1924. 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 once again, welcome to another live this morning. Nice to have you on with us. Don't be shy as you get your notifications.

Say hello. We're happy to hear from you. Okay. Question and answer Monday.

And first up is Sandra. Is there a connection between elevated lipase and triglycerides? Possibly. Okay.

So trigly... You guys know this. Okay. So let's just do review, review, review.

Okay. What are triglycerides? They're fat balls. Okay.

Three, fat ball. And your body makes them. You don't want too much of triglycerides. You don't want triglycerides to be high.

Because if you have high triglycerides, you're eating too many carbohydrates and sugars. That's especially high fructose corn syrup. They pack up the liver. And then when the liver is the Costco parking lot, doesn't have enough parking spaces, your body sends out the fat made from sugar into the bloodstream.

Okay. Now, the question is asked, can that affect lipase? Look, it's an indirect relationship. Lipase is a measurement of enzyme.

Okay. You've got lipase, you've got amylase, you've got protease. Lipase, they measure that because if they're looking for a condition called pancreatitis, pancreatitis, it's possible that if your triglycerides are way too elevated, it can affect your pancreas. And your lipase could go up.

That's how they measure acute pancreatitis. They don't care so much about the triglyceride, but they do check the lipase. Okay. So at the end of the day, even acute pancreatitis, it could be caused by a duct between the gallbladder and the pancreas.

You've got a gallstone that gets lodged there. That can elevate your risk of acute pancreatitis. It can be deadly. You can get sepsis from that.

Okay. And then Sandra is asking another question. Okay. So is there a connection?

Yeah, possibly. Okay. Now she's asking me about uric acid and urea. If you're a urea, you're asking because you're asking about a blood test in Canada.

In the U.S., uric acid. In Canada, urea. Different measurements of the same thing. It's measuring your uric acid.

Okay. So let me see now. Okay. Now I don't understand there.

Now I'm getting lost a little bit. Okay. I know your preference is less than 500, I think is what you're saying. Right?

Of uric acid. Yep. Her blood tests show 310. Okay.

You're in normal range. The UA bracket seems to be... My body has been having lots of flare-ups. Okay.

Flare-ups of Gout. Okay. Sandra. And listen, I've said this a lot of times.

So, okay, Gout. Guys, if you're having flare-ups, it's not even a good time to measure your uric acid or your urea. Okay. Why?

Because when you're having a flare-up, your uric acid or urea will be low. The best time to measure uric acid is when you're not having any issues with Gout. No flare-ups. Then you can get an accurate reading.

Okay. So, Sandra, I don't know if that answers your question, but if you are getting recurring Gout attacks, then assume it's Gout. Don't wait for the measurement. Okay.

Assume it is. So, cut back on your sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup. Lower your insulin. Lower your insulin.

Lower your insulin resistance. Lay off the carbohydrates. And I've said this a million times. It's not purines.

It's fructose more than anything else. So, cut that out. Kidneys. Lots of water.

There's actually research on three liters of water to flush out the uric acid. Okay. Everybody makes uric acid. It's whether it starts forming crystals in joints.

But you can have elevated uric acid and not even have Gout. I use it as a biomarker for inflammation. It can be a very important biomarker for inflammation. Okay.

So, Sandra, if there's anything I didn't answer in your question, resubmit it. And not exactly like that because I don't know if you're asking me anything else. Okay. So, if you want, Sandra, like I said, I like to answer everybody's questions.

Shelly's asking a question. Her husband had a mild heart attack last year. He was 65. Two stents were inserted.

Okay. Can artery plaque be removed? Good question. Okay.

Good question. Here's what causes plaque. Okay. Because I'm going to answer here Teresa's question too because she's asking about a coronary calcium score.

C-A-C. Okay. Coronary calcium score. And that's a new technology now that shows you plaque around your coronary artery.

Okay. So, let's talk about that for a second because it's a good question. Okay. Your husband had a heart attack.

They put in stents. I'm sure they have them on, you know, usually after a heart attack, here's what happens. You get a cocktail of medication. Often blood thinner.

A hundred percent of the time they got you on a statin drug and blood pressure medication. Usually you get a cocktail, often a diuretic. Okay. And they want you to take all of it.

Okay. Blood thinner. It's a cocktail. I had a few friends, cardiologists, and they always gave that cocktail.

Okay. Now, let's talk about plaque for a minute. Like what causes atherosclerosis? Okay.

What causes damage? You have to go to the original start. What causes the Teflon layer of your blood vessels to be damaged? Okay.

And I've done programs on this, but what we're going to do is a review. Okay. So, insulin is a big factor in heart disease. Okay.

What do I say all the time? A diabetic is 10 times more likely to have a heart attack, have a stroke 10 times more than the average population. Now remember what I'm going to say here, because I think it's important. A lot of people, diabetes, by the way, is the last thing to happen.

What's the first thing to happen? Your cells, even your endothelial cells, they resist insulin. That creates inflammation. It's a response to insulin resistance.

Okay. So, inflammation. Now look, you fall, you scrape your knee, that's inflammation. But what about if it becomes chronic?

Okay. If it becomes chronic, that's what damages blood vessels. Okay. What?

Inflammation. The other is glycation. What's glycation? When you have sugar, sugar glycates damages your blood vessels.

It's the first thing to happen with elevated blood sugar. That's why you have an organ called your pancreas. It's dedicated to getting sugar out of the blood stream. Out, out, out, out.

It's a no parking zone for sugar. Okay. For example, you eat five donuts. Don't do it, but let's say you did.

And donuts are going to turn to sugar in nanosecond. Or you drink a soda, a Coca-Cola, high fructose corn syrup. What does that do? Elevate your blood sugar.

What does insulin do? It says, you know what? You can't park there. Come here.

Out, out. Get out. I got to park you. Okay.

Sugar, why? Because sugar destroys your blood vessels. Your body knows that. The dieticians don't know it.

Doctors don't know it. They don't know it. You learn it the first day in medical school, but they still don't know it because they tell you to eat in moderation. Sugar, yeah, you can have some sugar.

Your body needs sugar. Says who? Says not one person that has studied the body properly. Sugar is destructive to your blood vessels.

It causes a condition called glycation. It damages. It takes away the slipperiness, the Teflon layer of your blood vessels. It damages it quickly.

A diabetic, for example, why do they have so much trouble with their eyes? Blood vessels. Kidneys, blood vessel. Brain, blood vessels.

Heart, blood vessel. Legs, circulation. Why do diabetics, why do they lose their legs? Circulation, blood vessels.

Sugar destroys blood vessels. Got the memo? It's just a fact. You got glycation.

You got inflammation. You got oxidation. Okay. What was smoking doing to blood vessels?

Okay. Why is smoking causing heart disease? Oxidation. There's inflammation there too.

Oxidation. Rusting out. So you have smoking and you have a bad oil called your seed oil. They damage your blood vessels by oxidation, inflammation, oxidation, glycation.

Okay. And stress. It pours gasoline on the fire of inflammation. Just pours gasoline on it.

That's why chronic stress can be very damaging to blood vessels because it pours gasoline. Okay. And one of the real good measurements is homocysteine. Okay.

Doctors don't do it, but they should do it because homocysteine is a very good measurement of smoke damage. Like if you had a chimney, right? And you got a fire, but it's not going, the smoke ain't going out the chimney. It's coming back into the house.

That's, it's very damaging. That's what homocysteine is. It's a wonderful test. It should be under 10.

And if it's high, you got homocysteine is high, you got damage, smoke damage inside your body. It's where your cells are not communicating to each other through the smoke damage. That can damage your blood vessels. Okay.

Triglycerides. What are they? Fat ball. They damage your blood vessels.

Have you noticed I haven't talked about cholesterol yet? It's cholesterol is on your side. Cholesterol doesn't damage your blood vessel. As a matter of fact, you want the high, especially HDL cholesterol.

Why? Because they take your triglycerides out of your blood vessel. Okay. So can plaque be removed?

Well, look, if you lubricate, okay, here's what I'm going to say about heart disease. Okay. If I was your husband, here's what I would do. Okay.

I'm not even going to talk about meds. I never told the patient, ah, maybe if you were my patient, I'd give you all the information so that you could make an informed decision. Okay. And I was never big on statin drugs, ever.

But you want to take a statin? Then I used to say this, okay, but you better be taking CoQ10. And you better be taking high DHA. Here's another thing that damages blood vessels.

Low nitric oxide. Okay. We didn't even learn this in school. I never learned nitric oxide in school.

I didn't know that it existed. They won a Nobel prize in medicine. I think in the 1980s, sometimes, they identified a molecule in your body called nitric oxide. It opens up your blood vessels.

What helps you to get elevated nitric oxide? Vitamin D. You go in the sun, and your blood vessels love the sun. Everything in your body loves the sun, including your skin.

And don't let anybody tell you different, that they don't know what they're talking about. They lied, Johnson and Johnson. They lied and people died because of low levels of vitamin D. You can't fight cancer without vitamin D.

You can't really fight heart disease without vitamin D. The sun, it elevates your nitric oxide. I love lubricating blood vessels. Make them slippery.

High DHA oil. Okay. High DHA oil. I love elevating nitric oxide, vitamin D.

I love pine bark extract because that elevates nitric oxide. It elevates and increases your blood flow. That's what you want. Okay.

I like curcumin, anti-inflammatory, decreases inflammation in the body. Food, vitamin K2. Okay. Because let me answer, I'm going to get to this question.

I might as well do it right now. Teresa is asking, I got a cardiac calcium score of 240. Is that really bad? No, it's not really bad.

How old are you? I'm a young man. I'm a young man. Is that really bad?

No, it's not really bad. How old are you, Teresa? Okay. Because you have to take age and look, I don't mind coronary calcium score.

I don't mind it. Look, you give me that test, I'll look at the numbers, but I don't put all my eggs in that basket of coronary calcium because it's trying to predict a future heart attack where you're going to be all, but it doesn't measure soft plaque, only calcium, the hardened plaque. Okay. Calcium does not belong on your blood vessels.

Calcium should be in your bones. What delivers calcium to your bones? Calcium, your body needs calcium, but it doesn't. You don't want to park it in the no parking zone.

Okay. Sugar is a no parking zone in your blood vessels. So is calcium. You don't want it parking there.

It's going to clog up your blood vessels, it's going to harden your arteries. You don't want that. What takes calcium out of your blood vessels? Vitamin K2.

Do you have to take a supplement? No. No. Eat eggs, meat and cheese.

You have calcium, but with K2, the problem in our society, we're not eating enough eggs. We don't eat enough dairy, good dairy, butter and cream. We don't eat enough of that stuff. The world went stupid on cholesterol.

The world went stupid on vegetables and fruit. Like you got to live on vegetables. The Mediterranean diet. Well, you got that diet wrong.

The Mediterranean diet is very high in fish and oil and eggs and dairy. That's the Mediterranean diet. Any fruits and vegetables? I mean, there's some in there.

Okay. Did I say you couldn't have any? I didn't say that. Okay.

So what? You want vitamin K2 and the vast majority of people never get enough of that vitamin K2 and their blood vessels pay the price because calcium will sit in your bloodstream clogging your arteries and you want that out. It's in a no parking zone. So you want to get a coronary calcium test?

Go for it. But don't go shoot yourself because the doctor's scaring the life out of you. Anyway, Marilyn, does tomato juice affect the liver? People are always looking a way to have juice.

Eat your tomato. You don't need juice. Marilyn, can you have a little bit of tomato juice? Okay.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. But guys, you know me, drink water and coffee. Why do you have it? You like tomatoes?

Eat the tomato. God wanted you to eat it, not to drink it because it's full of fructose. Okay. I know it's got lycopene in it.

So does the tomato when you eat it. Eat tomatoes, not potatoes. I like that. You can have potato once in a while.

I love it. I told you, guys. Okay. I'm not a carnivore.

Okay. Only carnivore. Look, if you like that, good for you. Okay.

I saw hundreds of thousands of patient visits over the last few weeks. I saw a lot of thousands of patient visits over the years. I never said you can't have any fruits or vegetables. I did it for 30 days.

But after that, you want to have it? I don't want you to live on those things. I don't want you to drink juice because it packs up your liver. Okay.

That was Marilyn. Marilyn, I'm on your side. Okay. I am.

Thanks for the question. Laurie's asking, can Dr. Martin chime in on low thyroid causing high cholesterol? I could care less about the thyroid causing cholesterol.

Fix your low thyroid though. If you're not feeling good, the thyroid, okay, if your thyroid is running on fumes, fix that. I could care less about high cholesterol. As a matter of fact, I want you to have high cholesterol.

Okay. I know I'm in the minority. I'm not trying to get elected. If I was trying to get elected, I wouldn't tell you about the hoax of cholesterol.

Don't buy it. I don't buy it. Why do you want low cholesterol? It had nothing to do with heart disease.

It has everything to do with you getting dementia. You want fat in your brain. You want cholesterol. When we went low fat, when we went stupid on our planet in the 70s, look at the results of a low fat diet.

Look at the results of a low cholesterol intake. It's been an unmitigated disaster. It's been a disaster for heart disease. It's been a disaster for Alzheimer's and dementia.

You need fat. And the only unhealthy fat is man-made fat like Crisco and margarine and all those crappy oil that were never meant for your body. It's polyunsaturated, Dr. Martin.

Yeah, that'll kill you. Saturated fat is good for you. That's why eat the fat when you eat a steak and eat the fat when you have an egg. Have the oat.

I'm getting excited today. And the lawyer is asking, yeah, wondering if just monitoring the triglyceride HDL ratio. You see, Laurie, you're so smart. Yes.

Measure that. Monitor that. What are your triglycerides? You want them to be low.

What is your HDL? You want it to be high. That's what you measure. That's what you look at.

That's important in your blood work. Low triglycerides and elevated HDL. If they're equal, I can live with that. It's like a tater totter.

I always teach that. Low triglyceride. Get your triglyceride down. You do that with your diet.

And that's what affects heart disease. Merci beaucoup, Laurie. Marilyn. She was in an auto accident.

No fun. What supplements for whiplash and aches and pain? Well, look, I'm big on a couple of things. Again, I always get back to your DHA.

I always come back to that because I'm a big guy on oil. When you have DHA oil, you got EPA too. I like EPA. I do.

I just talk about DHA all the time because I know what DHA does in your body. It's very anti-inflammatory. And we already talked about what it does to heart disease. It lubricates your blood vessels.

It lubricates your joints. I love curcumin. Very anti-inflammatory. I love combining curcumin with Navitol, pine bark.

Blood opens up. Good for joints. Really good for joints because you open up nitric oxide. The more blood that goes to an area, the better it is.

Okay. So I like the combination of those three things, Marilyn. John's asking about polyps. Well, it's your body.

A polyp is not the end of the universe. You got a polyp. And doctors are focused in on like that's pre-cancerous. Well, it's your body's ability, your body's innate way of encapsulating debris and cancer cell.

Your body is fearfully and wonderfully made. Okay. It is. And your body has a very, very powerful anti-cancer mechanism.

One of them is forming polyp. That's why I hate going to play with them. Okay. I know.

I know. You know, I took away some polyps and, you know. I'm not against biopsies, guys, but I think they're way overdone. Okay.

Way overdone. Your body has a way of encapsulating cancer cell. It's amazing. Anyway, that was John.

Hi, John. How are you, my friend? Andy, listening to an expert on a podcast the other day made very good argument on the importance of copper in our deficiencies. You know what, Andy?

Here's me. See, I agree with that. But to say that that's the root of all your disease, I don't buy that. Okay.

Now, let me just say this. Eat steak, you get copper. Eat eggs, you get copper. Eat dairy, you get copper.

Dr. Martin, what about liver? Yeah, I don't like liver. That's why I don't talk about it.

But it's good for you. Okay. Because it's got copper, but it's got a million other things in it. Do I like copper?

Yeah. Do you take it as a supplement? No. Eat it.

That's me. Andy. Okay. Jody, Suzanne, my daughter has extreme nipple pain when breastfeeding.

Okay. Now listen, I'm trying to think if there's a little trick that really helps. You guys, who's asking? Jody, Suzanne, you ladies on the program today, any tips for Jody and Suzanne?

Try a little bit of this is okay, just something that you might do. Take a little bit of, believe it or not, probiotic. I love probiotic. Put a little bit of powder, maybe with a little bit of a little wee touch of olive oil and right on the end, very anti-inflammatory there.

But guys, if you got any advice, I love our scroll because I can't, not that I can read it, unless I take my eyes off of what I'm doing. But you might, Jody and Suzanne, get any other, what causes, Carmel is asking, what causes lung inflammation? Well, a lot of things can. Okay.

A lot of things can cause lung inflammation. Aldehydes. Aldehydes is a form of oxidation that you get when you're consuming a lot of bad oil. Okay.

Aldehydes. I've done podcasts on this before that the new smoking in a lot of ways is these middle of the aisle grocery store packaged goods, highly processed foods that's cooked in the wrong oil. Okay. That can cause lung inflammation.

Leaky gut can cause lung inflammation because you can get a fungus, a candida, a yeast in the body. Lots of things can Carmel. Okay. Gillian asking for a friend, going through perimetopause, having trouble sleeping, join the cast of millions.

And the doctors recommending antidepressants, HRT. Well, look, I'm not big on that. I'm just not big on that. Okay.

I'm not big on antidepressants because you're going through a hormonal, get your hormones. You're going through hormones. The number one thing, the low hanging fruit, the poor sleep, get your cortisol down. That's your stress hormone.

Get the cortisol down. Get your insulin down. That has an effect. Okay.

That has an effect. Elevate your melatonin, not by supplementing with melatonin, getting the sun. The sun's out right to my right here this morning. Okay.

The sun's out. Just me looking at that sun. Elevates my melatonin. That helped.

Well, elevate progesterone, lower estrogen dominance, not estrogen. I don't want you to cut out estrogen. Your body makes estrogen, but I don't want you to have extra estrogen compared to your progesterone. That'll mess you up.

That's why I like flax seeds. Consume. Okay. Linda, did I answer this the other day?

Hearing a lot about creatine. Well, look, if you want to take creatine, okay, I got no problem with it. I'll just tell you. When you eat an egg, creatine.

You eat meat, creatine. You eat cheese, creatine. So I would rather you eat your creatine. Creatine.

Okay. You want to take it as a supplement? Okay. Okay.

But you know me. You can't out supplement a bad diet. And a bad diet is when you're not eating eggs, meat, and shapes. EMC.

You're missing out. Creatine, carnazine, carnitine, CoQ10. Arginine. All those amino acids.

You know where they're from? In steak. Hamburger. Kick the bun out.

That's how you eat it. I'd rather you eat creatine. But if you want to take it, okay. Okay.

That was Linda. Janine. Would someone with no thyroid still benefit from taking a thyroid supplement? Well, absolutely.

Your thyroid's been removed. You can live without a thyroid, of course. But I would definitely, you were in my clinic, I would have you on our thyroid supplement. Because it's a combination of things.

And they're all good for you. And you'll never really replace your thyroid, but you can balance out the rest of it. And because it'll only help. So absolutely.

I would have you. I guarantee I have you on our thyroid supplement. And by the way, have a look at it. Not going to get anything better than that for the thyroid.

Okay. Your B12 formula. This is Carolyn. Okay.

An athletic man who suffered a stroke two years ago. He eats a rigid diet of EMC. Smart guy. No sugar.

Is there a point where you can take too much B12? No. No. B12 is water soluble.

Your body will take what it needs. Okay. If you get high numbers of B12, what does that mean? It's water soluble.

I had doctors call my office. John, they're mad. Why are you giving a patient B12 when their numbers are high? I said, okay, I'm going to give you supplementation 101.

Doc, listen. B12, water soluble or fat soluble? They have to think. Some of them didn't know.

I said it's water soluble. What does that mean? It doesn't accumulate. Vitamin D is fat soluble.

Could it accumulate? Yes. Okay. Can it become toxic?

Rarely. B12. Anybody ever get toxic from B12? No.

No. No. It's water soluble. And 80% of the population is deficient in it.

And 80% of the population is deficient in vitamin D, too. It's not optimized. Okay. Good question, Carolyn.

I think I'm almost done here. Okay. Yeah. Tamar, how are you?

Okay. So I know what you've been saying about sugar, not red meat. Okay. Now that still applies to stage five chronic kidney disease patients.

Well, listen, why they got to stage five? It's because they were consuming way too much sugar. Sugar destroys kidneys big time. Now, once you get there and you're at stage five, well, now you've got to be extra careful, okay, because stage five, your kidneys are not working.

And, you know, are they on dialysis yet? Okay. And I know they talk about protein and, you know, like, look, it's stage five. You know, you've got to be careful with everything at stage five, okay?

And I don't know, like, you know, you're not in my office. So I, you know, I saw stage five patients, obviously, but look, I never bought the protein thing and stage because I know it didn't get them there. They didn't get to stage five because they were eating too much steak. I can guarantee you that.

Now, the other thing that could cause stage five and, you know, kidney damage is medication. Medication, very hard on the liver and medication, very hard on kidneys. Okay. So I've seen people with kidney damage and serious kidney damage because of ad bill over the years.

Medications destroyed their kidneys. So steak doesn't destroy the kidney. Now you're at stage five. I'm going to be very careful what I say here, okay, just because look, this is dialysis stuff and you're not my patient.

So I got to be very careful. Anyway, I think we got them all. If I missed anything, would you let me know and see how many questions we had? Beautiful.

I love it. Okay. Two days of doing Q&A. We got some great studies.

We're going to look at that. Okay. We love you guys. We'll talk to you soon.

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