A new study is saying red meat will shorten your life. Of course Dr. Martin disagrees and he uses the “motorcycle gang theory” to explain why this claim is false.
When guys join a motorcycle gang, they generally die young. They tend to love red meat, 90% of them smoke, and nearly 100% of them drink hard. So, to say that red meat shortens your life and to exclude the other factors, makes the claim invalid. This is the motorcycle gang theory – to look at the obvious and not consider the other factors.
Join Dr. Martin in today’s episode to learn more about the importance of eating red meat!
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 this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Now, what we're going to do this morning, I'm going to talk to you about a study that came out on red meat, okay? And I think it's important we go over this because I want you to know where I come from as if you don't, but I'm going to double down today, okay? I'm going to double down, but I need to just talk to you about the study. Now, what I didn't answer yesterday and I saw it afterwards when I went to the podcast yesterday and I talked about vitamin C, ascorbic acid, okay? And a couple of people, you guys are so smart, you question. I don't want you to take everything I say at face value. I want you to think. I want you to question, and you guys are smart. So what happened after the program yesterday? Some of you said, "Well, Dr. Martin, you got vitamin C in your Blood Boost. As a matter of fact, we have vitamin C in our Navitol, okay?
Now, I didn't get into all the details, but I'm glad you asked those question... or, you didn't even ask the question, you just made a statement and probably going, "Why do you downplay the effectiveness of vitamin C, the other one, ascorbic acid, and then you have it in a couple of your products?" Well, okay. That's a very good question and let me answer. First of all, what I like about vitamin C is not ascorbic acid per se. In our vitamin C, and that's how you label it, but it's the acerola cherry.
Now, the reason we use acerola cherry, which contains vitamin C, acerola cherry, I've always liked it because cherries are good for you, okay? They are. Yeah, they have vitamin C, but they do other things. They help lower your uric acid and acerola cherry is much more what we call bioavailable, so that's what I use, okay? Now, we label it as vitamin C, but it really is much more than that. So if you're just using ascorbic acid, and you can get buffered C and you can get this kind of C and that kind of C, but, guys, I'm telling you, it's overrated in my opinion.
Now, doesn't mean it's no good. Doesn't mean you don't need it, okay, because you don't make vitamin C. Animals make vitamin C, you don't. You have to get it. But what I was saying yesterday was that you're better to get, and people think I'm crazy when I say it, but I literally mean it when I talk about coffee. Coffee has all the polyphenols. If you were to drink coffee, you're not going to get scurvy. And I told you yesterday that meat cures scurvy. It does. It does.
So, look, again, I like very bioavailable polyphenols, okay, what your body breaks down and keeps. Because I was telling you yesterday, one of the problems with vitamin C structurally, it looks like sugar, by the way. And your body has a hard time keeping it. And I can tell you therapeutically, okay, and I didn't even mention this yesterday, therapeutically, where I find vitamin C worked is when you did it intravenously in high doses. The problem, you can't take it orally in that kind of dose because you're going to get diarrhea. You're going to get digestive issues with a high dose. But if you do it intravenously, vitamin C, I got no problem with them. I got no problem with that.
We used to work with an oncologist in Toronto and he loved vitamin C intravenously and I'm quoting him, okay. He passed away many, many years ago. But he was an oncologist that loved doing intravenous, what he called his natural chemotherapy. And part of it, he used hyaluronic acid and he liked high doses of vitamin C. And I'm quoting him, unless you use high doses, I mean really high doses of vitamin C intravenously, he says it doesn't work. And I'm just quoting him, an oncologist, who liked natural chemotherapy. And, guys, I'd bring you back to the 1990s, when we worked with him. Boy, he was a smart guy.
Anyway, okay? So I'm glad you asked those questions. I want you to think and I want you to question what I'm going to say. Well, maybe you'll question this. So let's just talk about red meat, and I call it the motorcycle gang theory, okay? Now what do I mean by that? A new study out and it said red meat will shorten your life. That was the headline and then I read the article. Red meat shortens your life. Well, hello. I'm sorry, it don't. And when I read the study that they were quote, "red meat shortens your life," I call it the motorcycle gang theory, okay? So let me explain what I mean by that.
Do you know that guys that go in a motorcycle gang, they die young, generally. They die young and it's probably true. If you are riding in a motorcycle gang, you probably love red meat. You're a real carnivore, okay? And, therefore, when you die young and you drive a motorcycle, in a motorcycle gang, red meat will kill you. See that's an observational study, okay? We're observing. Motorcycle gang members die young and they like red meat. Therefore, our observation is it's the red meat. But what they didn't talk to you about, and I'm telling you, this is every red meat study, okay?
They look at it and they forget that in the motorcycle gang, 90 something percent of them smoke. 100% of them drink hard. They drink a lot of alcohol. They live rough, but it's the red meat that kills them. That's observational. And, guys, and this is just general, let me just give you a general statement. Men love red meat more than women do, okay? That's true. Therefore, when men die younger than women, must be the red meat, okay? Must be the red meat. And if you already have a preconceived idea that red meat is for you, it's amazing what you can do to make studies answer that question. Oh, of course, red meat's bad for you.
But what I tell people is this. Look, I've been around a long time, and here's just a general fact. Do you know that red meat consumption is down 40% from the 1970s? Not gone up, it's gone down. Why? Because of the indoctrination by the cereal companies, "Don't you dare eat red meat." They changed our breakfast. True or false? They sure did. They did. I watched it happen before my very eyeballs. In the late '60s, 1970s, listen, eat cereal and don't eat bacon and eggs because that will give you cholesterol. True or false? It's exactly what happened. Don't eat butter, it's no good for you. Eat margarine because there's no fat. There's no saturated fat in margarine. There's saturated fat in red meat. So what did they do? They pushed it and pushed it and pushed it and pushed it. And you saw, starting with my parents' generation, got to them and got to us, my generation, and they continued on going after my children's generation, and it's even worse now with my grandchildren's generation.
Meat is bad for you, they say it, they say it, they say it. And it's like a religion. You don't even want me to get into Dr. Kellogg. Study his life. He was a vegan. He literally health changed the nutritional status of the world because he was bought and paid for vegan. But that didn't make it science. It was always these correlation studies, like I call it the motorcycle gang theory. Nevermind our hard living. Nevermind they're smoking. Nevermind. They're hard drinking. "Oh, but they eat red meat," and therefore red meat is bad for you. I'm telling you, guys, I'm telling you.
So when it comes to cancer, they'll tell you that red meat causes cancer. I'm telling you, that's the farthest thing from the truth. Red meat don't cause cancer. This is a Martin Clinic statement. Cancer hates red meat. Can't feed on it. Cancer doesn't feed on red meat. Cancer needs sugar. It needs sugar, and there's very few people that would deny that. If you understand how cancer grows, it needs fuel. Cancer cells are like ravenous teenagers. "Hey, you just ate an hour ago. How come you're hungry again?" Well, that's a cancer cell. And they're not looking for steak, they're looking for sugar.
And so when you see these studies, men get more certain kind of cancers like colon cancer more than women do. Therefore, men like red meat more than women do and, therefore, it's the red meat. No, it's sugar, okay? I'm going to give you more. When you eat too much meat, hard on your kidneys. I'm not kidding you, guys. I'm not kidding you. Every week, I get asked the question, mainly because doctors will tell their patients. And look, you might as well go to your plumber before asking your doctor about nutrition unless they've been trained in nutrition because some part of medical school curriculum, they know nothing. I mean, literally, they know nothing about nutrition. They can hardly name you the three macros: protein, fat, and carbs. It's just not their area of expertise.
Doctors will tell you, "Well, you don't want to have too much protein because protein will destroy your kidneys." I'm sorry, protein doesn't destroy your kidneys. Sugar destroys your kidneys, okay? Don't blame protein for what sugar is doing. Sugar destroys kidneys. Ask a diabetic. All these new dialysis centers all over North America, to try and restore kidney function... Well, they don't even try and restore it, they just want to keep people alive. And when you get to dialysis, your kidneys are not working, so what do they do? They put you on a machine that filters out your toxins. Otherwise, you're going to become toxic. You're going to die. You need your kidneys to survive.
But don't you eat too much meat because that will destroy your kidneys. That's protein and protein is so bad for your kidneys. Who told you that? "Well, doc, I had protein in the urine." Yeah, so? "Makes sense to me. If I eat a lot of protein, I'm going to have elevated protein in my urine and that's a sign my kidneys are not working properly." Eh, no, it don't work like that. As a matter of fact, if you insist on being a carbaholic, you're going to elevate your protein excretion in your urine. Uh-huh (affirmative). It's the carbs. It's the crappy sugar. Kidneys hate sugar. You see? If you have an agenda to prove your point that meat and, you know, especially red meat is vilified. They don't go after chicken too much. A little bit. They can tolerate it.
But, oh, that red meat, it's bad for your kidneys. It's bad for heart disease. Red meat and heart disease, it's going to elevate your cholesterol. Well, goody-goody gum drops. You want to elevate your cholesterol. You don't die from cholesterol, you die from a lack of it. 85% of your cholesterol is made inside your body because your body's smarter than most people are. A lot smarter. It knows. Has to make cholesterol because you can't live without it. From every cell in your body needs cholesterol. Your brain needs cholesterol. Your blood vessels need cholesterol."
Oh, and LDL, Dr Martin. My LDL." I get a splitting headache talking about LDL. If it's at the crime scene, doesn't mean it's a bad guy. LDL usually is a big part of your immune system. At the first sign of infection, LDL helps. It's like a fireman. You don't blame the fireman because they're at the fire. They didn't cause the fire, they're there to put it out. You don't blame the police because they're at a crime scene. Of course, they're at a crime scene. They're there, well, hopefully to stop it.
First, cholesterol has been vilified. I've given you the history time and time and time again. And red meat has cholesterol. Yippee. You want cholesterol. You want to die young? "I got low LDL. Yay, give me high fives. I got my LDL down. I got my cholesterol down. Give me high fives. I'm doing so well." No, you're not. There was a class of medication.
You want to know how marketing works? If you had to take Marketing 101, okay? Let's say you're going into marketing. I want to learn marketing. If you want to learn from the best, you would read the story of the pharmaceutical companies. Coming out with statin drugs. Read the history of it. It is more than fascinating. It should be taught in any course on marketing. What did they do? They literally had to make up a problem.
Now, remember, like I've been telling you. Red meat. Don't you eat bacon. Don't you eat steak, it ain't no good for you. I told you about the greatest serial killer in the history of the world: Ancel Keys, who brought out the theory of cholesterol causing heart disease. He wasn't right in the beginning and he was never right, but it didn't matter. It gained a life of its own and they kept going and going, and then the pharmaceutical companies go, "Hmm, I wonder how we can get in on the action of this let's lower cholesterol." Well, they developed a drug, the number one selling drug of all times: Lipitor. They convinced everybody, every cardiologist that I've ever met was bombarded, "You need to get cholesterol down, and we have a drug that gets cholesterol down, especially LDL."
Now, when I was in school in the 1970s, LDL, so what? What's that mean? Of course, we have LDL. We have HDL. We have LDL. They're lipoproteins. They're carriers. They carry. You can't have any hormones properly without carriers of your hormones.I've taught you how many times what HDL does, why I'm so interested it in your HDL number. Because it hitches its wagon to those bad triglycerides. They don't have a medication for HDL nor do they have a medication for triglycerides, but they got a medication to hammer down cholesterol. LDL.
What is the significance of that? Let's be honest. Heart disease is worse than eve. Folks, if cholesterol was at the root of heart disease, we'd be all cured. We would never have to worry about it because statin drugs would have solved the problem, but they didn't even put a death in the problem. And I make the argument that it made it worse because it was a distraction. A distraction. And everybody went for it. Everybody in my parents' generation. "I better not eat any more cholesterol." I had patients bragging to me, "Well, doc, I only have one or two eggs a week. That's what my doctor told me to eat. I can have one or two." I said, "A every meal?" "No, no, a week." "What? Why don't you two eggs at every meal?" "Well, well, well... my, my, my, my... Doc, my cholesterol. I'm going to have a heart attack on the spot." No, you're not. No, you're not. The motorcycle gang theory.
These studies, they drive me crazy. So heart disease, cancer. You can't live without fiber. Ooh, okay? And the new thing in fiber now, okay, is what we call FOS, fructooligosaccharides, okay? Prebiotics. And this is why you need lots of fiber. You got to have your fiber, not only for cholesterol, but for your good bacteria to live. They need that fiber, fiber, fiber, fiber. Brought to you by Kellogg's and Quaker Oats. Ooh.
Somebody asked me the question a couple of weeks ago, I don't know if you remember this, "Doc, what about butyrate? It's a byproduct that is very good for your microbiome." Yeah. Well, when you eat steaks, one of its byproducts is butyrate. You don't need fiber to make butyrate. You get it with steak. It'll feed your good bacteria. It'll feed your microbiome. I'll tell you what destroys your microbiome: sugar does and those stinking vegetable oil, they call vegetable oils in the middle aisles of your grocery store and at your fast food restaurants when they cook those chicken, McNuggets and the French fries. You want to destroy your microbiome, eat that crap. Hmm.
Oh, and here's another one, okay? "Gout, Dr. Martin, gout. I get gout." And, hey, I've been consistent, okay? I've been so consistent about this. Now, gout, uric acid. For people that don't get rid of it, they can get gout. Like, uric acid, much more complex than people think it is. It's not just gout. Red meat and gout. I go, "Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." It was called the King's disease, and only the elite... It's been around for thousands of years. Many historians. They talked about people that had all this in common like Alexander the Great and Henry VIII, okay? He had gout. A lot of famous people had gout. But, guys, here's the problem with it: it wasn't the red meat. "Oh, Dr. Martin, it's the purines." No, it's them drinking beer and alcohol and fructose. The wine. That was the King's disease. It wasn't the red meat. You're blaming red meat. Nah.
Anyway, I didn't think I was going to get excited today, but I did. You guys are great. We appreciate you very, very much. You know that I hope. Okay, this week will be a shortened week because of Good Friday coming. So Friday, we won't be on. We will be on, on Easter Monday, okay, just to let you know, okay? Because some people ask me that. We'll be on Monday of next week, but this week we're going to have Question and Answer Thursday again. So that'll be two weeks in a row. Don't get used to it, okay?
Now, if you're not a member of the private Facebook group, please join us. Join our crew. Join our wonderful folks there, okay? I encourage people to do it, especially if you're going to start the reset. And, you know what, maybe tomorrow, I don't know, I want to do an 80/20 program and I'll tell you all about it just before I do it, okay? But I encourage people to get into the private Facebook group because it's encouraging.
I read a little post there this morning. They were on day one of reset and they said, "Doc, I gained weight on the first day." "Well, hold on, you got 29 days left." Like, don't base everything on day one. "I didn't feel so good." Yeah. Well, you were probably, you maybe never realized it, but you were probably a carboholic and now that you're changing fuels and your body is going, "What are you doing to me? Who are you? I don't recognize you." It's a drastic change, and sometimes in the first couple of days, there's a big change when you change fuels. Trust me, your body will be thrilled. Ask the tens of thousands of people who did it with great success, and you'll read about it there. I don't know if we have a piece just for testimonies. We ought to. Unreal.
Okay, so now we put out an email this morning. Did you see it? If you don't get that email, first of all, check your spam because sometimes it gets sent in there, you don't even realize it. But you'll love our emails. If you're not getting them, sign up. Martinclinic.com to sign up for the emails, okay? We love sending out information to you. We're an information people. I want to keep you informed and we try and make it simple so that you can read it and understand it. I'm a simple person. Keep it simple stupid. That's me. That's my motto, KISS. Okay, 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!