Saturated fat has been given a bad rap over the years. In today’s episode, Dr. Martin teaches on fats and why saturated fat is superior.
Dr. Martin makes the point that if saturated fat is bad for you, then why is mommy’s breast milk made up of 50% saturated fats? It was in the 1960s that baby formula became popular, and eventually even medicine admitted there’s nothing like breast milk.
So the question is, how can saturated fat be bad for you when it’s good for the baby? Dr. Martin answers this question and more.
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 afternoon, everyone, and welcome to another live this afternoon. And hope you're having a great day. Always wonderful to have so many followers and encouragers. You guys are an encouragement. Here we go. I'm going to hit a couple of questions that we didn't get to on Friday, but I want to give you some stories that I picked up over the weekend. And I figured I'll do a little talk on some of these things.
Let's talk fat again. And you know that saturated fat has been given a bad rap. It's too bad because if you understand saturated fat, and if you go back a couple of podcasts, I think the podcast is actually out that you can listen to it. Saturated fat is a satisfying fat, meaning it's not looking for anything else. So, it's a very good fat, it's very stable, you can cook with it. So, butter and steak, saturated fat that you see in cheese, very, very stable. And inside the body, very stable. Unlike vegetable oil fats that are very unstable. They're looking for something. And especially if you heat them up. They denature and your body doesn't know what that is. And I talked to you about margarine. There was one... I saw it on the weekend. I don't know if I could post it. If I can find it again, I'm going to post it. But this is serious.
Well, it's funny, but it's serious in a sense that what they did is they were trying to feed chickens and they put the meatless meat, ooh, you know that plant meat? They put that in a dish and then they put hamburger in another dish, the real stuff. Well, chickens are smarter than we are. Chickens wouldn't go near the fake meat. Fake news, that's what it is. It is terrible stuff. But anyways, I'll try and find it so you can watch it and get a belly laugh. Because these chickens, they weren't even half interested in the fake stuff. They knew better than we do.
Whenever I see fake meat in the grocery store, my head explodes, it's full of soy, it's got about 50 ingredients, none of which are any good for you. And yet, people... Because saturated fat can't be good for you. I always tell people this, I didn't even mention it on that podcast, but you know when I was talking about saturated fat, how it is so stable, it is a satisfied fat. You're satisfied with it. But it's a satisfied fat in a sense that it's complete. It's a complete fat.
And it's really important part of your diet, because especially for fat-soluble vitamins, like vitamin A, vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin. And in this day and age, where people, for the last 40 years or so, have been eating fat free, that's been craziness, craziness. But one of the points I make about saturated fat is how could it be bad for you if mummy's milk, breast milk, mummy's milk, 50% of breast milk, you know what it is? It's saturated fat. Yeah. Mummy, mummy makes saturated fat. How could that be bad for the baby? And it's funny, I mentioned this to you in the past, that formula started hitting the shelves in, what, the 1950s and really became popular in the 1960s and whatever. And then, they realized, even medicine admitted, there's nothing like breast milk. And they hated to admit it. But one of the things that's in breast milk is saturated fat.
Now, let's just talk about, quickly, because I like to repeat so that you understand. There are nutrients really good for you. They're called essential fatty acids, EFA. Now, there's four types of essential fatty acids. They're essential and you need them, and you need to get them in your diet. Essential fatty acids.
Now, one of them, so we already talked about saturated fat and that's not omega-3, but saturated fat's very, very good for you. In the plant kingdom, you have omega-3, they're called ALAs. You will find them in nuts and seeds like flaxseed has omega-3. Did you know that? They have some omega-6, but they have some omega-3. Hemp seeds. And they're ALAs. They're ALAs. Now, the body can take some ALAs and turn them into DHA and EPA. But it's very limited.
So, anybody in nutrition, or at least they should, would tell you, you cannot get the amount of fat, the essential fatty acids that you need, from the plant kingdom. You can't do it. So, I used to tell my vegetarian patients and vegan patients, "Look, you have to take a supplement. You're not going to get enough essential fatty acid that you need, that your brain needs especially, from the plant kingdom." So, seeds, I'm not saying seeds are no good. You know what I think of flaxseed, hemp seed, don't smoke it. They're good. But they're not great.
You see, the second type essential fatty acid at the omega-3 long chain come out of the animal kingdom. And there's three of them. There is DHA, now I talk about that all the time. DHA, DHA, DHA. It's the best. Of all the essential fatty acids, DHA is the longest chain fatty acid. The longer the chain, the more it's absorbed by the body.
See, ALA would be just a little chain. Does it mean it's no good? No. But what your body really likes is the long chain. So, the longest chain fatty acid, the most absorbable, the one that your brain loves, especially brain, but your heart, your joints, your gut, makes your blood vessels very slippery, is DHA. Now, EPA is good too. It's a little shorter chain. It's longer than the plants, ALA, but it is a longer chain, but not a DHA chain. So, you understand that.
And the other one. So, to make the fourth one, you get CLA, conjugated linoleic acid. What is that? Again, it is an essential fatty acid that comes from dairy mostly. You get some CLA in meat, you get some CLA in eggs. The biggest form of CLA is found in dairy, cheese, cream. That's why I always tell you guys, don't ditch dairy, switch it, switch dairy, don't ditch it, because that CLA is a tremendous essential fatty acid.
Somebody asked me the other day as I was talking about it. And I said, "Well, maybe I'll go into a little bit." And again, here's my point. How can saturated fat be bad for you if 50% of breast milk is saturated fat? How could it be bad for you? Babies need it in the development, especially of their brain. The fatter mommy eats, the fatter her milk.
During pregnancy, I'm very big on DHA. Eat it and supplement with it, because that brain, they've shown the brain, when mommy is got good levels of that DHA, baby is very smart. It's amazing. I think it's one of the biggest tragedies today when we see all of these cognitive issues in children, and autism. Look, I don't want to unpack all of this today, but you know how I think about autism and I call it leaky gut. And it's a curse of the modern pregnancy. It's a curse of the modern pregnancy. And I got some very strong opinions on what happens. But one of them is that mum is not eating, don't eat fat free, whatever you do, especially when you are pregnant and don't eat that meatless junk, ooh, don't touch that stuff with a hundred-foot pole. Chickens won't, they won't touch it. I liked it. I'll try and find it for you.
Couple of others just headlines for you, light exposure one hour before bed decreases melatonin in preschool children by 98%. Parents, grandparents, get the kids away from blue light. Okay, you can play on the iPad for an hour before you go to bed. They're showing it really decreases the production of melatonin. Now remember about melatonin. Melatonin, your body makes. You want to supplement with melatonin, knock yourself out. I'm not that big on it. I've just found over the years, it has a shelf life.
Some people like melatonin and then a month later, they tell me, "Melatonin, it doesn't do anything for me anymore." Yeah, because your body gets used to it. But it's much better you get melatonin on your own, because your body makes it. When you get viderma. When you get in the sun, look, you won't get vitamin D from the sun in the winter if you got a coat on, but you will get melatonin.
Let me ask you a question. I used to hate teachers, hated them with a passion when they had snap tests without warning. I was a crammer. You needed to give me 24 hours and, boy, could I cram. But when they just say, "Okay, close your books, we're giving you a test." Ooh, I didn't like that. I didn't like any surprises. You're supposed to give me some notice. Because then I was pretty good. I did well in school when I got to memorize in cram, and I could cram.
But melatonin, guys, what gland releases melatonin? Is it a trick question? Not a trick question, because we've gone over this before, but I just want to see if anybody gets it. Yeah. And Kelly says, "Lose those sunglasses in the sun." Yeah. Because especially about 15, 20 minutes, because you make melatonin through your eyeball and it comes into the third eye. Now I gave you another clue. The third eye is called, what's the name of the gland? Annette, you're close. It's not the pituitary. Deanna, you got it right. It's called the pineal gland.
And guys, look, you all your guesses are good. Marie, you got it right too. The pineal gland. That releases melatonin. So, we get melatonin two ways. One, sun, viderma. It's another reason to get in the sun. That's why you feel better in the sun. That's why you sleep better when you got out in the sun. Why? You were making melatonin and it was being stored in the pineal gland, the third eye.
Now, what's the other way of making melatonin and producing it? When you're in complete darkness. Ah-ha, so when you go to bed, train your kids, turn out all the lights, the boogieman won't come. No, but really, if you want them to get into that REM sleep, because somebody asked the question about REM sleep and how do you really help that? Let me just see if I can find out who asked it the other day here. It was Sandra, Sandra. One of the ways, get in the sun. Even on a cold day, no sunglasses. Yeah. Don't go look looking right up at the sun, of course. But your pineal gland, you want to load it up, load it up with the viderma.
And then secondly, dark, dark, dark in your room, and turn off the blue light. Because not only for kids, this disrupts their melatonin, it's down by 98% if they have light exposure an hour before bedtime. You see, because melatonin is produced based on what we call the circadian rhythm, sunlight during the day, dark, dark, dark at night. Put a mask on over your eyes if you have to, get used to it. But that's one way, Sandra, with the REM sleep. Because I didn't get to it the other day.
But sleep, guys, is a complicated thing for a lot of people. If you've got adrenal stress, we've talked about what cortisol does, it messes up that circadian rhythm and it messes up your melatonin. Cortisol, the stress hormone, don't eat at night. There was a study of... Let me just get to it, here it is, time-restricted eating helps manage metabolic disease.
Well of course, and guys, if you haven't taken a metabolic storm course on our website, take it, because you'll learn there about eating windows. And if you can eat within about an eight-hour, 10-hour window, what does that mean? Well, you're not eating for eight hours. What you're doing is, if you eat breakfast at 8:00 in the morning and you go till, let's say, 6:00 at night, but don't eat anything else. That's an eating window. Now, if you can shorten it even shorter than that, they're saying that time-restricted eating helps manage metabolic disease.
Why is that? Because metabolic disease is a disease of insulin. Metabolic disease, heart disease by and large, cancers by and large, Alzheimer's by and large, diabetes, 100%, autoimmune. There's a huge, huge factor of insulin. It's insulin, babe. It's insulin. And insulin is a hormone that you use when you eat. So, if you restrict, it's not calories, has nothing to do with calories, time, restrict time, don't eat all day, don't snack.
And when you're eating the right fuel, one of the things that I created the reset for was for the fact that you won't need to snack anymore, you really won't, because your cells will be satisfied. Those little mitochondria, those battery packs within your cells will be well satisfied. Just like saturated fat. It's a satisfied fat.
Now, couple of other questions that people asked me here, who asked me this? What breaks your fast? So, guys, if you want to do a fast, intermittent fasting, we've taught about this many a time. There's a lot of benefits to intermittent fasting, but let me just say off the top, you fast without fasting if you're eating eggs, meat, and cheese. If you stick to those three, you really are fasting without fasting. Why is that? Because you're using so little insulin. See, the key is getting that insulin down.
So, the question was asked, "What technically breaks a fast?" Well, bone broth. Yeah, if you're going to have a bone broth smoothie in the morning, you're not technically fasting. Technically. But, guys, I'm telling you, all the benefits, all the benefits of fasting, which is decrease insulin, decrease inflammation, decrease free radical, increase autophagy. The self-cleaning oven when your body gets rid of all the debris, that's one of the things intermittent fasting does, but when you eat the right fuels, you're doing it.
So, look, technically yeah, if you have even DHA, technically, if you're taking a DHA capsule in the morning. Are you breaking your fast? Yes to the purist, no to Dr. Martin. You're not, because you don't need insulin. The key is insulin. So, good question.
[Jan 00:21:31], "Is it acceptable for hubby to drink four cups of coffee, but they're 16 ounces?" Boy, your hubby is smart, Jan. He's taking vitamin C seriously. I like that. How could anything be bad about vitamin C, coffee? Four 16 ouncers. That's two liters of coffee a day. I like it. You're not going to get a lot of negativity out of me, Jan, okay? You're trying to get your husband in trouble and I won't go there. Because, hey, I'd rather him be drinking his coffee. The only thing kills you in coffee is if you're putting sugar in. Don't put no sugar in.
Anne is asking a good question, "Doing the reset, taking cortisol control, and what else can I do to get my blood pressure?" Well, look, this is what I would do in practice. Anne, what I did, reset, you do it the right thing. Because at the end of the day, remember what I said, insulin, insulin, insulin is a big key to blood pressure, because it affects the kidneys. It affects those capillaries in the kidneys and around the kidneys, and that makes them vasoconstrict. You can get high blood pressure.
Now, I love Navitol. Why Navitol? Because Navitol will increase your nitric oxide, that literally opens up your blood vessels to lower blood pressure. So does B12, I love B12. How do you get B12 in food? Steak. Steak will lower your blood pressure, yes, it will. Get off the carbs, so you're doing good. Let me just see here.
Shirley says, "I have a small vascular aneurysm in my brain." Well look, Shirley, your body is smart. Your body will repair the area. You want to get good blood supply, you don't on triglycerides going up into the brain. Triglycerides come when you're eating carbs and sugars and then your triglyceride, those fat balls, will clog up your brain. So, lay off that, increase your HDL by eating lots of eggs, meat, and cheese, your vascular system will thank you. I love Navitol again and again and again, because it is so good for blood supply. So, thanks for the question, Shirley.
Dolores, "What does Dr. Martin think about betaine?" Well, on its own, I don't like it. I'm not big on bile salts on their own or betaine. I'd rather you take a little bit of apple cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar for your acidity in your stomach than to take betaine on its own. A lot of people have trouble with that.
What do I think of phytoplankton? I like it, from the sea. I like chlorophyll too. Chlorophyll is great. It's great for your pH. Good for detoxification. But nothing, nothing beats the reset, because the reset cleans the liver. And when your liver is clean, and somebody asked the question here, who is asking? Somebody asked the question about the liver. Oh, mild cirrhosis of the liver. Well look, Nancy was asking, what about the early stages of that? Well, you can fix it, the liver, there's no organ in your body better than the liver at regenerating itself. If you give the liver the right tools, Nancy, if you give the liver the right tools, your liver will regenerate itself.
Now, cirrhosis is the late stage usually, very dangerous. And that's what we used to see, by the way, in liver, you either had cirrhosis of the liver or you had nothing. But in the last 30, 40 years, we've seen a 300% increase in fatty liver, which is very dangerous too. But you can empty your fatty liver in six days, but your liver has an enormous capacity to regenerate.
Jenny is saying, "Why would I have a thirst when using salt?" Well, salt makes you thirsty. You can't make a horse, you can't make them drink, but you can add salt to the oats, then they get thirsty. Look, there's dehydration involved here and your body wants salt. You cry salt. Your saliva is salt. Your blood is salt. Salt got such a bad rap, it was so stupid. It was so non-scientific. Oh, salt and high blood pressure. Look, there is a way to get high blood pressure from salt and that is if you're dehydrated. If you're not drinking enough water, we call it the viscosity of blood. Then you have molasses for blood. You need water, water, H2O. And then add salt.
I'm big on a little bit of Himalayan salt, I love salt, it's good for you, but you need to drink water. You can't just have salt and no water. Now you're making your blood too thick and you can get high blood pressure from that.
So, I think I answered everything and I wanted to give you a couple of headlines. And thank you so much, guys. We appreciate it. Tomorrow, we're back on at our regular time in the morning, and Friday will be question and answer Friday. We always look forward to that. We had so many questions on Friday, I didn't get to all of them. And that's because I was pontificating too much. Ranting is another word we use. But, guys, we appreciate the questions and we sure appreciate you.
Now, if you're not a member of the Martin Clinic private Facebook group, the tens of thousands that are members, join up on Facebook. Go to Martinclinic.com. And if you want to join, I talked to a lady yesterday. I said, "Look, you're asking the wrong person. I am technology challenged." I'm not a technic rat, that I guarantee you.
But you can download the podcast. The Doctor Is In Podcast. Very, very popular all because of you guys. So, we thank you for that. The book, The Reset, guys, you're unreal. I'm telling you how you drove that book right from the start up to the top of the charts. And we appreciate that too. 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!