797. What Are Your Chances of a Stroke?

Researchers have found a way to predict whether someone is going to have a stroke or not. This is major news that Dr. Martin thinks everyone needs to hear!

The study is measuring the ratio of triglycerides and glucose to determine the amount of plaque found in your carotid arteries. Your carotid arteries go right along the side of your neck to feed blood to your brain. If they’re finding plaque here, it’s about guaranteed it's happening elsewhere around your heart.

Join Dr. Martin to hear more about your chances of having a stroke and what to do to prevent plaque build-up in your arteries!

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. Once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Now, guys, I literally am going to blow your socks off today. The reason is because this is a blow your socks off study. This study was determining the ratio of your triglycerides, okay, so we'll talk about that in a minute, and your glucose. They found that if this was out of whack, if your triglycerides and your blood sugar, didn't even have to be abnormal, just had to be in the high normal, they found with high triglycerides and higher than average glucose, we'll talk about that, they could predict whether someone was going to have a stroke or not.

Wow. Because what they did is they found carotid... Okay, where are your carotid, guys? Where are your carotid arteries? They go right along the side of your neck, your carotids, okay, and they go up to the brain, feed blood up into the brain, and they can tell with your triglycerides being high, glucose in the higher ranges, they can tell how much plaque you have in the carotid arteries to look for strokes. Now guys, the problem with the carotid arteries, generally, until they're full of plaque, until they get blocked up completely, you can't see it. You can't see it. 

Now, of course, they do ultrasound and whatever, but this will determine even if you're going in the wrong direction, how do you even build plaque? How can you build plaque? Guys, listen, if it's happening here in your carotid arteries, it's happening elsewhere around your heart. This is so significant. I can't get over. Then of course, I'm trying to find out if someone is even talking about this significant study. I couldn't find it anywhere else. 

My little service that sends me... I can look at all these studies, but the mainstream media should be all over this, I mean the health part of it should be all over this. This is significant. You can tell if your plaquing up, if your arteries are starting to develop atherosclerosis by looking at your glucose and looking at your triglycerides. Now, guys, I like, as you guys know, if you're going to send me blood work, I really, really like.... You know me. I've been talking about this for as long as you've known me. Give me your triglycerides. I really don't care about total cholesterol. I really don't care about that. You can't make me care, okay? You can't.

Now, I love you guys, and if you send it to me, I'm sorry, I won't comment on... "Oh my doctor, my total cholesterol, my cholesterol." I don't care. I can't. It's not true. Study after study, if you go in behind the scenes, will agree with what I'm saying. This study this morning that looked at triglycerides and glucose. A1C, the best glucose test. You can send me your fasting glucose. I'll look at it. For sure, I'll look at it. Better be low, better be low.

But guys, I'm telling you, and again, let me say this about strokes, because if you unpack this study and we're talking about triglycerides and we're talking about glucose, your sugars, guys, hello, that's food. What they're saying is strokes are caused by food. That's what they're saying. That's the bottom line. They didn't say that in the study because they only talked about how they were able to look at thousands and thousands of people with strokes, look at their blood work, and they said, "Holy moly. When we look at high triglycerides and when we look at glucose or A1C, we can determine..."

Think about how significant this is. You want to prevent a stroke, it's food. Guys, heart disease and strokes are still the leading cause of death in North America, number one, numero uno. We have been on a failed experiment for so long, it drives me crazy, and nobody talks about for. Look, you can't control everything in your life. You can't. But this study is talking about the importance of getting your triglycerides down and getting your glucose down, your blood glucose. 

The most accurate by the way of glucose testing is A1C, okay? It is. It's an average. It's a three month average and it'll give you a better indication. But if your doctor don't give you that test, at least make sure they give you a triglyceride test. You want to know. Your doctor's going to look for cholesterol. I'm going to look for your triglycerides. I do care about cholesterol. You know that. But if you don't look at the right numbers, you're going to miss it. You're looking at TGs, triglycerides, and HDL as far as your lipids. We call it a lipid profile, okay? 

Now, to me, you should never, never, never get a blood test unless you're looking at that too. I mean, yeah, you want to do your CBC, your routine blood work and all that. Eh, okay. But what's more significant is your lipid profile and your sugar profile. Honey, you want to know. This is preventative. I can't tell you how significant this is. It's so preventative. You guys know this. You can bring down your triglycerides. You can. 

It's what I've been saying for so long and I see it. This is very specific about the carotid arteries, very specific. What blocks up the carotid arteries? Those fat stinking bombs, triglycerides. They're fat balls. Cholesterol is not fat balls. Cholesterol are your Amazon trucks. Cholesterol delivers. I talked to you about this the other day about men and testosterone. They don't have enough cholesterol to deliver their T. You need cholesterol to deliver T. What am I saying? Testosterone, not your tea as in a drink.

50% of the population of men in their twenties have low levels of testosterone. In their fifties, it's reversed. You know what happens in the fifties in men in North America? True fact, they got more womanly hormone than their wives do at 50, men. When they tested your testosterone. "Oh doc, my testosterone is normal." I said, "You don't want your testosterone to be normal. You want your testosterone to be like rocket fuel. Very high." Not you, ladies, men. Look, a man's brain, a man's heart, a man's bones, a man's... Guys, I don't want to get into genders, okay? Oh, I don't want to go there.

Men are different than women. Sorry if it offends anyone. I'm very offensive sometimes, okay? I can't handle it. I'm just saying that men ought to be men and they need high testosterone. Women ought to be women and they need, and listen, listen, Linda. They need estrogen and progesterone to be equal. That's a big problem. We talk about that all the time in women, they have an unbalanced. When you have an unbalanced in a woman, you know what happens? Their estrogen takes off and that will elevate their testosterone. They got hairs underneath their chin, chin, chin. That's testosterone. You don't want that.

But that's not coming from testosterone, primarily. It's coming from what we call estrogen dominance. Anyways, the reason I'm talking about that, I'm off on the little rabbit trail, the reason I say it though, is you need cholesterol to make your hormones and deliver them. I just can't stand it when they make cholesterol the boogeyman. it's not the problem. The problem is your triglycerides and low HDL. Got it? Lots of fat balls, not enough Amazon, Canada Post, the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, whatever delivery system you like FedEx, you need those trucks on the highways of your blood vessels. 

This happened in the 1950s, one guy, one guy came out with the theory. Ansel Keys came out with the theory about cholesterol being bad. Never heard of it before, nobody cared before. You know what happened? He hitched his wagon to the food industry, especially Dr. Kellogg's and that's a fact. Dr. Kellogg's who hated meat, I'm talking about long time ago, guys, hated meat. He was a vegetarian. Then the food industry, and then not long after, guys, not long after, the big pharmaceutical companies working on a false premise developed a medication to hammer down your cholesterol called statin drugs. Guys, the rest is history. 

We have been on that failed experiment for that long, guys. I mean, it has been bad news for the population of North America, because when you're hammering the wrong thing, the results are disaster. That's why today heart disease is still the number one killer, strokes are the big problem, and we're looking at the wrong thing. I love this study, because that's exactly what it's saying. If you unpack it, it's not that complicated. Triglycerides, in 30 days, watch your triglycerides go down. Not by lowering your fat content because even though they're three fat balls, what makes triglycerides is sugar and crappy carbs, bread, pasta, rice, cereals, sugar, sweets, pastries, bagels, muffins, having dessert for breakfast.

That'll do something to you. You know what it'll do? It'll elevate your triglycerides. It's diet. It's diet. There's a new drug, Vascepa, okay? You know what it is? It's Omega-3 and they spruced it up, okay? They call it a pharmaceutical grade. It's $400 a month. That's how much it costs. What is it? It's an Omega-3 with very high EPA. It's made by a pharmaceutical company in Ireland. They have a patent on the process. It's just Omega-3. Eating fat to lower your triglycerides. Imagine that. Don't go spend $400 a month on a medication. 

I mean, if a doctor insists on putting... You got coverage or whatever you have health insurance, and he wants to put you on Omega-3 like Vascepa, okay, at least there's not a lot of side effects to that. I like eating my Omega-3. I love high DHA, by the way, you know that. DHA works differently a little bit than the EPA that they use in that drug Vascepa, but I'm telling you what's more effective. DHA will help you stop you from getting strokes. Why? Because it lubricates, it's fat. It's like butter. It makes your blood vessel slippery. 

Because you see, when carotid arteries get hard, okay, you know what happens? Nothing passes through. Plus, it's blocked up. It's not slippery at all. It's clogged up. It's like having clogged dreams. Guys, I'm telling you, I don't know if you're as excited as I am, but I am excited. Because when I see this, I feel like screaming. Hello. 

My good friend, okay, he's probably not watching this morning because he's in medical school, but he's always giving me the low down what they're teaching him. He's such a good guy. I said, "You're going to be such a good medical doctor, because you're going to use the best of both worlds." But anyways, he sent me, and I'll probably post this, okay, after, he sent me what they're teaching a diabetic to eat, oh, in medical school. Let me just see if I can find it here. I get a headache. 

What percentage they wanted about carbohydrates? Let me just see here. This is taught at medical school. This is for a diabetic medical school. 45 to 60% carbohydrates. Can you see my blood pressure going up? If you had a cuff on me right now, you'd see that Dr. Martin has high blood pressure this morning. Why? Diabetics, they're allergic to carbs. They have an allergy. They don't process carbohydrates. They tell them in medical school, give them carbs, make sure 45 to 60% of their diets is carbs. I guarantee that they're going to stay diabetics, I guarantee. It's 100%.

Guys, the reason I bring this up is because here's the study. If you have elevated glucose plus high triglycerides, those are diabetics, by the way, you're in deep doo-doo as far as your carotid arteries are concerned and the rest of your... Why would it only hit the carotids? Why would that plaque not be forming elsewhere? It does. We know that for a fact, because diabetics are 50% more likely to have a stroke. Diabetics are 50% more likely to have a heart attack than the rest of the population. 

I mean, that's a well-known fact. Why? Blood vessels. Sugar, guys, remember, you know this, this is nutrition 101, sugar, hello, cannot stay in your bloodstream. Sugar is so toxic. It destroys your blood vessels. Aha? aha. When you damage blood vessels, you form what? Plaque. You might think of plaque is plaque on your teeth. Well, it's the same. It's tartar. It's tartar in your arteries. Not good. 

Guys, this is fantastic study. I tell you, I had a hard time not bringing this to you yesterday, but I had to talk about, I think it was... What did we do yesterday? Not eating that night? I think. I can't even remember now. Guys, let me just say this. I'm going to bring it to one more level, okay? When you have a little stroke in your brain, okay, they call it small vessel, okay? Small vessel disease. That is a real huge problemo for Alzheimer's and dementia. Dementia is blood supply. In a lot of ways, it is. It's blood supply, okay?

That's why, originally, and they don't do it as much as they should, in my opinion, they call Alzheimer's type III diabetes. It's sugar, honey, and it ain't good. When they come out with all these Alzheimer drugs, they've been colossal failure because they're trying... You know what they're aiming at? I understand why they do it, but why don't they call me? Okay. Because what they're trying to do is to get rid of, help with amyloid plaque in the brain. See, the brain plaques up and they want to see if they can't get rid of it with medication once you have it.

The problem is, the problem is they're looking for love in all the wrong places and it's been colossal, guys. They just approved the little while back an Alzheimer's drug. I kind of laughed about it, how the FDA did it. The reason I was laughing is because they even admit it, it doesn't work. Medicine is grasping at straws to try and do something for Alzheimer's because it's coming to a theater near you. It is so prevalent in our society today. I understand that they want to find something. 

Guys, get those triglycerides down. Get the A1C down. Get your HDL up. I'm little John the Baptist in the wilderness crying out, repent, repent. You know what the repent means? Turn around. You're going in the wrong direction. That's what it means. A 180 degrees turn. You're going this way, come this way. Guys, thanks for putting up with me, but I can't help but get excited. I get so excited. I see stuff coming down the pipes and I love it. I'm telling you. I don't know if that's going to affect any kind of change in the world, but it ought to. 

But again, here's what we always do, right? Here's what we always do, you and I, start with you. I'm aiming at you, my audience, and we'll spread the good news, but you got to get it first. It's got to affect you first. Okay guys. Nice to be in love, isn't it? Okay, you guys are so good. You're so patient with me and I appreciate it, okay? I appreciate it, and my little quirkiness. I can't say that I'm going to change. Good luck with that. You take a 70 year old like me, it's hard to change the leper's spots. That's the way I'm built, guys, okay? Okay. We love you guys and we'll 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!