231. History Of Heart Health

Transcript Of Today's Episode

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Dr. Martin Sr: Hello. What I want to do this morning is talk to you a little bit about just some of the lies that we believe. You know, it's kind of funny [00:00:30] because there's two generations that really have been affected mostly by these lies. Of course others are involved, but I just want to talk about my parents' generation and my generation. Okay? So I'm 67 years old if you're wondering, and I want to talk about the lies that we believe. There's a lot of lies that we believe that are not true. I'm going to show you something because as [00:01:00] I was in Florida, I talked to quite a few of my neighbors and they're generally a little bit, some of them older than me, but my generation. We're sitting around talking and lovely people, by the way, but they've been hoodwinked, they've been lied to all of their lives, have been lied to.

Dr. Martin Sr: No. Okay? So oatmeal, which is still probably one of the most popular [00:01:30] choices for breakfast that you will see is oatmeal. It's got a heart on the box. Okay? I always tell my patients, I actually have a box of cereal in my office, I leave it there and I always say, "See the heart on the box? If you eat this stuff, you're going to have a heart attack." But what I want to sort of mention this morning is that we believe nonsense, a lot of lies, when it comes to our [00:02:00] health. Okay? I just want to give you a little bit of history here, how this all started, okay? How did it start? It started with one man.

Dr. Martin Sr: Let me tell you a little bit of a story, too. When I was in school, when we were taking orthopaedics, okay? We had a textbook by a guy named [Cyriax 00:02:25]. He was a British orthopaedic surgeon. Okay? Now [00:02:30] you're talking, go back, okay, into the early 1970s, and this guy had a certain way to do certain things in orthopaedics and lot of it was very good by the way. But he had one thing I remember that there was a way of treating injuries to the collarbone or a fractured collarbone.

Dr. Martin Sr: I had already had a lot of background in this because my dad sort of showed me a lot of things in his practice even [00:03:00] before I went to school. I looked at this Cyriax thing and he said, "Well, no, what you do is you put the arm in a sling and you just let it heal. It'll knit itself," which it will, but it ... My dad always believed, "No, you have to set the bone. Set it, and then tape it, tape it down." And yeah, put the arm in a sling but tape down and let ... You know, set the bone first before and sometimes now they do surgery [00:03:30] or whatever. But in the 1970s, hook, line, and sinker, everybody was doing the way Cyriax wanted.

Dr. Martin Sr: Well in the nutrition field, just to give you a little bit of history about nutrition, there was a guy that, it happened right around the time that president Dwight Eisenhower ... Okay, now I was just a little kid when he was the president of the United States, but you know what he died of? He died of a heart attack. And you can imagine, he was [00:04:00] the president of the United States. So that was big news back then, right? Well, there was a fellow doing research, and in the field of medicine, and he said that, "Well, president Eisenhower died because of cholesterol. His cholesterol was high." And this fellow, his name was Ancel Keys, K-E-Y-S. [00:04:30] You can Google him if you want. And Ancel Keys started a hypothesis back in the 1950s that said cholesterol was at the root of heart disease and the American Heart Association, which was very small in those days, actually funded some of his research.

Dr. Martin Sr: Later on, not long after that, [00:05:00] the cereal companies like Kellogg's and Post, they funded his research. Because what he was saying is at the root of cholesterol was animal fat. Eggs, meat, cheese, butter. He said, "Well, that's saturated fat and saturated fat causes heart disease," and the whole world went for it. [00:05:30] They did. They went hook, line, and sinker. Okay? Now, who's that little Swedish girl? You've all seen her, right? What's her name again? [inaudible 00:05:41]? I can't even remember. She's the face, right? How do you argue with a 16 year old girl? She's the face of climate change, right? And you can't argue with her. She's 16, what are you going to do? Tell her she's crazy?

Dr. Martin Sr: [00:06:00] But all I'm saying is sometimes we believe things that are not necessarily true and the world went for this cholesterol hoax. And it was ... Look, it was a hypothesis. It was never proven, but you can imagine people like the cereal companies, Quaker and Post and Kellogg's, they loved it because they were telling people, "Quit [00:06:30] eating bacon and eggs. They will give you cholesterol." Now, I want to tell you something about Dwight Eisenhower that sort of got lost in the shuffle. Because Dwight Eisenhower was smoking four or five packs of cigarettes a day.

Dr. Martin Sr: Everybody smoked. I talked to you about this in the past. My parents smoked, soon as my brothers were old enough and that wasn't very old in my house, 13 or 14 years [00:07:00] old. My brother smoked, my three older brothers. I smoked a little bit because I was stealing my mother's ... My dad smoked Buckingham unfiltered cigarettes and my mother smoked Peter Jackson and I used to like the cartons of Peter Jackson because they were kind of black and they were nice. It was sort of a great marketing, to me. I liked the color of it, Peter Jackson, and besides, it had a filter. So I [00:07:30] used to steal my mother's cigarettes and we would go out into the bush not far from our house, some of my friends and we would smoke. I never really liked it too much, so thank God I never started really getting a habit of smoking. Okay? I think what happened is I smoked a cigar once and I think it was my older brother that made me take a puff of cigar and he said, "Now inhale that." I got so stinking sick. Well, that was the end [00:08:00] of my smoking career. Thank God.

Dr. Martin Sr: But what Ancel Keys never said, what Ancel Keys probably at first didn't even know, that Dwight Eisenhower was smoking four or five packs of cigarettes a day. That's what caused inflammation and atherosclerosis of his blood vessels, not saturated fat. But the whole world went [00:08:30] for it. The whole world went for it. It was the greatest deception, in my opinion, of medical history. And what came out of that, of course, was the statin drugs, cholesterol lowering medication. Lipitor, to this day, is still the number one selling drug of all time in the history [00:09:00] of all drugs that have ever been sold. It was sold on the basis of cholesterol and lowering your cholesterol. Even today, if you watch commercials on TV, you see the firemen going down the pole and giving everybody at the fire station a high five because he ... "I lowered my cholesterol!" Well, that's stupid. Why do you want to lower your cholesterol?

Dr. Martin Sr: [00:09:30] But my generation, okay? So when I was sitting around in Florida with my neighbors, lovely people, they were ... You know, you just listen. And I listened to them talking about how many medications they're on. I mean, it's unbelievable. Cholesterol lowering, aspirin, high blood pressure medication, diabetic medication ... You name it. I mean, incredible. So as I was sitting around, [00:10:00] I listened to them and this is my generation and my parents' ... Now, my parents' generation pretty well all gone now. Nobody's alive to talk about it anymore.

Dr. Martin Sr: But my parents believed this hook, line, and sinker. Not so much my dad, because my dad was a diabetic and he found out that in order to lower his blood sugar, my dad lowered all his carbohydrates. Incredible. In the 1960s, [00:10:30] my dad came home and said he was a diabetic and my dad ate steak six nights a week. He was smart and he started exercising. Nobody jogged in my dad's day, like [inaudible 00:10:42] my dad started jogging. Not kidding you, in 1967. 1967, my dad started jogging. Jogging? The only people that ever ran in 1967 were people that were running away from the police. There wasn't even a word for jogging. [00:11:00] My dad, I believe, I never heard anybody that just went out for a run for the sake of going out for a run, but my dad did.

Dr. Martin Sr: My dad was a genius. He got ahead of the curve and he stopped smoking, too, by the way. Those four packs of cigarettes, my dad went cold turkey when he found out it wasn't good for him. Because everybody smoked. Watch the old movies, everybody's smoking. It's just part of their DNA back in those days. And my dad threw away [00:11:30] his cigarettes. But Ancel Keys, imagine one guy, imagine one guy having the influence that he did, changed the world. I always say, "Well, Eskimos don't get heart disease." Now, they die, the polar bears eat them, but they don't die from diseases that we have. These lifestyle diseases that really started to take effect in the 1940s and 1950s. Before that, people [00:12:00] died of infection. They didn't die from what we die of today, which is still ... Number one is heart disease, and right on the tip ... As a matter of fact, I read something last week that cancer in North America is inching its way up, taking over heart disease.

Dr. Martin Sr: Now, people still die though, of heart disease more than they die of cancer. Okay? I think I used this statistic back awhile ago, [00:12:30] about 2,100 people every day in the United States die of heart disease and stroke, heart attack or stroke. I think it's 1,600 people every day, 1,600 and change, die every day of cancer. Number three is Alzheimer's, which they die of. Okay? Number four is diabetes, it used to be number three. But in the 1950s, diabetes was number 100. [00:13:00] Actually, it was number 50. You see, I looked at the history of nutrition, go back, and this is why the world has done what it is done. It believed a lie. It wasn't true. It was never true.

Dr. Martin Sr: So people started changing their diet to get rid of fat in their diet, the animal fat. Now, they still had fat in their diet, in the form [00:13:30] of polyunsaturated fats. That was the invention ... Well, let me give you a little bit of history of seed oils. Okay? When I talk about canola oil or rapeseed oil or corn oil or peanut oils, these are seed oils, okay? So when you seek canola, and it sounds like you grow canola, but these are oils that you can literally run your car [00:14:00] on. Okay? They are so industrialized and so manufactured. So Proctor & Gamble, you remember that name. Two guys, they were in the soap business and they found out if they took cotton seed oil, which was very cheap and hydrogenated it at a very high temperature, they could make soap. Well, it wasn't long after the makers of Crisco ... Now you remember, see, that's my parents' [00:14:30] generation, Crisco. I mean, it's still sold today, right? It's a vegetable oil. Vegetable, must be good.

Dr. Martin Sr: Well, you see Ancel Keys said it was good for you because he said, "No, you don't want to use animal fat. You don't want to cook with butter. You don't want to cook with ghee or ghee or whatever you call it. You don't want to cook with that kind of stuff. That's fat. You don't want to cook with coconut oil. That's saturated [00:15:00] fat, right? That's no good for you." So he said, "Cook with these seed oils and canola oil and safflower oil." The problem with that, they have to be hydrogenated. They are highly industrialized, there's a lot of chemicals, they create a lot of free radical damage in the body, and this is a huge issue today. Okay? [00:15:30] So what I'm saying is that this is big time issue today. Because anything that you get that is stable, has a shelf life, almost everything that you can get in the middle aisles of your grocery store that will last on your shelves have been hydrogenated. They are using seed oils and they're not healthy for you.

Dr. Martin Sr: As a matter of fact, they're very unhealthy for [00:16:00] you because what they do is they elevate your levels of omega-6 compared to your levels of omega-3. And what does that do? That creates a huge inflammatory response in your body. We all know that inflammation, without a fever, okay, your body knows how to get a fever if you have an infection, [00:16:30] but inflammation without an infection can be damaging to your blood vessels. This is why it is very, very damaging. Then you add all the sugars that we consume. So this is the history, guys. This is why my generation, they find it very difficult when I tell them to eat eggs, meat, and cheese. [00:17:00] When I tell them to eat eggs, meat, and cheese, they look at me like I'm crazy. When I tell them to cook with butter, cook with ... Use, for example, coconut oil. One of my favorite oils is olive oil. Olive is not a vegetable, by the way, it's a fruit. Now, you don't put it in a fruit salad, but it's a great cooking because it doesn't denature. It doesn't denature, it doesn't [00:17:30] ... It's got a high smoke point. Butter's got a terrific smoke point.

Dr. Martin Sr: So what that means is, is when you heat it up, it is very good for you. This is why it's ... These things are actually good. So can you imagine the whole world went for the lie? It played right into the cereal industry. And today you see people still eating cereals. I tell people why ... I [00:18:00] will ask a question of my generation. Why are you eating oatmeal? "Oh, Dr. Martin, oatmeal is so good for you. It lowers your cholesterol. It's right on the box." And I got Quaker oats, I'm reading and it says, "Oat fiber helps reduce cholesterol." Well, why do you want to reduce your cholesterol? You don't want to reduce your cholesterol. You want to elevate your [00:18:30] cholesterol, right? Right. Avocado oil, too, is very good. You can use that. Avocado is a fruit. It's a fruit oil. It's got a high smoke point. Absolutely you can use it.

Dr. Martin Sr: But why do you want to lower your cholesterol? Your brain is made up of cholesterol. Your cells are made up of cholesterol. Your body doesn't trust you enough. God gave you a liver to [00:19:00] make 85% of your cholesterol, and I repeat this ad nauseum. I constantly repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and rinse, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. That's how you shampoo, right? You want, I repeat myself because I want us to understand how your body works. Cholesterol is FedEx on [00:19:30] the highway. It's Canada Post. It's US Post. It will pick up your bad fats. What are bad fats? You guys should know this. They are called triglycerides. Triglycerides are made in the liver when your liver is full of stinking sugar.

Dr. Martin Sr: When the suitcase is full, when the ... I call the liver the Costco parking lot. If you go to Costco, any [00:20:00] time of the day, the parking lot is full, or so it seems. Well, that's your liver, guys. Your liver is a suitcase. When it gets full, your body expels that glycogen in the form of triglycerides. Three sugars make a fat ball and what your body needs, what your body needs is cholesterol, HDL, good cholesterol. So when people, [00:20:30] if you want to send me your blood work, don't send me, "Oh, Doc, what does this mean? My total cholesterol?" Made up by the pharmaceutical industry. Who cares what your total cholesterol is? I want to know what your triglycerides are and I want to know what your HDL is. I don't care about your LDL. I don't care. It doesn't mean nothing to me. It might mean something to your doctor, but not to me. Okay?

Dr. Martin Sr: I know that's [00:21:00] controversial. It's like me saying something against the environment. Everybody has to believe the same thing. Ah, I'm not so convinced. Okay? You know what science is, guys? You know what science is? Science is never ever settled. That's what science is. Science is always testing and doing experiments and [00:21:30] open to new things. That's what science is. What I know today, folks, what I know today in nutrition compared to what I knew back in the 1970s, and listen, I took over 2000 hours of nutrition in school, 2000 hours of it. I knew a lot, but I knew nothing compared to ... then what I know today. [00:22:00] That is why ... Listen, I'm always, always studying. I'm always, always open to new data. That's what science is.

Dr. Martin Sr: When when they tell you the science is settled, well, that bothers me. What do you mean the science is settled? By nature, science is never settled. If you can show me something different about triglycerides, hey, I'm open. You show me something different [00:22:30] about cholesterol, we're learning every day. Oh, okay. I'm open to that. But I tell you the world, the way it operates now, it's unbelievable. With social media and with the internet and all these are wonderful things, but people just believe, "Oh, eggs are no good for me." You ask somebody my age, take a survey, go [00:23:00] ask 10 people "Are eggs good for you?" Well you got to, you can, you know, I limit ... I had a patient in a about a month ago, said, "I limit my eggs to one or two a week." I said, "How stupid is that?" I said, "Do you like them?" "Oh, I love them." I said, "Well, they're good for you." "What? What? Eggs? Look and all the factors in eggs." "Fat's good for you." How many times do I have to say it?

Dr. Martin Sr: I'm always amazed, [00:23:30] people come into the ... Of course, a lot of times it's their first time seeing me. So perhaps they never listened to me on these rants that I have. So I go a little bit crazy. I'm very dogmatic. Listen, I go a little bit crazy when I hear nonsense. That's me. Okay? So I just want to tell you, look, this is the history. This is why [00:24:00] it happened. This is why we believe that lie. And me and many others of course are trying to get people to change their mind, to study for themselves. You don't have to know everything. But these things are always ... This is why we do what we do. I want to educate. You know what the term doctor means? It means teacher. Doctor means teacher. [00:24:30] Doctors have forgotten to teach, today. They don't teach anymore. They're supposed to teach. I'm supposed to teach you, teaching my patients the way it is. Okay?

Dr. Martin Sr: I'm not saying there's nothing good in science. Of course there is. So-called science. Of course there is, right? But all I'm saying is, look, you ... When you understand the history of why we do [00:25:00] what we do and why we believe in ... So my generation and my parents' generation are the word. If the doctor said, "I want you to walk off a cliff here, it'll be good for you," in those days, they didn't even question it. "Oh, my doctor said. My doctor said." Well, you know what, question what your doctor says. I don't mind people questioning me. Question. That's why I'm, "Oh, you want to ask me questions?" This is why I want to answer [00:25:30] your questions in terms of your health. I'm open. I want to be able to explain things to you, why you do what you do. I tell you folks, I tell you that when you are eating saturated fat from animal fat, it is so good for you. It is the opposite of what the world tells you out there. So thank you [00:26:00] for listening to my rent this day and we'll talk to you soon.

Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor is In podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening.

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