Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Sugar free gum
- Water therapy
- Dowager's hump
- Ocular migraines
- High potassium
- Supplements for shingles
- Prominent veins in mens’ noses
- Age proofing your brain
- Ghee vs. butter
- Removing uric acid
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. It's Friday. Hope you're having a great start to your day. We're looking forward to our question and answer Friday here. Let's get to them. And here we go. How do I feel about sugar free gum on the reset? Well, listen in a perfect world, I would tell you to take a month off, 30 days, of not chewing sugar free gum, because they're artificial. Now look, if you need sugar free gum to succeed, it will not destroy the reset. Okay? Kathy, good question. What things sabotage your reset? Well, chewing sugar free gum doesn't. Okay?
Now there's a couple of reasons I'm not that big on sugar-free gum. Two reasons, one of them is the artificial sweeteners they use. Sometimes they'll use sugar alcohols, and some people have trouble with that, bothers their stomach. The other thing is when you start chewing your body releases ghrelin and you're starting to eat, so it makes you hungrier and some people find that. But again, if you guys don't know my overall philosophy, here's my overall philosophy. Don't worry about the deck chairs on the Titanic. Worry about the iceberg. If you're doing the 30-day reset, eggs, meat, cheese. Okay? You know what kind of eggs doc? What kind of meat? Can I have bacon, because bacon's got nitrites," or blah, blah, blah. Don't worry about the deck chairs. Change your course.
If you want, for example, people have asked me this, sparkling water, like a Perrier or whatever. Can I have that on the reset? Yes. I like mineral water much, much better. As long as you're drinking two liters of water a day, but the sparkling water, it's not as good. It doesn't clean out your kidneys or anything like that, like water does. But if you like a little treat like a sparkling water, those are the deck chairs. Don't worry about it. Get through the 30 day reset, then change your metabolism. Okay? If you got to chew gum, like sugar free gum and it helps you... Do it. I got no problem with that. It will not sabotage your reset. The other thing is, one thing we're learning about these artificial sweeteners is they change your microbiome. That's one of the reasons I don't like them, but you're not going to sabotage your reset by doing it. Okay. You're not. Okay.
Good question. Ben Pheng. Now, I don't know if I said that right. Ben P-H-E-N-G can water therapy cleanse our illnesses? Well, I don't know exactly what you mean by water therapy. Water, in my opinion is vitamin W. You can't live without it. You're like the planet earth thing, 75% of your body is water. If you want molasses for blood, then don't drink water. Only water is water. Is it essential in cleansing the body? Absolutely. Absolutely it is. You know, I talk about kidneys, for example. There's three things. That'll destroy your kidneys. A lack of water, sugar and oxalates. I guess I could put four things, uric acid. Okay. Yeah, I'm big on water. You know what the sweet spot is for water. This is the sweet spot. Okay. Two liters, or 64 ounces for my American friends. It's the sweet spot. How do I know that? 46 years in practice and I could prove to patients the difference that two liters of water made a day.
It's a habit. Habits are not easy. You need to stick to it for about three weeks. That's about as much as I learned in psychology, human psychology. Three weeks to form a habit. They were right. 21 days. Okay. That's one of the reasons that the reset is so good, because you form habits. "Oh, Dr. Martin, I don't like drinking water." I didn't say you liked it. Trust me. You will. You'll like water, even with kids.
You know what the problem with kids, they don't drink enough water, because mommy thinks they need milk. Well, they need breast milk. But after that they need water. Water's much more important than milk. Drink water and coffee. Now, if you don't like coffee, I feel sorry for you. Then I allow you tea. What? You know my motto, "Why drink tea, when you can drink coffee?" Okay. But you can have a tea. Okay? Don't put no sugar in it. Okay, but water thing is really, really, really good for you. I'll tell you, it does fix a lot of problems. A lot of people don't realize, because they don't have a little light on top of their head that tells them they're dehydrated. I'll tell you there's nothing that will throw your kidneys for a loop, if you don't drink enough water. People think they get away with it. "Well, I don't like water," but you're not getting away with it. You know how hard that is on your heart?
Okay, Diane, how can you get rid of a Dowager's hump? Well, listen, one of the signs of insulin resistance and that your insulin is through the roof is a Dowager's hump. I can't even remember where I was sitting the other day and I was looking over and the lady had quite the Dowager's hump there. You see it a lot more prevalent. Now look, some of it can be posture. Okay? Some of it can be posture, but the vast majority that I see that I saw in my practice was people that had high levels of insulin. They accumulate a Dowager's hump with fat, right at the base of their neck, between C seven and T1 and T2. Okay. Yeah. You can get rid of it. Get off the sugar, get off the carbs. If it's postural, fix it. Start lifting weights. Okay. Good question. Thank you very much, Diane.
Deed, "Why do I get ocular migraines with aura so much lately?" Horror-mones, horror-mones. I can tell you Deed, without even seeing you in my office, you're messed up hormonally, when you get ocular migraines and I can tell you. Now make sure Deed, make sure that this can come out of nowhere, make sure you're not dehydrated. That is really, really, really... And sometimes look, a lot of people think dehydration is strictly water. Well, a lot of times it's dehydration with electrolytes. Okay? You know, you need sodium. I love the pink Himalayan salt. Put a pinch of salt in your water. Especially if you're drinking filtered water, there's not enough salt there. You need that. As far as an electrolyte, magnesium, potassium for the perfect blend of electrolytes, that could be an issue. But I can tell you most of the time, it's too much estrogen, not enough progesterone. It throws the balance of hormones off and before you know it, Deed your migraines can get a lot worse. Block that estrogen I'd have you on my hormonal formula to balance you out. Thanks for the questions.
Chasia. I hope I said that right. "How can you lower high potassium?" Well, first of all, Chasia, why would anyone have high potassium? That's what I always ask. Why? I'm a why guy. I've never seen a case, you know what? I know why I got high potassium, if that comes back in your blood work. Right? You got high potassium. Oh, I'm eating too much potassium. No, I've never seen it. All my years, I've never seen high potassium. I've seen high potassium, but never, ever found, "Oh, they're eating too much potassium." No, you're not.
Usually you got a problem. One of them is chronic kidney disease. Now, I don't know you, Chasia. I mean, these are things you got to check, because if your kidneys are not working right, they're going to hold onto potassium and your potassium levels can go up. One, two, medication. I don't know again, Chasia, I don't know you. Check your meds because I've seen that thousands of times over my 40 something years, where people are on meds and that can throw off your potassium levels. Okay. The other one, it can be a sign of diabetes. I'll tell you, ask a diabetic. Diabetics have big time problems with their kidneys. Almost invariably, kidneys are affected. You got to figure that out. Okay? But those would be the three main reasons you could have high potassium.
Sally, "What supplements do you recommend for shingles? Well, shingles is a herpes virus. Right? It's called herpes zoster. Okay? Leave it to medicine to give it big names. Okay. The virus is called the herpes virus. Now you and I, all of us, when we get the chicken box, we get the herpes virus. It's actually a good thing. Have a party and spread around the chicken pox. Okay? But the thing is with the herpes virus, if your immune system is good, it puts the virus to bed. When someone gets the shingles, it's a form of the herpes virus that comes out. Now, here's what almost invariably happens. High stress, high cortisol and then that little bum, the herpes virus, wakes up. For some people it's a cold sore, herpes simplex. Okay, for others, it's shingles and I'm going to tell you something. The amount of shingles that I saw in the last 20 years of my practice days was double or triple the amount that I saw in my first 20 years in practice. It was unreal. Why is that? Well, a lot more stress today, lot more stress today and stress suppresses the immune system.
Okay. Think of it. Someone's chasing you on a dark street and your hairs on the back of your head are up and you're running or you're going to turn around and fight. Okay? The fight or flight. You know what your body's not thinking? It's not thinking of your immune system. It doesn't care. It's focused on running or fighting. Got it? That's what happens. That virus is there. It's always been there, since you were a little child. You got the chicken pox. Okay. Then it just stays dormant and now they have a vaccine for it. Eh, I'm big guy on have a good immune system and keep your stress levels down. Okay. Thanks for the questions you guys are smarter than the average bear. You're asking such good questions.
Meta, "Can you comment on a red prominent veins in men's noses? Red, prominent veins in men's nose. Look okay, Meta, this is not always the case, but whenever I saw that in my practice, liver problems. [inaudible 00:15:42] liver problems. Now they might have rosacea, which is sort of autoimmune, comes from the gut. Okay? There's a couple of reasons they might have.I'm an investigative journalist and in my practice, I was an investigative doctor. Okay. Because if I saw something, I was very observant. If I saw something, I would want to know why. Why do you have that? Like I say, usually liver, maybe gut, because of autoimmune. There's usually something going on in that. Okay. It could be autoimmune, like even scleroderma, but think the worst and then eliminate them, because I always wanted to make sure. A lot of times what I saw, Meta, is liver problems, fatty liver or cirrhosis of the liver. Okay? Anyway, get that checked out, because it's a good question.
Kelly, your email, explain the brain enhanced. Okay, the fab five has most of the supplements for enhanced brain. Okay. Kelly. Good, good, good question. Because I've got this question asked quite a bit. Okay? We have a new formula of, okay. Enhanced Brain. Now the reason we brought it up, if you've listened to any of our podcasts, if you've listened over the years, to us, we've done teaching on age proofing your brain. As a matter of fact, yesterday, I did teaching on why people get Alzheimer's and we're going to go into how to protect yourself against it. Now, brain enhanced. Our enhanced formula is a new formula. Tony Jr. and I, what we were seeing in practice is people were complaining about short term memory. Okay? Long term, what happens in your forties, fifties, sixties is really important for your overall protecting your brain.
You don't want to outlive your brain. Okay? Now, there's a new kid on the block. They're called nootropics, okay. They're getting a lot of ink and the reason is because it's more for acute memory, super focus. Okay? Because people are saying, "Doc, I'm having trouble focusing. I'm having trouble remembering short term. Like just, I'm not as sharp as I was before." We heard a lot of that. Kelly, make sure it's Kelly, because I got a memory that's, you know, I showing you. Kelly, listen, the best thing to take care of long term memory, so that you don't get Alzheimer's, you don't get dementia. Alzheimer's is a form of dementia. Now, is to protect your brain. Like we're big on the fabulous five. I'm a big guy on that. That's why we say it. If you're going to do anything, do those fab five.
You know, we love vitamin D. We love high DHA oil. We love Navitol. We love probiotics. We're big on that and we've shown studies over the years when you combine high DHA oil with [inaudible 00:19:39] their study is tremendous. Now, well, what I'm talking about is more of, I need to foc- See guys, I got to focus. I want to be as sharp as a tack, as far as my brain, I'm 70 years old. I want to be focused. I'm writing, I'm teaching. I need a good short term memory.
I did a radio show for 20 years and it was live radio. People call in, no screening. I didn't get the questions ahead of time. People would ask me and I just had to be like that. Like quick. I was very thankful. I had a good memory. I see somebody, I have a good memory. People, ah, names, sometimes I'm not quite as good as I used to be, but that's the idea is to be sharp. They're called noo N-O-O tropics, okay? It's mental acuity, like sharpness in the brain for short, short term memory and focus. Okay. It's just another tool. Okay. If people want that, it's another tool. I invest in my brain. I really, I know I have to, for me. I don't plan on retiring from this. I got no plans for retirement. Okay. The Lord might have different plans for me, but my plan is to be sharp as long as I can.
Barbara, "Is ghee as good as eating butter?" It's very good. It's very good. Yeah, sure. It's wonderful. Healthy fat. Okay? Why don't you do both? Okay, why don't you do both? They're tremendous healthy fats. Butter has probably a little bit more vitamin K2 and I'm big on vitamin K2, because it gets your calcium to the intended destination, instead of leaving it in your bloodstream where it doesn't belong. You need a little bit of calcium in your bloodstream, of course. Okay?
Janet, good question. I sort of talked about this a minute ago. Janet, "How do you remove uric acid from your bloodstream?" Well, listen, uric acid, everybody makes uric acid, everybody. Okay? You make it. People that get gout, for example, or kidney stones, uric acid kidney stones, elevated levels of uric acid. They're not clearing it. They're not filtering it out and let me just say this, there's nothing worse for uric acid levels than fructose. This is why we have a catastrophe today. A catastrophe in our society brought to you by big food and it's called high fructose corn syrup. They put it in everything. Anything that you see sugar in, it's high fructose corn syrup 99.9% of the time. It's the sugar of choice for the food industry. It's cheap, it's addictive. They want to make you an addict. They want your children. The food industry is coming after your children. Don't be naive. That's their goal. If they can't have you, they'll take your children or your grandchildren and they will make them lifelong customers. They know exactly what to do.
It's sugar, babe. It's sugar and it's high fructose corn syrup, because that's how you make uric acid. I know I hear about the purines. Ah, you know what people are getting, "Oh, you eat too much red meat doc. That's why you get gout." That's nonsense. That's nonsense. The biggest issue is high fructose corn syrup and the second is insulin resistance. Lower your insulin. It used to be called the King's disease, because only the king would get it. The peasants didn't. What was the problem with the king? Was he eating too much meat? Nope. He was drinking too much wine and beer. That's what he was doing. That's what the king was doing. That's how he got gout. A lot of the elites, if you look back in history, got gout. They weren't drinking too much. Okay. Food question. We thank you, Janet.
Sally, "With having to open up the probiotics to put in food," okay, a lot of people have to do that, "Does the enteric coating still survive the stomach acid?" Well, if you don't have the capsule, look, don't worry about probiotics. If you have a good probiotic, look, we want it to deliver it into the small intestine. That's why we enterically coat it. But when you have a good soil-based probiotic, and you open up the capsule and put it in food, like Tony Jr. Said, his children didn't know they were taking probiotics. They thought that apple sauce was naturally brown. No, it was the probiotic he was putting in there, for his kids. Okay. It colored it a little bit, but they didn't know any better. They just took it, because we believe so much in probiotic. If you get a good soil-based probiotic, don't worry it's getting to its intended destination in the small intestine. Okay. That's what you need, so it'll rebuild your gut blood barrier, okay, and change your microbiome. Good question. Really appreciate it, Sally.
Farida, I am a breast cancer survivor. Well good for you. Someone was saying estrogens from cow and milk, converted to cheese that the estrogens are more concentrated, increased breast cancer. What are your thoughts? Well, my thoughts are, let me get in with Deed. What do I mean by that? I'm getting an ocular migraine. Farida, I'm getting an ocular migraine as we speak. Why? Because it's nonsense. Estrogen coming from the cows. No. Okay, look. We don't live in a perfect world. Okay? Cows eat grass so you get a lot of omega three. They eat the grass, you eat their steak. Okay? I just brought to you the other day, "Don't ditch dairy, switch it." I don't want you drinking milk. You got a cow in the backyard. Drink milk Farida.
You didn't hear from me, "Oh, Dr. Martin wants me to drink milk." No, I want you to drink cream. If you have to, I'd rather you drink water and coffee, but your kids, give them cream, not grocery store milk. It's not the hormones I'm worried about. It's the sugar I'm worried about. Okay? If you think, Farida, you're getting away from estrogen. You know what elevates your estrogen? Plastic. They found it on Mount Everest and they're finding it in the placenta. It's from A to [inaudible 00:28:29] to Z. You can't get away from it. Now I want you to clean up your diet. If you can clean up the environment as much as possible. But when someone tells you to avoid dairy because dairy... They'll always bring you, Farida, I can already tell you what their agenda is. They want you to be a vegan, no animal products. That's the agenda.
All my guru friends, most of them, guys and men and women that I've graduated with, with PhDs in nutrition, they drink the Koolaid. They stopped thinking and all red meat causes cancer. No cancer hates steak. Cancer hates cheese, hates it, because it can't feed on it. I answered a question I think it was the other day, what about yeast? Isn't cheese feeds yeast? Nah, sugar feeds yeast, sugar feeds cancer. Worry about that Farida. If you're a breast cancer survivor, no more sugar. Nada. None. Absolutely no sugar.
I mean it. I got an ocular migraine. Now that I got it off my chest, it went away. Okay. Guys, I get it every day. I get it every day, every day, every day, 365 days a year. "Don't eat meat. Don't eat the animal kingdom. Don't that's cholesterol. That's going to give you cancer." Nah, nah, nah, don't have dairy. Don't eat eggs, because they got this and if they're not free range and... Look and I like free range. I'd much rather you have grass fed beef. You think I don't know that stuff? But I don't want you to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Get yourself in good metabolic health. Then you can change the furniture. Got it? That's my philosophy. Guys, I'm not going to change my mind about animal products. I won't. I got to tell you what the truth is. I'm sorry. I know that makes me unpopular for a lot of people, that bothers people. I know Bill Gates don't like me. He wants you to eat those stupid burgers made of soy. You know, what'll give you breast cancer and make your breast cancer come back? Soy. Don't worry about dairy.
I just got that migraine back. I appreciate the question. You have no idea, because I want to pontificate. I know I have to reinforce this every day, every day, every day. Don't get duped. Don't be deceived. Cancer hates steak and it hates cheese too. It hates eggs. There's nothing in an egg, meat and cheese that feeds cancer. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Suzanne. Okay, let's get going here. "If your gallbladder is removed, how is cholesterol from animal fat processed?" Okay, well that's a good question. Look, your gallbladder is just a little pouch. It doesn't make bile, It stores bile. What does bile do? Bile is a emulsifier, a fat. My whole premise, listen Linda, listen. I'm going to close with this. We're going to have to do the other questions. Maybe Tuesday. Monday, I want to continue on the brain. Let's see what our schedule will do next week.
Now, your gallbladder is only a reservoir. It's a little pouch. It's a smooth muscle. Use it or lose it. The only reason you lose your gallbladder, because you didn't use it. You weren't eating enough animal products. It's as simple as that. Okay. But you have to understand bile wasn't made by your gallbladder. Your liver makes bile. If you don't have a gallbladder, eh, your liver is the one that makes bile.
Now, it's better to have a gallbladder for sure, for sure. Again, what I said about the gallbladder, if you were meant to live on plants, are you listening? If you were meant to live on plants, here's a question for you. Why do you have a gallbladder? It's not for avocados you know. Okay. You don't have a gallbladder for avocados, even though I like the avocados, don't get me wrong. Why do you have a gallbladder? I'm asking the question. You got another few seconds? Why do you have a gallbladder?
Because you are meant to eat animal fat. Got it? That's why you have a gallbladder. Now, if you don't have a gallbladder, bile comes from your liver. Don't stop eating animal fat. Now, you might have to take it easy without a gallbladder. But a lot of people when they clean up their diet and I mean that, even on the reset and you know, they can't eat quite as much fat. The animal fat. They got to watch their certain cuts of their meat and all that. But you know what I found over the years? Your body adapts to it and you can eat a lot more fat that you thought you could.
But understand that, okay, so understand what's happening. I always ask the question for people who tell you shouldn't be eating animal fat. I said why do you have a gallbladder? The cow doesn't have a gallbladder. Neither does a rabbit. They don't have gallbladders. Did you know that? A cow doesn't have gal bladder? No. They eat the grass. Leave the grass to them. You eat the fat, eat their meat.
You having fun yet? Okay guys, we got to continue, because I pontificated, I went off on my rabbit trails. I'm sorry. Speaking of rabbits. Okay, you're not a rabbit. Okay. You're not... We got rabbits. I don't know where they come from, but we got rabbits in our neighborhood like you wouldn't believe. I get, like it's, we got more rabbits than there are dogs and cats. I watch them. What do they eat? Grass. They're on my lawn eating grass. That's for rabbits. Not for you. Let the cows and rabbits eat the grass. Okay. We love you guys. We'll talk to you soon.
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