1861. Q&A with Dr. Martin

Dr. Martin answers questions sent in by our listeners in today's episode.

 

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. And how are you?

Once again, welcome to another live this morning. And we're happy to have you come on as we do our Q&A here.

Okay, let's get back to the questions. This is Carla.

Okay, Carla got an alarming phone call from her physician because of her blood work. And her cholesterol is through the roof.

Okay. Now Carla is, well, let me just see, are you worried?

She is a bit anxious, she says. Okay.

The doctor scared the life out of Carla. I have to say it every time.

Look, if this show goes another day, I'm going to have to talk about it tomorrow and then Wednesday and then Thursday and then Q&A Friday. Again, I guarantee I'll talk about it.

Cholesterol. Okay.

And look, I get it. Doctors, that's their training.

They got the can't help it. They can't help but look at cholesterol as the root of heart disease.

On a daily basis, I try and undo that in your thinking. Okay.

And listen, I can't give you individual advice. Here's me.

Get your blood work, which you have. And here's what I look at.

Okay. Because when you really look at what causes heart disease, it's not cholesterol.

Because if it was, let me just give you some statistics because I was writing these down. 700,000 people in the United States.

Okay. I'm not even talking Canada.

Okay. We're 10 times less population.

So if you look at us statistically, where every bit is bad, heart disease is as bad in Canada as it is in the United States per capita. Okay.

Last year, 700,000 Americans died of heart disease. And while swallowing 200 million tablets of statins, cholesterol lowering medication, and they're fighting the wrong fight.

Okay. You've heard this on this program consistently for a long time.

Remember now, before podcasting, I was a radio guy. I had my own radio show.

I was a frequent guest all over Canada. I had my own, but then syndicated.

And then I was a guest on several radio shows consistently. And I said this a long time ago, cholesterol is not at the root of heart disease because if it was, we would have solved the problem now.

It's still the number one killer. By far, cancer is creeping up.

And let me give you some stats. Okay.

These are just stats. If you are a diabetic, there's nothing that will make you more likely to have a heart attack than diabetes.

Is that cholesterol? No.

A diabetic? What destroys their blood vessels?

Sugar. Okay.

Metabolic syndrome, I bring this to you all the time. Metabolic syndrome is at the root of heart disease.

Metabolic syndrome is food primarily. It elevates your blood pressure.

It elevates your blood sugar. It elevates your triglycerides.

It actually lowers your cholesterol, the one that I'm concerned about, HDL. It will give you visceral fat.

It elevates your uric acid levels. It elevates your inflammation levels.

And that's what sugar and carbs that turn to sugar rapidly due to your body. Okay.

So that's just the fact. Okay.

If you have high total cholesterol, what would that do for heart disease? I'm sorry.

It doesn't make you more susceptible to having a heart attack. They're looking at the wrong numbers.

I hate to be negative. I wish I was more positive.

But we're not winning the war on heart disease. We're losing it.

It's worse than ever. And this whole cholesterol thing, I'm sorry, but them there are the facts.

So when you sent in your lipids, I looked at your triglycerides. They're fantastic.

I looked at your HDL. They're fantastic.

That's what I look at because I look at metabolic syndrome. I look at insulin resistance, which is metabolic syndrome.

And again, I bring to you what is the worst, worst than smoking for heart disease? What's worse than smoking?

Because we got the memo on smoking pretty well, right? People don't smoke.

When I was a kid, everybody smoked. Think about this for a minute.

If you're a diabetic, you're 10 times more likely to have a heart attack than even a smoke. Well, that ought to tell you something because being a diabetic doesn't elevate your cholesterol.

It elevates your blood sugar. You've had severe insulin resistance because diabetes, remember now guys, remember the teaching is really important.

Diabetes is what? The last thing that's going to happen on the road of metabolic syndrome.

Because diabetes, your body's dedicated to the fact that it doesn't want you to become a diabetic. Your body will do everything it can to stop you from being a diabetic in spite of what you're eating.

It's dedicated to keeping sugar out of your bloodstream. What does sugar do inside your bloodstream?

It ain't purdy. What it does, it destroys blood vessels and you have a heart attack.

Forget what it does in terms of strokes. So guys, this is the point I have to make, Dealey.

I don't mind. I don't mind.

I bring you the story of cholesterol because, first of all, I've been around long time. I studied cholesterol.

I had to. And I was told when I was in school in the 70s, cholesterol, I studied it.

In order to pass, I had to agree with the premise. Even though when I went to the university of the Martin household, see, I went to school before I went to alternative medical school.

I went to the Martin school, my dad's school, who became a diabetic. And I studied under him.

And I learned cholesterol wasn't at the root of anything. It wasn't cholesterol.

It was sugar. So I knew that.

I watched my dad eat steak six days a week and roast beef on the seven. That was my father.

He said, son, it's sugar diabetes. And diabetes makes you more likely to have a heart attack than any other condition.

And it ain't even close. That ought to tell us something.

You understand what I'm saying here, guys? I know that tomorrow I won't give you the same lecture, but I'm going to have to answer another question about this because it's scary.

Who on earth wants to have a heart attack? Not you and not me.

Okay? When I'm telling you, they're looking for love in all the wrong places.

And cardiologists, your physician, they can't help it. It's the way they've been trained.

And if you look at heart disease, it's not got better. It's got worse.

You know, like, if it doesn't work, why are we still doing it? But I'm not holding my breath, guys.

Okay? I tell you why.

There's the overarching principle. I got to say it again.

You have major forces at work. Okay?

Major forces at work to keep this narrative cholesterol is at the root of heart disease. And the narrative, you're going to have a hard time changing it.

And I'll tell you why. Because you got big pharma, the number one selling medication of all time, or statin drug, not aspirin for pain, statin drugs, number one on the hit parade.

And then you got big food. And they control the FDA, Health Canada, the media, they pay for media.

And they say, Doc, here's what they say, like watch commercials. It doesn't matter what drug it is, just watch the commercial.

And they'll say this at the end of it. Ask your doctor if this drug is good for you.

They don't care if you ask your doctor or not. They're not aiming at that.

You know what they're aiming at? They're not even aiming at you.

They're aiming at, you know, how much money we spend on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, you name it, CBC, whatever. We spend a lot of money with you guys.

We don't want no negative stories. Or we're not going to spend the money that we spend on the media.

And they owned all the medical journals, Hook, Lyon and Sinker, they have all the medical journals. You're going to try and change the narrative?

Well, good luck with that. I'm John the Baptist in the wilderness crying out, repent, because it ain't cholesterol.

But I'm just a little guy. Okay.

I thank God for my audience. You know, we've reached millions of people a year.

I'm very thankful about that. But guys, I haven't changed my tune, right?

And look, you guys, you know what you have? You have every right to turn me off if you don't want to listen.

Because I get people that go, I'm not listening, Doc. I know that's all right.

I still love you. I still love you.

I want people. Well, when I was in practice, I used to tell individuals, then I got in media and I told the masses that would listen.

I want to educate and I want to give you the other side. Okay.

Okay. So, Carla, you got a shortened version of my background because I'm sorry, but this is the way it is.

Medicine, not easy to change medicine. It really, really isn't.

Okay. Anyway, okay. Let's get back to the questions. 

Long, long answer, but I just figured, okay, I got to give it to you.

Jeanine, how are you? One of my thoughts on NAC, which is an amino acid supplement.

And look, I like it. It's a precursor to glutathione, but I like Navitol better.

Look, I'm biased, guys. I really am.

Okay. I tell you right out front, I'm biased.

I've been around a long time and Pine Park extract is probably the supplement that's been studied more than any other supplement, with perhaps the exception of vitamin D, but I need it. Guys, tremendous research.

And I've been using it personally for over 35, 40 years. Okay?

And in my clinic, 35, 40 years. So, whenever you give me an antioxidant, like NAC is an amino acid supplement, I like it.

It's probably better absorbed if you use it in an IV, but I compare it to Pine Park extract and I go, it's not as strong. It doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier as rapidly.

I find Pine Park elevators, glutathione, every bit as much or more. So, again, you have to understand I have a bias, because what I do is I compare to what I know, what I know clinically, what I've been using clinically with Pine Park for very close to 40 years.

And I compare everything to that. Any other antioxidant, I compare to it.

And I go, yeah, it's good. I read all the research.

I like it, but I like Pine Park better. It does more things.

Okay. I hope I answered your questions, Ginny.

I got no problems if you want to take it though. Nicole is asking, why do older women grow black hair on their face?

It's called horror mounds. Nicole, you're a woman.

You're complicated. Men are not complicated.

Women, complicated. They're beautiful.

Women are much more beautiful than men are. But with beauty comes complications, because you have ovaries.

Men don't. You have a complicated system of hormones.

Your thyroid is very much connected to your estrogen and progesterone. And usually when women get hair growing in the wrong places, the thyroid is involved, but so is estrogen dominance.

Now, even when you're older, believe this or not, because it's true. Estrogen becomes, even though it's going down, I get that.

You get older, you don't have as much estrogen, but compared to progesterone, it's dominant. That will add hair to your face, where you don't want it.

You can grow a beard, little wee hair on your chinny, chin, chin, and maybe a little bit of a mustache, ladies. That's too much estrogen that elevates your testosterone.

It's a balancing act. And when you're out of balance, you can slow the thyroid down.

You're not converting T4 to T3. Your thyroid goes into a coma for a lot of women.

They look at food sideways and they gain weight. They grow hair in the wrong places.

They lose hair on their head. It thins out.

Their eyebrows thin out, and yet they got little wee hairs on their chinny, chin, chin. Is it fun?

No. Is it reality?

Yes. And that's why.

That's why. And then you add some aging in there, what I call free radical damage.

Okay? And if you don't believe in free radical damage, I saw a picture of me when I was 30, I think.

And I'm 74 now. Okay?

Who is that guy? I look at him and I go, that ain't me.

Did I ever look like that? My word.

Anyway, Nicole, thanks for the questions. Carol's asking a good question about hormones, too, because she said, I started medication for low thyroid 14 years ago.

Is there a possibility of restoring normal thyroid function at this point? Oh, for sure there is.

For sure there is, Carol. Okay?

You got to take the pyramid out. Let me get it, because I do this all the time.

Dr. Martin's little pyramid.

I've been using this pyramid for 30-something years. Oh, yeah, more than that.

And I can't draw. I flunk art in school.

Okay? But I draw a pyramid and then I put the thyroid on the top.

I put the ovaries on the bottom. Halfway up, I put your adrenals, representing the cortisol.

In the middle, I put another circle, which is your insulin. And in order to balance this out, you got to do it all.

And one of the things you start with, Carol, if you want to restore your thyroid, you better eat right. A lot of people don't see the connection between food and their thyroid.

So, well, food's got a lot to do with it. Because if you were a carbohydrate, you're going to have a liver that's gummed up.

You're going to produce way too much estrogen. You won't convert T4 to T3, which your thyroid needs to work properly.

There's a lot of moving parts in this, but you better start with food. And then, depending on your symptoms, I would fix within the pyramid.

Cortisol needs to be balanced. Estrogen and progesterone needs to be balanced.

Your insulin resistance needs to be fixed. And your liver needs to be emptied.

All of the above. Okay?

All of the above. But is it doable?

Tens of thousands of my patients would tell you yes. Okay?

Would tell you yes. See, doctors, I get it, because their training is numbers.

It's a lab, the lab hijacked medicine. It hijacked it.

Where doctors used to be, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. Those were the doctors of the 1950s and 60s.

And then the labs took over because TSH, I think, was 19, I was in school, 71, 72, maybe they came out with the TSH and that became the holy grail for medicine to measure the thyroid. So instead of symptoms, okay, they relied on the lab.

The lab will tell me how you're feeling. No, it won't.

No, it won't. And in my clinic, we took symptoms, okay, over, we did blood work too.

But it symptoms trumped the lab. I love lab, okay?

But I don't get hijacked by it. I don't get hijacked by it.

Okay? Because the thyroid, it's complicated.

Okay? It's complicated, has a lot of moving parts to it.

Thanks, Carol. Joanne, how much red meat can we eat in a week as much as you want?

How much can you afford? You know?

Because like I said, when my dad got diagnosed in 1968, even the diabetic, there's no one in the universe that ate more steak than my father and rose beef on Sunday. I mean it.

Okay, that was Joanne. I think we're done, guys.

Okay, guys, we got a good week because I got some great studies here, brand new things that come out. But not too early to send your questions in for Q&A on Friday, okay?

But Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, probably just gonna do some studies that I have here in front of me. Okay?

Okay, guys, thanks again for watching. We appreciate it.

You have no idea how much we appreciate it. We love you guys more than you know.

Okay? More than you know.

Okay? And thanks for all the feedback.

Thanks for all the love coming our way. Okay?

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