Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.
Some of today’s topics include:
- Acid reflux
- Thyroid nodules
- Acupuncture
- Osteoarthritis
- Cataracts
- Supplements for lupus
- Low blood sugar
- Deep sleep
- Pernicious anemia
- Fixing fatty liver
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. How is you? Hope you're having a great start to your day. I've got to get going because I got so many questions this morning. Cheryl asked this question. I read that if you drink half a teaspoon of baking soda in a quarter cup of water, it will help with acid reflux. Well, look, if it does, good for you, but you have to understand, Cheryl, where I come from. I'm a big guy on getting to the cause of acid reflux. So if you buffer it, because that's what you're doing with baking soda, you're going to buffer the acid. The problem with acid reflux, when you get acid coming back up the esophagus, that's when you get acid reflux, the problem is you're not making enough acid to start off with. Okay? So by buffering it, you need to be very careful about that because first of all, it's like a bandaid and it's not fixing the problem.
And when you buffer your stomach with anything like Tums or Rolaids or these proton pump inhibitors, it's not fixing the problem. And then you're not going to absorb B12. That's a question that I got asked this morning about pernicious anemia. We'll get to it in a few minutes, but you're not fixing the problem. The number one reason you get acid reflux is because you have insulin resistance. It's your body's way of hello? You there, listen, you're eating too many carbohydrates and I have insulin resistance, and I'm changing the acid in your stomach.
Now there's other reasons, but that's why I'm so big on the reset. If you got acid reflux and you want to use a buffer like baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, temporarily okay but I actually like putting more acid in the stomach. That's why I'm bigger on balsamic vinegar, a little teaspoon of that. Add more acidity to your stomach. Okay? Very good question. We appreciate it.
Hela. What causes nodules on the thyroid? Well, in my opinion, and from what I've seen in my practice for years and years and years and years, Hela, is too much estrogen. Estrogen is a growth hormone. And remember it's always a balance between estrogen and progesterone. So it comes from ovaries. Now, listen, I've said this a million times and I probably will say it another million. Men rarely, not that they don't, rarely have thyroid problems. Okay. They don't get it like women because the thyroid again is like a puppet.
It's got a lot of strings attached to it and it's much more complex than a woman because of ovaries. Estrogen will negate the conversion of T4 to T3. It can cause inflammation. It can cause nodules on the thyroid. They don't have to be cancerous. They can just be nodules. And I'm a big guy on checking hormones because that's one of the issues.
Wendy. Why do you say drinking more than four or five cups of coffee a day can actually lose the benefits of coffee? Well, did I actually say it like that, Wendy? I'm very careful what I have to say about vitamin C. You know how much I love it. Look, I talk about the sweet spot of coffee, which is four cups of coffee a day and it's amazing the research seems to confirm that. The more research they do on coffee, they sort of hit a sweet spot about four cups of coffee a day.
The reason I say, and I don't think I ever said negate, and if I did, I apologize, Wendy. Okay. Look, you don't want to be drinking too much coffee because one, caffeine. Okay. The over caffeinated. Listen, coffee has got so many benefits it would take me 10 shows to talk about all the benefits of coffee. And let me say this, Wendy, I was right and the world was wrong. I was right and the world was wrong.
I've been preaching coffee since the 1970s as being a very powerful antioxidant, phytonutrient. It didn't make you acidic. It was all nonsense. Coffee. Yeah it's no good for you. Craziness. It's very good for you. Now, don't overdo it. You can become dehydrated. So the sweet spot is about four, Wendy. Okay. Thanks for asking the question. I take it back if I said it takes away the benefits of coffee, but I think you can drink too much coffee. Okay.
Regina. What does Dr. Martin think of acupuncture? Well, I like acupuncture. I took an acupuncture course probably 1972. I understood it, but it's like anything else, you have to practice it. I had an acupuncturist, certified acupuncturist, working in my office for years and unbelievable results. And we have a good friend on this program, Dr. Troy. Okay. Dr. Troy Bennett, I often say hello to him on the program. He is one of the world's greatest acupuncturists, and the results are wonderful. I got no problem with acupuncture at all. I really don't. Okay. But for me, because I didn't practice it, I understood the basics of it, but I never put it into practice. So in terms of being good at it, I wasn't good at it. I left it to other people who specialized in it. Okay. Good question.
Jan. I see 20/20, but when I go to my computer, my eyes are blurry when I look up. Just got new glasses after cataract surgery. Any thoughts, doc? Well, there's some healing that needs to take place. And computers remember. Look, I'm on a computer all day pretty well. Okay. I'm on my phone all day because I got studies coming in and I read them and I do a lot of work on computers. Here's what I recommend, Jan, for your eyes to get real good healing. And because remember with eyes, it's blood supply. That's why I'm big on Navitol because it opens up your blood vessels. If you look into the eye, it is nothing but the 401, 407, 403, you think you're driving in Toronto.
All the highways going across each other, but they're blood vessels. They're capillaries, and blood supply is everything in the eye. That's why diabetics have so much trouble with their eyes. And cataracts is circulation. It's always circulation in the eyes and sugar destroys circulation, but I'm big on Navitol and high DHA for eyes. My eyes actually improved. Last time I went to the optometrist, he said, "Doc, I don't know what you're doing, but your eyes are better than they were when you were 55. You've improved." Well, I try and take care of that. I'm big on that. And like I said, I've never seen anything work as well. The combination of high DHA oil, your blood vessels need oil and they need elevated nitric oxide to open up your blood vessels everywhere. Heart, brain, eyeballs. Okay. Thanks for the question, Jan.
Marilyn, beginning stages of osteoarthritis. Okay. And you're doing everything, Marilyn, because in hips, eat low carb, take supplements, walking, weights, rebound, and squats. What can be done? You're doing it. I would be careful on the walking. Don't overdo it. Don't overdo it. Walking, I love walking. Hey, I'm a walker, man. I mean it, I love walking. It's my therapy. It's where I do a lot of thinking. I love walking. I do. But walking posturally is hard on you. It stiffens you up. It tightens you up.
That's why I'm big in the gym. Get strong, get strong, Marilyn, got to be strong and flexible because the more strength you have, the more flexible you will be. Keep strong. Keep your legs strong because those are anchors to your pelvis. Okay? Keep your legs strong. Keep your upper back strong. They're anchors to your neck. So that's what I would do, but you're doing it. I love the rebounder. I love the rebounder. Very good for you. Okay. Marilyn, you got it.
Marni. What did Dr. Martin think of Botox? Well, I had a Botox treatment yesterday. No I didn't. I see some people like movie stars or whatever and I say, man, oh man, they overdid it on the Botox. Okay. I'm a big guy and I've talked to you folks a lot about this. Okay? Remember, your skin is what you see. Your skin is what you see, what you want to do with your skin. It's inside out. Now, I love Revera. I use Revera every day. That's our formula. There's nothing better on the market than Revera to put on your skin.
But you can't out Revera a bad diet. You can't out Revera leaky gut. Leaky gut, leaky skin, take care of your skin by taking care of inside. Inside of your skin is a reflection of what's going on inside your body. Okay? And anti-aging okay, you're going to age. I don't care how much Botox you use. Okay. I was watching someone being interviewed the other day and she could hardly move her lips she had so much Botox. Her lips were twice the size of the rest of her face. But guys, listen, hey, what was the expression if the barn needs painting, paint it. I remember someone said that. I said, you better not say that around women or you're going to get in trouble, but nah, and look, temporary, if anything, and I'm not that big on it. I'd rather you take care of your skin inside out. Okay.
Ruth says, "I'm 69 and I have cataracts." So we talked about that. Trigger finger and calcification in my pinky fingers. Well, that is what we call glycation, advanced glycation in products. Big word. What's it mean? Things start to calcify, even in your skin. You lose your resiliency. You lose your elasticity, the collagen in your skin. Okay. You want to be able to keep it as young as possible. Okay? And I started researching L carnosine. I like L carnosine. As a supplement? No, eat steak because it's got L carnosine. It's got L carnitine. It's got the big Cs. Okay. It's got L arginine. All good for Ruth, what you are asking. Okay. I'm a big guy on that, and I got other questions that come to me about this in a minute.
Laura, what are supplements for lupus? Well, lupus is autoimmune. Okay. Very complicated autoimmune disease. And it always, always, always, Laura, starts in the gut. I am 100% convinced about that. Leaky gut, autoimmune. Therefore, start with the gut and don't feed yeast because I've never seen autoimmune, and I mean it, that doesn't have an associated fungal infection. And the reason I say that is because when you have leaky gut, it's because your bad guys outnumbered your good guys in your microbiome, and there's a lot of reasons for that. But the other thing is, is that yeast takes off. It gets into your bloodstream, your body reacts to it, because it's a foreign invader and that can turn into lupus and you need to fix that. It's no easy fix. And I'm not saying you can completely reverse lupus. What I am saying is you can really, really help it. Okay? Thanks for the questions. That was Laura.
Denise. If your blood sugar is very low, like bottoming out, do you not give glucagon to bring it up? But doctors against sugar, what do you do then? Well look, if your blood sugar is bottoming up. Okay. Remember the teaching now. Remember you guys know this. Your body will do everything it can to keep your blood sugar in a tight range. Not high, not low. Okay. So at the end of the day, Denise, if blood sugar bottoms out, there's a problem. Hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia is a problem of insulin. Okay? Now whether it goes low or whether it goes high, it's not normal. You need to fix insulin. And look, if you get so low that you need a chocolate bar just to get your blood sugar up. Yeah. I mean, maybe you want to do that once or whatever, but you have to understand you've got a problem, and it's insulin. And the way to fix insulin is to live on protein and fat. Not on carbs.
Carbs would be temporary. You know, you'd take an orange or whatever if your blood sugar is that low. But why does your blood sugar go that low. There's factors. One of them is the adrenal gland. So when I talked about chronic fatigue syndrome, and I wrote books about it, when you have adrenal exhaustion, because that's what causes chronic fatigue. It's cortisol way too long. It actually drains those adrenals and one of the symptoms of that can be hypoglycemia, low blood sugar. But always get to the root issue, get to the root. Why would [inaudible 00:18:01]? And I'm not big on fixing anything with sugar. You know me and sugar. I hate it. I hate it with a passion.
You don't need it. Fix the issue. And I found even with chronic fatigue syndrome, you know where they were eating six, eight, 10 times a day, at the end of the day, when they upped their protein, when they substitute a chocolate bar for a steak, okay, you can have some chicken, but all I'm saying is when your body gets the right nutrition, it's amazing what happens. Okay. So very, very good question. Thank you very much for it, Denise.
Nancy. How do I achieve more deep sleep? Well, look, sleep is a very, very, very important factor, because if you don't sleep, one of the biggest issues with lack of sleep, the self-cleaning oven of your brain doesn't come on unless you sleep and you got to go through four stages of sleep. Okay? I don't want to get into the weeds, but I have done, if you get on our private Facebook group and ask the girls, okay, my staff, to gear you towards my sleep podcast. Okay. Really important to listen because I have a lot of factors from your diet to getting the right amount of melatonin.
Not by taking melatonin, by getting the sun. The sun is really important for sleep. Okay? Because you make melatonin. The pineal gland makes melatonin and stores melatonin. When you see the sun, which good luck today in Northern Ontario and two, when you get dark, dark, dark room, so I talk about the room, no lights on, wear a mask. I wear a mask. I have a mask on right now. Do you see it? It's invisible. It's called vitamin A, but then I wear a night mask. I do. No light because I want to make more and more melatonin. Okay. So try on cortisol for me. That is one of the best sleep aids.
Because when your cortisol is high, when your cortisol is high, Nancy, your brain don't turn off. You get out of your circadian rhythm, which your body needs to be in to get a good sleep. Okay? Lots of things there, Nancy. Thank you very much for the question.
Connie, what do you think of Beamer? I thought you meant you were getting me, Connie, a BMW. Isn't that what they call a BMW, Connie, a Beamer? Well, look, this is an electronic magnetic device. Well look, I'm not against it. It talks about how it improves your circulation. Eh, you know what? It may be real good. I have no experience with it. So when I tell you that, Connie, I'm not against it at all. Okay? I haven't looked at the science real closely, but even more than looking at that, I'm more interested when people give me feedback.
Doc, that really helped me. When I hear that 10, 20, 30, 40 times, boy, that thing is the best thing since slice bread for circulation, I pay attention. But to be honest, Connie, for me to answer that, I have no experience in it. I haven't had people come and tell me that is the greatest thing right there for circulation. I don't want to lead you astray because it's really something I don't know. Okay. But I'll take the Beamer.
Lynn. Can you discuss pernicious anemia? Well, I sure can. Pernicious anemia is another autoimmune problem. What happens is that you're not absorbing B12. Okay. So you get anemia. You can get low iron anemia. Okay. Pernicious anemia is autoimmune, when you just can't absorb B12. Look, you eat steak because that's how you get B12. Okay. But these are people that got to take B12 either sublingually and the other thing is they might be taking, B12 shots. Okay. That's one thing they don't have the intrinsic factor. Their body can't even take in B12.
But remember what I said about autoimmune. I always go back to that. Whenever I've seen pernicious anemia, I always work on the stomach and the gut. Enzymes and the diet to get rid of insulin resistance and then I work on the gut. That's a malabsorption syndrome. You want to fix leaky gut and I've rarely ever seen a case of pernicious anemia where they didn't have leaky gut too. Okay. So it's a little bit more complicated, but it can be helped.
Annette. What do I think about pine pollen and what is it good for? Well, I'll tell you what I like is pine bark extract. Pine pollen, again, I don't have the experience with it. I've read some stuff on it, looks good, but I'm a big guy. I've been using, eh, 35 years now pine bark extract. Now, if you find a better extract than pine bark extract, I haven't found it. I haven't found it. I'm a result-driven doctor. I had to get results in my clinic and I was a result guy. And with chronic fatigue, that's how it all started with pine bark with me is it was the first thing that I found that was consistently helping my patients was pine bark extract. So pine pollen, eh, I'm not against it, if you find it helpful. I'm a pine bark guy though. Okay. And I don't apologize for that.
What causes fat cravings and how to satisfy it? Sylvia. Well, Sylvia, eat it. What's wrong with eating fat? The right fat. Okay. Fat gives fullness. Fat is the best food. See what God did with fat? He combined it protein, fat, protein, fat. Okay. That's why you hear me talking about vitamin S all the time, steak and liver. Although I don't like liver, not personally, but I know how good it is for you. What causes that? Usually when you're getting cravings of any kind, you're getting a fluctuation of blood sugar. But if you're craving fat, man, that is so good compared to craving carbs like most people suffer from, Sylvia, but usually it's any craving usually. I talked about this the other day. Okay. Food cravings are often a sign of fatty liver. Okay. Fatty liver. I think somebody asked me that question. I'll come to it after. I want to stay in order if I can. Sylvia, thanks for the question.
Gerald. Had prostate cancer, still got it. Can I take prostate formula? Absolutely you can. I'll tell you something. Going to toot the horn for a minute. You find a better prostate formula than Dr. Martin's prostate formula, you find me a better one and I'll apologize. There's nothing better than my prostate formula. I have tens of thousands of men on it. Now, if you have prostate cancer, there's a couple of things you have to keep in mind. One, prostate cancer is low testosterone and high estrogen. Men becoming women. That's a big, big factor in prostate. So you better up your testosterone and lower your estrogen. That's why I'm big.
Even for men, I often put men, especially with prostate cancer, I put them on our hormonal formula to dim out their estrogen. I've never seen, and I mean this, prostate cancer that didn't have two things, too much estrogen, and with that, not enough testosterone. When a man has low T, he has high E. I like that. I just made something up. When a man has low T, he has high E, estrogen, a hundred percent. Two, here's another factor, invariable, too much insulin. Insulin and estrogen are growth hormones and they can lead to horror moans. And prostate needs insulin and the prostate needs estrogen to grow. Okay. Good. Thanks for the question. Much appreciated.
Okay. Now Hazel, what are Dr. Martin's thoughts about gallbladder removal? Well, look, if you got no choice and the gallbladder has become diseased, Hazel, you don't want that gallbladder stone to get caught in your duct, especially into the pancreatic duct. You're in trouble. So have I seen stones dissolve? Yes, I have. Okay. Remember what the gallbladder is. It's just a little pouch that stores bile and it's use it or lose it. That's why women get it. Women get a lot more gallbladder problems than men do. Why is that? Because women insist on a low fat diet, Hazel.
So if you got gallstones, it's because you weren't using your gallbladder. I always tell people this. The reason you don't want to be a vegetarian or a vegan is because God gave you a gallbladder, a gallbladder you use it or lose it. Your gallbladder is for bile and bile is for fat, so low fat diets were the worst thing for people's gallbladder. And I screamed blue murder about it. Okay.
Claire. Oh, Claire, I got to read this. My grandmother Nay Rushford from Masterville. That's where my grandmother, Rushford. Okay. So hold on a second, if I have that back here, I do. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Claire, because Claire and I are distant cousins. Okay. She's a Rushford and my grandmother on my dad's side was a Rushford. Okay. But I got to tell you the story. Okay. I'm not going to do it today. I'm going to do it I think on Monday. Okay. And she does ask one question. I got to tell you the story though. She gave me another story about her grandmother.
Now is that an old wives tale about rhubarb deworming the insides? That's an old wives tale. Now rhubarb, I got no problem. Okay. But for deworming, maybe a little bit, but nah, nothing that I would bring home. You know what's the best dewormer in the world is probiotics, the best. Okay? The best.
Deborah, great live on Wednesday when you were talking about non-alcoholic fatty liver. I have a question. How do I know when I've corrected my fatty liver? Well, if you do the reset, you're fixing it. Now some people might take a little bit longer than the six days that research shows you. Okay. And that's why I'm really big on doing the 30 day program, because I want to get at the root issue and that is insulin resistance. But your liver is amazing. What an amazing organ it is. It will empty itself. It will really do that, Deborah. Okay.
How do you know? Well look, the only way to really know is before and after ultrasounds. Okay? So you see fatty liver, but when you look at blood work, when you look at triglycerides, when you look at triglycerides going down and HDL going up and A1C in that, I can pretty well tell you if you got rid of fatty liver, but at the end of the day, yeah, you got to fix it.
Nez. Can Parkinson's be reversed? No, it can't be reversed. I haven't seen it reversed. Nez, here's my answer. You know, diabetes? I don't reverse diabetes. I put it to bed. The reset will put diabetes to bed. It'll put it into remission. It doesn't cure it. It puts it into remission. So Parkinson's, I've seen it go in 100% remission with no symptoms. But the idea with it is to try and manage it rather than cure it. Put it into remission because there's some structural changes in the brain and you know what? We got to do this on Monday again, because I got just too many questions.
I will bring you the history of the Martin Clinic and the Rushfords were involved in that. Okay. Yeah too many questions. Got to do a part two. Okay. Let's do that on Monday morning. Now, Monday in Canada is a holiday Monday, but guess what? I'm still on. Okay. I'm still on. We're going to be on Monday morning. So set your clock for Monday morning. Be question and answered number two. Okay. Guys, we love you, and I mean that, 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!