Dr. Oz Interview
TV3: You're currently visiting Australia with your family, how has the experience been so far?
Dr. Oz: I Love it, even more the kids love it and we're having a great time. I wish we could make it over to New Zealand too. My brother in law wants to come with me because he went a couple of years ago and absolutely fell in love with it. I was supposed to come this year but the way that we were tying the trip around the world it took me way away from where I needed to go. But I'll be down here again probably next year so I might want to come down and visit.
TV3: Each of your shows deals with a different range of issues. How much time do you put into researching those issues beforehand?
Dr. Oz: We spend a huge amount of time getting ready for every show and we do that by first planning out what the topic will be usually about a month out but sometimes even more if it's a really big idea. Then we will assign producers who will start pulling data with the medical unit. We've got 200 people who work on the show and about a dozen of them are pure medical people or medical students or producers. What they all do is pool medical information that's coming in and try to figure out how to make it make sense for the average human being so you're not speaking “scientist” to people. Once those ideas get pulled, the producers will start finding guests and other folks who might be able to help elucidate the ideas. As you get closer to show time I'll start looking at actual scripts and a day before the show we spend a couple of hours going over the actual specifics – who is going to move where and when, what do the props look like etc. And then the morning of the show we have a last tune up where we go over the animations and everything that has to be in the right order. Then of course we do the program. It is very much like doing heart surgery in that you are preparing every element that you need for that last review the day before the show and then at that point the heat turns up on full blast.
TV3: With the Dr. Oz show alone it sounds like you have a lot going on in your day but you're also, doing surgery, writing etc. How do you find the time to fit everything in?
Dr. Oz: It is a lot of work but what you do is a lot of work and most of the people who are hearing this are busy too. It's not about time, it's about energy. If the things you are doing are giving you energy, building the chi in your life then you're energised by it and you'll do more of it. If the things you're doing are sapping you of your energy then you're not going to want to do it much longer. The things that I do, the heart surgery that I do on Thursdays, the show we tape on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the books and articles I write on Mondays, it all gives me energy. So yes, I sleep very well at night because I'm working at an intense level haha! But I've got wonderful people around me who are very talented and keep me out of trouble and together we make it work.
TV3: What do you think people get out of watching the show?
Dr. Oz: If you think back to what our lives were like as humans, 100 or 1000 years ago, we always had a healer in our community, someone who we trusted to ask advice about important, soulful things. Sometimes they were medical ailments, sometimes they were just emotional issues we were facing and I think we've lost much of that in the modern world and certainly in New Zealand it's sometimes true that you'll go talk to your doctor and won't feel connected to them. So the show tries to realign that. It tries to make you appreciate that you do have someone who is willing to visit you in your home and give you some insight into what's going on in your life so that when you actually have a problem you can talk to your doctor in a more cognisant way and oftentimes avoid being sick at all by taking advantage of things we know are effective in preventing illness.
TV3: You're an advocate for integrative medicine but there are a lot of doctors out there who are really sceptical of that. Why do you think that is?
Dr. Oz: Well I think integrative medicine is the globalisation of medicine. It's us beginning to appreciate that just like the articles that I've been writing my whole life, or this interview that you're and I are doing will be on the web and readily available around the globe, just like finance is global. For example I put my bank card in the bank machine in Sydney yesterday and got local currency even though my money is in a bank in New York city where I taped the show. That's all global, but medicine has stayed remarkably provincial, and it's provincial in part because the parents of doctors taught them that and doctors have that same bias as some of their patients. So when you bring complimentary medicine into the fold, it's introducing approaches from other parts of the work that allows us to globalise this whole concept of how you heal human beings. So I think it has a huge and important role. That's why when I first started practicing cardiac surgery I began hearing from my patients that they wanted it from me so we created a centre at Columbia University where I practice. Some doctors didn't like that I created that centre and I don't blame them for feeling out of sorts because they felt that this was unconventional stuff that was changing their comfort level in life. That's dated, I don't think there's any excuse for doctors to seek integrative approaches especially if they don't know much about them. I think if patients want to use these therapies that are unconventional they should be free to use them as long as there's open dialogue with their doctor.
TV3: Is there any topic that you won't cover on the show?
Dr. Oz: I try to celebrate people wherever they are. I try to make people feel comfortable and let them be seen for who they are and I don't like to touch topics that don't allow me to do that. So you know I probably won't do shows on paedophilia if there's not some reason to do the program. I'll tackle almost any embarrassing topic but what I don't want to do is put you in the position where you feel embarrassed and hurt by the experience. So it's not so much the question but the intent of the question that's really the driver of whether we want to take it on for the show.
TV3: What was it like doing the live prostate exam on the show?
Dr. Oz: Haha! The prostate exam was good experience for everybody involved. Part of the challenge when you talk about the male prostate is that people are so sheepish about it, they don't like the idea of someone putting their finger up there, but it is a very effective way of assessing prostate health. It is the most effective way. So the big goal for us on the show is to get you comfortable being uncomfortable so we thought we'd do live prostate exam and I tell you, it's been a very positive experience for me to get feedback from that. That's why I talked about my colonoscopy. You know the cover of Time magazine a few weeks ago had this image of me examining myself because I had put this article in there about what a bad patient I was. I did that article because I wanted to know why it is not just me but why so many people are bad patients. Why there are so many of us who are seemingly rational on the outside and completely irrational on the inside. I think there are some reasons for that and the biggest one is not that we want to be immortal or that we think the rules don't apply to us, the biggest one is that we don't want now to stop. We want the normalcy of our current existence to continue and when you get a bad diagnosis that's not possible.
TV3: Do you think a lot of people end up getting sick or dying because they're too scared to go and get something like the prostate done?
Dr. Oz: Oh without question, I think a major cause of death is people making important mistakes that they're unaware of. I'm not talking about avoiding medical tests, that's only part of it. If I diagnose you with lung cancer it may not change how long you live but if I get you to avoid your lung cancer by taking precautions about some simple things. It's not just about avoiding cigarette smoking but knowing if you have radon in your basement which is the second biggest cause of lung cancer. That's something that a lot of our viewers right now probably don't even know about or may not appreciate that you should measure. All of a sudden it puts a little bit of responsibility on you because your doctor is not going to bring this up probably, and they're not going to measure it for you. It's an inexpensive test you can buy at a hardware store but now that you know about it you'll think about it. So lack of insight leads to many, many illnesses, some completely avoidable and some more easily treated but all of which benefit from you knowing about them.
You know, most people haven't even thought of radon. It's one of those wonderful examples of how what you don't know could really hurt you and I could give you a dozen more off the top of my head and hundreds more exist in literature. Simple things, that's what we do our show on. Listen, my biggest opponent on the show is your belief that you already know the answer. So I have to shake you up before I teach you. I've got to get you to realise that there are things you don't know about but probably want to know about.
TV3: Ever since the earthquake in Japan there has been a lot of fear about radiation exposure even as far away as the United States. As a doctor, are you concerned about it?
Dr. Oz: I'm not concerned about the radiation. I'm concerned about the risks of radiation like this happening in other places. But the radiation that was emitted in Japan, I'm sure that it fell pretty rapidly to the ground. The levels of radiation are very low, not just in other countries but in Japan. But I think it put on our radar screen the appropriate fears we should have if we are going to rely on nuclear power plants.
TV3: I have a couple of health questions provided by fans of the Dr. Oz show. First of all, it's currently winter over here in New Zealand which means it's colds and flu season. Are there any super foods that you swear by for keeping colds away?
Dr. Oz: The best nutrient to keep the cold away is vitamin D which you get from the sun. I know that can be difficult at this time of year but you actually build up reserves a little and if it's ever sunny enough to go outside, go out and get a little sun. In the meantime vitamin D pills are probably the best way to go. Take 1000 units a day, that's what I generally do when it's cold outside. It helps enhance the immune system as well as keeping bones strong and your heart healthy. In terms of foods themselves all the antioxidant foods are valuable. These are foods that have leafy green rich colours to them. Dark hued foods, deep blues, deep greens, even the yellows and oranges are effective like carrots and mangoes. They are hugely effective as antioxidants and will benefit you.
TV3: How about keeping skin healthy in winter?
Dr. Oz: Interestingly your skin quality is the best barometer of health that exists because your external health reflects inner beauty and vice versa. So if you're healthy on the inside you'll look beautiful on the outside and if you're doing the right things on the inside they will be manifested on how you look on the outside. So it's not surprising that we put so much emphasis on beauty. That said there are some simple things you ought to be doing for the outside of your body. So in addition to eating the healthy foods that I mentioned you want to make sure that you exfoliate once a week – you can use a towel to do that. You want to make sure that you wash with gentle soap so that you don't wash away the acid mantle, that thin Teflon like covering that's like cellophane wrap on your face because otherwise you take away the hue or the glow that your face should have. Then you want to try and use some type of an antioxidant cream if you can preferably at night - something that has vitamin A in it.
TV3: You're an advocate of yoga. What are the health benefits from practicing it?
Dr. Oz: Oh I love yoga! I do it every morning. I do this quick little routine. If you go to the Dr. Oz website you can actually see the workout that I do. It might be helpful to try for a few days and see if it works for you. What I love about Yoga, the reason I do it is it stretches me out, it gives me little bit of body strength so I can handle my own weight and it gets my heart rate up. Those are the three things that you want. You want to stay loose and limber, you want to be strong, and you want to be in good physical shape. All three of those things can be achieved by yoga and you won't hurt yourself doing it.
TV3: Many of us spend our work day sitting at a desk, is there anything that we can do to minimise the impact of that lifestyle on our bodies?
Dr. Oz: Well every sitting at work increases your mortality rate but you can do things even at work, subtle things that can increase your activity and one example is that you can sit forward, cross your right foot over your left knee and then push down on your right knee and that will stretch out the gluteal muscles which will limber you up a little bit. And then of course do the other side so that you stay balanced. These are simple little exercises that you can do. Even if you stand and touch your toes every once in a while it helps break the monotony and the stiffness that happens to the muscles. But I've got to say that usually at work one person gets up and goes to the other person's desk. The person who gets up is the thin person, the person who stays sitting sedentary all day long is the heavier person. So whether it be simple fidgeting at work which burns a ton of calories or agreeing to use the steps rather than the elevator, all these add up over time pretty quickly.
TV3: Just before I let you go, a couple of quick fire questions. First one: vitamin C supplements keep colds at bay. Truth or myth?
Dr. Oz: Vitamin C taken prophylactically works but if you've already gotten the flu it's too late. You have to take it ahead of time.
TV3: Drinking a glass of red wine every day is good for you. Truth or myth?
Dr. Oz: One glass of wine for women, two glasses of wine for men is good for you. It should be red wine ideally but not essentially. Any alcohol has a medicinal benefit but if you're not drinking you don't have to drink to stay healthy.
TV3: Drinking green tea heaps you lose weight? Truth or myth?
Dr. Oz: It's the truth that green tea helps you lose weight. It's got about a quarter the caffeine of coffee and dark tea but it has a lot of other catechins or chemicals in it that are energising elements. They increase your metabolism so help you to lose weight. It's a better alternative to coffee with sugar and cream in it.
TV3: Working out in the morning burns more calories than working out in the evening. Truth or myth?
Dr. Oz: It is untrue that working out in the morning burns more calories. It is true that people who work out in the morning are thinner. But why is that? There are two reasons. The people who get up in the morning to do their workouts, they don't skip them because they got busy later in the day. And if you work out in the mornings you'll burn preferentially more fat, you'll look better so I think working out in the morning is a smart move.
Interview by David Borgioli-Jones
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