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, maybe it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin: So B12, it's kind of feeling sorry for itself because we've been talking about vitamin D so much. There was actually another study on vitamin D that I could have brought to you, a new [00:00:30] study out on vitamin D and cancers, but maybe we'll do that later on, okay? So study out on B12. That I wanted to bring to you. Now, B12 is a very, very important vitamin. So your body doesn't do well without B12 and there are several reasons that people are low in B12. I just want to go over them. Several reasons people are low [00:01:00] in B12, so we'll go over those reasons. We're going to go over what B12 does in your body. Then thirdly, some of the symptoms of low B12, sort of weird symptoms that people don't realize. I've been talking about B12 forever, right?
Dr. Martin: I mean B12, again, it's one of the things that I mention to you. If I could get into the old age homes. [00:01:30] Nobody's going in anymore. Everybody's unlocked down in the homes. But I always said if I could bring two vitamins with me into the senior homes, what would I bring? Vitamin D and B12. It is so common as people get older, and I want to talk about, first of all, the reasons that people are low in B12. I want to talk about the importance of B12.
Dr. Martin: But here's some of the [00:02:00] reasons that we're low in B12 today, much more than before. Again it's amazing, we live in a different world, don't we? We live in a different world. We've been talking about for the last couple of weeks, every day just about that we live in a world where our insulin is going crazy. The food has changed, right? The food is changed because manmade stuff, [00:02:30] mostly, with [inaudible 00:02:33], or vegetable oils. There's nothing vegetable about them. And sugar, right? And we even talked yesterday about the sugars changed, high fructose corn syrup. That's made a big difference even in our vitamin D levels as we learned yesterday. So B12 is an essential vitamin for your body. One of the main reasons that we [00:03:00] don't have enough B12, people stopped, with the lie about don't eat fat, right? Don't eat fat. So they stopped eating red meat. And even today, if you go online and God bless the internet, and I mean that, I love it that my patients can look up stuff and people are much more educated when it comes to their health today than they used to [00:03:30] be.
Dr. Martin: You know, my generation and my parents' generation, whatever the doctor said, the doctor was God. Today, a lot of people are questioning doctors. You go to your family doctor or whatever, you go to a cancer doctor or whatever, bring a pen and a notepad with you, ask questions. [00:04:00] I mean and then look it up. The Apostle Paul said, when he was preaching, he said the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians. You know why? Because they looked up what he said to make sure it was true. So look it up guys. Look it up. But the problem too is when you rely on the internet, and I love the internet, I [00:04:30] love wifi. I love the fact that I can get studies today in seconds after they're published.
Dr. Martin: I don't have to wait for a magazine, to read the magazine. Like it used to be, but today it's instant. But you Google red meat and you're not going to like what you see by and large. The reason is because red meat got a bad rap. So people are not eating [00:05:00] as much red meat. Now it's interesting, isn't it? That with this COVID, they're talking about there might be a meat shortage and people are panicking in a way. Forget the toilet paper. The meat panic. I'd panic if there's no meat, especially red meat. And I know you ladies like chicken. But chicken don't got B12. [00:05:30] It's the way it is. Chicken don't got B12. B12 is found in red meat, vitamin S, steak, so that's one of the reasons. And especially young people today, they bought the kool aid, right, they're drinking it.
Dr. Martin: Environmental stuff, the climate, animals are not meant to eat. I get a lot of that. I told you about the young girl in my office said "Doc, I don't need anything with eyeballs." Okay, [00:06:00] but you're drinking the kool aid, man. It ain't true. It ain't true. You know all this so called science we're hearing about, but it ain't true, guys. You need B12. Your body doesn't work without B12, so that's one reason. The other reason is if you're on any medication, one of the side effects, and I know there's specific ones like Metformin, high blood pressure pills, [00:06:30] or whatever. But I tell people, listen, if you're on medications, I don't care what they are from over the counter ones, people take this every day, like Tylenol. They take it like it's candy or Advil for pain, and I get it.
Dr. Martin: I understand that. They're in pain, but it kills your B12. Number two, meds. Number one, not eating enough red meat. Three, your stomach ain't working the way it should [00:07:00] or your bowel. Your stomach is the first line of digestion. Your stomach needs to be very acidic, right? Not the rest of your body, but your stomach needs that high acidity. It's a furnace. A lot of people, "Oh doc, I got lots of that furnace coming up my esophagus." Acid reflux. If you have acid reflux, you don't have enough [00:07:30] acidity. If you don't have enough acidity, you don't absorb B12. Any kind of digestive issue, IBS, Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, diverticulosis, anything at all in the gut, any kind of acid reflux, you're not absorbing B12. You're just not, so that's the third reason. [00:08:00] The fourth reason may be auto immune, like pernicious anemia. You don't even have the enzyme, the intrinsic factor, to break down B12. More and more of the population are having leaky gut and leaky gut leads to autoimmune and you're not picking up B12 properly.
Dr. Martin: That's another reason. So people that drink alcohol, [00:08:30] they don't absorb B12 very well. So people that drink alcohol don't absorb B12 very well. That's just the way it is guys. Again, I'm not telling you not to drink alcohol. Have you ever heard me say that? I don't say that. All I'm telling you is there's a side effect to it, and one of them is you don't B12 properly.
Dr. Martin: Let's now talk about [00:09:00] why B12 is so important. First of all, your DNA needs B12. Every cell in your body needs B12. So if you don't have enough B12, your cells don't regenerate the way they should. Your nervous system, your myelin [00:09:30] sheet, over top of your nervous system, from your brain to your toes needs B12. It's an essential vitamin and even your red blood cells, okay?
Dr. Martin: Your red blood cells. The life of the blood is in the flesh. The life of the body is in the blood. Excuse me. Your blood is your lifeline. Your blood has got 60,000 miles of blood vessels [00:10:00] to go to. But one of its biggest things it does is it carries the red blood cells to bring oxygen. Now tell me, go under water for 30 seconds or 40 seconds and you got no oxygen. You don't do very well, right? You need oxygen, O2. B12 helps with oxygenation. [00:10:30] Very important. So nerves, your cells, and more particularly your red blood cells need B12. I often showed people in the office, looking at live blood and I would show people, look at your red blood cells. The numbers are good, but a lot of them are empty. They're like FedEx trucks with flat tires.
Dr. Martin: I would tell people, I said, you don't have enough B12. You don't have enough. [00:11:00] That could be one of the major reasons you're tired all the time. So we looked at the importance of B12. We looked at what can destroy your B12 in your body. We looked at different factors. Now let's look at some of the symptoms, and I'll even talk about some of the conditions where I find that people are low in B 12 and there are a multitude of different things, different [00:11:30] disorders when you're low in B12, but here's some of the symptoms that perhaps you've never thought of.
Dr. Martin: Tingling. I got tingling in my fingers. Sort of a numbness. Diabetics are often very low in B12 and it's a contributor to diabetic neuropathy. Neuropathy, pain, numbness, like a perverted feeling in your [00:12:00] toes or your feet or your hands and fingers.
Dr. Martin: B12 is often the cause of that. And guys, just one thing, the blood tests for B12 are highly unreliable. I hate to say it, but they are. The reason is the ranges are... Well, first of all, the test is a hundred years old. Time to put it to bed and bring out a new B12 test. So [00:12:30] physicians, I can tell you that, but in the 1950s, physicians carried in their doctor's bag. I remember my dad had a doctor's bag. B12. We had a family doctor, Dr Bhutan in Timmins. I mean if you weren't feeling good, he'd give you a B12 shot faster than you could say his name.
Dr. Martin: They just gave out B12. It was part of their doctor's bag. But not anymore, [00:13:00] because what's happened is that physicians, in general, not everybody, of course, are relying on the blood. Ah, it's not low. You might be at 300 and they go, "Hey, it's normal." Remember what we talked about in the thyroid? The blood tests for the thyroid is very unreliable. It is, but the B12 test is even worse because the ranges are, you know, like [00:13:30] doc? And I get this once a week. I mean it maybe more often than that. Doc, my doc said my B12 is too high.
Dr. Martin: Okay. What's that mean? B12 by the way, is a water soluble vitamin. Nobody ends up at the emergency room.
Dr. Martin: My doctor, I know why [00:14:00] you're here. Your B12 is too high. Like guys, that doesn't happen. It gets flagged in the lab as being too high. Anything over, I think, can't remember, 587 or whatever, your B12 is too high. No it's not. And some people need more B12 than others, but I always shoot for an optimal, I mean if you're going to show me your blood work, I'm looking between 800 and 1200. Some people have B12 at 1400. [00:14:30] Okay, that's you. You need it. What's going to happen if your B12 is too high? It'll just get rid of it, guys. The number I don't rely on. How are you feeling? What are your symptoms? You see that is functional medicine. Functional means I want to know how you feel and I want to see your blood work.
Dr. Martin: Okay, let's put them together. Let's marry them. If you're feeling good, I had a lady the [00:15:00] other day said, well, my doctor said to stop taking B12. I said, well, how did you feel? Oh, I feel good with it. I said, well, it's water soluble meaning for you, it'll get rid of it. If you get too high, you pee it out. You ain't going to croak because of high levels of B12. But I'll tell you what, you won't do well with low levels of B12.
Dr. Martin: You're not going to have enough oxygen. [00:15:30] People think of red blood cells than they think of iron and I'm a big guy on heme iron. Where is it found? In steak. Only red meat has iron, H-E-M-E. It's important, but do you know a lot of people are anemic? Not because they're low in iron, their ferritin, they're actually low in B12.
Dr. Martin: B12 is a big, big factor in anemia. [00:16:00] Are you short of breath? Go up a flight of stairs. Are you short of breath? You're probably low in B12. Again, I just got to tell you the truth that you can't wait necessarily for your blood work. Don't rely on it. Doctors didn't rely on it 50 years ago. They just used to have it in their doctor's bag and they would give you B12. Oh, you're tired. Oh, here's some B12. Your immune system's not that good, B12. Oh ladies, Oh [00:16:30] you have menses every month? Oh, okay. We better give you some B12 so you can make up for some of that blood you're losing every month. It's in the production of red blood cells. Doctors never used to hesitate. They used to give you B12. Now you almost got to drill their teeth without anesthetic to give you a B12 shot.
Dr. Martin: The problem with B12 shots is they only last for about a week. And doctors don't want you to go back to their [00:17:00] office every week or every month. So I'm bigger on taking a sublingual B12, and we'll talk about that in a minute. So some of the symptoms are pain, and, I mean numbness, neuropathy, numbness, dizziness. You get up fast, you're a little bit dizzy. Short of breath, depressed?
Dr. Martin: Can I tell you something? I'm trying to think of if I've ever seen a depressed patient [00:17:30] that wasn't low in B12. They were in the low end. Again, I'm not talking about traditional blood tests for B12, but soon as you give them B12, it's very helpful to the brain. But what does it do? B12 brings oxygen to your brain. You need it. You need it. It's essential. As we get older, we don't make as much HCL, hydrochloric acid.
Dr. Martin: We don't make as much [00:18:00] in our stomachs. So as we get older, that's why I want to bring B12 into the senior homes. So cognitive, depression, the brain fog, memory, I know we talked a lot about insulin and what it does to your hypocampus, but B12 is a very essential vitamin for your hypocampus, your brain, your memory center in your brain, muscle weakness. Your muscles need [00:18:30] B12 because they need oxygen, right? So you see how important it is. You see how important it is. B12 is an essential vitamin, and I think it was last year, I read this stat at Tufts University. They said 40% of the population, you know what? They're off in my opinion, because they're looking at traditional blood tests. But if you look at the blood test plus the symptoms, I say [00:19:00] close to 80% of the population doesn't have sufficient levels of B12.
Dr. Martin: I'm telling you. I say it's 80% of the population is low in that vitamin because it's not even considered in the treatment plan for most doctors. They've gotten away from vitamin B12 unless their numbers are extremely low. It's amazing to me that essential... [00:19:30] People talk about the other B vitamins. I always tell people, look, eat your B vitamins. I'm not big on taking a B complex or whatever. No I'm not, I never happened. I never talked about eat your B vitamins. If you eat eggs, meat and cheese, you get your B vitamins. If you're a vegetarian, you need to supplement. If you're a vegan, you need to supplement. If you don't eat red meat, you need to supplement with B12. Absolutely. If you have some of the symptoms that we're talking [00:20:00] about today, you ever get a little bit of numbness even around your mouth, B12 often the case.
Dr. Martin: Some people have said they sort of feel like they're, almost like an out of body experience. They're walking and they have trouble. Huh? Geez, they almost don't sense their equilibrium to be right. That's often, [00:20:30] guys, B12. So I'm a big guy on it. Big guy on it. So what do you do? When in doubt, eat more steak. Now I talked about if you've got digestive issues, you should be taking digestive enzymes. Probiotics help with the absorption of B12, but you're not going to go wrong. If you take a B12 supplement, let me just tell you what you need. You need to have a [00:21:00] methylcobalamin, okay? A methyl.` Because that's the type your body absorbs. I give it in a high dose. I got like B12 in 6,000 micrograms of B12 in one. You dissolve it in your mouth, you suck on it like a candy and let it dissolve. But it's got to be methyl, [00:21:30] methylcobalamin because that is what your body absorbs much more than the sino.
Dr. Martin: So all I'm saying is make sure you're taking a good B12 and if you need a supplement, if you're over 65 like me, not a bad idea to supplement with B12, and your numbers need to be optimized. If you're going to get a blood test done, [00:22:00] run it by me. I'm happy to tell you what I think of your B12 numbers. Like I said, I don't rely on them, but I'm happy to look at them. I've got no problem looking at B12 numbers. If you're low, I'll tell you so. If you're not at 800 are higher, you're low.
Dr. Martin: So everything B12 here's other things that I've seen over the years where people are extremely low in [00:22:30] B12. Any auto immune disease, like I said, any digestive issue. Ladies, you got infertility problems? Seems to be much more today, isn't it? And probably because of the birth control pill, it's coming home to roost in a way because they've been giving out estrogen for so many years in the birth control pill in a synthetic horse's urine form, it can really disturb [00:23:00] ladies oftentimes today, much more troubled today than ever before with fertility issues. That's too much estrogen and one of the ways you get too much estrogen is with the birth control pill. And what the birth control pill does, it lowers your levels of B12. See how important it is? B12.
Dr. Martin: You got chronic anemia, you're always pale. Look at your face. I'm very observant by [00:23:30] the way. One of the things that I do, I got eyeballs to look and they see patients coming in and they're pale as a ghost. They look like Casper the ghost. And I say, man, you're low in B12. I can tell you without looking at you past that. You see kids, they're pale as a ghost. It's not because they're inside all day, although that could be a factor. A lot of times they don't have enough B12 in their body. They're not eating enough red meat. [00:24:00] So I'm just telling you what I see all the time. So any auto-immune... People with cancer, it's like cancer and vitamin D. It's the chicken or the egg, right? What comes first? The cancer or low levels of vitamin D? Our low levels of vitamin D contribute to cancer.
Dr. Martin: That's what I think. B12. Cancer patients, almost every cancer patient I've ever seen was low levels of B12, and [00:24:30] yet that's never part of their therapy for cancer. It should be. Remember, it's a water soluble vitamin. Vitamin D, by the way, isn't even a vitamin. Newsflash, we call it vitamin D, but it's not even a vitamin. It's a hormone. Well-established. Your body can't live without it. Your body can't live without B12, and it won't do well unless they're optimized. So anytime I see that diabetics, 100 percent are low in B12. [00:25:00] 100 percent especially if they're on meds, 100 percent. They're in the low levels of B12, they need B12. Again, chicken or the egg, which came first, the diabetes, low B12 or low B12 levels contributed to the diabetes. Okay, so guys, this is why I'm big, big, big on that vitamin.
Dr. Martin: Okay. Oh, let me just say this. Autistic kids. [00:25:30] 100 percent low in B12. Is it because they're not absorbing it? Probably. Kids development, any type of cognitive, almost invariably they're low in B12. It's so important for the brain. It's a brain vitamin. Just like DHA is a brain supplement, right? Healthy fat. You need B12. You need B12. By the way, I'll just tell you this, you might not even know, and I'll close with this. For weight [00:26:00] loss, I just want to tell you what B12 does for your metabolism. Have you ever heard of Dr Bernstein? Weight loss clinics, they're all over North America, it's like a franchise. You can get a Dr Bernstein weight loss clinic. Here is their secret. 600 calories, you starve to death, and B12 every week you'd get a B12 shot.
Dr. Martin: That's what they do. So B12 must be important for your metabolism, [00:26:30] right? Dr Bernstein uses it as part of his weight loss clinic. B12. You don't need a B12 shot. I mean, if your doctor is going to give you one once a week or whatever, go for it. I got no problem with that. You can give yourself a B12 shot, but here's what they've proven. This is proven. Taking B12 every day in a sublingual form is better than getting a shot unless you're giving yourself a shot every day, a B12 [00:27:00] shot. And some people do, I guess. But there's no need to do that if you take a sublingual B12. So guys, love you. Okay?
Dr. Martin: Somebody's asking how much B12. Well, start off with 6,000 micrograms a day. Again, don't worry about, oh, I took too much B12. No, it's water soluble. I like it high. So start with six. [00:27:30] I got some people taking 12,000 micrograms of B12. Even higher than that. You ain't going to croak from it.
Dr. Martin: Okay guys, love you. If you guys have any questions, send it in. Okay, appreciate you guys. Thanks for following us. We do appreciate it big time. I appreciate that you listen to my rants every morning and I hope this teaching has been helpful for you. [00:28:00] I love you guys. 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.