988. The War on Vitamin D

There is a war going on against vitamin D despite its many many documented benefits.

Dr. Martin looks at a new clinical study where 26,000 participants were given vitamin D and omega-3 over a 5 year period. The study looked at the impact on deaths caused by heart disease and cancer, the number 1 and 2 biggest killers in North America.

The participants came out winners! The results showed that when you take vitamin D and omega-3 together, you significantly reduce your risk of heart disease and cancer.

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, hello everyone. Welcome to another live here today and hope you're having a great afternoon. Little unusual, but we'll take it <laugh>. Okay, let's talk a about a couple of things here this afternoon. I call it the war on vitamin D because it really is a war. Let's just talk about a study that came out five year study, new clinical trial on heart disease and cancer. The two killers, two biggest killers every day. People die heart in cancer, number one and number two, and it ain't even close after that. Okay? And a five year study with 26,000 people given vitamin D and omega-3, they came out winners. And the headline is, when you take vitamin D and when you take omega-3, you have very good prevention of heart disease and cancer, heart disease and cancer.

A five-year study, pretty conclusive. They tried other things, but the other things didn't work as far as they saw for cancer and heart disease. Why not hit both at the same time? They're two big killers. Okay? Now let me get back to that war on vitamin D. Vitamin D is under assault because it's easy to take. It's relatively very inexpensive and it works. When we were talking about the virus, I told you at the start I was big into the immune system and there is nothing that would help your immune system more than vitamin D, more than vitamin D. And if you actually put a claim about that either on Facebook or Twitter, you had a good chance of being banned. So I was very careful, very careful not to make claims. I wasn't saying that you'll never get a virus or anything like that with vitamin D, I just brought to you research that showed vitamin D is very, very effective to boost your immune system.

And what bothered me greatly during the last couple of years is how little we talked about the immune system. My friend, vitamin D is the greatest thing you can do for your immune system. But they're also saying, and I, I'm gonna get into this for a bit, that vitamin D is good for your heart along with omega-3. Omega-3, we all know healthy fat omega-3. I love DHA, EPA, DHA from the animal kingdom are tremendous for heart disease. We know that. And I brought to you a study, man, what, a year ago, maybe a little longer than that, that in 14 days what DHA, high DHA does to tumors. Like, they're like, um, heat seeking missile to destroy tumors. Now let me get into a little bit of why vitamin D is so good for you. 

Look, yesterday, someone after the program had put down, be careful with vitamin D. It can be very dangerous. You know what, look, I, you know what I love our private Facebook group. I really do. And you know, when I do a program, you can comment, actually, we encourage it. The only thing we ask is that you be pleasant <laugh>, don't be nasty. And the other thing is, and I appreciate it, I really did because as long as you understand that if you're gonna make a comment like vitamin D is very dangerous, uh, I'm gonna come back at you, okay? Because I've been using vitamin D for almost 50 years and I have been consistent, consistent, consistent about vitamin D, I've never changed my mind. And the more they study vitamin D I was on a council on vitamin D council years ago, I didn't do any research specifically, I, I was in practice. 

So I did few clinical trials. But people that did the research, we funded that research and there was a lot of research done. And even today, even though there's no money in vitamin D, I mean there's nobody got rich with vitamin D. There's a lot of people that are more and more convinced now with the research that vitamin D is essential. Now let me first say this, vitamin D is a hormone. We classify it as a vitamin, but it really is a hormone. You absolutely need vitamin D. Now the question is, how much vitamin D do you need? That's always the question. I don't think there's a doctor in the universe that would tell you you don't need vitamin D, but it's the amount, right? That's controversial. Before I talk to you about what I do, let me tell you about vitamin D and every area of the body that it affects. 

Let's go literally from the brain to the toes. Okay? Now what have I said? What have I consistently said about vitamin D? You are a human solar panel. We all know what solar panels aren't. They only work when the sun is up, right? You know that our body is a human solar panel. That's why I just finished writing the book. Sun, steak and Steel, okay? And on the top was sun and vitamin D. The best way to get it, no doubt about it, is from the sun. It's the best way to get it. Your body will never overdose on vitamin D ever. If you get it from the sun, now you can burn in the sun, but you're not gonna get too much vitamin D from the sun. Your body just tops it off and that's the end of it in 20 minutes in the sun, arms and legs, okay?

Your arms and your legs especially is the best. Solar panels <laugh>, you got solar panels in your brain, you got solar panels everywhere. Your eyeballs got solar panels, okay? But the best ones are found on your arms and your legs. That becomes a problem in the wintertime. And what this lady was saying yesterday on our Facebook group, while vitamin D is very dangerous, and if you are going to get it, get it only from the sun. Well what, what are people I live in Northern Ontario. Well good luck with that. I mean, it's not like we never get the sun. You're not getting vitamin D from the sun in the winter time, okay? He's just not. You're getting benefits from the sun. Again, even your eyeballs are solar panels. When your eyeballs see the sun, you get melatonin. Isn't that wonderful? You get melatonin, you see the sun during the day.

You sleep better at night. Sleepy. Sleepy because of the sun. So even in the dead of winter, 40 below in Sudbury or Timmins or wherever you are. Nouveau Brunswick! <laugh> Have any of you hit 40 below in the wintertime? We sure do in Northern Ontario. How you supposed to get vitamin D then? Well, you can eat some vitamin D. Okay? That's how the Inuits survive when they're eating their blubber, when they're eating their fish, they get some vitamin D caught. Liver oil has vitamin D. The problem with that is you've gotta eat that every day in order to get any amount of vitamin D. You gotta eat it every day. That's what the Inuit would do. They eat it every day. 

So my argument is, eh, if you live in the northern hemisphere, and what do I mean by that? Well, if you take <laugh>, take out a map and draw a line in the Midwest in Kansas, okay? In Kansas, the state of Kansas, and just go east and west. If you are anywhere up in north of that, you better supplement and listen, I have to tell you, because I was in practice for so many years that I gave even my Florida patients, I, I used to have a lot of patients from southern states. Why did I have that while I used to do biomarkers, they could actually mail them in and that would make them a patient. We did biomarkers, we did all their levels, all their hormones, insulin, whatever. We did all that in biomarker testing, okay? And so you didn't have to come to the Martin clinic physically. You could send in your blood work at one, one time. We don't do it anymore. But I used to tell my Florida patients, Arizona patients, are you guys kidding me? You have low levels of vitamin D. Why is that? My doctor, our doctor told us not to get into the sun too much. The sun is the boogeyman. 

The sun's not the boogeyman. You'll never, ever get too much vitamin D from the sun ever. Like I said, no need to burn, don't burn, never encourage people to burn in the sun. But getting sun is really important. Unless you can't. And that's why I had so many people supplementing and when it comes to cancer, okay? When it comes to cancer, I was huge on getting optimized vitamin D levels, okay? For cancer. Now that may be true even for heart disease because this study is even confirming doc that if you optimize your vitamin D levels in the test is called dihydroxy 25, your serum vitamin D levels, if you can get them to a certain level, your risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease is gone down big time. That's why the sun is so good for you. Or supplementing what? Vitamin D, supplementing with vitamin D when you're not going to see the sun for a while, okay? It's really important, it's very effective and I can prove it because I can show a patient in my practice days how they could get their vitamin D levels, their blood levels up to a certain percentage that I like, a certain number that I like. For example, in the United States, I would try and get my patients to be over 60 and that would be equivalent to somewhere around 150 in Canada to about 200.

That's optimizing your vitamin D. You can even go higher than that. But when they got there, I was very satisfied that now their immune system was going to be at the top of their game, that the immune system was out fighting cancer and fighting inflammation. Because you see vitamin D is a tremendous anti-inflammatory, okay? From your head to your toes. Now let's talk about the brain you study out. Just came out. The higher your vitamin D levels are, your blood serum vitamin D levels are the better. Your brain works. You have a solar panel in the brain. When I used to see patients with dementia, we'd often find vitamin D deficiencies often oftentimes find B12 deficiencies. Boy, those two go together. They really go together almost everything vitamin D does. B12 does too. I'm very big on B12 as if you haven't noticed, okay? 

But I'm serious. I, I'm not that complicated. I, I really like things that work and vitamin D is essential for the brain. When you are losing your cognitive and they're showing this friend, you study cognitive decline with low levels of vitamin D. Do you think vitamin D is dangerous? I don't, not even a vet, I've always said this, the waiting rooms in hospitals are not full of people. They're sitting there, they're unwell, they're waiting to see a doctor and when they do see the doctor, the doctor says, oh, I know why you're here. You got high levels of vitamin D and you're very unwell. Nah, it's the opposite. And you know, for every 100 patients put a hundred patients in a room, 99 out of a hundred will do well with optimize vitamin D levels for any one of them out of a hundred that would have any negative side effects. 

Now listen, I see high vitamin D levels in people. It can happen, especially people on medications or whatever. They can have a high vitamin D level. If they got a poor diet they can be low and vitamin D are high in vitamin D. But can I be honest with you, I've never seen a lot of vitamin D toxicity. I know they talk about it, but I'm telling you, you can look through the annals of vitamin D side effects and they talk about them. But when you look at it statistically it is almost non-existent. I'm not telling you to blow a gasket taking high, high vitamin D and getting your numbers crazy, but I'm telling you what research is showing. When you have optimized levels of vitamin D, optimized levels of vitamin D, you will do well, your brain. ADD, autism. When I used to see an autistic child, it was amazing how low their vitamin D levels were and how low their B12 was. 

Okay? I mean it now circulation. Well obviously your circulatory system needs vitamin D needs omega-3 too because you know why? You know why vitamin D is so good for you in your circulatory system for your heart preventing against strokes, even lowering blood pressure. Did you know that vitamin D is very effective? Why is that? It's called nitric oxide. What's nitric oxide? It's a little compound that your body makes, but you need vitamin D. One of the things it does, it elevates your, your nitric oxide. So when you go sit in the sun, you are actually lowering your blood pressure because you're opening up nitric nitrol glycerin, nitric explosion, making your blood vessels open up. That is one of the cold benefactors of taking vitamin D. Your nitric oxide goes up, you get the sun on your skin, your nitric oxide goes up, your blood vessels say thank you, thank you for getting me out. 

Why do you think we feel so much better in the sun? Yeah, atrial fibrillation. Here's what I used to see in my office without fail, consistently three things. Low vitamin D, you know, I was gonna say it. Low B12 and low magnesium, atrial fib where the circuitry, your heart is a grid, it would get outta whack. Low levels of vitamin D, consistent b12, low levels and low magnesium. Ah-huh <affirmative> and low coQ10. Where do you get coQ10? Steak. Okay, muscles. Well what are the side effects of having low levels of vitamin D is not only having painful bones, we all know what vitamin D and bones do. See that's the problem in medical school. Even today, here we are in 2022, almost into 2023. And if you went to almost every medical school in North America, they'll do uh, 10 minute uh, dissertation on vitamin D.

Not much more than that other than to tell you, be careful cuz you can, it's a fat soluble vitamin. I mean you learn that on day one. It's fat soluble. So what so is vitamin A, they're fat soluble vitamins. Well that means you can get toxic, eh? I guess you could. I guess you could. It's not that I see it, but I guess you could, but you don't emphasize the negativity on it. But that's what medical school says. Remember because here's what they're teaching. Vitamin D is good for your bones. Yeah, they agree with that. They agree with that. So drink milk, <laugh>, you know, I mean, ooh, you need calcium and vitamin D. That's what they teach you in medical school. The problem is they're missing out on the body's solar panel system from the brain to your eyeballs, to your circulatory system, to your muscles. Even your muscles need vitamin D. They have a solar panel too. And this is one of the reasons that muscles are the greatest thing metabolically for you, okay? You know about metabolic syndrome, the more muscle you have, the more bins you have to store. Glycogen and vitamin D is involved in that process. 

Have you heard enough about vitamin D to be convinced? Well, I'm not finished yet. <laugh> women infertility big problem today. Too much estrogen, not enough Progesterone men, I talked about this a week or so ago. Low, low, low sperm counts we're down. Men are down to nothing when it comes to sperm counts today, okay? It's unreal and very, very low testosterone in men. Vitamin D is essential for testosterone. You don't need the little blue pill. You need a little pill of vitamin D <laugh>, okay? If you got low testosterone, usually your vitamin D is very low. And ladies, hormonally, vitamin D is important. It really is important in all of it. Remember vitamin D is hormone. It's a hormone with getting no respect Your skin. Yeah, of course. Vitamin D of the skin. What a solar panel your skin is for vitamin D. Cancer, cancer, cancer. If anyone has cancer and they asked me, Dr. Martin, what should I do? I'm not gonna talk about your medical treatment. That's up to you and your doctor.

Here's what I will tell you. I will tell every cancer patient this, you better make sure your vitamin D levels are optimized. Go to your oncologist or your physician and say, listen, this is not an option. You are going to give me my vitamin D levels. If you haven't tested them yet, I ask you please in a nice way you are going to test my vitamin D. See, an oncologist never ever, ever, ever thinks about vitamin D. They should, according to this new study, they should, but they're not trained in that. And when you are not trained to think that way, boy is it hard to change a lepers spots. It's almost impossible. But what you can do, and even if you have to pay for it, listen to me, if anybody in your family, any of your friends, anyone that will listen to you at all, if they have cancer, please, they need to find out what their vitamin D levels are and they need to optimize them. 

Vitamin D. Hey, I'm saying it, but the research is saying it’s autoimmune. Well guys, you know this, well, maybe you do <laugh>. I'm assuming you've heard this before in the past Vitamin D and MS, have you ever heard of that? Google it because MS was, you know, when I was talking about the northern hemisphere, go right through Kansas, the state of Kansas, draw a line east to west, anything north of that, you were low in the sun free zone <laugh> in the wintertime and this was a good time to take vitamin D. But with ms, this came out, I, I, I'm talking 30 years ago, maybe longer than that, that there was a connection between MS and people in the northern hemisphere. Now I'm gonna tell you something that's changed, okay? Now, MS is found all over the place where it used to be Canada, higher levels of MS. 

Sweden, you know, the Norwegian countries than that had more levels of MS because, well, they weren't seeing the sun in the wintertime, but you know what? Because the sun has become the boogeyman, guess what, guess what, Ms. The rates of MS have gone up now that it's not only because of vitamin D I am a big, big guy on ms, any autoimmune disease and leaky gut. But I'm gonna tell you what helps in leaky gut, what helps knit your gut. Probiotics, absolutely. But I'm gonna tell you another thing that happens inside your gut. The solar panel inside your gut that helps to glue your lining between your gut and your blood so that no garbage gets in there. One of the things that helps the glue is vitamin D. And that's why I love vitamin D. I love probiotics obviously for the gut, but when it comes to ms, rheumatoid arthritis new study came out yesterday on rheumatoid arthritis and leaky gut. I'll talk to you about it maybe tomorrow, okay?

Okay. That I went Your appetite for vitamin D No, I, I, you know, I just, I I, the study had come out, I saw it on the weekend and I was gonna talk about it anyways, but someone stirred me up yesterday even more and um, I said, yeah, nah, I think you're wrong. That vitamin D is dangerous. I, I don't agree with you at all. Now you have every right to come on and you can put your opinion, you just be nice about it. But just understand that sometimes I'm gonna push back and I'll do it very gently by the way, cuz I love you, even if you disagree with me. I mean that. I love you. Okay guys, we got a great week coming up. Okay, great week coming up. Thursday off, I'm traveling. Okay? But tomorrow we're on Friday. Question and answer Friday. Okay? Thanks for all the feedback, we appreciate it. Okay? We love you dearly. We'll talk to you soon.

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