1609. Q&A with Dr. Martin

Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners.

Some of today’s topics include:

• Low cortisol levels
• AFib & blood thinners
• Fish oil supplements & AFib
• Calciphylaxis
• Macrobiotic diet
• Macrocytic anemia
• Eczema in children
• Surgery for bursitis
• Curcumin & turmeric & gallbladder issues
• Cause of brown spots

 

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 are you? Once again, welcome to another live this morning and we appreciate you coming on with us. It's Q and A Friday and to my American friends, how are you? Happy Independence Day. Okay, July 4th. Good for you guys and have a great day. Okay, now, what is it today? Q and A, answering your questions. Okay, so let's get some questions up here. A lot of people send us in their questions. We appreciate that. So if you missed out this week, okay, don't feel bad, you can ask your question, send it into info@martinclinic.com. Okay?

Angela is asking this question. It's a good question, Angela. Very good question. Okay, "my cortisol is low throughout the day. Why?" Now I'm asking a question, Angela, and I know you can't answer me. Well, if you did, I wouldn't see it right now. Okay, but when you say your cortisol is low throughout the day, is that because you've had it tested throughout the day? How do you know it's low? Okay, and if you've been tested, okay, that's what the question I would ask you. Okay, but let me go over this, okay? Because a lot of people get confused about this and I think it's an important question to ask. Okay? If you have low cortisol throughout the day, that's not normal. First of all, cortisol is supposed to be very high or at its highest level in the morning. Why? Because cortisol is part of your circadian rhythm, helps you to get up in the morning. Your cortisol is start elevating usually around 4:00 AM and that's elevating your blood pressure to some extent. Your blood sugar, it's waking you up. It's waking you up.

So, when you say your cortisol is low and it's always low, well that's another issue. And if you are chronically stressed, I wrote a book about this years ago on chronic fatigue. Let me just get it out to you. And I talked about adrenal exhaustion, okay? You adrenal glands on top of kidneys exhausted, and that's what happened in chronic fatigue syndrome. It's a big factor in fibromyalgia when the adrenals, okay, they release cortisol and that's all right, it's normal. But when they get exhausted and the way they get exhausted is when you're chronically under stress, okay? And stress can come in different ways. Chronic stress can come from the fact that relationships, family dynamics, finances, yeah, all those things. Chronic stress, but you can also be chronically stressed by the environment. Mold. I talked about that in this book. That really drains the adrenals because it's a stressor, okay?

And bad diet can stress you out. Constantly having elevated blood sugars. What goes up must come down. And that constant fluctuation, developing insulin resistance, sugar, crappy carbohydrates, that puts a big amount of stress on the body. Okay? So all of those factors can drain the adrenals to the point where now you're exhausted. If you were measuring cortisol, it would be too high and then too high for too long. Then it gets drained and now it's low. You said, well, assuming I had high cortisol, well, you did at one time for sure, Angela, you had high cortisol, guaranteed. And now it's low all the time, according to you, and maybe according to testing. Well, it doesn't matter, you still should be on the cortisol formula because the cortisol formula is made to balance your cortisol, whether it's high or whether it's low. It's meant to support the adrenals. It's meant to balance those things out.

So when you're exhausted, and I'm assuming that's the case, Angela, then your cortisol levels would be low, but they're drained. You drain the battery. I used to tell patients that. You got battery packs and you drained them and it's hard to recharge, fully recharge old battery packs that have been drained. So Angela, food, cut out the crappy carbs. Do EMC, eggs, meat and cheese as much as possible. There's always a connection to leaky gut. Make sure that's fixed. Check your vitamin D levels, check your B12 levels. Navitol is something I found with chronically low functioning adrenal glands. Thanks for the question.

Okay, "a friend is seeing a dietician because his kidneys are stressed." I know what the test is called, but I believe it was blood work. Yeah, it's blood work, okay. "The dietician, while has recommended eating portions of meat and eggs daily." That's a good recommended. "Also recommended one cup of pasta daily because she said pasta has certain proteins in it." Now, Laura, I'm getting a migraine. If your kidney function or your friend's kidney function is being diminished, high numbers of diminished kidney function and to recommend a cup of pasta a day, it's the opposite of what I would recommend because there's nothing, I talk about this all the time. When it comes to kidneys and kidney function, two things. One, drink water. You want to de-stress your kidneys, make sure you're getting at least two liters of water, 64 ounces a day minimum for my American friends. Water, kidneys, Niagara Falls.

Go to Niagara Falls on the US side or on the Canadian side, it don't matter. The water's flowing all the time. Flow that water out, it'll de-stress the kidneys. Flow the water through the kidneys. Kidneys need water to function properly. One, two, sugar. Insulin is the worst thing for kidneys, not salt, sugar and crappy carbs that elevate your insulin. Insulin is very destructive to kidneys. So I would disagree with the dietician who's recommending, even though I'm trying to figure out what proteins are in pasta that are not in anything else. I don't get that. But anyway, it's the opposite. Avoid pasta like the plague. There'd be no reason to take any pasta to help your kidneys. Pasta turns to sugar in nanoseconds, and that puts an enormous amount of strain on the kidneys and sugar causes salt retention in the kidneys that stresses the kidneys.

So Laura, you were right. Here's what Laura said at the end of it. "Does this sound like good advice in your opinion?" No, I would think, and this is Laura and Laura, you're smart. "I would think to avoid pasta because it converts quickly to sugar." Yep. Laura, you get a hundred percent on your test. You got that absolutely right. Okay, you guys, I'm telling you, you already know. I don't have to go on a long diatribe, do I? You guys know this stuff? Good for you. Kidneys, good question. Thanks Laura.

Julie, "it is recommended by physicians who have AFib to be on a blood thinner. What are your thoughts?" Yeah, well, look, that's because when you have atrial fibrillation, okay, that's the upper chambers of the heart. It's an electrical thing, okay? You got an electrical malfunction in AFib and medicine, they want to put you on a blood thinner because you're more susceptible to stroke and they want to try and prevent that. Now, the problem with blood thinners, they come with a boatload of side effects, including you hit your head or you bump yourself or whatever. Very easy to bleed. You cut yourself. You have a hard time. I mean, they come with a boatload of side effects. With AFib, and I never tell patients not to take a medication. I don't do it. I just give them information. But with AFib, this is just something that I saw lots of it and always look for deficiencies. Usually very low in coQ10, ubiquinol, low in magnesium, low in vitamin D, low in B12. That's what I usually saw, and I would fix those deficiencies and I would have them on coQ10, magnesium for sure. Okay, ubiquinol, thanks for the question, Julie.

Sharon, "I read in the Epoch Times that fish oil supplements may increase AFib." Well, I don't agree with that at all. Tell the folks over at the, what's it called, the Epoch Times. Say, Dr. Martin says, you guys are smart, but you're wrong. Okay, I can show you 150 studies, no more than that, on the benefits of omega-3 fish oil. Okay? I have fish every day in a capsule. I'm a big, big guy and you guys know this on high DHA, it would only help. It doesn't hurt, and I'm glad you're asking the question, but it doesn't increase AFib. AFib, like I said, usually a deficiency in coQ10, they're not eating enough meat. They're not eating enough fish, they're not eating enough eggs, they're not eating enough cheese, dairy, they don't get enough of that stuff, in my opinion. They're low in magnesium. Okay? Okay, that was Sharon. Thanks Sharon. Appreciate the question. You stay on your DHA. Okay?

Bob, "what do you recommend for a person with calciphylaxis?" Calciphylaxis is a very rare condition. Too much calcium and what is it? Phosphorus, right? Calcium and phosphate, sorry, in the blood and dealing with dialysis. Okay, okay. Okay. This is a rare condition. This is Bob asking for a friend, okay, who's on dialysis and they have this condition. Yeah, well, listen, that's a whole other kettle of fish, Bob. Just generally when you see too much calcium, you're usually talking about the parathyroids not working properly. Para on the side of your thyroid gland, they regulate, they help regulate your calcium levels. When you have kidney dysfunction, when you have kidney disease, well, that can have an effect on that and your calcium levels can go up, and that can be very dangerous, of course.

The antidote to calcium in the blood is what vitamin, what deficiency usually. Okay, and I'm not saying this Bob in this case, I'm saying this in general, what deficiency? Vitamin K2. Calcium. The antidote. What takes calcium? You need calcium, by the way. You need it in your bones. Calcium belongs in your bones, not in your bloodstream. You got a little bit of calcium in your bloodstream, but when it starts to accumulate, very, very dangerous. Okay? And vitamin K2. That's why in nature, God gave us meat. Why? You got calcium in meat, okay? People think of dairy in calcium. True, but you got calcium in meat too. You got calcium in butter. Everybody knows that. You got calcium in eggs. Everybody knows that.

But also in with it is vitamin K2. That's important because calcium, you want to get to its intended destination. I love calcium. People have accused me over the years of not, Dr. Martin, you don't like calcium. I don't like calcium supplements. I like calcium. I eat calcium every day, but I never eat it in the absence of vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 takes the calcium and puts it where it belongs. That's why we put vitamin K2 in with vitamin D because vitamin D will elevate your calcium, which is great. You want that, you need that in your bones. But K2 makes sure that it gets to the intended destination. That's why eating calcium is the best thing to do because when you're eating calcium from the animal kingdom, you got vitamin K2 in it. So I don't know what they're thinking. Bob, for your friend, if they're actually giving them. Dialysis, it's a whole different puppy altogether. Are they considering vitamin K2 shots? I don't know. I don't know what they're doing. Okay, but that's what I recommend, but it's a different puppy altogether, okay?

Julie, "did you read about 103 year old man?" Nope, I didn't read about it. Okay. "Cured himself from cancer, arthritis by going on a macrobiotic diet." Well, Julie, there isn't a diet that I don't know about. I read, look, I didn't read about 103 year old man, but the macrobiotic diet, it comes out, I think originally out of Japan that I remember. And by the way, where did they eat a high amount of fish? In Japan. Now the macrobiotic diet recommends grains, vegetables, some fruit, and almost nothing from the animal kingdom. Now, Julie, look at my face. What do you think I think? Scientifically it don't make any sense. Cured cancer, arthritis. Well, first of all, if any diet like that cures cancer, and someone tells you that, run Forrest run.

Now when you look at food, Julie, for me, I always look at the nutritional value of food. You can measure it. And when you look at, for example, an egg. Hard to beat all the vitamins, all the minerals, all the amino acids, the proteins, fat, very low carb, hard to beat, and then you take meat. Okay? You guys know how much I love meat and steak. Take steak. How do you beat that? What food do you put up against it in the nutritional way? So then someone says to you, well, cancer, avoid the animal kingdom. It don't make any sense. I know why they do it, because it's propaganda, it's religion, it's not right. It's telling you, well, meat animal products are acidic. I talked to you guys about this almost daily because it's the same thing with coffee. Do you know how many years I've been defending coffee? 5-0, fifty.

Because even in school, they told me, well, it's acidic. It will leach out all your vitamins and it will leach out all your minerals. And it is hard on you. You shouldn't drink it. I didn't buy it. I didn't buy it. Because when you look at the nutritional profile and the antioxidant profile of coffee, it's good for you. And I said that 50 years ago, and guess what? The more and more and more and more and more and more and more they study it, the more I was right about it. I've never wavered. I've always defended it. It's the same thing when you read about a macrobiotic diet, meaning that get off the animal products because they're no good for you. And the guy's 103, okay? When you live to 103, I tip my hat to you, but that's not because of your diet. That's because God gave you life. It's the grace of God, okay?

You get people, they eat so beautifully, they do everything right, and then they get hit by a bus at 50 years old. You know what I mean? Look, Julie, I don't mean to take it out on you because I am actually happy you asked me the question, Julie. I want to defend what I'm saying. I want to defend my position. I've written many books about it, and I never backed off the fact that eggs and meat and dairy, good dairy, you didn't avoid that. Don't avoid it. When I see these gurus and dieticians and people coming out with a diet that tells you to get off the animal products, I don't agree with that at all, at all, at all. And their premise is wrong because it always goes back to pH of foods and they think they're changing the pH in your blood by foods you're eating. There's only one acidic food that's sugar. It's terribly acidic, but even then, your body has a buffering system. It keeps your pH tightly, tightly regulated.

Okay, Jeannine, "what does Dr. Martin recommend for macrocytic anemia?" Okay, they spelled it wrong here. It's anemia. It's a different type of anemia because you get different forms of anemia, and one form is called macro, which means large red blood cells. I've seen this a lot. Okay? The bigger the red blood cell, the better. No, they're big, big balloons. You see it on blood. I used to love watching blood. I never got tired of looking at blood, okay? Never got tired of looking at blood. It was wonderful experience to look at it. Now, labs, they count, they're bean counters. All they do is count numbers. I think every doctor in the world should have a microscope in their office and they should look at blood. You don't have to spend an hour, just a few minutes, just look. What do you see?

I used to see macrocytic anemia. I said, you're anemic. I said, well, you got big, big red blood cells and it's not bigger the better. They're not carrying the oxygen that you need. Your red blood cells, they're big, but they're empty. Okay, you got an anemia, you look like Casper the ghost. Okay, so usually why would that happen? Well, sometimes it was at the bone marrow level that this happens, and that's what's producing these red blood cells. But patients did well when I put them on eggs, meat and cheese and lots of meat and lots of red meat. I said, you're going to go home and you're going to have a steak a day, keeps the doctor away, not an apple a day, a steak a day. That's what I used to tell 'em to do. And they said, well, how about hamburger? Yeah, you can have that too. Leave the bun alone. How about roast beef? Yeah, you can have that as long as it's got a lot of B12. And then I would put them on B12 usually because they were always low in it. Okay?

Rebecca is asking, and, "what are my thoughts on a product called Slender?" Slender is day and night drops, and yeah, Rebecca, thanks for the question. Love you. Okay, now here's another one. Run, Forrest run. Whenever you see a product called slender look, doesn't mean they're bad. No, doesn't mean they're bad. But I'm sure Rebecca, you know this, okay? There's nothing magic. Oh, I take these drops and man, oh man, the weight just falls off. You cannot out drop a bad diet. You just can't do it. And this is what bugs me about these GLP-1 medications like Wegovy and Ozempic and others, designer drugs and people, I'm just going to take this. It's a shortcut. There's no shortcuts in life. And so the drops, I'm not saying you can't take them, I'm just saying go in it, Rebecca, with your eyes wide open. There's no magic. Can it be helpful to some extent? Ahh maybe, but I'm always cynical when it comes to stuff like that.

Elaine is asking about eczema. "What causes eczema in a 2-year-old child?" Leaky gut, and usually in 2-year-olds, mommy had it. Mommy had leaky gut. Baby has leaky gut. Eczema is a fungus. It's yeast, leaky gut, leaky skin, and you got to figure out, okay, because there's often times even with eczema that I found maybe an allergy there too, but again, it's always leaky gut. Allergy to dairy, sometimes figure it out, but usually mommy had it. Mommy, even before pregnancy on antibiotics, got a yeast infection in the blood and didn't even know it because people think of yeast infections, you think of a private part infection, right? Yeast or bladder even. Yeah, but you can get yeast inside the blood. That's leaky gut. It's the third invading army. It's the Trojan horse that gets in and can get into the bloodstream then off into the skin. Okay, now maybe that child was on antibiotic for ears or whatever, and you got to fix that broad spectrum probiotic. I would have that baby on our probiotic.

Okay, that was Elaine. Thanks Elaine. Deb, "what causes bursitis? To help with it does it mean hip surgery?" Well, Deb, usually wear and tear like a bursitis could be an injury. It's the bursa. You got a little sack, okay, between the bone in the hip, between the femoral head and the actual pelvis and you got a sack in there, it's called the bursa. Then you can get bursitis. No fun under the sun. Very painful. And does it mean hip surgery? Well, it depends, Deb, because it depends on how much degeneration is in the joint. When they do an x-ray, they should be able to see it, but you can help with bursitis, I found. Okay, stop walking for a while. If anything, maybe do biking, but sometimes I used to just shut a patient down completely, shut them down completely and let the bursa heal. I'd have 'em on Navitol because of the anti-inflammatory. I'd have 'em on curcumin because of the anti-inflammatory. Get off the sugars because sugar really is very inflammatory. Okay, thank you Deb. We appreciate it.

There's Tracy asking, my reading research. You see, Tracy, I want you to research. Good for you. Okay. "It says curcumin or turmeric is not advised with gallstones or gallbladder issues. What are your thoughts?" I don't agree with that, Tracy. I don't know where they get that. I don't understand the connection between your gallbladder and curcumin. Okay. Why? An anti-inflammatory. Curcumin is good for you. Curcumin is really good for your liver. Okay, really good for your liver. Why would it have any effect on the gallbladder other than helping the gallbladder? I don't get it. I don't understand the connection there. And I've read that before too, by the way, and I just go, did you get that? I've been using curcumin for seems like a century, but it's not, but a long time. I'd never seen the connection with affecting the gallbladder in a negative way.

I'll tell you what affects your gallbladder more than anything else. When you don't eat fat, use it or lose it. Why do women especially? Well, there's a hormonal component when your progesterone goes down, progesterone is very important for smooth muscle. Your gallbladder is a little sack of smooth muscle. So you see oftentimes after a woman has a baby postpartum that they lose their gallbladder. Your gallbladder is a reservoir for bile and you want to be emptying that gallbladder all the time of bile that pours it into the small intestine for pH adjustment, okay? It's very important. Bile is important. You don't want bile sitting in your gallbladder because you didn't use it.

So women that live on salad, they love chicken and salad. They get gallbladder problems. They bought the lie of fat free, oh my salad. It's so good for me. You're not a rabbit, it ain't that good for you. Meat is much better for you. And then you use your gallbladder when you eat meat, when you have an egg, you use your gallbladder. When you have cheese, you use your gallbladder, you're emptying its bile and that's good for you. I don't get the connection with curcumin. I don't. Maybe I've got to look it up again. I don't think I'm going to change my mind though. I'll look at it again.

Lucy, "why do blood capillaries under the skin on my fingers often burst after a small little blow?" Well, you've got hypersensitive blood vessels. Get on some Navitol. It really helps those little capillaries, those small little tiny incy, weensy blood vessels, you want to strengthen them. I love Navitol because it elevates the nitric oxide and plus it's an antioxidant and it helps with that. "What would you recommend someone do who has lymphedema?" Lymphedema, you usually see that they got big legs, abnormal size, usually in the bottom of the leg. They're big legs and they just don't drain it, their lymphatics and it's called lymphedema. No magic. I used to just look. Is there any deficiencies? I was a big guy on that looking for deficiencies. Anything with the kidneys? I try a few things like Navitol or whatever, but there's no guarantee any of that's going to change lymphedema. Okay?

Andrea, "can you talk," hey, this is the last one. "Can you talk about brown spots? I've raised one beside my eyes and wondering what causes this?" Well, brown spots aging. Can you get rid of it? Sometimes I'd use a combination of inside Navitol for good skin. I really like eggs, meat and cheese. There's nothing that glycates and ages your skin more than sugar and smoking. Two S's. Don't smoke and don't eat sugar. I like our Rivera. I use that on my skin all the time. Really helps. But getting rid of it, I mean you can have where they actually scrape it off. Will it get rid of it and never come back? I dunno. Aging. Some people call 'em sunspots. Don't stay out of the sun whatever you do.

Okay. Oil of oregano on it. Yeah, look, I, you know me and oil of oregano. I love it. You can use a combination of oil, of oregano and the Rivera try it. I like that combo, by the way. It's very good for your skin. Okay, we love you guys. Thanks for all the questions this morning. We got you all of them. I think if I missed any, would you let me know? Okay. Love you dearly. 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!