993. Holiday Eating: Tips for Protecting Your Liver

THE DOCTOR IS IN Podcast


Did you know that your liver is the key to your metabolic health? Dr. Martin says once you get that, the rest is easier to understand. This also applies to holiday eating.

Dr. Martin says you need to protect your liver. That’s the first thing you need to do, as in just 3 short weeks, you can develop a fatty liver. One of the culprits is high fructose corn syrup as it’s in everything. It’s much better to fill up on meats than on carbs. Dr. Martin also discusses intermittent fasting 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. Welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a good start to your day. Did you get our email? If you haven't got our emails, make sure you sign up for those emails. Okay, I think you gotta go to martin clinic.com and sign up. Okay? Don't ask me, ask my staff. How do I sign up? Because we gave, I really like giving some practical advice and this, this morning we're gonna talk about your liver.

You know, if you had to put a hit parade, you know what's number one? And whatever, you know, most people say, well, the most important organ in my body is my brain or my heart, or whatever. And, uh, I think if you went door to door or whatever, you'd find that most people wouldn't even talk about their liver. Liver would be, well, you know, first of all, if you've ever looked at a liver, it's ugly <laugh>. So most people wouldn't, you know, I'd rather protect my heart. I'd rather protect my brain liver, what I was reading an article and we'll get back to, okay? Because really the topic today is gonna be, okay, how do we save our liver? How do we save our health during the holiday season? Okay? So that's really the topic today. And we're gonna give you some very, very practical ways just to protect yourself and still enjoy the holidays, okay? Because I don't want you to leave the planet <laugh>. I want you to enjoy, okay? Enjoy.

Now, by the way, yesterday, <laugh>, one of our, uh, followers here, saw me in, in the mall and stopped me <laugh> Louise, thanks for stopping me. And just, you know, we had a good little, we chat and, uh, I wish I could personally guys meet all of you. Okay? Like you, you seem so close to me and um, you know, I would really love <laugh> to get together with all of you and give you a big hug. Okay? I gotta do it on, uh, this broadcast. But hey, sorry, I said, how do you recognize me? She says, I watch you every day. Okay, well, we appreciate it. Now, back to your liver. Okay? Back to the liver because that's going to be the key. It's the key to metabolic health. And what I'm all about is your metabolic health. Because metabolic health has everything to do. You know, when people would say, if I had to protect an organ, I would protect my brain. Well, I'm gonna tell you how to protect your brain, protect your liver. I'm gonna tell you how to protect your heart, protect your liver. I'm gonna tell you how to protect the rest of your body pretty well. Protect your liver.

And when you study the liver, I would, I've always been fascinated by the liver, even though it's ugly <laugh>. And even though I don't like the taste of liver, but your liver, my friend, is unbelievable as an organ. Now, you know me, I like to do illustrations or whatever, and I'm going to bring you to my atlas, okay, that I use. This atlas is, over 50 years old, okay? But I still love it. You know, it's almost like a child looking at, you know, you get them started reading and there's a lot of pictures, okay? And I love pictures. I'm very visual. So I like when I put stuff in my head, I like to think of the pictures. When I think of the liver, I look at it in my head. But this atlas, you're seeing it here. And for those who are gonna watch it on a podcast, look at this ugly organ <laugh>, that's so, so important. Okay?

Now let's, let's talk a little bit first before we, we give you the tips on how to help yourself during the holiday season. This is gonna be very practical, but I wanna do a little bit of teaching on the liver first because when you get this, and my audience gets this, when you understand, again, I was reading an article this morning on liver, but it was interesting because it was an article that was written in 1999, okay? So 23 years ago and change. This doctor wrote, he said, I saw in my practice, this medical doctor wrote, I saw in my practice a liver that was damaged, but I didn't know what it was. Folks that was 1999. You know what he turned out to find out that even in 1999, they didn't even know what fatty liver was. This medical doctor, I read this article from 1999. He said, I saw a patient and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with them until I got an ultrasound. And they didn't even know what to call it. They just said, well, it's not cirrhosis.

So folks, think about this for a minute. Think about what I'm saying. Fatty liver, which is, and I don't like to use the word pandemic, but folks worse than an epidemic is what's happening to our livers today. The liver has been centered out, the liver gets centered out and then it spreads out, my friend, that is what metabolic syndrome is in 1999. Listen, Linda, this physician writing about a case of fatty liver, he didn't even call it fatty liver. He said, we saw on ultrasound fat in the liver, not cirrhosis, cause the only thing they were seeing back then, hepatitis, inflammation of the liver or cirrhosis of the liver fibrosis where the liver is getting damaged big time.

As a matter of fact, I'll show you cirrhosis of the liver on this. Uh, hold on. Here's what's cirrhosis. Okay, so folks, again, visualize, see these bumps on the liver, that's cirrhosis of the liver, okay? He wasn't seeing cirrhosis cause that's all they knew in those days. Cirrhosis, this guy, he, he was shocked because he saw fat in the liver. Fat in the liver. What's fat doing in the liver? And today, my friend, 93%, 93% of the population have some form of metabolic syndrome, which starts in the liver. If you don't think that's not important, and I know you do, but to my audience that is just joining, you know, every day we get new people coming on and uh, either listening to this live or on our podcast. And we appreciate that very, very much. And we hope you stay tuned. We hope you stay with us and we thank you for this community.

But let me say this, what medicine and a again, because it hijacked by the labs fatty liver to them is eh, you know, unless it comes and slaps a doctor in the face, they're not too concerned about it. Cuz they're not that many symptoms, early symptoms, there's really not. It's more of a silent thing. But it is so dangerous. And we wrote in our email this morning that it only takes a short period of time to develop fatty liver. Like if you go awol, a lot of people do, by the way, they go awol. It's December. And you know what I give up? I mean there's parties, families, treats, and I give up. And what we were saying in our email is in three weeks you damage your liver with fatty liver, you can develop full-blown metabolic syndrome. Which is by the way, okay, let me just give you the blood test. This is why I am so keen on looking at your blood work because the labs, unless it gets flagged, your doctor is looking for love in all the wrong places. And I look, I love your doctor, okay? I do. Okay. They need a spanking on the bum bum to wake them up.

You're missing out on a condition that affects 93% of the population. We're not getting better. We're getting sicker. Sicker, sicker. Cuz you're not looking at the liver, liver, liver. You look at the liver. What? Liver enzymes? Well, you can look at liver enzymes. Yeah, you could, but way before liver enzymes go south. High triglycerides, low cholesterol, not high cholesterol, low cholesterol, belly fat, high blood pressure, throw in high uric acid too. Where does that occur? Liver. Liver and liver, okay, listen, Linda, liver is affected by the food you eat. You cannot get fatty liver unless you're a carboholic. And you don't have to be a carboholic for long. That's why we're talking about the holiday season doesn't take long to go south. And people don't realize that.

Okay, let's look at the liver and what it does just quickly. And most people, if you ask them this, if they know anything at all about health, they say, oh, your liver, it's important to detox. Yep, it is. Like we live in a toxic soup. Okay, good luck trying to get away from it. Like people that tell me they, oh, you know what? I, I eat organic doc, I do this, I do that. I'm not gonna be exposed. You're going to be exposed. Because if your address is planet earth, it ends with planet earth. It's the reality of our life. And you know, when the world is sort of focusing on the climate, I focus in on keeping my body in good shape as much as I can because the liver is one of the best things that you can do for your health is keep it functioning and keep fat away from your liver. Keep fat away from, and remember, you never, never, never get fatty liver from eating fat unless it's the wrong fat. Okay? Good fats, bad fats, good fats.

God gave us good fat butter, steak, <laugh>, hamburger. Get the fatty hamburger if you can find it. Bacon, oh by the way, I gotta say this, okay, <laugh>, somebody said it the other day and I'm teasing, okay? I'm telling the truth. But I like to tease because I talked to a lady yesterday and she says, "Doc, is it all right if I eat fruit?" Well, I said they're God's candies, so not too much. Okay? Okay, don't live on fruit. Okay? Anyway, this lady said, doc, I love my bananas. Is that all right? And I hesitated cause she doesn't know me that well, <laugh>. And I said, well I love bananas. But when she said, listen doc, okay, before I could answer, she said, doc, listen, my doctor said, and I looked at her and she said, my doctor said I need bananas for potassium. And it came out so fast it shocked her. I said, well if you're worried about potassium, why not eat bacon? And of course, like I said, she doesn't know me that well. And I said, bacon has 170% more potassium than a banana. And when you eat a banana, you might, you might as well be eating, what is it? 49 M&Ms. That's how sweet bananas are.

Now look, I love bananas. I do, but do I eat them? Nah, <laugh>, it's gonna be a treat if it's once a month, that's a big treat for me. And I love the taste of a banana. Okay? I don't know why I even told you that story <laugh>, other than to tell you don't eat too much fruit. Okay? Now let's get back to the liver. Now holidays, what are you gonna do? You wanna keep fat away from your liver. If you wanna keep fat away from your liver, then don't live on carbohydrates. Sugar turns the fat and bad oils that we were talking about. Bacon is a good oil by the way, it has oleic acid. Olive oil has, is olive oil good? Yep. Olive oil is a good, it's a fruit oil, not an artificial made for your car vegetable oil. Okay? Not an artificial made for your car vegetable oil. And we'll talk about that because a new study came out on, on the damage that vegetable oils inflict on your body.

But the reason, okay, in 1999 that this physician who wrote an article said, I saw a new phenomenon that shocked the living life out of him. And he said, he didn't even call it fatty liver. He saw fat in the liver. Now we have an epidemic of fatty liver. Why? Because we're carboholics. And the worst thing, the worst thing for fatty liver, okay? The worst thing is high fructose corn syrup. A new study came out again and I might get to it this week on the anti-Christ of sugars, manmade sugar, high fructose corn syrup. And the problem with high fructose corn syrup is a hundred fold. But big thing, high fructose. See guys, fructose, "Doc, that's gotta be good for you. That's fruits."

Listen, the problem with fructose is it makes a beeline for your liver, unlike glucose. Fructose is like alcohol. Alcohol, when you drink alcohol, that alcohol is heading on a rocket ship to your liver. Why do you think you get cirrhosis of the liver? People that drink heavy. Okay? And that's the only condition. I mean there was a few others, but that's the condition that you, you, you learn in medical school. Oh, cirrhosis, okay? But you get fatty liver from fructose more than anything else guys. And the worst thing you can do with fructose is drink it. But remember, high fructose corn syrup is already liquified. And when you eat food that has high fructose corn syrup in it, and folks, listen, anytime you see sugar added to food, just assume, assume it. The food industry has added a sugar and they couch it. They call it everything else but high fructose corn syrup.

But that's what it is. Because if they used ordinary sugar to add to foods that crystallizes and the food industry don't want that, what they want is a liquified sugar, high fructose corn syrup that really helps in the texture of their food. But what that does guys, is that liquified high fructose corn syrup is liquified, it's a, a syrup, it doesn't denature, well, it's already denatured, but it doesn't denature inside food. But when you eat that, it goes directly, directly, directly to your liver. It goes through the gut, but your gut doesn't know what it is. What, what did you give me? It's the same when you have those vegetable oil, you know what a vegetable oil is? I give you example. Margarine, your body don't even know what that is. Your body goes, what? That's foreign to me. <laugh>. I don't know how to process. Why are you asking me to process this? I don't know how to process this.

So you know what it does? It sends it off to the liver. Those bad oils and fatty liver comes from eating crappy foods and staying in the middle aisles of your grocery store, including cereals. "Ahh, Dr. Martin, it's, it's Cheerios. It's got a heart on the box." Yeah. And when you eat it, you're gonna have a heart attack. That's why they put a heart on the box. Okay, I haven't even given you anything practical yet. <laugh>. I should give you the other 10 things that the your liver does. But let me get back in the email. We talked about intermittent fasting. So we don't want you to leave the planet, we want you to enjoy Christmas. We really do. Okay? We want you to enjoy the holiday season, okay? And we want, look guys, this is always been my model. Always, okay? Your life is a race, but it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

And you want to look, I married an Italian girl, okay? You see my face? He goes, that guy doesn't look that smart. Well, I was pretty smart. I told you yesterday, I married a nurse that makes me smart. And I married an Italian girl. That makes me really smart because man, oh man, <laugh>, I'm trying to talk my wife into it and she doesn't like the camera into let's do Rosie's kitchen and I will host it <laugh>. She doesn't wanna do it cause I wanna do it. But my wife, oh man, you would die. She is such a, a great cook, right? There's no one on the planet that has to stay disciplined like me because of who I live with, okay? And I love eating. I don't know was because we had 11 kids in our family or not. I don't know. All I know is I love food. My name is Tony and I'm a carboholic because you show me a piece of bread and I love bread. But the Bible says, man shall not live by bread alone. <laugh>, okay?

And I learned a long time ago, okay? For 50 years I've been telling people now bread ain't good cuz it turns to sugar in nanoseconds and it's off to your liver as fat very quickly. So how are we gonna succeed and enjoy our season? Well, we gave you a tip intermittent fast. For example, if you know tonight you're going to go and have a big dinner with the family and it's gonna be yada, yada yada. And okay, you're gonna enjoy it and I want you to enjoy it. Okay? Now you got a feast in front of you and you see bread, keep the bread. Just say, uh, you know what? I got so much other good things here and really load up with meat if you can. Ham, turkey, okay? Beef, whatever pork, load your plate up with the meat because meat, any meat, none of it is hard on your liver. You'll never, ever, ever, ever get fatty liver from eating meat. Ever, okay? Eggs and cheese. Never, never, never, ever get fatty liver from that. You'll never pack up your liver when you eat those foods.

So try again. Look, you're at a party, you're at the family and they're having this and that. And I, I don't want you to not enjoy yourself, but never come off the tracks completely. Okay? So all I'm saying is like for me, I say, yeah, you know what? I don't really need that bread, okay? Because I got lots of other things. But the other thing is, let's say you do and you have a big, so when you stop eating, let's say you stop eating at seven o'clock or whatever, one of the things you can do through the holidays is try and practice that 14 to 18 hours of no eating. It really helps with weight, but more than that, it really helps to keep your liver from getting packed up with fat, my friend. Cuz it doesn't take long. You go off the rails and your liver will get packed up with fat dangerously very quickly.

But if you practice, I like intermittent fasting. I'm not big. Somebody said Dr. Martin said the fast or something for a month or whatever. I don't know what they said online, but for cancer, and I didn't say a month, <laugh>, there's some studies showing that if you go three days, you get the diagnosis of cancer, don't eat, just have coffee and water for three days if you could do it. But one of the things is what I like, okay? And I actually almost named my book the Metabolic Reset, okay? I almost named it Fasting without Fasting. Because when you eat meat and when you eat eggs, and when you eat cheese, you're fasting without fasting. You know why I call it that? Because you're not using insulin only a little bit. And that really saves your liver because insulin, remember what it is, how insulin and the liver are connected, how are they connected? Because insulin, when you eat a carb insulin is the traffic cop. You like my illustration is the traffic cop that says to your carb, that was turned to sugar.

Okay, well let's follow a piece of bread just for a minute. You have a piece of bread. I'm Dr. Martin, it's whole wheat. I don't care. It's 50 grain. I don't care. It's still gonna be sugar rapidly. Oh, Dr. Martin, I'm eating a banana, my doctor said I gotta have my potassium. You're mistaken because you should be eating bacon instead of a banana. But anyway, let's say you eat a banana, it's gonna be sugar in a rapid. Your body don't know the difference between a banana and an m and m <laugh> not as far as your insulin is concerned. And your insulin is the traffic cop because your bread turned to sugar and the traffic cop goes, Hey, you, hey buster. Hey you sugar, come here. You can't park there. The traffic cop, what are you doing parking in a no parking zone. Sugar can't stay in the blood. Your body's smart. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You can't have sugar in your bloodstream only a little wee bit your body's smarter than we are. Why? Because your body knows sugar. What? You can't have sugar and leave it in your bloodstream. It'll kill you. It's toxic. Your body knows how toxic sugar is.

The world doesn't know it, but your body knows it. It says, come here, blows the whistle and says, sugar, come here. You just had a piece of bread or you just had a banana. It says, come here, I'm parking you. You can't park here. <laugh> in blood. I must park you in the liver. And when insulin takes sugar and parks it in the liver, it comes in the form of glycogen. And that is fat with water added <laugh>. Yep. That's how your body operates. Okay, we're gonna make this a two-parter, but intermittent fasting? So let's say you had some carbs at a Christmas party, okay?

And by the way, we're gonna have a big group starting the metabolic reset in the new year. We'll pick a date and you can join us and we'll all pump each other's tires up. Okay? <laugh>. And one of the first things gonna happen, we're gonna empty that liver, okay? And then I'm going to introduce in the new year, because I already did a little bit of an experiment with this, we're gonna do meal replacements, okay? So if you wanna jump on board, we'll, we'll give you a little bit of heads up before we do that, okay? So don't be scared of using intermittent fasting. You don't have to eat in the morning. Don't eat in the morning after eating a big meal at night and don't eat all day if you can, but you don't have to do that. But have very, have some protein at lunch or whatever. Eggs, meat and cheese, eggs, meat and cheese.

Okay guys, I got excited today. I had all this teaching I wanted to teach on the liver, but maybe we'll get to it, maybe we won't. Okay guys, big week, lots of good studies. Always fascinating, at least to me. Thank you guys for being such a wonderful audience. We appreciate you guys more than you know, more than you know. I am giving you a big hug without hugging you, okay? I love hugging. We love you guys. Love our, our audience. Thanks for, for being so faithful to the podcast and we appreciate it. It, you know, you can tell your friends, give 'em a Christmas gift of health. Tell your friends, they start listening to the Doctor Is In podcast, okay, <laugh>, and thank you guys for making that the number one health podcast in Canada. And we wanna make it number one in the US of A too, to our American, dear American friends. Okay guys, we love you. We'll talk to you soon.

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