Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Macular degeneration & parasites
- Drinking water in aluminum cans
- Iodine applied to arms
- Cold hands & anemia
- Vitamin C to absorb other vitamins
- Grape seed extract
- High B12 levels & toxicity
- Intermittent fasting to lower homocysteine
- Reversing kyphosis
- High potassium levels
- Coming off prednisone
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 everyone, and once again, welcome. How do you like the hat? Good morning and we appreciate you guys coming on back in the saddle this morning, getting ready for a question and answer Friday and we always look forward to it. Okay? Let's get to the questions, Bev. "Does Dr. Martin agree that macular degeneration is caused by parasites?" Eh, no, I don't agree with it. Look, I'm not saying parasites couldn't be a factor. It's possible. Okay, but here's what I know about macular degeneration. It's a blood vessel issue in the back of the eye. It's a blood vessel issue. There's usually a leakage in the blood vessel. How do blood vessels get damaged? Sugar not parasites. Parasites could. Okay. It's possible, but that's not the major cause.
I saw in my practice for years and years and years and years, lots of macular degeneration and I'm telling you, diabetes can affect your brain, Alzheimer's. Diabetes or pre-diabetes are insulin resistance, okay? They're really diabetics, but they don't know it because the only thing they're thinking about or medicine thinks about is blood sugar. Oh, your blood sugar is all right, but you and I know differently because of metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a precursor to diabetes. Diabetes is the last thing that happens, but even then, before that happens, your eyes get affected. Sugar is so toxic, it can destroy blood vessels in your eyes. It can destroy blood vessels in your kidneys. It can destroy blood vessels going to your heart. It can destroy blood vessels up in the brain. Your body knows sugar is toxic, but when we insist on 200 pounds of sugar a year, it's the biggest problem with macular degeneration. Of course, aging is a factor, for sure it is, but it's usually the sugar and not the parasites. Bev, okay? That's my experience.
Kathy. "I've seen water bottled in aluminum cans." Okay, now are you talking about sparkling water? I have seen mineral water. Okay, just straight mineral water, put in a can. It's probably out there. I haven't seen it. Okay. Usually they put 'em in a bottle and glass bottle, mostly in plastic bottles. And what is the question now? "Is that unhealthy?" Well, look, water is water. It's vitamin W. The best water is spring water. Okay, and who'd ever thought that we would've gone out in this day and age to buy water? You got to understand for me as a kid, water, you going to buy water? Are you kidding me? I wouldn't give you a plug nickel for water. When I was a kid, we just drank water out of a tap or out of a hose. We never even thought of it, but I'm telling you, in this day and age, look, if you're asking for the best water, it's spring water. Okay? Because it has minerals in it. It's the way water is. Now, if you drink filtered water, usually if they don't add any salts back into it minerals, it's still good for you in a sense, but it doesn't have as high of a pH. You just add a little touch of salt to water and your pH goes up. That's how you get high pH water. Okay? So if it's in aluminum, could you just show me that? I can't think of it. I've seen sparkling water in aluminum cans, but I haven't seen just straight mineral water, but like I said, it's probably out there. I just haven't noticed yet, okay?
Shirley, "what do I think of using iodine on arms? I do this a couple of times a week." Yeah, it's nothing wrong with that. You can put a little bit of iodine on your arms. I used to do the skin tests with iodine in the office and put some iodine on the wrist and see if the body absorbs it and if it did pretty quickly, you know that you were low on it. But guys, I don't like iodine on its own because iodine, if you think iodine, almost everybody would agree. Oh, that's for my thyroid. True. Your thyroid can't work without iodine, but I like selenium because your thyroid can't work without selenium either. That's why I'm a big believer in eating steak. I was answering a question last night with hyperthyroidism, which is Graves', it's autoimmune. Does the reset help? Yes. Why? Because it's full of selenium and steak is selenium and so are eggs, selenium. Selenium is really only found in the animal kingdom. This is why I love the reset. It's so good for your thyroid, okay? You get iodine, but with selenium, okay? Really important for the thyroid, okay?
Okay, Linda, "I found 100% cacao." Cocoa, not cocoa. How do you say it? Cacao. Okay, "wondering if it's okay for the reset." Well, not for the reset, but it's okay. A hundred percent chocolate or cacao, that's the bean. Yeah, that's all right. But not on the reset. The reset, I don't want that because it's not eggs, meat and cheese. Okay. That doesn't mean it's not good for you, but after the 30 days if you want to have it, what does it taste like? Is it good? I don't know. I don't think I've ever tried it. C-A-C-A-O. How do I pronounce that? Someone tell me. I love it.
Okay, Grace. "Dr. Martin, you say that we don't have to have low LDL." That's true. "What would you consider a good LDL range?" Well, I don't care particularly. I don't really look at LDL. Okay, anything under a hundred. Okay or 0.1 or a hundred. What did you ask me? You say that you don't want to have low LDL? Yeah, because for three reasons. I talked about them the other day. Okay, there's three main reasons. One, your immune system doesn't work unless your LDL is up, not down, up. Your brain doesn't work unless your LDL is up and not down. What was the third reason? Can't remember now. Immunity, your brain function and LDL remember is a carrier too, so it's very, very important that it's high. If you show me numbers, like I said, I really don't look at LDL very much because most people want to know what their triglycerides and their HDL is, okay? But you want elevated LDL the opposite of what medicine is telling us today.
Okay, Marie. "My hands are always cold. Is it possible that I'm anemic?" Yeah, it's possible. Okay. I need to see your blood work. I'd need to see your skin. Are you white as a ghost? Do people call you Casper? But Marie, yeah. It could be other things too, right? It could be your thyroid. Just be hypothyroid because your basic metabolic rate just slows down when your thyroid is not working properly. Okay? So it could be that. So look at a variety of things. Okay, good question.
Jessica. "Is there any truth to needing vitamin C to absorb other vitamins?" You mean coffee? Jessica, is there any truth to needing vitamin C to absorb other vitamins? Coffee. Yeah, you probably need coffee to absorb all your vitamins. You know what I think of coffee? The other vitamin C. You mean ascorbic acid to absorb other vitamins? Nah, I don't know where you got that. Maybe somebody on the internet said that. I don't know, but that's not true. Okay. What you need to absorb other vitamins or all vitamins is a good stomach acidity. It's the stomach. It's not your vitamin C, it's your stomach. It starts there. That's why you need good acidity, my friend, okay? To absorb things, and that's really, really important. The digestive tract is more important for that. Okay, good question. I love those questions. You're thinking.
Pamela, "what's Dr. Martin's opinion on grape seed extract?" I like it. Okay, here's me. Good, better, best. Okay, and grape seed extract is good. It really is. There's good studies on grape seed. Here's what I found using both grape seed and pine bark. Okay, Navitol, the best antioxidant on the planet is Navitol. More powerful. Pine Park extract's more powerful than grape seed. Grape seed is good, no doubt about it. Okay, good, better and best.
Okay. Oh, here's another one, Pat on macular degeneration. "If already taking your DHA. Should I still take Vialux? Optometrists recommend this because I have a family history of macular degeneration." Okay, well Pat, to be honest, Vialux is here. The same thing that I talked to you about with grape seed, Vialux, it's alright. It's good for your eyes, it was made for your eyes. Navitol with DHA is better than Vialux, okay? DHA is so key for your eyeballs. It's not only anti-inflammatory, but it protects your blood vessels and lubricates those little weak capillaries back there and Navitol brings extra nitric oxide. It opens up those blood vessels, it protects the blood vessels, it protects the little endothelial layer of the blood vessels behind the eye. I love that combination. That's what I use Navitol, DHA. Okay, thanks for the question, Anne.
Carol, "can you have too high B12 level in your body where you become toxic?" No, not really. Okay. Now look, this is a good question and I know I'm going to answer it again and again and again. Okay, I think I talked about it. I don't know if what was this week or last week? B12 is a water soluble vitamin. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. Okay? Now, can you get toxic with vitamin D? Yep, it's possible. It's so rare. It's really almost unheard of. The actual studies showing toxicity of vitamin D, okay? The actual studies show that you need 50,000 international units a day every day, seven days a week for six months. So when someone scares the living life out of you on the toxicity of vitamin D, run Forrest, run. They don't know what they are talking about. The waiting rooms in the emergency departments are not full of people that are having side effects because they took too much vitamin D, I'm sorry, it's fake news, okay? It's fake news.
Now, B12, it's water soluble, meaning that when your body doesn't need it anymore, you pee it out. Okay? Is it possible to get toxic with B12? I guess so, but I never saw it. Imagine me. Okay, imagine little moi in practice for almost 50 years, and I never saw a case of too much B12, I never did. I saw high numbers like in the 14 hundreds or whatever, but oh, you're high in B12, you are going to die, nah, it's not true. Now I want high. Okay? The sweet spot for B12 is between 800 and 1200. The sweet spot for vitamin D. Unfortunately, we live in a system in North America because doctors have not studied vitamins more than five minutes. They don't test vitamin D and they hardly feel like testing B12 because they don't know the significance of those things. It's too bad. Those are the two most important vitamins in the universe is vitamin D and B12, and they have the ability to measure it, and they could care less because they don't understand the significance of having optimized B12 levels and vitamin D above 60 ng/mL and above, at least 150 to 180 nmol/L in Canada.
Those are numbers that could save your life, and yet they don't do it. You want to get me angry? Talk to me about the stupidity of our world. We have the answer. There's nothing like it in terms of cancer treatment. There's nothing like it like vitamin D, there's just nothing like it, and there's a war on vitamin D. If they get their way, if the pharmaceutical companies get their way, the only way you'll be able to get vitamin D is in the sun because they want to take away the supplement. They really do. They want to control it. It drives me batty, but you guys know better. You guys know better. So toxic B12, no, I know you can go online and read about, well, B12 can do this. You know what guys? All my years, you know what I saw every day, every day, every day was low B12, low B12, not high and low vitamin D, not high.
And people that have high numbers of vitamin D in terms of their serum doesn't mean it's in their tissue. So I've always tried to caution people, oh, my doctor said my vitamin D is so high. Well, first of all, it's not being transferred in your body properly, and that's one of the reasons I got to do a whole session on high levels of vitamin D, what it means. Most of the time I found these people were on medications and they had vitamin D in their blood, but it wasn't being transferred, and we'll talk about that at a later date. Okay? I'm going to make a note to do it because people ask me this all the time. Okay, thanks for the very good question, Carol.
Jannine, "our breasts are one of the body's main story sites for iodine in the body." Yeah, almost every cell in your body has a storage site for iodine, but I agree the breast tissue in women is probably the area. It's an area that iodine for sure is accumulated there, okay, in the breast tissue. I agree with that. I don't disagree with that.
Okay, "Travis, is there any difference between eating raw beef liver and cooked?" Yikes, raw? Well, I know people eat that. The Inuit eat a lot of raw liver now, not from beef so much, but they would eat liver quite a bit, polar bear liver or whatever, and eating it raw. I'd be more careful about that. That's where the first question about parasites, who is Bev was asking about parasites. That's where you need to be careful when meat is not cooked properly for that, but you could get an extract. That's why I like liver extracts and desiccated liver in the capsule for those that don't eat steak.
Okay, let me just see here. Thank you very much for that, Travis. Marilyn, "does intermittent fasting lower homocysteine?" Well look homocysteine, okay, we just put out an email two or three days ago maybe. Yeah, at the start of the week, I think. Look at B12 in the heart. Okay, I've been thinking about this all week. I just sort of came up with something in this puny little brain of mine. We all know about inflammation and it's dangerous, right? Inflammation, think of fire, okay? Fire, inflammation, and it can damage your blood vessels. It can damage your nerves, it can damage tissue. Longstanding inflammation is not good for you, okay? Tony Jr. said, Dad, it's inflammation without a fever, okay? Because when you get a fever, that's inflammation. Your body's ambulance system, you have a cold, you have a virus, you have a bug, and your body's ambulance system goes into work. But when you have inflammation without a fever, that's damaging.
Now, homocysteine is really a test, a vitamin deficiency, especially B12 folic acid, okay? That's what homocysteine is, okay? It's an amino acid that when it's too high, it means you have a deficiency. But what they're finding out and what they've known for a lot of years, but nobody ever talks about it, is that inflammation. Okay? I talked to you about that. Homocysteine is like smoke damage, not fire damage, but smoke damage. And when you have homocysteine that is too high, and that's caused by low, what? B12, low B12. And what am I saying? That creates smoke damage inside your body. The cells can't even communicate with each other properly and it damages. And one of the things they know is that when you have high levels of homocysteine, not only are your B12 levels down, but you have more of a risk of having heart disease.
Guys, and I'm just going to ask the girls, Nic or whatever, would you put that email back on our private Facebook page so they can read it again? Okay. The one on B12 and heart disease. Homocysteine. Okay, so good question. Now let me just see if I've answered it fully. I got off on a little bit of a tangent. How does B12 help homocysteine out of the body? Well, it's an enzyme thing. I don't want to get into the weeds, but it helps to clear out the extra homocysteine. Okay, it's an enzyme process that happens. It's molecular. Okay, good question.
Okay, Yvette, "can kyphosis be reversed and how?" Well, it depends. It's hard as you get older. I could get kids that reverse kyphosis and young people, but the biggest thing in the spine. Kyphosis is when your spine, you're bent over. Okay, that's kyphosis. The best thing is muscle. When you build, especially your leg muscles for your back, they're anchors. I used to get people work your legs, your back will thank you. You can work your back too. Okay? But back muscles are better for the neck. Leg muscles are better for the rest of the spine. That's how you help kyphosis. You can do posture exercises too. I used to like a ball. What do you call those balls again, you lie on your back and arch your back and things like that that are really good. But the end of the day, I'm a big guy on strength. Get strong. That makes a big difference for your posture.
Okay, Diane, "I would like to know what Dr. Martin thinks of giving blood every three months. Is that too often?" No, not necessarily. Some people do it. If I was someone that had high ferritin, high levels of iron in my blood, I would be given blood lots, okay, but no, you're saving people's life and your body knows how to make blood, but if you're anemic, they won't take your blood anyways. If you're borderline, you go to give blood, they won't even take it. Okay, but it's not damaging.
Tracy, "what are Dr. Martin's thoughts on Apple pectin?" Well, I haven't heard that word for a long time. I like apple pectin. I'm trying to remember now. I think I created a supplement with Apple pectin a long time ago. I got to think about it, but it seems to me that I used it with glucamine and apple pectin. Yeah, it's good for blood sugar. Okay, I remember that. Okay, I like it. Yeah, for sure, I do. Eat an apple every day, keeps the doctor away. No, eat a steak every day. It'll keep a doctor away.
Okay, Deanne, "Dr. Martin, if you stop breathing and snore really loud, what should I do to stop both issues?" Well, generally, I don't know, Deanne, if you've been diagnosed with sleep apnea, you got fatty tongue, my dear, and you'll find that you have insulin resistance. I almost guarantee it. And you'll find that a lot of that will be fixed if you do the reset and stay very, very, very, very low carb afterwards. You're a person that needs to eat low carb big time because that's your body with a fatty tongue, okay? Fatty eyes, fatty brain, okay? The opposite of fatty brain, because your brain shrinks if you don't give it enough fat, but you get fatty tongue by insulin. Insulin makes everything grow. It's a growth hormone. So I would look there first.
Okay, "can Dr. Martin talk about any studies on covid and hair loss? What is his take?" Well, I've read a lot of studies on covid. Now, are you talking, first of all, Susan, because I'm assuming you're talking about the virus and not the vaccine. I ain't talking about the vaccine. Okay. But covid for some people, has caused long covid, they call it has caused some real problems, hard to shake. But at the end of the day, Susan, at the end of the day, get your immune system up. Usually when covid or any other virus lasts a long time and you're having a hard time shaking it, your lymphocytes are not working properly. Usually you're low on vitamin D. Usually you're low in B12, usually. Okay. Those are the things that I would look for to fix, get on eating a lot of red meat. So you get your vitamin A, you get your zinc, and you might even look at if this is, you might look at even taking zinc glycinate or citrate for a period of time of about 50 milligrams a day just to get your immune system going. Okay, thanks for that question.
And here's another one on organ meats or supplements. Shirley, "what are the benefits of eating organ meats?" Well, big time. You know me, I hate to put liver ahead of steak because I don't like liver. I don't like the taste of it, but liver really? Okay, in terms of benefits, liver's an organ. It is tremendous. I like steak better, but if I have to classify it, I got to tell you that organ meats are fabulous. They are, tremendous and liver being the best of them all. Okay? Now what's the second part of that question? "Are the benefits the same if you have a supplement?" Well, not as much protein, but you do get benefits. Okay, good question.
Mikayla. "What does it mean, good or bad to have high potassium?" Well, high potassium or low potassium, you got problems with your kidneys. When your potassium gets flagged, it's not because you're not eating enough potassium or if you have high potassium, it's not because you're eating too much potassium. Has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with kidney function. Your kidneys are stressed. You need to cut out the sugar, not potassium, but sugar. The sugar like your eyeballs really has an effect. Insulin has a major effect on retention in the tissue of potassium and other salts.
Victoria, "I'm on prednisone, and I'm wondering what happens if you just automatically stop taking prednisone?" Well, look, I've seen that happen and some people they didn't do well. Prednisone, listen, it's a miraculous drug. I think they found it in the 1950s and what an anti-inflammatory, but, and there's a big but with prednisone, okay? Prednisone is an anti-inflammatory. Unreal, okay? I mean it problem is long-term, side effects, major side effects on the immune system, on your bones, on your tendons, and listen, and I never tell people to come off prednisone. Never, okay? That's not my job. My job was to try and build if it was autoimmune or for whatever reason you're taking prednisone. I tried to fix the problem with autoimmune, and then I found patients could wean off prednisone, but I never put the cart before its horse. I always went to the autoimmune condition first to fix that diet and gut and diet. Diet and gut. Gut and diet. Okay, there you go, Victoria.
Okay, a few more. Lucy, "could Dr. Martin explain how a person gets kidney stones?" Okay, there's two types of kidney stones. One of them is oxalates, okay? And the other one are calcium stones. Oxalates are caused by vegetables. Too much salad, oxalates, spinach and others, high oxalate foods, okay? Because they always blame kidney stones, okay, on vitamin D. Nonsense, nonsense, it's oxalates. Now, 25% of all kidney stones are calcium stones. And when you don't have enough vitamin K2. K2 is found in eggs, meat and cheese. When you don't eat enough of that, you can't win with kidney stones because you have vegetables that have oxalates. And then when you're eating vegetables and you're not eating enough eggs, meat and cheese, you're not getting enough vitamin K2. K2 takes calcium and puts it out of your kidneys and out of your bloodstream. So you need K2, you need K2. And the other thing, high fructose corn syrup really affects the kidneys. And a lot of people that drink fructose get kidney stones, okay? They get kidney stones. So hope I answered your question. Thank you very much for that. And that was Lucy.
And Syl, "what can be done to resolve restless sleep?" Well, look, I mean, you always look for the cause. Most of the time when I saw restless legs, it was because they had low levels of ferritin. They were borderline anemic. They were low in iron, they were low in B12. I remember B12, elevate your nitric oxide. So look at that. You may be anemic and nobody ever told you you may be borderline anemic. And those blood vessels are sucking for air. And your legs happen to have the, you know what I call restless legs, eebie jeebies. You go to bed, but your legs don't. They're the eebie jeebies of the legs. Okay? And the other thing I found to be very effective, and again, is Navitol. Navitol opens up nitric oxide. It just brings more B12, Navitol, restless legs. You might need some iron too. Eat more steak.
Okay, Tina, "can Dr. Martin talk about polycystic kidneys and is it genetic?" Ah, look, I mean, there's some genetic factors. It's just like, do I have genetics for diabetes? Yep. Okay. Yep. Coming out both ears. Am I a diabetic? No, but I always got to be very careful. If you have a history of polycystic kidney disease, that's because you don't get along with carbs either or sugar. And yeah, it might be in your history, but there may be a weakness in your kidneys. But if you take care, you drink water, drinK 2 liters of water every day, or 64 ounces every day, every day, every day. Your kidneys are Niagara Falls, and I mean it. Water 24 hours a day, drink water. That's the best thing for polycystic kidney disease. Lay off sugar because insulin will destroy your kidneys and so will sugar. So lay off. If you've got any kind of history and you want your kidneys to last, why do we see so much dialysis today? Why? Because of sugar. Not protein. Protein never, not once ever destroyed somebody's kidneys. It just doesn't work that way. Oh, Dr. Martin, I got protein in my urine. Okay, but that wasn't because you were eating too much protein. As a matter of fact, it's because you weren't eating enough protein that you get protein in the urine. Okay, sorry, doctors got it wrong.
Okay, and the last one, Karen, thank you. "Here in the Okanagan Valley." Well, isn't that beautiful? Good for you. "We have access to Fieldstone Greenery, which grows organic non GMO ancient grains. Well, they're definitely going to be better, but don't make a living on it. Here's the problem. 93% of the population have trouble with insulin. They have insulin resistance, and therefore them and carbs don't get along. Now, these ancient grains that are non GMO and organic and whatever, better for sure, you wouldn't get as much of an insulin response from them, but I don't care what kind of grain it is, it's going to be sugar and rapidly enough. So again, it would be a treat, but not something that I recommend eating every day. Okay? It's me because I'm talking about the big picture here.
That was fun, guys, and I mean it. Okay, thanks for putting up with some of my shenanigans this week because I was traveling. Okay? Always a little bit more difficult, but you guys are great, and we thank you for your continued response. Share this with your friends. Tell people about the podcast, The Doctor Is In podcast. Of course, if they want to join us live, tell 'em about that. But if not, they can download The Doctor Is In podcast on their favorite smart device. I don't know how smart they are, but that's what they call them. Okay, 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!