Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Stomach acid & digestive enzymes
- Overactive thyroid
- Statins hard on kidneys
- Creatine & muscle mass
- H. pylori
- Ferritin & the liver
- Adrenal gland exhaustion
- Blood platelet counts
- Swerve Sweetener
- Himalayan or Celtic salt?
- Amino acids in bone broth
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 this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Let's just go through the questions the way they are. Okay, so let's just look at these things here. And the first one is Ashley. Ashley Nicole, she's taking digestive enzymes. "I started with apple cider before meals to increase stomach acid and taking vitamin C to help with iron absorption. Is it okay to do all three?" Yeah, why not? But it's a good idea, Ashley, to get your stomach acid to increase that. And when you eat the right foods, your body will increase that pH or lower it, whatever, which way you want to look at it. You want to get that acid up in your stomach. It's the only place in your body you want to have high acidity and you got to do it. Okay, so good for you. Yeah, you can do all three. There's no problem at all.
Dr. Martin, "this is Carolyn. I'm hearing how your thyroid supplement is good for underactive. Is it helpful for overactive thyroid?" Sure it is. There's a lot of reviews online on how it's helped overactive thyroid. I used to do it in my office for both and people with Graves' or people with Hashimoto's or whatever that thyroid formula. I'll tell you, there's nothing like it guys. There's nothing like it. I got great results. I still get great results with that one. Okay, "will it also be helpful for an overactive, and I can't seem to keep the weight on?" Well, most people and I listen, I'm only joking, Carolyn, most people wouldn't feel sorry for you because everybody, not everybody, but most people want to lose weight. You have trouble gaining weight, thyroid. You want to balance that out. Make sure you're getting enough protein. Protein, protein, protein is the king. Protein and fat guys like the way it is supposed to be in nature, eggs, meat, and cheese. Okay?
And Heidi, "what is the name or reference of the new vitamin D study referred to recently?" Well, let me look Now I have so many studies on vitamin D. Okay, let me look at this and see if I can post it after. Raising your vitamin D in your blood to 80 ng/mL and 200 Canadian nmoL/L reduces the risk of cancer by 70%. Okay, I'll find that one. I think that's the one you're referring to, Heidi, and we'll post it in the private Facebook group. Okay?
Ilana, every week I get one of these. Okay, and I know I answered it last week and here it is again. Okay. Methylene blue. Okay. And the reference is Ilana is saying, "can a doctor share their thoughts on the use of pharmaceutical grade methylene blue liquid? I've read about its potential benefits and it seems promising. It's even sold on platforms like Amazon. Is it safe, effective, or recommended?" Well, I don't know to be honest how safe it is. I don't think there's been long-term studies of it. Look, guys, I say this every week you get products that come and they promise everything like they cure cancer, they cure this, they cure from pimples on your nose to warts on your toes. I don't buy it. Okay?
Now I'm not saying methylene blue is no good. I'm just saying that when it touts that it's the best thing ever found, I doubt that and I always compare it to what I know works. So if you ask me methylene blue, I would say it's distant to the effectiveness of pine bark and I've been using it in my practice pine bark for 30 years. So again, Ilana, I'm not saying it doesn't have some promise I'm not. But again, what I don't like is when I see it's got claims for everything, that's how good it is for you. I read one place that throw everything else out. You got methylene blue. It's the best thing since sliced bread. I don't buy it. It's certainly not as good as vitamin D.
And Ilana is asking about ivermectin paste. I've seen a cream sold on Amazon for Cohls or even Covid symptoms despite it taking marketing for animals. Friends, say the small amount orally and feel better quickly. Look, I've heard that I don't have a lot of experience with Ivermectin. It became famous during Covid because nobody let you use it during Covid. You had to use what the big pharmaceutical companies wanted you to use. It's been around a long time and they use it for horse dewormers. Yeah, but that's not what all it's been used for years and years and years. I got no problem with it. Okay, thank you.
And holy moly, Ilana, you asked me three questions. Okay? "There's a lot of talk about a stomach virus, possibly norovirus around this winter." Yeah, every year. "What are the thoughts on this virus? Are there effective ways?" Well look, I mean the effective ways, look, every winter you're going to get a different bug going around and it can be pretty challenging. I'm a big guy, Ilana, on vitamin D, get your vitamin D levels up. That's the best thing. I like vitamin A, meaning steak, eat good, cut out the sugar because that helps your immune system. Your sugar puts your T cells to sleep. Okay? So get your vitamin D levels up. Oil of oregano, don't leave home without it. It's so good for you. Okay, probiotics, all good for the immune system. Okay, thank you Ilana.
Okay, I think I answered this last week. "Can the use of statins be hard on kidneys long term?" Well, yes and no. I don't think the kidneys are the primary problem with statin drugs. Usually muscles, memory, diabetes. So diabetes, 50% of women that take statin drugs, they become diabetic. So in that sense it could affect your kidneys in that sense, not directly, but indirectly by making someone a diabetic. I've said this to you a million times and I'm going to say it another time. One of the biggest scams in the history of pharmaceuticals are statin drugs. They really haven't made a dent in heart disease at all, not even a dent. So that was Joanne.
Carla, "I'm doing some resistant training." Good for you. "I've been on EMC, eggs, meat and cheese since 2021 and notice muscle mass is gone, will creatine help?" I like creatine. You eat creatine when you eat steak. People don't realize that how good meat is for you, especially red meat. I like the idea that what you're doing EMC, why you're losing muscle at 56. You're pretty young, Carla and yeah, like creatine. I mean look, it's not the be all and end all. I'd like to know a little bit more why you are losing muscle mass. That's surprising to me. You're saying you do some resistant training? I'd do more of it. I'd do more of it. Get the steel, sun, steak and steel.
Okay. Becky, "what supplements would you suggest for a woman who had a c-section?" Well, I'd have them on vitamin D, probiotic. I am just trying to figure out, Becky, what you're asking. Okay, you had a C-section. Is that to recover from a C-section? Okay, I need a little bit more information there about a C-section, but probiotics would be my first choice.
Okay, Doreen. "Hi Dr. Martin." Hi Doreen. "What can I take if I have H pylori?" Well, H pylori, most people have it. It's a bacteria in the stomach and H pylori is often silent. Most people don't even know they have it. If you have good stomach acidity, H pylori will not raise up its ugly head. You won't even know it. When you start getting symptoms of H pylori. Well that can be because your stomach acidity is not acidic enough. And our Digest All formula, we have created that not only with the best digest of enzymes, protease, lipase, amylase and different forms of those enzymes, but we also put in oil of oregano and other things that keep H pylori down. Very helpful for C difficile. Very helpful for SIBO or SIFO, small intestine fungal overgrowth because really that's what it is. So I really like Doreen our Digest All formula. Thousands of people take it every day.
Jody, "I have tried drinking more water during the day and having water done early." So you stop drinking water early. "I still wake up four or five times a night to urinate." Well Jody, I am going to make a suggestion to you, I think, okay, without having all the information I need. Usually when I saw this and you're doing the right thing by drinking water and maybe stopping a little earlier so you're not up at night, but you're still up at night. Well that's your bladder, the smooth muscle of your bladder. I would have you on our menopausal formula just to elevate your progesterone and you might want to dim down your estrogen. That can be a factor there. The imbalance between estrogen and progesterone. So you might just want to do that and you might dim it out and what are good for that too flax seeds. But I'm suspicious that the smooth muscle, you're not getting enough progesterone. And the other thing that you could be having a yeast in there and that sits in the bladder and can give you trouble like frequent urination. Okay?
Okay, Doreen, Jody, Kathy, "I just listened to several Q and A's on ferritin and he talks about the liver. Can you please suggest what liver levels are good?" Well, look, if your liver levels haven't been flagged, they're good. You get a blood test, if they're high, they're going to be flagged. Okay, your liver enzymes. So look, when it comes to ferritin, let's talk about that for a minute. When ferritin levels are high and some people get hemochromatosis, which is very high levels of ferritin. There's two things that in my opinion that are going on. One, they have insulin resistance. The reason I say that is not so much the studies or whatever, I just found that in my office a lot that people had high levels of ferritin holding onto iron. They usually had liver problems and they either had insulin resistance, which affects the liver or fatty liver. And so this is the two things usually that I saw with high ferritin levels. So if you haven't been flagged in your blood work, well then your levels are normal, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't have the start of fatty liver or whatever, or insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome. So get off the carbs and empty that liver. You can start to empty your liver in six days on the reset. Thank you very much. Much appreciated.
Barb. "My platelet count is 51. Why is that?" There could be a lot of things, Barb. Okay, look, if you got flagged and your platelets are low, ordinarily your doctor's going to be concerned about that and they will explore even more why platelets are low and platelets are high. Same thing. If it gets flagged, usually a physician is going to do more exploration, they're going to do more testing to find out, make sure there's no leukemia or things like that, right? So Barb, get it checked out. Okay?
"No one seems to know," this is Susan, "what my root cause is for adrenal fatigue." Well, ordinarily Susan, when you have adrenal fatigue and your adrenals are exhausted, you got into a perfect storm in your body. Okay? Stress. Okay? Lots of it. And whenever I did questionnaires in my office, whenever I saw adrenal gland, we called it adrenal gland exhaustion. Chronic fatigue syndrome, for example, is an adrenal gland exhaustion. Why? Well, there's usually a combination of things. One, stress for sure, family dynamics or financial or something that stressed you out, a loss of a parent, loss of a loved one, lots of stress in a person's life. It's a perfect storm. And then usually bad eating, they're carboholics because they don't feel good. They're tired, they're exhausted, they eat the wrong foods just to get a quick fix. They're usually very high on bad fuel. Then you have a history. This is me, again, I was big on history. I've written many a books on chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia and adrenal gland exhaustion. And I usually found almost invariably high use of antibiotics cause leaky gut and leaky gut can affect the adrenals.
So generally I would say when you have adrenal gland exhaustion, we have on our website martin clinic.com, you might look at the whole gamut of the metabolic storm from insulin. Okay? That's what you're eating. Thyroid usually, MS, and that's what you're saying here too. You have a hyperactive thyroid and yep, that can have an effect because here's the way I look at it, okay? I was a holistic practitioner, I looked at all of it. Whenever you saw adrenal glands, I used to draw a pyramid for my patients. At the top was their thyroid. At the bottom part of the pyramid on both sides was the ovaries and usually too much estrogen, not enough progesterone. Halfway up that pyramid, I'd have the two adrenal glands that are secreting cortisol. Cortisol secreted over a long period of time can give you exhaustion of the adrenal glands. Like I said in the middle I had the pancreas and insulin. You have to fix all of that. Okay, Susan, you have to fix all of it, but we have that on our website, martin clinic.com. We have that protocol, what we recommend for that. Okay, thank you.
Barb. "I just read pine bark can help lower glucose levels." Yep. There's almost nothing that pine bark extract doesn't do. So good for you. Elevates nitric oxide. Elevates glutathione, which Velcro within your body and it takes out toxins. Very powerful antioxidant and very, very good for allergies. Very good for crossing the blood brain barrier brings. That's why I like that. I always added Navitol pine bark extract with high DHA for eyes. Very, very, very good. Because it elevates nitric oxide, it opens up those blood vessels. Really good. Okay, thanks Barb.
Cynthia, "I do love my coffee and drink more than 3 or 4 cups. Is that okay?" Yeah, it's alright. The real vitamin C, what do we call coffee? The real vitamin C because that's how good it is for you. Now don't overdo it, but the sweet spot for coffee is four cups of coffee a day and I don't differentiate between decaf and caffeinated coffee. Okay? Because a decaf is very good for you too, as long as it's Swiss water process. So coffee, my word, my word. How good it, I always tell people, isn't it nice that we get something that's so good for you and we can enjoy like coffee? Okay, what else is like that? Well, the sun. Who doesn't enjoy the sun and it's so good for you. Coffee, go for it. Enjoy. Now don't put sugar in it. Get away from sugars in coffee. Okay, thank you very much. And that was Cynthia
Gloria. "I drink two liters of water daily." Good and very smart girl, Gloria, "and two teaspoons during the reset. Wondering if the salt is the reason I retained the fluid?" No, it's not the salt. As a matter of fact, you're probably not enough salt. Okay? Probably not enough salt. You might have to elevate your salt. Okay, two teaspoons, which is good. I like it. If you're doing the right salt, it's good for you. You might have to go higher. Gloria, go higher.
Okay, and Pam has got trouble with platelets. Okay, hers are high. "Is there anything I can do to lower them?" Drink water. Drink water. One of the best things you can do through your 60,000 miles of blood vessels is drinking water. Water is so good for you and nothing else is water only. Water is water. I used to show patients thick blood and very high platelets. Not all of them but a lot of them. And I said, man, you got blood like molasses, you're dehydrated. Well doc, I don't feel dehydrated. I said don't wait til you feel dehydrated, I'm telling you, you are dehydrated. You're not getting enough H2O man. So make sure you're drinking enough water. Okay, vitamin K2, yeah, vitamin K2 helps. Okay? I like vitamin K2, eat it. Eggs, meat and cheese. Eat it. We put vitamin K2 in our vitamin D. I like it.
Okay, Ashley, "my brother has high pressure in his eyes," okay, "like a glaucoma." When it comes to eyes, always think circulation, microcirculation behind the eye. And I'm telling you, if he changes his diet and gets off the sugars, that'll help big time and get on high DHA and Navitol, combine the two. No better supplements on the planet, then those two for your eyes. "Can this be due to him being a carboholic?" Yes.
Cynthia, "is Swerve okay to do a little bit of sugar free baking?" Yeah, look, I prefer not using that and Swerve is a combination, isn't it of stevia and erythritol, I think? It's a sugar alcohol. Yeah, look, if you got to use a little bit, I'm not against that, okay? I'm a big guy on looking at the big picture first. Okay? And then what I mean by that, don't rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. If you're on the Titanic, get off the Titanic or turn the ship around. Okay? If you're not doing well and you start the EMC, the eggs, meat, and cheese and good for you, you do the reset, then little we things like using stevia or using swerve or whatever, I really don't care too much about that. You can do it. I'm not against it. I want you to succeed. So if you got to do some baking with swerve, I don't care. I really don't. I don't get into the weeds too much.
Now when you're down the road in your health and you've already got off the Titanic and you're feeling better and you're really, really strict when it comes to reading labels and you're really into your health. I mean thousands of people have gotten to what I used to call step two. Step one, avoid the iceberg, and some people had already hit the iceberg. I say, well then you need to get into lifeboats and do everything you can to turn your health around. And then phase two is when, hey, you might want to eat organic. Everything's organic, if you can afford it, hey, go for it. Good for you. Okay? And I am a hundred percent behind you, but you have to understand that I talk in generalities to people when I do this program. I got people on phase one and they're on the Titanic and phase two, meaning they've already turned the ship around, they're doing well and now they really watch labels. They want to go organic or they don't. But I mean I understand that and good for you. Okay, so like I said, I don't go into the weeds too much because I think that it's a distraction. Don't rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, wait.
That was Cynthia, Pamela, we're getting questions about this, okay. "Hemochromatosis, is it genetic and it is an iron overload? So does everyone have too much iron have hemochromatosis?" Not necessarily. I mean it might not be always diagnosed as hemochromatosis, but it usually is and I already give you the two reasons that I see. I don't see it so much as genetic. I guess it's possible, but I see it more as metabolic syndrome or fatty liver or both. That's why we have so much of it today.
Yvette's asking which salt is better, Himalayan or Celtic? Well, I like both of them. Okay, "a family member listening to another doctor told me that Celtic is the best one." Well, I like Celtic salt. If it's got all those minerals in it, Himalayan does too. Now he said this doctor said Himalayan has plastic and other impurities have been using Himalayan salt for years. Well look, I wouldn't get too uptight about that. Get a good Himalayan salt and they're not full of plastics. Well, look, if Himalayan salt is full of plastic, Celtic salt is full of plastic, I don't care where you go, you're going to get plastic. We accumulate on average one and a half credit cards worth of plastic a week. Our body picks up if you get a good reputable Himalayan salt. I think it's as good as any, I've been using Himalayan for years more than Celtic, but I like Celtic because it's got all the, it's true salt. So is Himalayan. They're true salt. But always look at the source and where they're getting it from too. Okay, thank you very much. That was Yvette.
"My husband's feet are always cold." Well, I mean if it was a woman, I'd say for sure it's a thyroid. Maybe it may be his thyroid, it may be circulation, microcirculation. He's got trouble with that. It may be just the way he's built too. Some people are different and that's the way they are. But look for deficiencies and make sure you don't have any thyroid problems or whatever, right? Wear socks to bed. I'm the opposite. My feet get hot. I can't stand it when I'm sleeping. If my feet are hot, my feet are hanging out, I'll have all the covers over the top part of my body, but my feet got to be out of the covers almost invariably because my feet get hot. Does that make me weird? Maybe I've been accused of being weird in the past. Okay?
Lynn, "is there anything one can do for left atrial enlargement," okay, "and unusual patterns in heart electric?" Well look, one of the biggest things in heart, couple of things, okay. And of course you're with your doctor, right? You're with the cardiologist. I'm just telling you things that we saw in the office for years. One, they were low in magnesium and two, they were low in ubiquinol and coQ10, the heart muscle and the electrical grid that's in there needs coQ10 and magnesium. Those are the big two. And that's what I would look for. Okay? That was Lynn.
Louise, "what supplements besides DHA upgraded for MS for my brain should I be taking?" Well, pine bark. Louise for sure. Pine bark gets across the blood-brain barrier or used it with MS for years. High DHA, B12. Usually you're low in B12. Get your numbers checked, check your vitamin D levels because they're often low in MS. Okay and those are the things I'd be on probiotics. Absolutely.
Charlene, "why are the amino acids not listed on bone broth ingredients?" That's a good question, Charlene. But label laws, I know in Canada, I'm just trying to think in the states, like bone broth. It's because I'll tell you what amino acids are in there, especially L glutamine and lycine and glycine and arginine and you name it are in bone broth. That's what makes it so good. But there are trace amounts and they don't necessarily measure them. And I know in Canada you couldn't put all the amino acids on the label on our bone broth powder. Okay. They won't allow it. And why? Who knows? I don't know if it just can't be measured properly or not, I don't know. But anyways, you got to sort of obey the laws of the land. But I can tell you something, whether you make bone broth yourself or whether we make it for you, it is the highest collagen protein that you can get and full of amino acids. I've used it successfully years and years and years with digestive issues with not only leaky gut but ulcerative colitis. I used it with diverticulosis and IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, you name it. I use bone broth with great, great success. Plus bone broth's good for your hair, your nails, your skin. Because it's collagen, it's the best way to get collagen protein is through bone broth. Okay, thank you Charlene.
Patricia, "does ingesting MCT oil elevate your triglycerides?" No, not really. MCT oil is an exogenous ketones, okay, and some people swear by that stuff and they like it. Yeah, I got no problem with it, but it was, what was they call that bulletproof coffee for years. It was on the hit parade and everybody was talking about it. And then, yeah, you haven't seen too much about it recently. I never disliked it. I just felt a lot of people had digestive issues with it. But no, I never found it to elevate triglycerides. Okay. Patricia.
Lynn, "how does one get to the point to stop using a CPAP, which is for sleep apnea?" Well, what did I tell you? The biggest thing with sleep apnea is fatty tongue. Okay, got a fatty tongue. Insulin is a growth hormone, so get that down when you do the reset. A lot of people have found that their sleep apnea got a whole lot better with a very strict diet of eggs, meat and cheese. And I mean that. The tongue shrinks and when the tongue shrinks, you're getting more oxygen up to the brain. So try it.
Okay, last one. Caroline, "what does alcohol energy drinks and juice do to the liver?" Nothing good. Alcohol goes directly to the liver, just like high fructose corn syrup does. Juice goes directly to the liver. I don't like juice. I don't want people drinking orange juice or apple juice or I don't like juice. I really don't. I like Dr. Martin's perfect smoothie, which is high in protein, high in fat, high, good for you, but not juice. Juice goes directly to the liver. It fattens up the liver. And you're meant to eat fruit, not drink it. I'm not big on drinking at all because it go directly to your liver and don't pass code. Okay, we did it guys. We answered all the questions. Okay. And we love you dearly and we'll talk to you soon.
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