, thank you very much. We appreciate it. We appreciate you guys. Martin Clinic Facebook group. Are you a member? Please come and join us. Okay? I'm inviting you and we love you. We love that group and we love the comments and we love the questions and we love all of that. What a great group. Get your friends listening to The Doctor Is In podcast. Okay? There's new podcasts up there. Every week we put new podcasts. These things that I'm doing live become podcasts and it's a good tool to re-listen but you can get people to download them on their smartphone. The Doctor Is In podcast. Okay, guys, we love you dearly, talk to you soon.
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