Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Low testosterone in men
- Healing of epithelial cells
- Probiotics stopping antibiotics from working
- Malabsorption of protein
- Polycythaemia (rubra) vera
- Loss of smell
- Anorexia
- Carrageenan
- Raynaud's disease
- Gallbladder stones
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: Good morning. How is ya? Hope you're having a great start to your day. You know what today is Question and Answer Friday. One of our favourite days. Now let's get to the questions. I've got a few here. One is from Rick. "My red blood cells are low. I'm cold all the time. Feel weak. Muscle loss. What am I looking at?" Okay. Whenever those symptoms came into my office and it was a male, okay, a man, first thing, check their testosterone. Okay? Remember, testosterone is a man's hormone and women estrogen, okay? And progesterone have to be balanced. Men need optimized testosterone, otherwise they don't feel good. Sometimes you could have a B12 deficiency, vitamin D or all of the above, but testosterone and vitamin D often go together. And so that's what I would look at for sure. Okay? And your thyroid gets affected by that because again, your overarching hormone for a man is testosterone. And I'm telling you, men today, compared to what it used to be, are extremely low in testosterone. Really, one of the best ways to elevate your testosterone is to do strength training. That really does help. And we have a supplement called Fortis, which elevates your testosterone. So look at that, Rick.
Jen, "How long does it take to heal the epithelial layer cells?" Now for you folks that weren't on yesterday, okay, okay, I don't know how many of you weren't on yesterday. Now what I show, okay? And I've got them here now, so I'm going to keep them here in front of me. See the shag carpet, a piece of shag carpet here. That's your microvilli, okay? Cause when you have a healthy small intestine, you've got a shag carpet going on, okay? In your small intestine, and that's to absorb your food. But what I also talked about is how you get leaky gut. And one of the things I showed is what you can't see, of course, this is just a carpet. It's not your gut, but pretend you have a microscopic, and I mean, it's really submicroscopic one layer of cells. That's how thick it is. That is your barrier between your gut, okay? This and your blood. So when you eat your micro size, your food in your stomach, and most of your digestion takes place right there. You mulch your food down to micro sizes, or at least that's what should be happening. Then it gets in, and here, I told you yesterday that if you spread out your microvilli like this, your shag carpet, it's called your small intestine, but it's not that small because if you were to spread it out, it's the size of a tennis court. So just picture that in your mind. And there is where your absorption of your nutrients and your vitamins and your minerals, okay? Take place there.
And then you have that little lining, it's called your epithelial cells. And in between that you have tight junctions. Along that cell wall, you have little junctions and they're called tight junctions. And when those things get compromised, you have leaky gut. For the folks who are listening on a podcast, I'm showing a shag carpet versus what do you call it? It's a flat carpet or whatever, right? <laugh>. It's a carpet, but it's not a shag carpet. Okay? Shag carpets were big in the seventies, I think <laugh>, right? Because I remember those things. Okay? You don't see them so much anymore. But then you have ordinary carpeting here, and that's what we call, I called it yesterday, carpet bombing. When you take an antibiotic, you carpet bomb this. Kills all the bacteria and when you have an autoimmune disease, your small intestine looks like this. The flat carpet versus the shag carpet. Now the good news, every three to seven days, Jen, your gut epithelial cells regenerate every three to seven days you get new cells. But you better change. You better change your food. That's why I'm so big on probiotics because it regenerates the gut. Food. Okay? No sugar, no crappy carbs and broad spectrum probiotics that regenerate those epithelial cells and reaffirm those tight junctions that make your bowel blood barrier tight again. So that garbage can't get in. Only good stuff can get in. Good question, Jen. Thank you very much.
Jean, "Do probiotics stop the antibiotics from working?" No, just the opposite. Listen, we talked about this yesterday, but I'll do it again. When you take an antibiotic, sometimes you have no choice. You have an infection. It's bacteria. And what I said yesterday, and I mean it is, I really am frustrated because what I talked about yesterday, there's 1900 studies and change, new studies in the last 10 years. 1900 on the significance of leaky gut. A lot of doctors, they still don't believe leaky gut. What? The microbiome, your bacterial profile. It's the most important new research in medicine. Just read. And this is why I'm frustrated, because if you go on an antibiotic and your doctor or your pharmacist or both don't suggest you take a probiotic, they're not reading. Probiotics, don't stop the antibiotic from working. As a matter of fact, there's studies on this. It helps the antibiotic to work even more effectively.
And remember the rules on antibiotics you take until the symptoms disappear. It's not meant to be taken. They push, push, push, push. But the research is clear. Once the pain is gone or the infection is gone, stop the antibiotic. Take probiotics before, during, and after antibiotic treatment. So you don't get this and you want to keep this your shag carpet in top. Okay? So take your probiotics with an antibiotic, okay? If you want to take a two hour separate or whatever, but I find, listen, I got tens of thousands of patients over the years. You're taking an antibiotic, double up your probiotics. I take probiotics every day, every day, every day, seven days a week. Okay? When you understand the importance of microbiome, it is a foundational supplement. And folks, I'm sorry, yogurt. It's alright. You can have yogurt, but don't get yogurt for your probiotics because it's been pasteurized. And when you pasteurize it, it kills all your friendly bacteria. There's not a lot of friendly bacteria in there. There's enough for a mouse, not for you. Okay? I like fermented foods. They're good. There really are sauerkraut pickles, okay? I like those things. Kombucha. Is that how you say it? Okay. But it ain't broad spectrum. That's why this is therapeutic. Okay? Thank you for the question, Jean.
Okay. Asking for a friend. I like that. Are you joking? <laugh> I do that a lot. Asking for a friend when I really want to know. Okay? Asking for a friend, "Even though I'm taking two digestive enzymes before each meal, my doctor tells me that I'm low in protein." Okay, stating that her friend. Okay, so I guess you're really asking for a friend is not absorbing protein. Okay they have a malabsorption syndrome. They have not this, they have this. They don't have the shag carpet the way it should be. They're not absorbing protein. Okay? That's malabsorption.
What happened there? Well, that's a problem for sure because in order to digest properly, you need protease for protein digestion. A lot of times when you're not digesting protein properly, you don't have enough acidity in your stomach. So yeah, digestive enzymes. I like apple cider vinegar. We got a few questions about that this morning. I like balsamic vinegar, a little tablespoon of that. Very good. Okay? Because you need a lot of acid to break protein down. That's why your stomach is supposed to be very, very, very acidic. So when people say acidic, that's bad. No, it's not bad because your stomach needs to be really acidic, okay? You need that. Now, not in your small intestine, but you need that in your stomach to be really acidic to break protein down. A lot of people, I always say this, okay, use it or lose it. You don't use your stomach properly because people love to be carboholics, and I don't know your friend, okay? I don't know your friend. But at the end of the day, a lot of times when people have a malabsorption, could be because of leaky gut, could be because of low stomach acidity and Collette. It could be that. Okay? So check all of the above.
Liz. "Can a person with Polycythaemia Rubra Vera," now what is that? That's thickening of the blood, okay? And yeah, for sure they got to eat anyways. And the best way to eat for everyone, everyone, no exceptions, is eggs, meat and cheese. That's no exceptions to them. Here's a blood test to find out if you need to eat EMC. Is that the best for me? Prick your finger. If it comes out red, the blood's red when you see it, oh, it's red. That means you need EMC. No exceptions. "Well, doc, I can't eat cheese." Okay, well then eat eggs. "Well, doc, I can't eat eggs." Don't eat eggs. You're one of the rare ones, okay? But you still got to eat meat, okay? And the reason I say eggs, meat and cheese all the time because it's superior nutrition.
And I don't care what kind of condition it is. You know we talked this week, earlier this week about cancer. Cancer hates steak. Cancer hates eggs. Cancer hates cheese. It can't feed on that. Cancer needs fuel once you have cancer, okay? Once you have cancer, cancer is renegade cells. They need fuel. And their choice of fuel is not protein, it's not fat, it's glucose, it's sugar. That's their choice. They're like a teenager who loves sugar. Okay? So your cancer cells need fuel. So is EMC for everyone? The reset? Absolutely. Now the reset is a 30 day program, but the rest of your life, you need to understand if you do a reset, you need to understand that you need eggs, meat and cheese. Don't let anyone tell you that's acidic food. That is the biggest bunch of bunk. Acidic food is a steak. That is the craziest thing. Can I tell you something that was made up? Steak isn't acidic. Eggs are not acidic. Cheese are not a acidic.
You have a buffering system in your body. It's called sodium bicarbonate. What is that? Baking soda. Your body's smart, it alkalizes your food. And you know what? The only one who can't alkalize is sugar. That's acidic. Okay, I'm sorry guys, but that's the truth. And I know my vegan friends are my vegetarian friends. They're mad at me all the time. But I guys, I can't help it. I got to tell you the truth about nutrition because 99% of the gurus, 99% of dieticians, 99% of doctors, 99% of naturopaths, and all of them, they drank the Kool-Aid and they dismissed meat and they dismissed eggs and they dismissed dairy, all of it. Ah, folks, that's the best food in the world. What can I tell you?
And you can bring me any food. You can bring me any vegetable, you can bring me anything and put it up against a steak. And I'm sorry. It just doesn't match the nutritional value of eggs, meat and cheese. It's nature. It's the best. It's what God gave us. He gave us protein and fat in combination, and that's what your body needs. No, I'm not saying you can't have any fruit. Okay? Please don't come after me for that. It's for 30 days. I don't want you to have that. But it's not like I don't want you to ever eat another vegetable in your life. You can have vegetables, but when you put vegetables up here, and then like the food pyramid, you put grains, cereals, bread, whatever, you put that as the foundation for food. And then fruit and vegetable.
I hear a commercial all the time here. You need six to eight servings of fruits, vegetables a day. Folks, that is not true. It's not. You don't. But we've been told that hammer, hammer, hammer, fruits and vegetables every day, fruits and vegetables, six to eight servings a day. No, you don't. You don't get enough vitamins in there. You don't get enough minerals in there. You don't get enough macros in there. You need high protein and amino acid. You need fat. Don't eat anything fat free. Run. When you see something in a grocery store that says fat free, run away from it. It's craziness. It's process, the life out of it. You're meant to eat fat and someone calls you a fathead. Take it as a compliment. Don't get mad. <laugh> Okay?
Tara, "My husband is unable to smell." Well, usually okay, when you lose smell or taste, zinc, okay? Could be low on zinc, low in B12, and often together. Now, zinc, you don't necessarily have to take as a supplement, you could. Okay? You can take a zinc picolinate or whatever. I got no problem with that, but I'm big on eating zinc. So when you eat a lot of meat, especially red meat, you get a lot of zinc, you get a lot of zinc and eggs, and you get a lot of zinc in cheese. It's not found almost at all in the plant kingdom. It's not there. So how could that be superior food? It can't be. It's good. But what's better? That's me.
Okay. "What is the cause and cure for anorexia?" Well, anorexia is a very serious disorder. I used to tell my patients, you're looking at the mirror the wrong way. Because my grandmother used to tell me when I was a little guy, I think I told you this before, all my life, and I mean, I have fought the battle with weight all my life since I was a little boy. I had trouble. I gained weight very easily. And my grandma, she used to say petit Tony, meaning French for little Tony. Okay, petit Ton you're skinny, you're not eating enough. That was my grandmother. Aren't all grandmothers like that? Well, my grandmother, she kept trying to convince me that I was skinny. I needed to eat more, okay? And I go look in the mirror and I said, my mamere, my grandma, I don't know what she's looking at, but I'm having trouble with me. Look, folks, for me, I look at it as a blessing rather than a curse. I look at it as a blessing because it kept me on the straight and narrow. I've always, always had to eat well for me because I didn't get away with it. Weight gain. And remember my genetics, severe diabetes in genetics, my genetics severe, that loads the gun. And for me, I had to be disciplined all my life. I'm so thankful, rather than being negative about my body type.
There's some of you people out there, you're skinny and you can't even put on weight. I know. But for me, I just had to constantly be careful. Was it good for me to be careful? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. So the idea here is anorexia is usually, and there's a lot of emotional, mental, I saw a lot of anorexia, by the way, in my practice in clinical nutrition. I saw a lot of bad anorexia over the years, and I used to tell those beautiful people, look, I said, look, you see yourself as fat, but that's not reality. And you see food as an enemy. And I tried to convince them, and I would fix their leaky gut, by the way too, that they always had the gut brain connection.
I would emphasize protein. Okay? So I said, look, you don't feel like eating. Can I get you to drink? You're going to drink any, okay, at least once a day. If you do this and you don't even eat, you're going to be alright. Oh yeah, what's that doc? Dr. Martin's Perfect Smoothie. Okay, why? Protein, fat. Protein, fat. You see, it's that combination. And if I could get them to do it, start with protein, fat, and then I would try and get 'em to take a few supplements and I'd put 'em on the Blood Boost if they would do it. It is like anything else folks, did they buy into what I was telling? I couldn't go home with my patients. I couldn't do it for them. And they had a lot of emotional and mental issues. I was a coach. I saw myself as a coach, and I was an encourager to them.
I didn't discourage them. I encouraged them. And I said, would you become accountable to me? And I'd sic one of my staff on them, be accountable to them. Okay, thanks for the question. Anorexia is not easy. By the way, anyone that has got an anorexia, Blood Boost, if they'll take it, it would be great. They need B12, they need vitamin D they need probiotics. I mean those for sure, and high DHA. But can you get them to take it? They'll only take one thing. I'd have 'em on the Blood Boost.
Okay, Rick, "I'm on the Reset. Three weeks, my sugar is actually going up." Ah, you're weird, Rick. "And I have a lot of nervousness." Yeah, and listen, Rick, I don't know how often you're measuring your blood sugar. Don't do that too much. Okay? I'm not big on that. I'm not big on measuring that all the time. People get themselves, it's like their blood pressure. They come in and they had pages of pages. Do you want to look at my blood pressure for the last three years? And then they'd have three times a day in a book. And I go, no, I don't want to look at it at all. I just took your blood pressure. That's what I'm interested in. Let's find out what causes high blood pressure, or let's find out what causes high blood sugar and let's fix the cause. And then when I get people to do the reset, and I talked to someone this week about that. I said, when you quit taking your blood sugar every five seconds, cortisol stress, Rick will elevate your blood sugar. It's only temporary. Don't worry about it. The reset is meant to fix insulin resistance. It will save your life. Trust the process. And when I said, Rick, you're weird. I was joking. Okay. I mean it. You're unique. Okay? I like teasing. I'm sorry. I think it was because we had 11 children in our family. You better have thick skin with my sisters especially. Man, they love to tease. Okay, good question, Rick. Thanks for the question. I appreciate it.
Okay. "There's so much talk on Facebook about carrageenan" or I don't know how you pronounce it. Okay, now let me go into why Dr. Martin wants you to have heavy cream in your smoothie. I want you to get fat in your smoothie. There's a reason for it. Protein and fat are meant to go together. I don't like strictly protein powders. I don't. Not without fat. Not without fat. Your body is meant to absorb protein and fat together. So Dr. Martin's Perfect Smoothie. I put a lot of thought into that. People think, why do you do that? Well, first of all, it tastes good. Put your hand up if you admit that our shake tastes good. Now I understand. We live in a world, if you can find a farm that can give you milk right from the tap, or cream, get that. If you're gonna go to the grocery store, I want you on a 30 day reset. And I know a lot of you... Remember, 99% of the people that do the reset, 99%, they're on the Titanic. They're in trouble metabolically. Well, holy moly 93% of the entire population has some form of metabolic syndrome, which is what? Insulin resistance. So if you're on the Titanic, don't worry about the deck chairs for now. Okay?
Don't worry about the deck chairs. Don't worry about rearranging. I know there's, look, if you're at that level and you want to look at perfection in food and no additives like carrageenan and caran cara about whatever, who cares what it's called. And I know some of you are on Facebook and God love you. I love you for it. But for someone who's just starting out and they're on the Titanic, and they've had trouble all of their life with food, and they're frustrated and they're, they're in trouble, and they're trying to do the 30 day reset, build them up, pump up their tires, say, look, we'll worry about the deck chairs after, let's get you away from the iceberg. And some of them have already hit the iceberg. You know what I'm getting at? It's like people, if it's not organic, you can't eat it. Okay? If you are a farmer and you got a farm and everything's organic, I love you. I'm your best friend. You can get everything organic. I love you. I'm your best friend. But if you're going to do the 30 day reset and you're going to nitpick about everything, it's eggs, meat, and cheese.
And someone asked me, Diane, "Why are we allowed coconut milk on the reset?" Well, it's in your smoothie, okay? You can use coconut milk. I'm trying to give you ways to do the perfect smoothie... I don't want you drinking coconut milk just for the sake of drinking it, okay? But it's eggs, meat, and cheese, dairy. And I know that coconuts are a plant, but some people can't take cream. I let them use a little bit of coconut milk. I don't want any oat milk. I don't want any almond milk. I that's garbage stuff full of oxalates. It's no good for you. But coconut milk is good for you.
So if you need that to make your smoothie, I'm alright with it. I just want you to pass. I want you to succeed. I want you to get through this. It will change your life, okay? You see what I'm getting at? Look at the big picture first, and then you can start really narrowing in on getting rid of anything that is chemical. It's the Titanic. And don't worry about the deck chairs right away. Afterwards you can do it. Okay? That's what I mean by that. Okay? Thanks for the question, because I really appreciate it. You know what? We got a lot of these, so we're going to have to do two sessions, okay? Because I ain't going.
Wendy, "Why my fingers get cold so fast to the point of severe pain and tears when outside in the winter?" Wendy move to Florida because you probably have some form of autoimmune like Raynaud's. Okay? That's what it sounds like, Raynaud's. And that's autoimmune. And because I know some of your history, yeah, that's what it is. And yeah, you've got a long way, Wendy. You got a long way to go. Keep going though. Keep trucking. You've saved your life. You already hit the iceberg, and you needed to get into a light boat, okay? But you're doing the right thing, okay? And look, will Raynaud's ever completely go away? Well, we'll see. We'll see. But that's what I believe it is. Okay.
Sandra, "What are my thoughts on NUCCA treatment that chiropractors do?" Well look that, you know what? We used to call that hole in one treatment, very specific adjustment to the atlas bone up there. Very specific. I was trained in it. Did I like it? It wasn't the be all and end all that some chiropractors thought, okay, I'm not saying it's no good. I just, nah, I wasn't convinced.
Okay, Kelly, "What causes dark circles?" Well, usually, usually under the eyes, it's malabsorption, especially your fat soluble vitamin. Vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, although I'm not big on that. Vitamin K, fat soluble. And usually dark circles with malabsorption, they have leaky gut and they're not picking up their fat soluble vitamins. Okay? That's generally what I looked at. Even some B12, because I'm, I'm big on B12. Okay?
I wonder if Giselle is asking, let me be, let this be the last question, and we'll look at the other ones on another day. "I wonder if I do the Reset with lots of saturated fat, will I help flush out gallbladder stones?" Well, I would be careful because if you got stones, okay, remember how you got stones? The only way you get stones, you use your gallbladder or lose it <laugh>. And when you start forming stones, it's because that bile has been sitting there and you are eating low fat foods. Because most people, especially women, and I hate to pick on you ladies, but women would buy the nonsense about eating low fat more than men would buy it, okay? Generally that's true. They always look for low fat foods, and then they get gallbladder problems. Now, look, you can get gallbladder problems too after having a baby, because estrogen and progesterone. Progesterone is needed for smooth muscle. And ladies, when they were pregnant and when they had the baby, oftentimes all the progesterone was left in the placenta, and then your ovaries weren't making enough progesterone, and you could form stones. Okay? So diet and low levels of progesterone could cause gall bladder. Okay, let me leave it at that. Let me leave it at that.
Okay. If I had one of those smartphones, it would tell me to breathe. That's why I don't have one. I just breathe <laugh>. Okay? I got excited. Okay? I got excited. We love you guys and keep those questions coming. Look at all the questions. I didn't even get to all of them. Thank you for sending all those questions in, though. We appreciate that. Okay? Because it's feedback and you learn from asking questions, don't you. You learn. I asked questions all the time. I was the biggest guy in practice to ask questions. It took you 30 minutes in the waiting room to answer questions before you even came to see me. I asked a lot of questions because I wanted answers. Answers gave me a lot of information. Okay, so thanks for the questions, guys. We love you. You're the smartest audience on the planet, and I mean it. Love you guys. 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!