Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Supplements & kidney function
- Melasma
- Borage oil
- Pinching feeling in heart
- Blue zone diet
- Hydroxymethylbutyrate
- Morton's neuroma
- Cortisone shots
- Vitamin D supplementation
- Liver cysts
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 again to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. You ready to go question and answer Friday? Always a fun time. Really appreciate all the folks that sent in their questions. Lori says she donated a kidney in 2011. Well, good for you Lori. You have a healthy remaining kidney. Yeah, you can live with one kidney. My wife has only got one kidney. She lost a kidney when she was eight years old. Okay, so um, yeah, God gave you two <laugh>. Thank God. Okay, she's not on any meds and on some supplements her son is concerned about the supplements and kidney function. Now let me tell you something and you can tell your son this or he can listen to a podcast later or whatever. Let me tell you about kidney function and I'm just going to remind everyone, and especially my dear friends in Niagara Falls, Canada and the United States are found in Niagara Falls.
And the reason I use that illustration because listen, your kidneys depend on a couple of things, okay? On a couple of things. One of them you know is water. Your kidneys need water to flush them out. Your kidney, if you only have one, you need at least two liters of water. Water, water, water flushes the kidneys. What is hard on the kidneys? Dehydration and sugar insulin. Ask any diabetic. What kills the kidneys is sugar. So be very, very careful. Tell your son that Dr. Martin said you got nothing to worry about with your one kidney. You can live very well with one and take care of it. How do you take care of it? Watch the amount of water you drink, flush it out. Don't let your kidneys concentrate with toxins that are meant to be flushed out. And the way to flush them out is to constantly bathe your kidney with water and only water is water. Two, lay off the sugar because sugar destroys the micro circulation and your kidney. And for the folks that have two, your kidneys rely on blood supply. Your kidneys is very much like your eyeballs. Your eyeballs, it's all blood supply. Micro blood supply, your kidneys. It's micro blood supply and sugar destroys blood vessels. So lay off the sugar. Now the other thing in the kidneys, and I write about this in my new book, the kidneys, be Careful with oxalates.
Oxalates. That's what gums up your kidneys oxs. And people that insist on vegetarianism and veganism, they eat a lot of oxs oxalates are found mostly in the plant kingdom. So I'm not saying you can't have any plants, don't live on plants cuz you get a lot of oxidants and that is very hard on the kidneys. Okay, there you go Lori. Thank you for the question. Gail Melasma. Okay, which is whitening of the face. Patches of whiteness. Look, here's what I, and I've been asked this question a lot and I used to see it a fair amount. It's sort of an autoimmune. It starts in the gut. Leaky gut, fix that. Can you reverse it? I've seen it a few times being reversed. You can certainly help. And the other thing that is a common, common denominator in that is insulin resistance. Here we go again, back to food, back to crappy carbs, back to sugar.
Lay off that stuff. And it's often a sign of insulin resistance and leaky gut and asking a very good question. Anne. Oil. Oil. Okay, what do I think of it? Is it the same as DHA? No, it's not even close to DHA. Now look, borage, okay, is omega six, I wouldn't touch it in this day and age, okay? It's not that omega six is that bad. It's that what we have today. Ann is an enormous imbalance between omega six and omega three. Again, omega six on its own isn't bad for you, okay? So when you get hemp seeds and alas and things like that, they're not bad for you. It's just that today we live in a world where omega six is 2030 to one in terms of omega3, what your body responds to is when you up your omega three, not six, you don't need six, you get a lot of six in the North American diet. I'm big on not borage oil, but high DHA, high DHA. Remember one thing, okay? Your brain is not made up of borage oil, but your brain is made up of DHA, Gail, your brain is actually made up of DHA. It's a long chain fatty acid.
Why do you think I'm so big on it all the time? Why do I always repeat, repeat, repeat. There's nothing like DHA, E P A. Yep, it's good. Okay? DHA is a longer chain fatty acid. And I'm telling you, I'm in love with DHA. Now where do you get DHA and food? Steak and fish. Steak and fish. Steak and fish. I like steak better personally. Okay, but fish, DHA, okay, I'm big on that. Your eyeballs need D, h A. Your blood vessels need DHA, your heart needs D, h A. Everything needs DHA. Your joints need DHA, your gut needs DHA.
Someone calls you Fathead, take it as a compliment. <laugh>, I saw someone yesterday saying, Hey, I'm meathead <laugh> Archie bunker. I remember that meathead, I'm a meathead too. Big time. Okay, thanks very much Anne for the question. Victoria, I have a pinching in my heart for a few years now. My body feels weak. I do have low iron and stress this year. I'm telling you, Victoria, that is stress more than editing. You got high levels of cortisol. When you're anxious, you secrete a lot of cortisol and cortisol, okay? Think of what that does. I call cortisol. Well, two things. One, it pours gasoline on the fire of inflammation. It pours gasoline on it makes everything worse. Two, it's a diversion. Meaning that when your cortisol is high, your body is under. It's the fight or flight. And so what it's doing, it's not thinking about, oh, I gotta take care of my digestion.
Oh, I better take care of my immune system. Oh no. See what cortisol does, it's a diversion. Your body gets sidetracked because it's, it's only supposed to last for a short period of time. If I scare you, if I come up behind you when it's dark and I boop, or you're walking to your car at night and you hear someone behind you, you're alone and you're, the hairs on the back of your head are up and you're going to turn around and punch or run the fight or flight. See, it's a diversion. And that's what the problem is. When you secrete cortisol for a long period of time, it diverts normal activity in your body. You're not sleeping properly, your body don't wanna rest. It wants to fight or run. And your brain is running at a hundred miles an hour. You get that feeling inside.
That's why you even people think, you know, doc, I'm wondering if I'm having a heart attack, my heart is racing. Eh? No, I'm not telling you not to get it checked out, but a lot of people, you ask any physician, they'll agree with this. A lot of times it's anxiety, it's stress, man. And we live in a crazy world, okay? We live in a crazy world, you know, and I always use this example, my mom, 11 kids. Now that stresses me <laugh> because we had four, okay? No, but you guys know what I'm saying. 11 kids. But my mom didn't live on stress. Not that she never got stress. Of course she did. But the world has changed today. We live in a different world. We have environmental stress, we have stress, stress, we have family stress. And you combine all that and then you get stress from eating bad and cortisol goes through the roof, you can't sleep, blah, blah, blah.
So it's a vicious, vicious cycle. I wrote a book about it in the end of the 1980s, for sake, look at this one. It's right behind me. Chronic fatigue. And uh, the modern woman's and I talked about that story in the late eighties. The difference between my mom and the modern woman. Today we live in a different world. And I'm going to do this one now because Catherine asked me a question. People who eat a blue zone diet are known for living longer lives. They eat a predominantly plant-based diet. That's not true. By the way, Katherine, this is in direct contrast to the success of Dr. Martin's E M C diet. You know how many times I've heard about the blue zone? Have I told you the story? I think I have, but I'm gonna, I'm a repeat. So here's a repeat. One day. Ah, this has gotta be 10 years ago now, okay?
A patient came into my office and she told me I'm moving to Costa Rica. That's a blue zone by the way. So-called blue zone. And she thought I was excited for her, okay? And she said, I'm moving to Costa Rica. Well, she's looking at me like for my response, I said, well, it sucks to be the rest of us. What? Well what about your family? Huh? Huh? What about your job? What? What about this? What about that <laugh>? No, I'm just moving to a blue zone. I said, well, um, good luck with it. Go <laugh> if you think, because she's saying I'm going to a friendly environment, there're gonna be no chemicals. I said, well there's chemicals in Costa Rica too. Believe you me, it's everywhere. It's in the water, it's in the soil, it's in everything. You're not getting away from it. Ah, it may be a little bit better than here, but come on.
But here's what I'm gonna say about the blue zone diet. That's a bunch of nonsense, okay? They don't eat more plants than we do. Listen, Catherine, meat consumption is down 35% in Canada and the United States, it's down 35%. Why? Because of indoctrination. Oh, meat is bad, bad, bad, bad. And that young generation, you know how many hundreds of young people that would come into my office, they were anemic, pale is Casper the ghost? And I'd say, you're anemic. And they go, what? You're anemic. Start eating steak. And they'd look at me. I had two heads cuz my teacher at school said, well that's bad for the environment. That's bad for me. Steak causes cancer. Steaks no good. You can't eat steak. Cows are farting, they're messing up the environment too. It's all bad. Don't eat steak, eat salad. And then you have all these people thinking, well salad is the best for me guys, how can salad be the best for you?
When God gave you a gallbladder, you need b12. It's not found in the plant kingdom. So how can that be better than steak? How could it be? It can't be. It's not true. The blue zone that is people, listen, when I was a teenager, there was hippies in the 1960s. They were hippies. They were the first people to smoke marijuana. I saw that generation and everything their parents did was stupid. Okay? Hippies. And today, Dr. Martin, he is an old goat and he still believes in meat. He still believes in eggs, he still believes in cheese. He still believes, yep. I still believe it because it's true. And I don't care how much propaganda there is. And I mean it. That's what it is. You look, if you can get me outta Northern Ontario and uh, six feet of snow and you get me over to Florida, it's not really a blue zone, but it, it can be a blue zone, I guess I feel better.
I'm in the sun. It, it has nothing to do with what I'm eating. Catherine. I know I hate to be. It's a good question. I'm glad you asked that question, but it bugs me. When you see its propaganda, it goes against Dr. Martin's old time thinking. I'm telling you, I'm right just based on science. Nutritional science. I'm a nutritional scientists, I'm a food doctor. Steak, bring any vegetable. Anyone think of anyone? You know, most people think of broccoli being good. I say okay, let's compare steak to broccoli. Protein steak wins, vitamins, steak wins, amino acids, steak winds, b12, steak winds, iron hum, iron steak winds. Every time.
Every time. Insulin. Well you don't need a lot of insulin for broccoli, but you need even less for steak. I rest my case. And look, I'm just gonna say this as an overarching thing that we talk about all the time on this program. The other side has all the money, all the universities teaching the same thing. All the pharmaceutical companies, cuz that's where the money is and all the big food companies and they'll talk about the blue zone. Would we all feel better if we could move to Costa Rica? I guess so. It wouldn't be the diet, it would be less stress. I guess more sun. I'll tell you the blue zone. What? It's famous for those blue zones. They're famous for the sun, not the food. Okay, Catherine, I love the question. I'm glad you asked it cuz it got me excited. I don't mind defending my position. I'll defend it till the cows come home. Pardon the pun, I'm a cow guy.
Cowy grass. So you don't have to <laugh>. That's my motto. Okay, Lisa is asking about H M B hydroxy methyl butyrate. Yeah, I know about hydroxy methyl butyrate. It's a chemical your body actually produces. It helps with the production of leucine. L E U C I N E, which is an amino acid. But let me tell you something, don't go spend your money, okay on that Lisa, don't go spend your money on that. Eat a steak cuz steak really ups your hydroxy metal. Uh, the big word, uh, hydroxyethyl butyrate. Steak. Steak. Cause it really helps with muscles. But listen, you gotta work out anyway. You ain't gonna be strong just eating steak. You gotta use it or lose it when it comes to your muscles, okay? You know, as far as eh, you know, a supplement that to me you got to eat anyways. So eat the right foods, eggs, meat and cheese.
And you're gonna get a lot of hydroxy methyl butyl leucine. You'll get a lot of it. You'll get leucine, you'll get lysine, you get LR nine, you're gonna get a lot of coq 10, which is really, really important for muscle mitochondria. Your battery packs within your muscles, okay? Least what would cause high bilirubin levels. But all liver numbers are normal and normal. Ultrasound, well bilirubin, you know, usually as I used to test bilirubin all the time, I used to do a urine test for bilirubin and I, I found that to be the most effective way of looking at the liver other than an ultrasound obviously for fatty liver. But, uh, bilirubin might be the last thing leaves that will get better. If your bilirubin levels are high, you're still getting some form of liver stress. So be careful with that. Be careful with that, okay?
And remember, empty your liver. How do you empty your liver when you lay off the crappy carbs and especially the sugar, high fructose corn syrup. There's nothing that'll gum up your liver like that. But sometimes the liver is still lagging even though the ultrasound is clear and the other enzymes are good. That means your liver's still functioning. But bilirubin means your liver is stressed. Still got some stress there. Okay, so two lesions in a room. What's the difference between acid reflux and bile reflux? And if the treatments are the same, well they're really the same because listen, acid reflux your stomach, I'm glad you asked Lees <laugh> cause your stomach is meant to eat steak. And when you don't use your stomach for steak and you use your stomach for salad, but worse for crappy carbohydrates, that's why you get acid reflux. Okay? So that's acid reflux, okay?
You're not using the stomach, the stomach, your body, you not a cow. Cows make steak, you're meant to eat steak, okay? Cows make steak by eating grass. They have four stomachs and their stomach pH is far different than a human stomach because a human being is meant to eat meat and especially red meat. And you need a good stomach acidity, but you either use it or lose it. So that's acid reflux. Now reflux comes same problem in my opinion, you didn't use. Now vial comes from the liver, okay? The liver, okay, let me show you. I'm gonna show you because I'm an illustrator, okay? We're looking at the digestive truck, okay? So for folks, I have to just say it when you're listening on a podcast, visualize this, it's harder, but I'm showing here on live today, I'm showing the digestive system. So you see this ugly organ here. <laugh>,
That's your liver. Okay? That's your liver. Got it. Now a liver, it does 600 things. Very important. It's Rodney Dangerfield. It don't get a lot of respect. And we should respect it more. Now liver produces bile. See the gallbladder up here, just underneath the liver here. See it? Okay? That little pouch, you better use it or you lose it. That's why women lose their gallbladder. Why do women lose their gallbladder more than men do? Because men generally will eat more meat. And ladies have bought the lie about fat free. I want to eat fat free, Sal, I, I gotta have my salad and I like salad. You're not a rabbit, but they think they are. Okay ladies, you know I love you, but that's, I'm just talking in generalities, <laugh>. So when you don't use it, you, you lose it. And when you get bile, see what happens is the gallbladder, okay?
See the stomach, the gallbladder releases bile or your liver will, if there's no more gallbladder releases bile into your small intestine because bile is used primarily when you eat fat because it emulsifies it, it helps to absorb. Vial is very important. God has plan B. If you don't use your gallbladder to lose it, well your body still produces bio. Now if people insist on not using that bial, okay, that's how you get gallstones. Two, you can get bile reflux where from the small intestine it comes up through the stomach and goes right up the esophagus and you get bile. I got bile <laugh>, okay? A mucus yellowish, okay? Because it was meant to stay here and do its job. But when you don't eat right, when you insist on being a vegetarian, your body will, first of all, your pH in your stomach will change. It will start to go up, not down. You want this stomach to be a furnace. Very, very, very acidic.
So you can eat steak, but if you don't use it, you lose it. It's the same thing with bile. So the bile, instead of doing its job here to break down steak, eggs, meat and cheese, it'll start to crawl up their stomach and up into the esophagus. What's the treatment? Start eating steak. Digestive enzymes help that digestion don't eat at night. Intermittent fasting, I'm very, very big on that. Don't eat at night because you wanna give your digestive track a break. Don't eat at night. Try and start beating around five o'clock or six o'clock. And then if you have to go even past your breakfast, just have a coffee. Because if you told me I couldn't have a coffee in the morning, I'm not listening to you or anybody else, including myself, <laugh>.
Okay? Okay, let me just see here. Laura, what is the cause of Morton's Neuro, that's usually ladies with their high heels, <laugh>, I see some high heels folks and I go, how in the heck can they walk in those? And then they put pressure on the padding in their metatarsals and they start to develop a aroma there, like a pad, an extra pad. <laugh>. Oh ladies, ladies, ladies, what you will do to be beautiful. I just can't understand it sometimes. Like what? How can you walk in that? Anyways, you can get neuro and then some of them get a neuralgia, like where actually they get numbness there. I had a friend of mine, a, a physician that used to inject B12 right into the path in the bottom of the foot to help with the numbness. Very smart. I love b12. So take B12 in, eat steak if you've got a Martin's aroma and change your shoes.
You know, I guess I should be a little bit more opinionated. Okay, Lisa, we had Lees Lees, Laura and Lisa, and then we got Lucy. Okay, Lisa says, I take inflammation formula and probiotics for arthritis. Uh, rheumatoid, yep, because of leaky gut, leaky joints. And I love the inflammation formula. Of course I do. I created it. <laugh>. Okay, what do I think of cortisone shots and hydroxychloroquine? Well look cortisone. When they discovered cortisone, it was like a miracle drug because it's so anti-inflammatory. The problem with cortisone is that it creates an enormous amount of side effects including suppressing the immune system. So I understand it, people with rheumatoid arthritis and their joints are so inflamed. I understand it Doc, if I don't take cortisone, if I don't take that medica, I am so bad. And listen, you know, medicine guys, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, okay?
Because medicine does some wonderful things and if you've gotta take some cortisone or you know, like I get it. But just understand, first of all, it's not fixing the problem. I'm a guy that I would recommend for people to get the best of both worlds. Meaning that temporarily you're using cortisone or other meds that the doctors give you to get the inflammation down. But start in the kitchen and change your diets. Amazing. Get all your inflammation markers down. Here's what I found with rheumatoid arthritis. Always, always, always leaky gut. Always never saw an exception to it. You gotta fix that and probiotics, and don't feed the bears and get off the sugars. Sugar creates an enormous amount of inflammation. Stop that. Stop the crappy carbs, drink a lot of water, use the inflammation formula, turn the ship around. And it's amazing. A lot of people have gotten tremendous results with fixing leaky gut and changing the diet big time.
Okay, thanks for the question, Lisa. Now Lucy, can an optimum level of vitamin D be achieved by taking vitamin D and not being exposed to the sun? Yes, absolutely you can. Now look, I said it I think yesterday. Vitamin D, if you can get it from the sun, the best. Okay? Uh, we live in Canada, <laugh>, and in the winter I can't go outside with just my t-shirt and my shorts, therefore you need vitamin D to take it as a supplement. Everyone and their dog needs vitamin D, everyone and their dog needs vitamin D. And I told you yesterday that when you can't get the sun to get your vitamin D, then you need to supplement. And it's unbelievable that people still are not getting that memo to me. Here's where I really have a pet peeve, my friend, is when they suppress the studies on vitamin D, there's a war on vitamin D on absolute war and they can't stand.
And if you just vitamin D and what it did for the virus, they hit all the research. Oh, that bothered me. You have no idea. Okay, Judy, what are your thoughts on cyst on the liver? Should I worry? Ah, don't worry, be proactive, Judy, take care of your liver. Judy, how do you take care of your liver? Eat steak and quit eating the crappy carbs. There's nothing that will fill your liver up more with fat and fatty liver. Insist on the liver and all the liver, liver, liver is when you are eating the wrong food, lay off the sugars and lay off the crappy carbs and the bad oils. But don't worry, be happy <laugh>, Judy. No, be proactive. Okay, that's it guys. We answered all the questions I think. I bet you yeah, I think I did. Okay, now Merry Christmas guys, okay. Merry Christmas.
Love you guys. Thanks for all your support, I appreciate that. And uh, we love you guys and on behalf of our staff, all of our staff at the Martin Clinic, we love you guys in Merry Christmas. Now Jesus is the reason for the season. I I say that all the time. Jesus is the reason for the season. Okay, now I'm gonna come on Monday, boxing Day. Okay, so right now here's my schedule for next week and we'll post this Monday on Tuesday off. And then the rest of the week I'm planning to be on, but good, who knows, right? Okay guys, so I'm planning on doing a Boxing Day program, so if you happen to be up at eight 30 in the morning, tell your friends we're gonna have a podcast. Okay guys, I love you sincerely and merry Christmas to you. Talk to you soon.
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