The vast majority of people in North America have extremely low levels of cholesterol. Contrary to what your doctor or cardiologist says, you actually want to increase your cholesterol.
Dr. Martin asks the question of why people are trying to lower their LDL when your body needs cholesterol. Your brain is made up of cholesterol. Every cell in your body has cholesterol.
Join Dr. Martin to learn all about cholesterol in today’s episode!
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, everyone. And once again, welcome to another live. Hope you're having a great start to your day. I was already ready yesterday to come on, and I couldn't get my app to work. And it was wasn't until Tony Jr. fixed it last night and fixed the problem. So, I couldn't get on. I tried everything and I was texting Brandi, "Hey, I'm having technical difficulties." It wouldn't let me come on. And I had to unfortunately cancel the program yesterday, and had to get the app fixed where I do this live with you. So anyways, it's all rebooted and ready to go so we're happy to be with you. Okay?
Now, we live in a crazy world, don't we? We live in a crazy world. And the reason I say that... I mean, look, we've been going through a lot. The whole world really has been going through a massive disruption in the last couple of years. But when I say we live in a crazy world, I get criticized sometimes. Well, more than sometimes. I get criticized for talking about food as a treatment. It's almost like we forget the basics of nutrition, in the sense that people live to eat and not eat to live.
So, it's amazing to me that you would get criticized for that in that sense. And so all I'm saying is... For example, I was talking to someone yesterday and I said, "Well, if, for example, you have high cholesterol, you're going to live longer," and that person looked at me like I had two heads. If you have high cholesterol, you're going to live longer. And the reason they thought I had two heads is because we need cholesterol to live. We live in a crazy world, because they're trying to hammer down cholesterol. Why would you hammer down cholesterol? Your body needs cholesterol. Your brain is made up of cholesterol. Every cell in your body has cholesterol.
But someone was asking me yesterday again about LDL. "I got to get my LDL down." And I said, "Why? Why do you want to get your LDL down?" "Well, that's what makes my doctor happy. That's what makes my cardiologist happy." You might make your cardiologist happy, but you're not making your body happier. Since when is LDL, low-density lipoprotein, a problem? They only made it a problem because they found a drug to lower LDL, and the rest is history, guys. If you understand that, you understand what's happening.
When you look at cardiologists who are telling people to eat oatmeal rather than eggs, you know the world is turned upside down. The world is turned upside down. "Oatmeal will lower your cholesterol." Well, it might, I guess, but why do you want to do that? You want to increase your cholesterol. The vast majority of people in North America have extremely low levels of cholesterol. They're not holding up their end of the bargain.
85% of your cholesterol is made in your liver. Your body makes it. God gives it to you, it's a gift. The other 15% is your responsibility. If you don't eat it, you're not making up that deficit. So, your body will be deficient. It has everything to do with indoctrination. I'm not saying food scientists or cardiologists or your family doctor, they've got bad motives. I'm not saying that. They've been duped.
We live in a crazy world where I tell people, "Well, I want you to eat more cholesterol. You're not eating enough cholesterol. I want you to get your cholesterol levels up." "What?" "Yes. You want to be healthier, you want to have a better brain? Don't eat cholesterol free." And this is one of the big things they talk about fiber. "Well, fiber sucks up your cholesterol in your gut." Eh, why do you want to do that? And this is why I keep insisting, if you're going to send me your blood work, I'm sorry. I'm not looking at your total cholesterol. I'm not looking at your LDL.
I tell people, "Look, you can make me look at it, but it don't mean nothing to me." You're in trouble when your cholesterol, your HDL especially, is low. You don't want to get that low. And you're in trouble when your TGs, triglycerides, are high. Look folks, if you have high triglycerides, you better fix it. And high triglycerides are fixed by your diet. Remember, cholesterol, to eat it, is only found in the animal kingdom. It's not found in plants.
I was telling a guy this yesterday because he was telling all the medications he's on, and his cardiologist was really concerned about his cholesterol levels. He admitted to me, by the way, that he wasn't feeling good with these meds. I'm not one to tell a person... First of all, person wasn't my patient. Just asking me for advice. "Well," I said, "I can't tell you to get off medications. I'll never do that. I'm not telling you to get off your medications, but I want you to question your medications."
He was on five medications, all related to his heart. Cholesterol, blood pressure, diuretics; and he was feeling terrible. I said, "Well, I mean, if you listened to my podcast," and I introduced him to that yesterday. At least I hope he wasn't trying to watch yesterdays. But to get onto The Doctor Is In podcast, I said, "You listen there." And I said, "If you listen to five episodes, just pick any five, I am going to repeat and repeat and repeat: cholesterol, you need."
Analyze your brain, it's made up a cholesterol. It's made up a fat. Cholesterol don't clog your arteries. They always point to things like butter. This poor guy, talked to yesterday. "I don't eat butter anymore, Doc. I don't eat salt anymore, Doc. My cardiologist told me to only have one or two eggs a week." And I think through the conversation, you could see steam coming out my ears, and I'm trying to hold back because I don't want to be overbearing.
But you asked me, you asked me. So now, I got to just give you a little bit of background in terms of food. The most important medicine you take every day is the food that you eat. And I'll tell you, if you eat the right foods, the vast majority of people, if they would just eat the right foods, and not in balance and not in moderation. I don't like those words. I don't like moderation.
"Well, we need a balanced diet." "Well," I said. "Yeah, maybe. But we're eating a very unbalanced diet now. People are loading up on carbohydrates, and they don't eat enough from the animal kingdom, which will give you a real lack of cholesterol, and it'll affect every area of your body, including your heart." You need cholesterol and you need to eat it. You need to do your part.
And it's amazing what happens. It's amazing what happens when people elevate their cholesterol. They have more energy, their triglycerides go down. Triglycerides are made in the liver when you eat sugar. Yeah. "Oh, Doc, I got to have my bread." "Yeah, well, that's going to be sugar rapidly." Sugar in nanoseconds ends up in your liver. Fructose rapidly, on a rocket ship, ends up in your liver. That's why I always tell people don't drink fruit juices. If God wanted you to eat fruit, then eat it, don't drink it. Because that is going to skyrocket your triglycerides.
I feel sorry for children today who have been lied to. I was listening to the news and I guess the mayor of New York, one of the largest cities in the world, talking about trying to get kids to eat the plant kingdom rather than the animal kingdom. The mayor of New York. And I felt like screaming, "Are you kidding me? The problem isn't animal products. The problem in children is children. What are you going to do, give them a bag of chips?"
The world has gone crazy, folks. The world has gone crazy. It's got this thing upside down. It's worried about LDL. It's worried about total cholesterol. You take cholesterol 101 in the first days of any biochemistry class, human biochemistry, and you go, "Cholesterol? Man. Man, you can't live without cholesterol." Your cells can't live without cholesterol. Your heart can't live without cholesterol. Your brain can't live without cholesterol. Your joints need cholesterol. And they vilified it and made it a boogieman.
And I'm not kidding you, every day, every day, I try and undo that in people's thinking. Somebody asked me about a product yesterday. "It says it helps to lower cholesterol." I said, "Well, why do you want to do that? Why don't you find something that elevates your cholesterol? You want to elevate your HDL."
I know there's a truck convoy in Ottawa, but you want as many trucks on the highways and the byways of your blood vessels. You want cholesterol trucks, HDL, traveling around from your brain to your toes hitching their wagon to triglycerides.
Ladies, I'm telling you, it's one of the reasons that women have so much trouble with horror-mones. They don't eat enough cholesterol. Now guys, I'm not telling you anything new today because I've been telling you this for as long as I've been preaching nutrition. Remember when I tell you guys that I had a radio show for 20 years. I used to talk about the importance of eating cholesterol.
You want your body to thrive? Then eat cholesterol, found in the animal kingdom. And when people tell me, and I get it every day. "Yeah, but Doc, meats no good for you. Meats acidic, and what about this, and what about that?" I know what you're saying, but that ain't science. When we're supposed to follow the science...
I don't like that, by the way, I don't like the saying "follow the science" because it means something else. It's a way of closing down the discussion, right? "Follow the science." What they mean is, "Follow my science and shut up." I don't like that. I want people thinking. I want people using their noggin. I'm not scared of information. Give me information, let me look at it.
Let's use our reasoning powers. I'm not scared of you giving me information. A lot of people, on a daily basis, send me stuff that goes against what I say. I read it. But you have some foundational principles in nutrition. They're foundational, right? They're foundational.
And people aren't well today. I explained this in the book, The Metabolic Reset, I explained, "We got a problem," and I know we had a pandemic and I know we have this problem and that problem and this problem, but one of the biggest problems in the world today is chronic disease.
Not infection, although it's still a problem, but it's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem health wise in our society today is chronic disease. Not acute, chronic. Cancer: Cancer's not acute, it's chronic. Heart disease: it's not acute, it's chronic disease. Alzheimer's: You don't get Alzheimer's when you wake up in the morning one day. "Oh, I didn't have that yesterday. How did I get Alzheimer's? I must have caught a virus." No, it's chronic disease. It's metabolic. It took time for that to happen inside the body.
The biggest point I was making in that book is that we changed fuels. We don't eat what we used to eat, and the results have been disastrous, disastrous. Chronic disease, that's affecting billions of people, and we're not winning the war, guys. We're not winning this war. We're losing the war. That's what bothers me.
We're losing the war. We're not healthier. We might live a couple of years longer on average, but people today are much less healthy. We've made some great advancements in science and this and that, life saving strategies in medicine and all that. I don't knock that stuff. Wonderful. Even some of the meds, wonderful. But the whole point of the metabolic syndrome was that people don't realize we got a huge problem, and its self-inflicted because of food. We've gone from 25 pounds of sugar in the 1970s to 200 pounds of sugar on average. 200 pounds, and then added in seed oils. Fast foods, processed foods.
Think about that. We didn't eat that stuff 100 years ago. Made with Crisco? Canola oil? You run your car on that stuff, you don't run your body on that. You were meant to run your body on good oil; cholesterol, butter, meat, eggs, cheese. Your body was made for that. Healthy saturated fat.
And here we are today. The world's turned upside down, and I want to scream, and I want to educate. I want to educate. So, if you do nothing else for yourself, you, us, together; eat less sugar, eat less carbs, crappy carbs, and eat more animal product. You want to have plants thrown in there? Go for it, go for it. But make that your secondary food, not primary.
Don't you live on fruit. Those are God's candies. You weren't meant to live on that stuff. That's a treat. Never drink it. There's some basic principles of nutrition if you understand that. You are going to help yourself. It really isn't that complicated.
Okay. We sure enjoy these. I was so sad yesterday when I couldn't come on and talk about nutrition. Okay. So folks, Friday is question and answer Friday, so get your questions in. We always want you to prepare ahead of time. Get those questions into us so we can answer them.
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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!