Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Osteoporosis & high vitamin D
- Stress hormone in animals
- Hibiscus tea & blood pressure
- Saggy arm skin
- Benefits of oregano oil
- Heme iron in meat
- Coffee & water consumption
- NMR lipid testing
- Globus sensation
- Barometric pressure disrupting sleep
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 and question and answer Thursday. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Let's get to the questions this morning. Okay Mary, my vitamin D is very, very high so why do I have osteoporosis? Well, that's a good question because everybody and their dog Mary thinks, well, I'm trying to change that thinking but, you look at medically, almost everybody in the medical field they think of vitamin D as bones, right? And sure enough, it's good for your bones. We've known that for a very, very long time. Vitamin D is essential for your bones but couple of things. One, it's not the only thing essential for your bones. And one thing Mary when you say your vitamin D is very, very high, how long has it been very, very high? But there's a lot of other factors, okay? Vitamin D, yeah, important.
But, I've talked to you many a times about K2, vitamin K2. And if you're low in vitamin K2, well guess what? Calcium doesn't even get to your bones. When you're eating calcium and that's what I want you to do, I want you to eat your calcium, you get a lot of calcium in eggs, meat and cheese because I just don't want you to take calcium as a supplement because it won't get to its intended destination. You don't want calcium in your blood, you want calcium in your bones. Now, there's a lot of things Mary that could go into osteoporosis one of them being, you might have had malabsorption syndrome in your gut and that could cause the fact that you were never taking up your minerals. I'll tell you one thing that'll leak your minerals out of your body almost more than anything else. You know what it is? When you got a bad diet and full of sugar. Sugar makes everything leaky including yourselves and that's why a lot of people, they are missing magnesium, potassium, boron, all things that are good for your bones because they got such a bad diet.
Look, it's a multitude of things, right? Now, if you have osteoporosis Mary, and when you say your vitamin D is very, very high, how high is it? Okay, because I aim high. I talked to someone yesterday and they said, "Well doc, I got high B12." Good. "Isn't that dangerous?" No, nobody's ever croaked from having high B12 I can tell you that and no one ever croaked by the way from having high vitamin D, okay? Now, it depends on how high it is. There's two reasons that you could have high vitamin D and it won't go down. One, you got liver problems and the other one, you got kidney problems. If you don't have a good functioning liver, how does your liver stop working properly? Well, it could be full of fat. The Costco parking lot might be full to the brim and that's why the reset is so good because you'll empty the Costco parking lot.
If you do that, a lot of times the people with high levels of vitamin D have an underlying condition and that is usually their liver, fatty liver or the start of fatty liver or their kidneys are not flushing out properly. There's a multitude of things Mary, a multitude of things. But thanks for the question, okay? You got to tell me number one, how high is it? And number two, have you compared it? When you say, I've got very high vitamin D, osteoporosis didn't happen overnight. It takes years for osteoporosis. You start off with osteopenia and then you go to osteoporosis and that's a process and women are more susceptible to it, why? They got hormones so, that's a whole other ball of wax, okay? Because hormones are really important. In women it's important for women to be balanced in their hormones because that can have an effect on your bone quality, okay? What did I bring you the other day about osteoclast and osteoblast and you need a balance there for bone quality and what I like to… By the way and Mary, you better be doing this because what will make up for weaker bone is strong muscle. You need to have strong muscles so exercise bands, weight lifting, get strong, get your back and legs to be strong muscles, okay? Mary, thanks for the question.
Okay Jose is asking, what about the stress hormone in animals? Is it not toxic to eat? No. Jose, I'm glad you think if an animal's got cortisol and we eat the meat, would it be toxic? No, I'll tell you why. Because an animal's stress is much different than us human beings, okay? Let me explain that. When an animal is scared, they take off or they're going to come at you, right? Don't sneak up on a bear or you're going to be in deep trouble, okay? That's why they tell you when you're walking in the bush... My sister says, there's so many bears in Sudbury and Timmins they're buying condos.
But you don't want to make noise because if they get scared, you might be their lunch, okay? But, cortisol and even for us is only supposed to be temporary. If I scare you, the fight or flight, okay? You're going to punch me or you're going to run. And then it's supposed to stop. But us human beings, us human beings and we're the only ones, your cat don't get stressed, okay? Neither does your dog, it's different, okay? Cortisol's a big issue in human beings. It can affect your sleep, it can give you belly fat, it can drain your adrenal glands, it can make you exhausted, it can pour gasoline on the fire of inflammation in your body. Be anxious for nothing, the Bible says, okay? Be anxious for nothing and everything in prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, make your request known unto God. We're supposed to pray about it but what do we do? We worry, we worry. You go to bed, maybe you'll fall asleep and then you wake up and you can't turn your brain off. Well, that's cortisol.
It goes along with your circadian rhythm and happens is it can really mess up your body because cortisol like I said, it's a diversion and it really pours gasoline on the fire of inflammation. If you got inflammation, it pours gasoline, the fire... That's why cortisol is so important but in animals it gets turned off the way it's supposed to, okay? That's why don't worry about cortisol as far as eating animal meat, you don't have to worry about that. It doesn't get transferred into their tissue because they're not always stressed like us. I talked about this a lot, right? During this whole pandemic and the lockdowns and it's always stressful but it's been worse. It's been worse.
And I talked to you guys about this a lot, the unintended consequences, public health, okay? God bless them, okay? No but really, all he can think of is a virus. The virus, the virus, the virus, the virus. I've been screaming for two years, you guys know that. Not only about, let's get our immune system because there's always going to be a virus. There's going to be a first wave, a fifth wave, a 10th wave, a 12th wave. Whether it's COVID or something else coming to a theater near you, there's always going to be viruses. Especially in the world we live in today. China people come from China every day and we go to... No, we don't go to China as much as they come here but people travel. You can get to anywhere in the world in about 24 hours, right?
We're going to transmit, we're always got virus and whatever but one of the unintended consequences is, people got so stressed. Fear, the fear factor. And we're meant for each other guys, you and I are meant for each other. I always tell people, "Well, I need you and you need me." That's what human beings. We're not meant to be alone and then there's fear and there's loneliness and there's depression and anxiety on steroids today because of the world we live in. And I don't think I'm going to change the world. I'm not trying to change the world. I'm trying to get you and I to be equipped to live in this world the way it is so we can take care of ourselves. Start with yourself. You know my airplane story, right? You get on an airplane and I never listen but because I've been on an airplane so many times.
Let's go through the safety features and the stewardess is doing this and that and points to the exit rows and wearing the mask but one thing I listen to, if in the event that we lose cabin pressure, the oxygen masks will come down automatically. Well, okay. And you know what they say? Put yours on first, put yours on first then you can help somebody else, okay? That's what I'm trying to do guys. I'm trying to get you, my audience, to take care of yourself first and then help others, okay? You guys get the memo, you understand that, okay? Good questions Jose.
Brenda, Hibiscus tea, will it lower blood pressure? I don't know. Why drink tea when you can have coffee, Brenda? Now you know me, I like to tease a little bit, okay? But look, it may, okay? I know what it is, okay? Hibiscus tea but, for you teetotalers out there, tea is good, okay? Tea's good for you and hibiscus tea, yeah, it's got probably some things that are good for you, coffee's better. Look, I can't make you like coffee but I feel sorry for you if you don't like it. Somebody said to me the other day, "Doc, I don't like coffee." What? But yeah listen, tea is good guys. Hibiscus tea its got some benefits for sure. I got no problem with that.
When you want to lower blood pressure, start with your diet because I'll tell you, the number one cause of high blood pressure is sugar, it's insulin resistance, it's part of metabolic syndrome, it's food. It's not salt, don't blame salt for what sugar did. I always start with the diet, big time, okay? I start with the diet. I love Navitol for blood pressure because it elevates your nitric oxide, okay? And another thing and we talked about it yesterday, if you got metabolic syndrome of any kind, you got sticky blood vessels, unstick them, change your diet, get that insulin down, okay? Thanks for the question Brenda, okay?
Linda, besides exercise and hydration, what can I do for saggy arm skin? Well look, there's nothing better than exercise, there's no better... Look, I'm big on weights. You guys know that or resistant bands or whatever. If you lost a lot of weight, you might have saggy skin. Is there any miracles out there? I like collagen. I'm big on collagen protein. All I'm saying is Linda is this, I like collagen, the collagen protein is the best protein of all. It's the most bioavailable of all proteins. I like weight and I do. For me, I like those things but collagen's the best that's why I love bone broth. You could do that. A lot of people find their skin is better, maybe a little tighter but how much of a miracle you're going to get from that? I don't know, but there's no magic. Look, just do this, put this on your skin, it'll fix it. No, okay? If someone tells you that, run, they're lying to you, okay? But it's a good question, okay?
And yeah, I mean you want good skin but I'll tell you one thing about skin too. I mean, not so much saggy, a little bit saggy but start inside out. Linda, start inside out. Skin is an organ, it's the largest organ, it's the visible organ. But what goes on, on the inside you're going to see on the outside so take care of your inside man. Take care of your insides. Okay, good questions. Thank you very much Linda.
John, oregano and oregano oil apparently are rich in vitamin C. Why is oregano so good at killing bacteria and so good for your immune system? Well John, let me say this, okay? Oregano oil, okay? Wild oregano oil, make sure when you get oregano oil, it's wild not made in China. Make sure it's good oregano oil but the reason I love oregano it's not because... And John, when you say it's got vitamin C, not really. It's got vitamin C like components, okay?
I told you the story the other day. We talked about ascorbic acid, we talked about Linus Pauling and he won a Nobel prize in medicine and he should have, he did, I liked it. He brought vitamin C to the forefront. Not that nobody knew about of vitamin C and people started taking ascorbic acid as a supplement. If you would've talked to me in the 1970s, I wasn't that big on it. Not that I didn't like vitamin C. Vitamin C on its own, in my opinion, okay? You don't take it alone. Here's what I liked about vitamin C in therapeutic doses, cancer but by IV. It's the only way to take the therapeutic doses that are needed. I always said about Linus Pauling, he missed by one letter in the alphabet John because, vitamin D is a million times more important than vitamin C unless you're talking about the real vitamin C which is coffee, but you see what I'm saying? When you say oil of oregano contains vitamin C, well, it doesn't contain ascorbic acid but it contains multitude of antioxidants.
It's a combination of things. Do you know that coffee's got 1000 vital nutrients, 1000. It's complex and it's bioavailable that's why your body loves it guys, okay? And so ascorbic acid on its own, not so much. When you eat an orange and you get vitamin C, okay? You get a lot of other nutrients in there and they combine and then somebody asked the question and I saw the question right after that podcast but I forgot to tell you, I do use some vitamin C but not ascorbic acid on its own. I love the acerola cherry, okay? I love cherries by the way, I do. Cherries are good for you. I was trying to think, what's my favorite fruit? Cherries followed by berries. If you live in Northern Ontario, blueberries, wild. Northern Ontario and I'm sure in Quebec and other Le Gaspe, Quebec, you get real good Riviere-du-Loup and those other places, you get real good, wild blueberries. Now, bears love those things. You know that a bear when they're getting ready to hibernate, they'll eat up to 30,000 blueberries a day.
See they're getting ready. Nature's smart, ain't it? You know what fructose does? It puts on fat, okay? That's why I don't want you to eat too much fruit. They're God's candies, don't eat too many. You can have some though. I love bananas by the way, I don't eat a lot of bananas because, how many M&M's are you eating when you eat a banana? About 49 I think. I'd have to check my notes but, it's somewhere around there. But guys look, oil of oregano, let's get back to that just for a minute. And I see I should have mentioned this a while back to... There's a fella that I had when I had my radio show. I interviewed maybe two or three times a fellow by the name of Dr. Cass Ingram. He was a guru on oil of oregano, okay? I remember they brought him when there was a water crisis. Was it Walkerton in Southern Ontario? I mean, people died from contaminated water.
He went in there and did an experiment with oil of oregano and how you can put it in swamp water and it is such a powerful antibiotic and antifungal and anti everything. I love oil of oregano guys. You know what? It's God's natural antibiotic because it don't kill your good guys. It only kills your bad guys. How can an antibiotic be so smart? Because it's nature, okay? Oil of oregano owes me money. I've always said that because per capita, the highest sales of oil of oregano in Canada were in Sudbury and that's the truth because of my radio show because I talked about it all the time and people would call in and they say, "I guess Dr. Martin's going to say take oil of oregano." Yeah, I love oil of oregano. You can use it every day by the way. Don't listen to the nonsense about, "Oh, you can't use that every day. You're going to kill your good bacteria." No, you won't. It's only good for you. And it's a powerful antioxidant John, a powerful antioxidant which is so good for your immune system, okay?
Sally Jesse, is heme iron only in red meat? Yeah. Now remember what I taught you now. Heme iron is a molecule in iron. Heme, hemoglobin. Now what is hemoglobin? Brings more oxygen. Why? Because hemoglobin it's a substance like velcro found in your red blood cells, right? And you can measure it. And heme iron is only found in vitamin S, steak, liver too but I don't talk about liver. Red meat, Popeye didn't get strong from eating spinach, he lied. Spinach don't make you strong. Heme iron found in red meat, okay? Yeah, it's only found in red meat. Many say to eat spinach for iron when anemic.
Well, good luck with that. Good luck with that. Look, spinach you can eat, okay? You can eat spinach. But all I'm saying is, you can't compare the nutritional scale between a piece of steak and spinach, believe you me there's no comparison. And I know, my vegetarian friends and my vegan friends, they try and make a case for it but they're not on solid ground because you learn nutrition 101 and you realize none, it's wishful thinking. You can't get the iron you need from spinach. Now you get some iron but it's not heme iron and heme iron, H-E-M-E, Heme, heme, I don't know.
Okay Wendy, my B12 has been high for two years now. Stop taking it, is still high. Why is that? Well, that's good. You want it to be high? Why are you worried about that? Who cares if your B12 is high? I mean it, I aim high. I aim very high B12. The waiting rooms in the hospitals are full of people with high B12. No, they're not, they're not. I remember a physician and she was one of my patients. She called me because one of her patients and my patients and she was my patient. I mean, the doctor was. Said, "Doc, I got a patient here and their B12 is through the roof." And I said, "Good." And she said, "What? Well, that's good. You want your B12 to be through the roof. It's a water soluble vitamin." You need to have high B12 and look, if it's around 1400, well then you don't need to take it anymore. I'm aiming up there.
B12 is an essential vitamin. Of all the B vitamins, B12 is the top of the food chain as far as B12 and found only in, where's B12 found everyone? Where is it found? Red meat. Oh red meat... But that causes cancer. Red meat's acidic and red meat is no good for you and it causes colon cancer and it's fake news is what that is. Okay Nicole, is it true that drinking coffee eliminates minerals in our body? Untrue because I'd be dead by now. Now, can you drink too much coffee? Yeah, I always talk about the sweet spots, okay?
People ask me, "Doc, when you talk about water, why do you say two liters of water are 64 ounces for my American friends?" Well, that's your sweet spot. Now, some people are different on either end, not much. It's just your sweet spot based on 46 years of practice, the sweet spot. And I usually measure it because of the viscosity of blood and all this and that, that was for water, okay? Coffee, the sweet spot is four cups of coffee a day, okay? That's your sweet spot for most people. You're not peeing out all your minerals when you're drinking coffee. That was brought to you by people that didn't like coffee, okay? But, if you drink too much and you don't drink water, you see there's only two things I really want you to drink. Well, three, okay? I want you to drink coffee, I want you to drink water. Your body is 75% water. You need water, you're like planet earth.
We couldn't live on this planet if there wasn't water on it, right? You can't live without water. You can live without food longer than you can live without water. You need water, okay? H2O and only water is water. I know you make coffee with water but that don't count for your water intake, okay? You need coffee, you need water and I like Dr. Martin's perfect smoothie. I'm going to talk about that again because I want you to get to your kids liking that. It's so good for them. They want to drink something. When they're not weaned on water, kids want to like, give me a juice or give me a soda or give me this and those root smoothies. There's nothing that drives me crazier than when I see that stuff in the mall and these kids drinking all these. They go to Starbucks. I was in the airport the other day and people are lined up at Starbucks. I said, "Well, okay, coffee. But they're not even ordering coffee." They order everything else with sugar in it. Well, I'll have this latte and I'm going, "What are you doing that for?" You know how much sugar is in that, Nicole?
Gail, okay, we're almost there. We got a couple of more questions here, okay. Do you think people should ask for an NMR lipid test? I know what that test is, okay? And Gail look, that is a very specific test to look at your lipoproteins especially your LDL. Now let me say this first, because if you want to get that done Gail, go for it. I mean it, I got no problem with it but I got trouble with taking LDL as a problem right out of the gate, okay? Right out of the gate. And I explained that yesterday, okay? Our podcast yesterday. What did I talk about yesterday? Sticky blood vessels. Look, HDL is really important. Why? Because it not only transports hormones but it's a really important measurement of insulin resistant. When you send me your blood, I should be doing this. I don't do it but I should do it. When I see upside down triglycerides and HDL, low triglycerides, high HDL is normal. You are in good shape.
But when they're upside down which I often see, I should say right away, you have insulin resistance, okay? 100%. What I'm saying to you Gail, okay, is look, you can do that test. And they look at LDL and they look at different forms of LDL but listen, what I'm going to say, LDL is a carrier. HDL is a carrier and LDL is a carrier. It will elevate when you have an infection. What's that mean? Well, LDL must be important to bring cytokines and other things they transport to the area of injury, very important for your immune system LDL. But, they want to get it low and I understand that the NMR test is to look at the different form of LDL, okay? I don't want to get into the weeds too much but I've always said this and I've been consistent 100%. You want to look at LDL, look at your numbers, not so because I'm more interested in your sticky blood vessels because if you don't have sticky blood vessels, you got nothing to worry about as far as your LDL is concerned, you got nothing to worry about.
Blaming LDL for anything bad is like blaming the police because they're at the crime scene or blaming the firemen because they're fighting the fire. Of course, they're fighting the fire. They're not bad guys. Now, if you got sticky blood vessels, well lowering the LDL ain't going to do you no good. You got to unstick your blood vessels. You got to make them less sticky. That's why I'm so high on high DHA oil. You should be sliding other rooms because you're taking oil and do you know that eggs, meat, and cheese give you oil? Yeah, you can get it done. Send it to me if you get it but I'm not going to get Gail too uptight about it, okay? And that's me.
Kim, globus sensation, okay? What's globus sensation? That's like you got something stuck in your throat. Here's a couple of things that I've noticed about that and there's really nothing stuck in your throat by the way. To me that is more of an underlying issue. Could be your thyroid. Your thyroid's slightly swollen. When patients used to come in my office, I'm a touchy feely guy, okay? I overwhelm people sometimes. I'm a touchy, feely guy. If you come and see me and you go, "Hey doc, we haven't seen each other." I'm going to give you a big hug. And some people are... Especially in the days of COVID. I'm a hugger, okay? No, but when you came into my office I got real close because I wanted to observe. I'd look at your eyes, I'd look at your skin, I touch your thyroid because oh, that's a little bit swollen. Could be thyroid, could be GERD, it could be a digestive issue.
You see, your body's smart. I think it's a reflex. That's my opinion. It's a reflex and body saying, yeah, you know what? Your stomach doesn't have that much acidity in it to break down food and I'm trying to get your attention. Now, it can be stress too, I've seen that. Very high levels of cortisol over a period of time can do it too. Okay, good question. I've seen it, it sometimes it's a reflex of a food intolerance. Your body says, don't give me that. I can't break it down. Why are you eating it? And you feel like that's something stuck in your throat. You almost feel like the esophagus is shrinking, okay? Good question. Thanks so much.
Joanne, for existing build up arterial plaque will diminish with the AMC and low triglycerides. Yeah, your body's unreal. You get brand new cells, you get brand new everything, you get brand new tissue. You regenerate it but if you don't fix the underlying problem, he's going to come back in the same way. To what extent can you regenerate when you get older like me? Okay. But your body is fearfully and wonderfully made, it's amazing. I've seen people, arterial plaque especially where they could measure it in the carotid arteries get a lot better. Now, if you're 90% blocked, you might need help from a surgeon, okay? But that is one of the reasons Joanne, is there a risk of artery blockage if the plaque breaks up? No, your body gets rid of it, debris. Don't worry about it. Your body's unreal. It knows what to do.
Okay Janice, does barometric pressure cause sleep disturbances? Well, not for 99.9% of the population but some people are hypersensitive to the... They're weather people. I used to laugh at y'all may get a headache. Well, no, they'd get a headache because they said a storm is coming doc. I said, "Well, you should have been a weatherman, a woman." When the barometric pressure changes, I can feel it. Well, remember the word weird? I mean, unique. Okay, you're not completely unique but it can happen, okay? But not ordinarily. That's not the big cause. Does the blood thin out in cold or hot temperature? No. There's very little fluctuation in blood because everything in your body keeps its pH, no. Thick blood will happen if you're not drinking enough water, you got molasses for blood. Your body will still operate but it's not good for it. What causes a detached retina? Well, sometimes injury. I'll tell you what I think causes detached retinas, is a lack of blood supply. And detached retinas or serious, you got to get that looked that right away but, you know me and I talk about the eyeball.
The key to your eyeball is all those highways behind it. 407, 401, highway 595, 95 in Florida, the turnpike, they're all in behind the eye. If you look in the eye, it's all blood vessels. It's really important to keep your blood vessels with lots of good little capillaries there, okay? The reset helps with that. I love Navitol for that. I love high DHA for your eyes, okay? Okay, good questions Janice. I think I'm just about done. Carlos, I have one or two teaspoons of Himalayan salt daily, people tell me not to discontinue my trace minerals. Well look, I like trace minerals but Himalayan salt's got trace minerals, it's got 84 of them. I like trace minerals. I got no problem with that. That's why I always talked about Himalayan salt because it's got 84 minerals, are a good kosher sea salt, got lots of minerals in there. They're trace minerals, that's what that salt is.
That's why I like you to add it to your water. Carlos, good question and sweets. Literally, that's the name that's written here. Can you talk about interstitial cystitis? Okay, but I'm not going to talk about it long but I'll tell you what it is. It is a fungus. It's a candida. Oh, somebody asked about rosacea. You know what, how did I miss that? Because I saw it. Hold on, and I didn't even talk about it. Oh Colleen, sorry Colleen, I missed it. Okay but I can do both. Rosacea is fungus. It's candida on the skin. Where do you go? To your gut, leaky gut. Leaky gut, leaky skin, rosacea, it's autoimmune, okay? Take care of the gut, really important. And you might find things that trigger, make it worse rosacea. Now, interstitial cystitis, pain in that bladder unexplained and not in my opinion, it's not. It is a low grade fungal infection. Yeast got into the bladder and your body is reacting to it.
It's a fungal, it's low grade, you don't get a temperature, you don't get anything like that but it becomes chronic. It can be very painful and it's usually with people that have used antibiotics, the number one reason for it so probiotics. Okay, tomorrow we're off. It's good Friday, okay? Now I want to wish you guys a happy Easter. The Lord has risen. He's risen indeed, okay? And we'll be on Monday, Easter Monday. Many will have holidays but not me. Well, this is a holiday for me. See, I love doing this. It's a hobby, okay? We love you guys and 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!