Dr. Oz, truthfully I don’t know a lot about him other than the fact that he’s apparently a promoter of healthy living and his show happens to be viewed by certain members of my household every now and then. Hence, when I came across information regarding his support of New age woo I couldn’t help the urge to look into it.
He has, promoted medical treatments that for a lack of a better word are complete and utter bullshit.
“On one episode a member of the audience asked him about having their feet massaged to relieve stress. Nothing wrong with that, it would have been fine for him to recommend a foot massage as a method of relaxation. However, instead of just telling the person to get a foot massage, he recommended a method of deep tissue massage known as Rolfing. A Google search of Rolfing quickly reveals tons of pseudo-scientific gibberish about how it is supposed to “align the human body with gravity” and can “restore energy flow.” It also leads people to other non evidence based “energy healing” modalities such as Reiki and Reflexology. So what is the problem with this? Nothing if all you want is a massage because it feels good, but many practitioners of these techniques claim that they can use them to actually cure serious diseases. If a person who is seriously ill avoids real medical treatment for one of these methods it can lead to their condition becoming worse or even to their death. By having a real doctor point a largely uncritical audience to these methods, it gives them an air of legitimacy that they don’t deserve.” (http://skeptologic.com/2008/05/15/the-not-so-wonderful-wizard-of-oz/)
I do have to stop and wonder why someone trained in cardiothoracic surgery like Dr. Oz is giving advice on how to relieve stress. Last time I checked you aren’t going to hear a therapist recommending heart surgery to cure your depression. Not to mention the promotion of a method that could cause people to forgo needed treatment is downright irresponsible. Similar to many TV figures Dr. Oz uses stories of individuals trying a form of treatment to cure their problem and then claims that everyone can rely on such treatments.
“On another episode, Dr. Oz recommended acupuncture to a woman who had pain in her shoulder. He sends her backstage for a treatment with an acupuncturist and (surprise surprise) when she comes back, she feels better. Many people watching this view it as a test that shows that acupuncture works. In order to test something like this properly, you would need a large group of people with similar symptoms. You would then need to divide them into two groups at random. One group would get so called “real” acupuncture where the practitioner inserts the needles where they should be inserted (acupuncturists believe there are what they call meridian points in the body) and another group would get sham acupuncture where the needles are inserted anywhere or are not inserted far enough. What is most important is that the study must be blinded so each group does not know what they are getting. Better yet, the test should be double blind so that neither the participants nor the person administering the test know which is which. Granted, this would be difficult to do with acupuncture, but some methods have been devised, such as having the needles inside of a sheath so the practitioner and patient don’t know if the needle is going in fully or not. These controls are important to filter out bias, the placebo effect, etc. Many studies have been done on acupuncture and other “energy healing” techniques and the all follow a similar pattern: The better designed the study is, the less of an effect there is and the best designed studies show no effect at all. Again, if all you are looking for is pain relief and you get a placebo effect from it there is nothing wrong with it. But right there on the show the acupuncturist, while giving Oprah herself a “wellness” treatment, claims that “Acupuncture treats any condition from allergies to, obviously, pain to gastrointestinal issues—a wide range of chronic diseases.” Telling people that sticking little needles into their skin can treat “any condition” and “a wide range of chronic diseases” is egregious, irresponsible, and dangerous.” (http://skeptologic.com/2008/05/15/the-not-so-wonderful-wizard-of-oz/)
Here we have the highlight of a larger problem which is that people are too willing to buy into what they see promoted by one expert on television. They will take at face value what they see promoted because, how could someone possible be stretching the truth in order to promote themselves? In reality, the science dictates that we look further into the issue before drawing conclusions.
Dr. Oz is undoubtedly a well-educated man so it’s rather baffling that he would make statements like this,
“Alternative medicines, Dr. Oz says, deal with the body’s energy—something that traditional Western medicine generally does not. “We’re beginning now to understand things that we know in our hearts are true but we could never measure,” he says. “As we get better at understanding how little we know about the body, we begin to realize that the next big frontier … in medicine is energy medicine. It’s not the mechanistic part of the joints moving. It’s not the chemistry of our body. It’s understanding for the first time how energy influences how we feel.” (http://skeptologic.com/2008/05/15/the-not-so-wonderful-wizard-of-oz/)
This quote just reeks of New Age medical delusions. Forget chemistry, forget science, those aren’t the keys to making medical advancements. No it’s all this energy flowing through us it’s our life blood, maaaan. Worse yet is Dr. Oz’s belief in alternative medicine that is downright dangerous.
“But he may be putting it all at risk by jumping the gun on resveratrol, a chemical found on the skin of grapes now being touted as an anti-aging miracle.” (http://healthcare.zdnet.com/?p=2285)
Ok, stop right there. As soon as you hear the term “anti-aging miracle” you should focus your attention elsewhere. Why not go and see what’s on the Discovery Channel? Just make sure they aren’t running a documentary on how the crystal skulls are the key to stopping a 2012 disaster. Anyway, you’re sceptic warning bells should be going off as soon as a chemical is promoted as being a “miracle.”
“There has been some promising research done on the compound, especially in mice. But lots of things which promise revolutions in mice turn out to be mouse-chow.
60 Minutes recently had a segment touting resveratrol, along with a very low-calorie diet. Sirtris, now owned by Glaxo SmithKline, is trying to push a highly-absorbed form through the drug approval process.
Dr. Oz isn’t waiting. He’s been telling Oprah and any other reporter who will listen that resveratrol is great, a miracle. He even has a Web site pushing his own version of the supplement.” (http://healthcare.zdnet.com/?p=2285)
Now correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t this the type of thing that the anti-pharmacy crowd always rallies against? The big bad pharmacists trying to push through treatments that haven’t been fully tested is exactly what’s going on here.
I’m sure Dr. Oz has promoted effective healthy living advice on TV but, when you start to see the unscientific and even dangerous ideas that he has put forth it becomes difficult to know what information should be trusted. My advice, take the time to research the information for yourself. Healthy living is not something you can start doing based on the advice of a doctor with a TV show.
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