Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Night sweats
- Cause of gallstones
- Fat & insulin resistance
- Too much vitamin K2
- Healthy tooth enamel
- Cortisone injections
- Lipomas
- Chlorine dioxide
- Oxidative stress
- Keto flexing
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. Welcome to another live this morning and hope you're having a great day. Question and answer Thursday. Now, John's asking the question, what causes night sweats? Well, first of all, is it in a man, John, or a woman? Let's start with men. Why would men get night sweats? Okay? Well, men got hormones too and men are not as complicated as women are as far as moving parts when it comes to hormones. But we still have a few.
One of the signs of low testosterone, John, is night sweats. I don't know if you were on with us yesterday, but yesterday I talked about the teeter totter. When your triglycerides are up, your HDL is down, just about invariably. Very few exceptions to that. And if your HDL is up, your triglycerides are down. Now, same thing for women when it comes to estrogen and progesterone. They're supposed to be like this. But if estrogen goes up and progesterone doesn't level it out, then you're going to have this and that's what causes night sweats in a woman is menopausal usually or perimenopausal.
I always sort of describe menopause for women. Not menopause, because men, we're big babies. Lucky we don't get a lot of hormonal symptoms. But when a woman comes in to menopause, her body's coming in, it's like an airplane flight. Have you ever come in with a smooth landing on a plane? Well, I have. I've flown around the world, and there have been very smooth landings. But a lot of women come in to menopause and they get a lot of turbulence. Do you know what I mean?
Because their body is changing, then their hormones change, and night sweats can be part of that for a woman, but they're hitting turbulence as they land into menopause. I don't know if that illustration helps, but it's one in my mind that I like to use because a lot of women hit turbulence and their body changes and they gain weight and night sweats, mood swings. It's almost like somebody has taken over their bodies for some women. And then I've known women that just stopped having their menses. They were into menopause and they had a smooth landing like it was like nothing.
For men, low testosterone, women, low progesterone and their estrogen takes over, even though, yes, estrogen is coming down, but it's got to be balanced with progesterone. The other one, and I mentioned this probably about a week ago... I think it was maybe Monday. I can't remember now. One of the things in excessive sweating, especially night sweats, is low levels of vitamin D. Now, when babies have low levels of vitamin D, they sweat from their head. And adults, we can get night sweats because we have low levels of vitamin D.
That's one thing, John, to check out. Another one is on medications. Some of the common ones that can cause night sweats are depression medications, prostate medications that they give you to shrink your prostate if you're frequent urination in men and depressive medications, both men and women, and for diabetes. Medications like Metformin can cause night sweats. Here's another one, too much cortisol, stress, the stress hormone. Think about it, mm, like that. That can cause night sweats in people. It can wake them up.
I found with a lot of women that were going through menopausal symptoms, one of the things that really adds gasoline to the fire and can make them wake up at night is night sweats. And a lot of times it's not just low progesterone, it is high cortisol. They're stressed. Anxiety can be a factor. Of course, cold and flu. I mean, obviously if you get a virus, you get a bug, that can give you night sweats. And John, I got to put this out there because it's common for a rare condition, and that is night sweats can be...
And usually in men, you just need to get this checked out by getting a blood test, leukemia. I remember a few cases in the office. This was one of their only signs and maybe some fatigue and weight loss. And with blood work they found, ooh, they got leukemia. Anyway, those are common things for night sweats, John. Thanks for the question.
Cheryl, could you please ask Dr. Martin what are some of the causes of gallstones? Well, I've gone over that, but I'm happy to go over it again, Cheryl. Happy to go over it. Why? Because your gallbladder is use it or lose it. The problem in the last 50 years and why we see so much more gallbladder problems, especially in women, gallbladder problems are 90/10, 90% women, 10% men. You put your thinking cap on and go, "Why women?" Well, women especially have bought the lie of low fat diet. You go to the grocery store, read your label. Oh, it's low fat. It's low fat. Low fat yogurt. Low fat this. Low fat that. The food industry is proud to tell you it's low fat and that's not smart. Your brain is made up of fat. But remember what your gallbladder is. Okay? It's just a little pouch.
It's a little reservoir for bile. Now, where does bile come from? Your liver. Well, what does your gallbladder do? It holds on to bile and it empties your bio every time you eat fat. I've always used this expression, Cheryl. Okay? God gave you a gallbladder. He didn't give a cow a gallbladder. You know why? Cows are meant to eat salad. Salad is glorified grass. It's all it is. I'm not saying don't eat it, but don't live on it. Why? Because you're not a cow. A cow doesn't have a gallbladder, neither does a rabbit. You have a gallbladder because God wants you to eat fat.
And bile is meant to emulsify fat. It helps you absorb fat. You need fat. Fat is a macro that you absolutely cannot live without. You can live without a carbohydrate, but you can't live without fat. Your brain is made up of fat. Your neurotransmitters are made up of fat. You need fat. You need fat in your skin. You need fat in your eyeballs. You need fat in every cell in your body. Okay? And when they went fat free, it was one of the worst disaster. We have been on a failed experiment, Cheryl, for the last 50, 60 years.
What a failed experiment that has been, and that is low fat eating. You got to watch your cholesterol. Making fat and cholesterol, the boogeyman, was the worst thing that we ever did in nutrition, that and introducing high fructose corn syrup as a sugar, the Frankenstein, the antichrist of sugars. High fructose corn syrup. But because, and I just say this, okay, Cheryl, number one, when you don't use your gallbladder, you will lose it. Your gallbladder is meant to be used. It should be emptied every day of its bile when you're eating fat.
Now, the second reason that women get gallbladder problems is too much estrogen. What does that mean? Well, listen, I talked about it in night sweats, but I'll talk about it again. Ladies, you need to be balanced. Estrogen makes you a woman. Progesterone is pro-babies, and you need both and they need to be equal. Okay? They need to be equal. When you get estrogen dominance, meaning that you're progesterone... And this happens a lot of times. I rest my case on this. You know when a lot of women lose their gallbladder?
After a baby. Why is that? Well, they lose all their progesterone in the placenta, right? You leave it there, all of it, but your body makes it again. But if you don't make enough, and this is why a lot of women have a lot of hormonal problems, and a lot of times it starts after a baby. The issue is a lot of times women, they start hormonal problems. Some young girls start hormonal problems from the first day they menstruate. They got too much estrogen, not enough progesterone. They got terrible periods and bad skin. And you name it.
I saw that a thousand times in my office. But then I had a lot of women come in maybe a year after having a baby and they go, "Doc, I've gained 40 pounds. I mean, I'm not eating any differently. I got the postpartum blues. You name it. I lost my gallbladder." And I said, "Well, you are too much of a woman. You had too much estrogen, not enough progesterone." Do you know what I'm saying? That's the second reason. What's the connection? Well, the connection is this, progesterone, ladies, okay? Progesterone.
And guess what? Men have progesterone too. We have a little bit, because we're not going to have babies. But we got a little bit of progesterone. I don't want to get into that, but women are supposed to have lots of progesterone. The problem is , is when they don't, estrogen takes off, progesterone is one of the most important things for smooth muscle. Your little pouch, your gallbladder is smooth muscle. You can't exercise it like this. Okay? But it's smooth muscle. Ladies, so is your bladder. It's smooth muscle. It's a different puppy altogether.
And when you don't have enough progesterone, that smooth muscle... And that's why a lot of women, their bladder starts descending without enough progesterone. They get recurring bladder infections, and they get all sorts of issues. You can get gallbladder issues. There's two reasons, use it or lose it or not enough progesterone compared to estrogen. Thanks, Cheryl, for the questions.
Teresa, Globe and Mail article, carbs get a lot of flack. The article said that fat is the cause of insulin resistance. Well, Teresa, that article just gave me a headache. You know what I mean by that? I get a migraine when I read stupidity. Okay? It's not based on any science at all. I've talked to you about the three macros. Let's just go over them quickly again, protein, fat, carbs. Now, I'll tell you what carbs are for. Carbs are for energy, immediate. Carbs are for energy. Nothing else. You see, protein is the king of the castle. Why is it the king? Because protein builds amino acids. You need protein to build anything in your body, your connective tissue, your collagen, all your cells, or whatever. You need protein and you need fat.
You don't need carbs for building, because carbs don't build anything. Carbs are energy foods. Am I telling you never to have a carb? I'm not telling you that. But in this day and age, in the world in which we live, the problem them with generally, and I've mentioned it in my book, The Reset, is that my name is Tony and we're carboholics. That's the problem with the world today. It's carbs. It's not protein. It's not fat. We're eating less protein than we ever did. I just mentioned it, because women and bought the lie of chicken and salad and low fat this and low fat that.
They don't get enough protein. You need protein. It's the king of foods, and fat is right beside it. Nobody ever got fat, eating protein. Nobody. Nobody ever got fat eating fat. Nobody. You get fat when you eat sugar and carbs. Carbs turn to sugar. Why? Energy. And again, if you don't use that energy right away, sugar gets stored as, I'm waiting, fat. You see, it's science. Now, I know science has been hijacked by narratives, but this is true science. Look, guys, my PhD is in nutrition. You learn macros. You learn it day one in school. You just learn this stuff and then you better remember it.
I was around in the 1970s when they took Dr. Atkins. You know who I'm to about? The Atkins Diet. The guy was a cardiologist. He wasn't a dummy. He was light years ahead of his time. And what was he saying? Carbs are going to kill you. Carbs is a big problem. Guys, that was in the 1970s, 50 years ago. He was right. He was right. They tried to take his medical license away. Did you know that? They did. That's how powerful the food industry. Guys, if you don't learn anything else, the food industry and big pharma run the world. They really do.
Look, I'm not saying they don't do good things. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is you need to be careful. Because when you read these articles in the Globe and Mail or anywhere else, they're wrong. Listen, I'm just going to say blanket statement. If you never, ever, ever eat another carbohydrate ever, you're going to be just fine. I'm not telling you to do that. I'm just telling you that's a fact. Because if you need sugar, do you know that your body will take steak and turn it into sugar? I just got rid of my headaches. See, one of the ways that I get rid of headaches is I talk about it. When I was getting a migraine, you're telling me about the Globe and Mail article. I go, ooh, how crazy? And there will be people buying that. They'll buy it. Hook, line, and sinker. But it's not true. It's not true. Okay? Thanks, Teresa, for the question.
Linda. Question, vitamin K2, can you get too much in a supplement? Yeah, I guess you could. You could. Now, listen to what I say about vitamin K2. There's K1, that's in the plant kingdom. K2 is in the animal kingdom. It is found in eggs, meat, and cheese, especially in butter and cheese curds.
Cheese curds are the number one source of vitamin K2. Why does Dr. Martin love K2 over K1? Am I like K1? Yep. I like K1, but K2 takes calcium out of your blood stream and puts it into your bones where it belongs. See, the problem with taking a calcium supplement is it never gets to your bones. It'll stay in your bloodstream. Why do you not want calcium in your bloodstream? Because it'll harden your arteries. You want hard teeth. You want hard bones, not hard blood vessels. I hate calcium supplements. I love vitamin K2.
That's why we put it in the perfect dosage with our vitamin D3. But God meant you to eat vitamin K2. Because think of it, eggs got a lot of calcium. Dairy, you guys know this, has a lot of calcium. Cheese has a lot of calcium, right? But God puts K2 right in it. Vitamin K2 is found in butter. When you have butter, you're getting a lot of calcium, but with K2 to take the calcium you're eating and put it in your bones or your teeth. Because somebody asked this. Let me just go, because I'm going to answer the question too at the same time.
Kelly, what are the best supplements in food to obtain a strong and healthy and enamel on your teeth? Well, eggs, meat, and cheese. You want to kill your teeth? Carbs. Sugars, because you're not getting enough vitamin K2. K2, I prefer you eat it. Okay? You don't need to take a supplement of K2. I put it in the vitamin D. Because in vitamin D, K2 makes it better because, again, vitamin D helps your bones. It helps to produce calcium, right, along with your parathyroid gland. But K2 manages that. It's like an orchestra. You, go over here and you play this.
You know what I mean? The orchestra leader. Vitamin K2 is fantastic. It is the Rodney Dangerfield of vitamins. It doesn't get the respect it deserves, guys. It really deserves much more respect. Very good question. That was Kelly and Linda. Wendy. Cortisone injections bad for you. Well, listen, there's always side effects to cortisone. Cortisone, when this was discovered 60, 70 years ago, cortisone, prednisone, I mean, these drugs were earth-shattering, fabulous for anti-inflammatory, prednisone, people that have autoimmune disease or whatever.
But cortisone injections come with a real risk of destroying bone around it, destroying tendons and tissue. You got to be careful. I'm not against it. But I think one of the problems in pro sports especially, they use that way too much. It's dramatic at first, but down the road, these athletes, and I seen a lot of cases of this, is that too much cortisone over the years, their bones and their joints become very, very fragile. They go bone on bone very quickly. Again, they can be dramatic, tremendous effect, and take all the inflammation out of a joint and then bingo, long-term side effects. I always tell people be careful.
[Inaudible 00:22:01] I hope I said this right. [inaudible 00:22:03] I have fat lumps in my arms and throughout your body. Those are called lipomas. Is there a natural way to remove them? Not really. I'd never seen anything that was dramatic, Naposia, that gets rid of lipomas. It's just the way you are. Nah, I haven't seen it. Anybody know a real trick for that, then maybe you can post that on our private Facebook group.
Rakaia. Hello, Rakaia. What do you think of chlorine dioxide? Well, I tell people to be very careful of that gas. Now, on an ion... The FDA came out and said, "Look, these supplements, using chlorine dioxide, be very careful." And they didn't want them making any claims, because people started thinking about this because of COVID and using them as an antiviral. There's a lot of better antivirals than that. I never bought the of that. I would just tell you, Rakaia, not to waste your money. I wouldn't do it. I'd never seen anything from research point of view that's very effective. Now, you can add that to water, a drop or two, but you know what? Again, eh, I'm not big on it. Okay?
Pauline, what causes oxidative stress and free radical damage and what to do about it? Well, listen, you're a human being. You're going to have oxidative damage. Okay? Because we're all going to age and we're all going to die. That's just a fact. As a preacher, I would say, well, the wages of sin is doubt. We're all going to die, guys. We're all going to get older. I've told you the story of my grandson. We're down playing ball hockey in our rep room. This is years ago.
He sees a graduation picture, 1974, of me, and I got a pile of pictures up there, my kids when they were young and blah, blah blah in the rec room. He says, "Grandpa, who's that? The guy there with the big, long mustache and long hair in 1974." I said, "That's me." He said, "It can't be, it doesn't look like you, grandpa." I said, "Yeah, well, welcome to planet earth where we age." I said, "That's grandpa when I was 21 years old, I guess." "Yeah?" "Yeah." I said, "That's me. Honest." He couldn't believe it. You don't look like that. I said, "I know." That's free radical damage and oxidative damage.
Welcome to the club. I tell my grandchildren, "Grandpa used to be pretty good looking. Not so much anymore." Well, guys, it's aging, so that it's part of it. Now, things that can make it worse in age prematurely, chemicals, we live in a chemical crazy world, and free radical damage. There's oxidative damage, rusting out, bad food. There's nothing, guys, that will rush you out, even your skin, more than sugar. Remember what smoking used to do? What was smoking? How did that make somebody look so old? Well, what made it cause so much wrinkles?
Because it created oxidative damage. So does alcohol. Oxidative damage, too much alcohol, and that creates oxidative damage. What do you do? Antioxidants. I always tell people, especially with skin, you need to protect your skin inside first. Your skin is just an organ. Protect it. Don't use sunscreen. I hate that stuff, because it's all chemicals. It'll actually make your skin worse, but you want to work inside out. That's why I love antioxidants. Fruits and vegetables are anti oxidants. Coffee is an antioxidant. Did you know that?
It's one of the most powerful antioxidants on the planet is coffee. Sorry, ladies, not tea. People said to me when somebody said, "Doc, is it because you hate tea that you never talk about it?" Yeah. Okay? No. Tea is a little bit of an antioxidant seriously, but coffee is tremendous. That's why we call it vitamin C because it's the true vitamin C. Coffee has 50 times more vitamin C than vitamin C has. They're rust proofing yourselves. You buy a new car and they're going to try and sell you rust proofing, right? Is it a good idea? Yeah, sure it is if you want to protect your investment.
Do you know what I'm saying? You want to rustproof yourselves. Antioxidants. Coffee. Did you know that one of the most powerful antioxidants in the world is pine bark extract? Navitol. Pauline, very good question. Judy. Do you get the same amount of B12 and a small piece of beef compared to like a T-bone steak? No, you don't, but you get B12. Remember, when you have a hamburger, it's not the hamburger that's bad for you. It's the bun. Hamburger's got a lot of B12 in it. Look, red meat is expensive. Do you think I don't know that?
Because some people have told me that. Yeah. Well, inflation. It's hitting and it hurts the pocket book, but I can't move off the fact that red meat is the best meat in the universe. Ladies, chicken ain't going to cut it when it comes to B12. Red meat is why you should be eating it because, well, for a lot of reasons, but B12 is one of them. Of course, the portion size, but don't worry about that so much. Just eat as much as you can, eat red meat. Remember what I said the other day, cancer hates steak. It hates it. B12. Do you have to have beef every day?
No, but it would be a good idea. Do you know that Eskimos, I'm not supposed to use that word anymore, the Inuit, they never have B12 shortage. You know why? They eat it. They never need a B12 shot. They never need to take a supplement of B12. And by the way, when I was talking about fat earlier in the program, Eskimos don't get heart disease and they eat lot of fat. As a matter of fact, their whole diet is fat pretty well. Okay?
John, can Dr. Martin talk about keto flexing? Well, keto flexing is I think you're in and out of ketosis and it requires fasting. Did you get our email this morning, John? We talked about fasting. You're going to go through Christmas and the holiday season. I don't know about you, but we're probably going to eat more carbs than we want to. Guys, look, I'm not telling you to leave the planet. But what we did this morning, we gave tips on how to manage your diet or your lifestyle through Christmas, because you're probably going to have some carbs. One way is fasting, and keto flexing is fasting. The only thing I didn't like about keto flexing is very high on the plant kingdom and very low on the animal kingdom.
I think they got that upside down. I'm very high on the animal kingdom and less high on the plant kingdom because vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, and protein, and you name it. Again, I'm not saying the plant kingdom is no good, but it's not the king of the castle. The animal kingdom is. God wants you to eat the animal kingdom, even things that got eyeballs. I know, a lot of young people that get indoctrinated, but keto flexing, John, yeah. I'm not big on keto per se, because keto has all these snacks and keto has all these foods.
You go to Costco or you go to the grocery store, you see sections now of keto. Read the labels. A lot of it is just junk. It's low in carbohydrate, but it's very low in nutrition. I'm not that big on keto. I'm big on eggs, meat, and cheeses, if you haven't ever heard me say that.
Valerie, my daughter has a cyst on her brain that is inoperable. Now, Valerie. I hope what you're talking about here is a benign cyst and not a malignant, because it's a completely different scenario, right? If you're asking me the question, I'm suggesting that you're saying you have a benign cyst and they're just going to leave it alone. Well, you don't want that to grow. And remember what the growth hormones are, insulin. Insulin is a growth hormone. Don't feed the cyst. I talked about this yesterday, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, and crappy carbohydrate. Don't feed it. Any kind of cyst anywhere, don't give it insulin and don't give it estrogen. Knock her estrogen down. Get her on a DIM that we have in our hormonal formula. You got to knock estrogen down, knock insulin down.
Insulin is food. Knock it down. Guys, Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. You have no idea how happy you guys make me every day. I enjoy this audience like no tomorrow. I know a lot of people don't even come on here and tell us who's on. I understand that. There's thousands and thousands. We get to about 50,000 people a week and another 50,000 or so on our podcasts. We appreciate that. I want to say Merry Christmas to you and your family. Thank you very much. We're going to be off for a few days. I plan on being off tomorrow, and then on Monday. So then, Lord willing, we'll be back to you next week. Okay, love you, guys. Did I ever tell you that? I have? Oh, and I mean it. 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!