At the Martin Clinic, we’ve come up with our own alphabet when it comes to naming vitamins. The real vitamin C is actually coffee, vitamin S is steak. The real vitamin E is exercise and it turns out that exercise is actually a better treatment for pre-diabetes than Metformin!
Join Dr. Martin as he reviews this study and shares an updated article about the dangers of the long-term use of PPIs, proton pump inhibitors.
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, and once again, welcome to another live of The Doctor Is In on Facebook, soon to be on a podcast. This week we're going over headlines. And again, a lot of times you won't see these headlines. They're not mainstream necessarily, but they're studies or articles that I flag. I find them to be interesting and those are the ones that I want to talk to you about. Let's do a couple here this morning. One of them interesting, exercise. So vitamin E, remember at the Martin Clinic, we have our own vitamin chart. Okay? We have our own chart and we've replaced some of the vitamins with better ones. For example, vitamin C, ascorbic acid. Do we like it? Yeah, but we know something better that starts with a C. So we call that vitamin C. What is that? Coffee.
Now, vitamin E. Again, vitamin E is a vitamin and I like it, but we found a much better vitamin, and that's exercise. So we substituted the other vitamin E for exercise because exercise is so good for you. We named a new vitamin. Vitamin S steak. It deserves a vitamin. It's so good for you. Okay, so that's what we've done at the Martin Clinic, and we have our own alphabet, the vitamins, okay? And I mean it. Now, the other vitamin, we could, I mean we need S1 and S2 would be sleep because the more they research sleep, the more they find, yeah, that really is essential, okay, the more they study it. I'm going to give you another one. I haven't named this one yet, but I think we're going to, and that is vitamin M, and that would be muscle. Boy guys, the more we study muscle, the more we realize that the wow that is so essential. Okay? Anyway, let's get back to this study that shows exercise.
So vitamin E, the real one beats metformin in pre-diabetes treatment. Exercise beats metformin. Now guys, Metformin is one of the most popular drugs in North America, and the reason is because doctors their first choice, when someone's A1C or their blood sugar goes up, they want to get you on Metformin to control that blood sugar. But again, our philosophy here at the Martin Clinic, we would rather that you fix it without any medication, and it's very fixable, very fixable. So if someone, for example, has got an A1C, and most physicians, when it gets around 6.1 to about 6.5, they'll say, well that's pre-diabetes, and I don't want to argue with that because I'm not big on pre-diabetes because I'm a big guy on you're a diabetic. Before they diagnose it, guys, again, another saying, you're already diabetic, diabetes is the last thing that happens where you officially get the numbers that tell you that you're diabetic. You've really been a diabetic for a long, long time, okay? A long, long time.
So what I'm saying to you, okay, guys, is Metformin, which is a drug. Look, I never tell people not to take medication. I can give opinions, but because people are not my patients anymore, well, I don't do that. I just give information and you got to make decisions with your doctor or whatever. But I can tell you what these studies are showing that if you get into exercise, it's actually more effective than metformin at controlling your blood sugar. Now guys, you can't out exercise a bad diet, okay? You just can't. I've said that for many, many years. Like food is first. Choices that you make are first in foods. That comes first, in my opinion, for any condition. See what you're eating and if you need to change it, and most people do. Like I said, 93% of the population have some form of metabolic syndrome, my friend. You need to change your food. But even with people who didn't change their diet, according to this study, vitamin E exercise was better than Metformin.
One of the side effects of metformin, by the way, are major digestive issues, and you do not absorb B12. That's a big problem. And again, you go to your pharmacist to pick up a prescription for metformin. I can almost guarantee you, they do not tell you about those side effects. And they should. They should be saying, listen, you need to be on a sublingual vitamin B12 methylcobalamin. You need to be on this when you're taking metformin. Millions of people take metformin every day, and no one has ever told them that they need B12 too, but they don't know that. And I really am disappointed in pharmacists. They should know better. They're always looking for side effects of a medication when you take a supplement with it. Oh, don't take this, don't take that supplement because you're on this medication. You know how many thousands of times I heard, oh, you're taking omega-3. Well, you shouldn't, you're on a blood thinner. Oh, I get migraines. When that Omega-3, especially DHA, will protect your blood vessels and actually lubricate your blood vessels. Oh, don't take that because you're on a blood thinner and you know, yada, yada, yada. I'm telling you guys, I can't handle it. It drives me crazy. But when someone goes in and they're taking metformin, they should be told instantly, you know what, now you're not going to absorb B12. You need to do something about that.
But you know what, doctors have gotten a million miles away from B12, a million miles. Guys, I've been around for so many years, 50 years now in practice. 50 more a little bit. No, but seriously, and guys, it's amazing to me. B12 used to be such an important vitamin on the hit parade, even for a physician back in the 1950s and the 1940s and even early 1960s was nothing for a doctor to give a B12 shot. And today, unless you are dead and you've turned into a corpse, they just don't give B12 anymore. You can get it, but they don't do it. And unless you're seeing an integrative doctor, good luck. I told you this last week. I get a headache. I talked to a physician, I said, did you check this patient's B12 levels? Why would I do that? Oh, because it's important. Your body don't work without B12. Oh, I get uptight. So metformin, it gets beat by exercise in prediabetes. That's a big study. That's an important study. And physicians would do well to read this study, but I'm not going to hold my breath, okay? I'm not. They pull that trigger on medication so fast. Anyway, it's their training and God love them, but I'm not happy about it. Okay, so how do you like that?
Okay, guys, here's another one. PPIs, you know what that is? Proton pump inhibitors. This is an article very interesting that goes over the history of proton pump inhibitors. Now, I brought this to you before in some detail, but this is a newer one, a newer article actually. It's not really a study, but it was a medical journalist who just did a deep dive on PPIs. Again, what are PPIs? Proton pump inhibitors, and they're given out like candy today. They are so popular. People have so much trouble with acid reflux and esophageal reflux and Barrett's disease where their valve between the stomach and the esophagus is burning out. And so PPIs have become a very, very, they've been around for a while, but I'm going to tell you, this medical journalist goes into some big detail. First thing he says is, okay, first thing, proton pump inhibitors, when they first came out, they were only approved for short time use, meaning a couple of weeks. You got acid reflux, you're getting heartburn. And they said, okay, the purple pill. And others, we approved them for short-term use, not for long-term use. I don't know what happened to that.
You know what folks? I had hundreds and hundreds of patients over the years that would come in, and our questionnaires always wanted to know their medication with some real detail because we were really, really, really interested in that. What medications are you on, guys? Proton pump inhibitors. How long have you been on this? Oh, years. And I knew back a long time ago that they were just approved for short-term use. You're not supposed to use it really even past two weeks because there's too many side effects. But people, well, doc, if I get off my proton pump inhibitor, that acid reflux comes back. I can't stand it. Well, the point is, let's find out first why you've got acid reflux. Let's go over some of that. Why would you get acid reflux in the first place? Now guys, this is rinse and repeat. You know that, okay, number one, the number one reason people get acid reflux, I mean, at the end of the day, it's because they're not making enough acidity.
What? I'm taking a medication for acid reflux, and you're telling me I don't make enough? Yeah at the bottom line, you're not making enough and your body's compensating. And the first thing that I used to look at in my office, the first thing was your diet. Tell me about your food. Okay, well, Dr. Martin, and they were pretty proud of this. I don't eat a lot of meat. I don't eat a lot of eggs or cheese. I eat a lot of vegetables and fruit and salad and maybe a little bit of chicken. And I start my day with oatmeal and whatever. Okay, now we got the diet. And then I used to tell 'em, well, listen, I'm going to give you a little education on your tum tum, your stomach. Your stomach was designed to eat meat, okay? It was designed for it. How do I know that? Well, a human being's stomach ought to be more acidic than a lion. Meaning between 1.5 acidity, very acidic, you can dissolve a coin in your stomach if your acidity is right. It is so acidic, it's like a furnace. And when you're eating the wrong foods, your pH in your stomach goes up. What? Yeah, your stomach will become more alkaline, and that's not good.
Guys, the only place in your body that should be acidic is your stomach. Everywhere else you want your body to be slightly alkaline. Your stomach needs that acidity to completely digest your food. And when you are not eating the right foods, you are a carboholic or you love sugar or you live on fruits and vegetables, your pH goes up. It's just the way it is, guys. Your pH goes up. So what does that do? Well, your body's smart. Your body is fearfully and wonderfully made. So when you don't eat the right foods, your pH of your stomach goes up. And here's what happens. Your body compensates. You've got pumps in your stomach, you got pumps, and they release acidity in the absence of acidity. So they release it. They say, here, we got to fix the problem. We got to make your pH of your stomach more acidic. And when that happens, when the proton pumps go crazy to try and compensate for the diet that 90% of the people eat, you know what happens? Now you get acid reflux coming up the esophagus and you're ooh, and it ain't no fun.
The doctor don't talk to you about diet, because they don't know anything about a diet. If they do, they'll tell you, well, you better cut out red meat. They always say that. You better just cut out red meat because that's acidic. They really don't know what they're talking about. They don't know what they're talking about. So then they put you on medications, and let's say they did. What they should do is I'm going to see you back here in two weeks. You can't stay on this medication beyond that. But they don't do that because the FDA forgot and do not enforce the original manifest on PPIs. Guys, have you heard of black box warnings? Well, there should be a black box warnings on PPIs. That's how dangerous they are. They are so dangerous and I've been screaming again like John the Baptist for years screaming, hello out there. Don't use PPIs for long. You are going to have major side effects.
Let's go over a few, okay? This is really important, guys. Your stomach is such a big part of your digestion. People, oh, I got bowel problems, Dr. Martin, my stomach, and I'm bloated and whatever, not your stomach, but your bowel, okay? And I go, yeah, but you got to start with the stomach, man. We're going to number one, change your diet. We're going to restore that acidity in your stomach, and I'm going to tell you why. You mean Dr. Martin, you want more? I got already got too much acidity. Now you want to give me more acidity? Yeah, I do because we're going to fix the problem at the root cause, okay? We're going to fix the problem. You're going to change your pH in your stomach. You're going to make it more acidic like a lion's even more acidic than a lion's. Why? Because you were designed to eat meat. You were designed to eat it like a lion. I've never followed a lion around, but from what I understand, they're not big on vegetables from what I heard. They're big on meat. They're huge on meat, and they have a stomach that's very acidic, but not even as acidic as yours, not even as acidic as that.
Let's look at the side effects of PPIs. Number one. I mean, they're all important. Number one, it reduces the inhibitors of the proton pump, so it reduces your acid. And what happens? Your pH goes up even more. Why is that not good? Because guys, one of your biggest parts of your immune system. Now, you may never have heard this before. One of the biggest parts of your immune system is your stomach. What? Yeah, your stomach. Because what happens when you get a bacteria like a C difficile, for example, okay, a very difficult bacteria because it's extremely resistant to antibiotics, okay? That's why they call it C difficile. And you know where you get that? Primarily in a hospital. The most dangerous place in the world is not the Ukraine, okay? It's not. The most dangerous place is a hospital. I'm not telling people not to go to the hospital if they need it. I'm just telling you, the most dangerous place in the world to go is a hospital. Why? Because of the bugs. They have resisted antibiotics, and we have created a monster, and it's called C difficile.
And the primary place that C difficile gets killed is in your stomach if you have enough acidity. That's why people get really bad bugs. One of the reasons is because they're eating the wrong diet. The pH of their stomach has gone up. It's more alkaline than it should be. And guess what? Now you cannot fight bacteria or bugs that come into your body via the stomach. And so a big part of your immune system guys is the stomach when the pH is at its right level, very acidic. Okay, number one. So immune system, number two. Guys, you see your stomach is like a furnace. When it's very acidic, it breaks down, it mulchs down your food, okay? Digestion starts in your mouth, by the way. But once it gets into your stomach, that furnace just breaks down your food big time and it mulches it. And this is really important because that's at the place where you absorb your vitamins, your magnesium, your potassium, your B12. This is a huge issue with B12.
Why are people so low in B12? One, they don't eat red meat. And two, they don't have the acidity in their stomach, and you ain't bringing B12 into your body without a good stomach acidity. That's why when you don't have a good stomach acidity, we're always telling people, take a sublingual B12, you don't have to take a B12 shot anymore. You can, but it's not the most effective. This has been proven over and over again. Taking a sublingual B12, okay? A sublingual B12 methylcobabalin is better than even a B12 shot because you're not taking a B12 shot every day, but you can take a supplement every day. And you know what? I am just going to say this. 93, when I say metabolic syndrome, 93% of the population have metabolic syndrome. Well, you know what I venture to say about the same percentage are low in B12. They don't have optimized B12, and you need your B12 to be optimized. At least 800 and 90% of the population don't have that number. They're not there. And without B12, remember, B12 is a nerve vitamin. B12 is your brain vitamin, and you can't find it in chicken, and it ain't there. It's not in vegetables. There's not enough in the plant kingdom for a mouse in spite of what you've been told. It's not true.
Okay, so you're not going to absorb B12 without a good stomach acidity and if you're on PPIs, you are not going to have the immune system that you need. Okay? Guys, even for food poisoning, I'm not saying you can never get it, but the more acidity you have, the more you fight anything like a bacteria, doesn't have to be just C difficile. Now, listen to this. When you don't have enough acidity in your stomach, when your pH of your stomach is changed, you don't make enough nitric oxide. What's nitric oxide, right? Well, nitric oxide is a little molecule that we make. I didn't even know about this 50 years ago. I didn't even know it existed. Nitric oxide is a molecule that one of its primary functions is to open up your blood vessels, it relaxes your blood vessels, and that's good for your heart and brain as you can well imagine. Well, when you don't have enough acidity, you don't make enough nitric oxide.
And listen to this, according to this paper, heart disease, if you take a PPI proton pump inhibitor, okay? And you can get them over the counter now. If you take a proton pump inhibitor for over two years, your risk of heart disease goes up 30 to 40%. Holy moly, that ain't good. Listen to this. Alzheimer's, think of it you're not absorbing your nutrients. Your brain needs those nutrients. It needs magnesium, it needs potassium. It needs B12. It needs vitamin D, it needs your calcium. You know what I mean? You need that stuff, guys. If you don't break that down properly, your brain is not getting all the nutrients it needs. And what they're saying is a 30 to 40% increase in Alzheimer's if you're on PPIs for over a couple of years, and a lot of people are. Hip fractures, hip fractures, jaw deterioration, hip fractures, which is one of the biggest killers of senior citizens. They fall, they break a hip, and you know what? They're done like dinner a lot of people. Once they break a hip, and one of the biggest reasons for it are proton pump inhibitors. People are on that. Nobody told them. And now they don't have enough calcium in their bones and that ain't good. That ain't good, right?
Kidney disease. Kidney disease. So guys, this is why this article really, it was just an up to date overview on the side effects of proton pump inhibitors and I'm going to tell you, I bet you there's not five physicians that know that. If you don't drop dead right away, they don't look at the side effects of it. Well, I'd rather you not have any acid reflux, so just keep taking a pill. Well, they were never designed for that, and I don't trust Health Canada or the FDA, I just don't trust them because they're bought and paid for by the pharmaceuticals. I hate to say it, but I don't trust them.
Okay, now, what's tomorrow? Q and A. Okay, it's not too late. Send in your Q and A, send your questions in and tomorrow we'll deal with your questions. Guys, I was having fun this morning. Okay, we love you guys. Thanks for what an audience we are, and thanks for all the feedback and ask your questions. Please send them to info@martinclinic.com. If you ask a question here, I don't see it during the program, guys, I really don't. Okay? I'm focused in on the topic or whatever, and I love you guys being on, but I just don't see those questions. Send it in to info@martinclinic.com and then we'll deal with it on Fridays and most Mondays. Okay, guys, we love you dearly. 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!