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Nov. 20, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:39
Investigating Human Growth Hormone Injections | Dr. Oz | S6 | Ep 40 | Full Episode
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Women swear it works.
The perfect youthful body after just a few shots.
But at what cost?
Dr. Oz investigates HGH injections.
Do they work?
Plus, join Dr. Oz as he rides along with real-life paramedics helping patients who are fighting life-threatening conditions.
Not a good sign.
Coming up next on Dr. Oz.
Is an injection from this the key to a perfect body?
Well many think so.
It's called HGH or human growth hormone.
It's been used and abused by athletes to increase muscle mass and improve performance.
Now many women are turning to HGH to achieve the perfect body.
But at what price?
I sent investigative reporter Elizabeth Leamy undercover to clinics across the country where HGH is now the drug of choice.
Hollywood is obsessed with human growth hormone.
Stars like Sylvester Stallone, Debbie Harry and Suzanne Somers all say they've injected it to look better.
That this is what 60 looks like.
Yeah!
HGH advocates say these controversial shots boost energy and sex drive, burn body fat and build lean muscle.
And now HGH is no longer just for the Hollywood elite.
It's gone mainstream with an estimated 6,000 new patients getting prescriptions every year and still more buying HGH online.
HGH clinics are opening around the country, promising to prescribe just the right dose to reshape your body.
Can you tell me you're the doctor?
Yeah.
So we went undercover in a major American city far from Hollywood to see what doctors who promote HGH are saying and selling.
It's a hormone that helps to keep you just like you were 20 years old.
It breaks down fat cells.
Your fat cells have liquid inside of it.
What it does is it wrings the fat cell liquid out of it so it oxidates faster.
Your muscle mass is good.
It's a bleeding mass.
Clinics we visited seemed eager to get us on the HGH bandwagon.
You're going to feel like I'm eating a bunch.
It's snoring as a sign of you.
And they were quick to dismiss potential dangers.
Is it safe?
If prescribed and monitored by a specialist, absolutely yes.
I use it.
I might want you to.
But studies show HGH may cause side effects like aching joints and even raise your risk for diabetes, heart failure and cancer.
And then there's the question of whether it's even legal to prescribe human growth hormone for people who don't need it to treat the handful of rare diseases and deficiencies it's approved for.
Bottom line, prescribing HGH to sort of age gracefully is legal.
As long as we find that you're not over the ranges, absolutely.
Everything that we do is FDA-free.
But the FDA told us it's against federal law to distribute HGH for unauthorized uses, and that using it for anti-aging hasn't been proven safe.
If it's not safe enough for the FDA, is it safe enough for you?
Elizabeth Levy is here.
Your undercover investigations are spectacular.
They're so revealing to me.
What surprised you the most about this one?
You know, what really surprised me is how mainstream it is.
I mean, we found HGH everywhere from simple doctor's offices to swanky anti-aging clinics.
And here's what scared me.
Some of these doctors offered to mix me up my own personalized HGH cocktail at a compounding pharmacy.
So really, you would have no idea what's in that syringe that you're shooting into your body.
And at up to 5,000 bucks a month, you're paying a lot of money to potentially put yourself at risk.
To be an experiment.
Thank you very much.
Let me explain to you all what HGH is.
The body naturally has HGH. It's made in the brain.
You need growth hormone to help you grow throughout childhood.
That's how you get to be nice and tall and vital when you're a teenager.
It also helps maintain your tissues and your organs throughout your life.
But here's why HGH is so alluring.
Your growth hormone is at its peak when you reach maturity around age 20, up there.
And then it plummets dramatically and declines naturally as you age for the rest of your life.
Now some experts say that boosting your HGH levels when they're low, let's say you're in your 50s, back up to where they were in your 20s with man-made HGH, not the stuff from your brain, can make you look younger.
I want you all to meet Theresa.
She was looking for that perfect body when she started taking HGH injections.
I was about to turn 54 and I was looking in the mirror and it struck me like lightning.
Something had to change.
I felt and looked awful.
I had no energy.
I'd gained 40 pounds.
I'd never weighed that much in my life.
I went online to find out what I could do to get back in shape and feel better and I researched growth hormone and finally found a doctor to prescribe it.
So I started HGH injections about four months ago and I couldn't be happier with it.
An average of eight pounds per month.
It has dramatically changed my body and my life.
We're joined by Teresa.
So why are you a believer in HGH? Well, look at me now.
I lost 40 pounds and I feel like I did when I was in my 20s.
Over how much time did you lose 40 pounds?
Four months.
In four months?
That's a huge difference.
Besides the weight, and you say you feel like you're younger now.
Specifically, what does that mean?
I haven't exercised at all, but I have muscle tone now, and I have a waist, and I have legs that look good again, and this is what I used to look like until I hit 40. And I feel fantastic now.
And describe to me how you felt before you finally took that leap of faith to take HGH. Oh, I was feeling terrible.
I felt old and fat.
I had no energy.
I just, I was miserable and felt sick all the time.
Any change in mental function and anything else?
Oh, definitely.
My brain feels sharper and clearer and I just feel so much better.
I can't believe it.
And you're pretty confident from the injections, not other things you're doing?
I think the HGH has been a significant factor in my recovery.
Thank you very much.
I'm going to actually take a seat in the audience.
I'm going to show everyone else what you probably already know about HGH. I'm going to come back and ask you what you think.
Great.
Thank you.
So let me show you all what happens to your body when you inject the HGH. This is exactly what we're talking about.
The injection goes in their man-made version of HGH. It goes into the bloodstream.
And when it goes into the bloodstream, it does three important things.
It goes into your fat cells where it convinces them to let go of their fat.
They break down because the body got to get going.
It also does the thing we know most associated with it.
It builds up muscle.
We just saw that.
And the proteins release with this HGH, stimulate big muscles.
And something people don't appreciate, it also strengthens our bones.
It helps mineralize them and build up the bone strength so that you actually physically, in theory, would look a lot younger.
It's sort of the vitality hormone of the body, which is again why it's so alluring.
So here's the big question, everybody.
Why are some doctors against HGH injections?
Dr. Jeffrey Mechanic is here.
He's an endocrinologist who is firmly against prescribing HGH even though his patients are asking about it all the time.
So I just saw a fairly compelling testimonial.
I understand all the basic numbers.
Why are you so firmly against HGH injections?
Well, there's really no evidence right now, in 2014, that growth hormone has any kind of an effect for anti-aging.
In 1990, when there was a publication in New England Journal of Medicine, a small number of elderly men who were found to lose weight And have some increase in muscle mass and also some improvement in skin.
Now, these results were misinterpreted as an anti-aging effect of growth hormone.
And as a result of this misinterpretation, now it sort of is out of control that there's this whole industry using growth hormone as an anti-aging compound.
Just to ask you clearly, do you believe HGH hormones can give you the perfect body?
No.
No, I don't.
So, what are the risks of taking it?
So, human growth hormone has a lot of risks.
Some of the risks could be minor.
They could be as little as just fluid retention and some swelling, bloating, headaches, arthritis, joint pain, but they could be as severe as heart disease, increasing risk for cancer, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes.
So, it's these risks that we're really concerned about.
Maybe if I can show everyone why doctors like Dr. Kanek are concerned about accelerating the disease, and very specifically, cancer.
And I'm going to point this out because, and before we run this, let me point another big theme out.
It doesn't, we sort of all agree, cause cancer.
But if you already have a small cancer that otherwise would have sort of been there for a while, When you give growth hormone, run the animation, it's going to stimulate blood vessels to grow around it, nutrients to fertilize it, and allow that cancer to now grow much more rapidly.
Because giving HGH to a body that has a tumor in it could be interpreted as something that would say, hey, go, prosper, go out and spread yourself.
Now, this is purely theoretical.
I point that out because when we don't have enough information, people are trying to guess what should happen.
But that's basically what's going on in this field.
But you can also accelerate growth elsewhere in the body.
For example, you can accelerate the growth in your wrists, which could lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, which has been shown to be impactful here.
So there are two ways you can get HGH, two basic ways.
You can get a prescription from your doctor or...
You can get it online in any of these forms.
If you're offered these online, do they work?
Well, first of all, this is a scam.
There's two issues.
Just because a dietary supplement says that it contains something doesn't mean it's in there.
That's number one.
Number two, if you're going to be taking these substances by mouth and you expect to take in growth hormone, it's going to get digested in the stomach.
So it's not going to get into the bloodstream and it's not going to really have an effect.
So to market these products really for a tremendous cost is a scam.
So there's no way taking growth hormone by mouth can increase your body's growth hormone?
At present in 2014, no way.
All right, so I asked the FDA. I wanted a statement from them about what they're doing to make sure consumers are safe when it comes to HGH being prescribed for cosmetic reasons.
I'm leaving aside this over, you know, this web part we're all agreed can't possibly work, impossible to work.
It is a scam.
Here's what the FDA said.
No HGH drug has been approved for anti-aging and products containing HGH are not dietary supplements.
The FDA is taking enforcement action against unapproved HGH products and companies or individuals that illegally market or distribute HGH. So they're taking a pretty hard line.
That's about as hard a line as I've had the FDA take about anything we've talked about on the show.
So with all that, are you surprised by that statement?
So I'm not surprised about the statement, but what surprises me and surprises a lot of other doctors in this country is why isn't this enforced?
To have this substance that is being dispensed, sometimes not even by physicians, or by physicians, licensed physicians, but not for an FDA indication, that's a problem.
So I think we're going to always find With as many different people as there are on the planet, different responses to things like growth hormone, it's part of the reason it's so complex.
So let me give you my final thoughts.
I think HGH is too expensive to use right now, especially because the results aren't worth taking the risks, unless you have an absolute problem with the amount of growth hormone in your body, and I'm concerned that we are way over-diagnosing that.
Today, a high-protein diet and a healthy diet in general, exercise and sleep are what work day in and day out to keep HGA levels up naturally.
That's the path I would take.
We'll be right back.
Coming up next, they're the critical link between life and death for many people.
Helping patients who are facing life-threatening conditions.
Join Dr. Oz as he rides along, saving lives with real-life paramedics.
Coming up next...
All new Dr. Oz.
How do you deal with all these rumors?
Kris Jenner sets the record straight.
Going through a divorce, that can make you sick.
It can be very toxic.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
When I'm not at the studio taping the show, I'm at the hospital helping patients who are facing life-threatening conditions.
But I'm not the only one.
There are teams that have healthcare professionals who work long hours to save lives.
Just last week, I had the opportunity to ride along with a group of dedicated paramedics to see what their day is like.
EMS operator 36, a location of your emergency.
I got a call.
All right, I'm with you.
453 responding.
What's the call?
I came in as an unconscious diabetic and it's a little distance from here so we're got the lights and sirens going and we'll see if we can get there and make a difference.
So when we get there we're going to grab our bag with all our equipment in it.
We're going to go in the house.
What's wrong?
How much insulin does he take usually?
Did mom say how much insulin he takes?
You don't have the ability to check bloods here, obviously, right?
No.
We can check your glucose.
Yesterday it was 4.50.
Oh, it was 4.50?
Yeah, 4.50.
Oh, my goodness.
You okay, Tiger?
I'm tired.
You tired?
How you feeling?
So you start feeling dehydrated when?
When I woke up.
What time did you wake up?
Like 5 in the morning.
Let's get the wreath, guys.
We're going to scoot you over, okay?
I'm gonna help you.
Ready?
All right.
You OK, Tiger?
What's your first name?
Angel? - That's all right. - Ready? - Just try to keep your hand flat, okay?
Yeah, it's slow, but it's slow.
Angel, you okay, buddy?
We have blankets here.
I got a cold.
It's not a good sign.
453. On our way to here with a 19-year-old male.
Complaining of general weakness and not feeling well.
Blood sugar is 450. Right now we have him supine, dry and cool to the touch.
Covered with a blanket.
We start an IV. Got fluids going.
We're going to go up to a 500cc bolus.
This is the only vein he's got left, I think.
Yeah.
Besides the diabetes, do you have any other medical history?
Asthma and allergies.
Have you peed in the last hour or two?
Was it dark urine, light urine?
No.
Dark.
She's in the front of the ambulance, alright?
Stay with us, tiger.
Alright, we're pulling into the hospital now.
Almost there, Angel.
You're gonna be fine, Angel.
Angel, we're just going into the ER, Angel.
He was talking about 125, but first there's 110 there.
Completely dehydrated.
Did your belly hurt you at all?
What happened?
You know that pump he has?
That actually works really, really well.
Of course, you gotta fill it.
But he's, like I said, he's 19. Mom could be mom for so long.
I told him, my mother died of this, my father died of this.
Do you have diabetes?
No, I have cancer in the lungs.
You have lung cancer?
I've been 19 for three years and haven't went back to the doctors because I'm dealing with two sick kids.
Come on, let me take you back to your boy.
Let's take care of him first.
One by one, we're going to deal with these things.
Yeah.
Come on in, Mom.
Take it easy.
Get your help that you need.
Angel, take care of you because you've got to take care of Mom, too.
Keep her in the equation.
All right.
Good luck.
We'll be talking to you.
All right, buddy.
Take your arm straight, okay?
Get your blanket.
Thank you so much.
The young man, his name is Angel, who we attended to on this call, is on his way to recovery, thanks to these two paramedics that are sitting next to me, David Fowler and Joseph Sabrizi, who allowed me to ride along with them.
What I wanted to say, what people may not realize is that they deal with so much more than just administering medical treatment.
They help families cope in the middle of crises.
So David, you're in the trenches.
You're both in the trenches all the time.
What's your biggest challenge?
Probably the variety of medical emergencies we see, and what we have to do to just, we have to be part diplomat, we have to be part psychologist, we have to be part RN, part MD, we're medical detectives in a sense, so you wear a lot of hats when you're out there, and our ability to just juggle everything we have to juggle and at the same time take care of the patient can be challenging sometimes.
You know, the experience that I had, it was like watching a soap opera, really.
I mean, I'll speak to it very openly.
So Angel is a wonderful young man.
The reason he had lost his insulin was because there was domestic violence.
His mother and he were chased out of the home.
He dropped the vial of insulin, so of course the pump won't work.
He wanted to go to work because he's trying to provide for his family.
So he was going to go to the doctor after being at work, but the reason diabetics die is because of what was happening to him.
A blood sugar of 450, that's why he was nearly unconscious, historically killed people.
Now we have treatments, but we can't get them to them, which is, again, you mentioned you're part psychologist.
That's what you're struggling with.
Joseph, how do you prepare for a job like this?
Well, every day it's a learning experience.
We learn something new every day.
Every call, every patient we see, you're always learning on this job.
I've been doing this job in EMS for about eight years now and I feel like I have so much more to learn.
And one of the hardest parts of our job is when we go into someone's home and see them in one of their worst days.
They're having the worst day they've had in a while because they had to call us.
They didn't wake up expecting to need an ambulance and to go to the hospital.
You've changed lives for the better.
I applaud you both for it.
Thank you for taking me along.
Dr. Oz, we also have a gift for you from us at Jersey City Medical Center.
We have a jacket for you with your name on it there.
Oh, I get my own Dr. Oz paramedic jacket.
Let me try this on.
You're an official member of Jersey City EMS. What do you think, guys?
All right.
I applaud you all.
We'll be right back.
Coming up, sometimes awkward, always embarrassing.
The worst odors reveal.
Smelly situations become a thing of the past.
The simple solutions to eliminate odor for a fresher you are right under your nose.
Coming up next.
If I have learned anything over the last six seasons is that you love asking me your most awkward, embarrassing health questions.
So today, it's, that's awkward, your worst odors ever.
Now in this edition, I'm gonna study some of these interesting questions I've gotten.
How many of you can relate to this woman who's trying to figure out our first awkward odor?
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There's a guy, a smelly bra is not something that I have a lot of experience with.
Is that commonly felt by a lot of women?
No one's gonna admit it perfectly.
So, we actually picked Angela from the audience, who was honest enough to talk about this.
How are you, Angela?
Good thing.
How are you?
So, explain to me this awkward odor.
It's just a smell you can't really explain.
It's awful.
Awful.
Awful.
Her facial expressions, I think, captured it in that little video?
Oh, yeah.
Definitely.
You want to know what causes it?
No, I don't know.
I mean, you know, I sweat a lot.
I run and, you know, running after my puppy who we just got and my grandson.
So, you know, you...
Could be the sweat.
I don't know.
Could be the sweat.
Come on over here.
I see all those faces, pained faces in our audience.
There's actually a medical reason for this awkward odor, and I built you what is perhaps the largest demonstration ever on this topic right here for you.
Wow.
So, we had this specially designed, by the way, just to make sure everyone was very clear on this.
Consider this a representation of a bra, all right?
We've got two different kinds of glands that can cause the bra to get wet.
Majority of them are things that can actually just sweat when you're active.
Running after your dog is a good example.
That's the kind of sweat they're called eccrine glands.
For example, the under-bra sweat you might get from that will be typical, okay?
That doesn't smell usually.
Doesn't have a lot of funny things going on there.
Nothing funky happening.
It's the aprican glands.
Those are the ones that are in the armpits and the groin.
And you guessed it, that's around the nipples.
When that starts to sweat, those glands, they're thicker.
There's a lot of bacteria around there that love to grow.
As the nipples begin to sweat out, the bacteria begin to grow in there, and it begins to look like this.
That's a bit dramatic, perhaps.
Let's take the left side as a better example.
So, it starts off like this, right?
And that sweat that happened because you were anxious, or you just weren't feeling right, initially wets the bra, and then the bacteria begin growing in there, and that gives off one heck of an odor.
Did I make this a little clearer for you?
Oh, very clear.
Very clear.
Now the question is...
Maybe I'll understand better.
You'll understand better.
So, the question is, what do you do about this?
So, if you look at a regular bra, here's an example of one.
You'll notice that on the inside, you'll have areas that get stained more often, and those stained areas are where the bacteria will grow.
That's thick material, right?
So it doesn't breathe very well.
And that odor, once it's there, it's hard to get rid of.
So what do you do, and what have you tried in order to get rid of that odor?
I just wash it with my regular clothes and hope and pray that the smell will go away.
It doesn't do it for you?
Sometimes, no.
Can I share something that's going to blow your minds?
Experts recommend you wash your bras every two wears.
Every two wears.
How many women here, honestly, wash their bras every two wears?
There are a couple of very clean people up here on the top.
None of the men put their hands up, thankfully.
So I actually polled women in my office, and you know what they said?
It's really hard to wash your bras every two wears.
It's doable, but it doesn't seem very realistic for a lot of folks.
So since you're washing, do you wash every two wears, every five wears?
Every two to three wears.
So you do try to do that?
Yeah.
No benefit.
Come over here.
So I asked around, I wanted to get some expert advice, and this is what I was told.
The best way to do this is when you wash your bras, you're going to add either a half a cup of baking soda or a half a cup of vinegar into the mix.
When the bras washed with these, the baking soda will absorb the odors.
The vinegar is actually toxic to any bacteria, so it eliminates them really quickly.
So do your laundry normally, toss this in there, just toss a little bit extra of these things in there, and I think it'll be valuable.
Okay, wow, that's great.
You want a present for being on the show?
Here, it's the absolute least I could do.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Angela.
All right, the next awkward question about odor comes from Ashley on my Facebook page.
She said, my gas is no joke and it's very smelly.
My husband runs out of the room, quote unquote.
Ashley very bravely has come here herself.
How are you?
Good, how are you?
So, let's talk about this odor a little bit.
How long has this been going on?
Oh my goodness, Dr. Oz, this is so embarrassing, but it has been going on for years.
Okay, a little history here.
Dairy.
Just asking generally, is that part of your diet?
Never part of your diet?
Is it part of my diet?
Yes.
Yes, it's a lot of my diet.
It is.
Cheese, milk, yogurt, everything you can think of dairy.
I love it.
And it's good for you too, right?
So I think, right?
Or so it would seem.
Right, right?
Let me show you what the problem is here.
I'm only suspecting dairy because I know it's a very common cause for bad smelling stuff coming up from below.
Okay, okay.
Especially people who look healthy like you.
So let's say you have a little bit of milk.
Now where does all the food go?
Goes down into the stomach, and once it goes into the stomach, it goes into the small intestines, right?
From the stomach to the small intestines, we'll absorb the milk, the little particles there, the white things, those bubbles.
If you don't have the right enzymes, all those milk particles go into your intestine, the colon, the big part.
And once it's in the colon, this is like out of the matrix.
The bacteria attack it like this, these little bacteria, these blue things.
And they love drinking the milk, and they go poop, and their poop is gas.
All that gas comes out, and your colon begins to, you know, ponderously big.
And when you're sitting down, mind your own business, even though you haven't eaten too much, you'll look like this.
Yeah.
Folks, does that look familiar to all of you?
Yes.
That's classic blowing.
That's how it was this morning.
This morning?
I had quesadillas last night.
I was like that this morning.
Did you pass gas?
I sure did.
You got it out of the way?
I got it all out.
All out.
Just making sure.
So the question is, what are you going to do about it?
Because I agree with you, dairy is sort of important to what we do in our day-to-day lives.
But it turns out not all dairy is created equal.
Okay.
Some dairy you can get away with, some you can't get away with.
So, as an example, you mentioned cheese.
The hard cheeses, the aged cheeses, tend to have less of the lactose, less of that milk stuff that the bacteria like to eat.
So again, you can get, you know, cheddar works, Parmesan works, you can use Swiss.
So this is one bit of advice.
Milk, get rid of it.
You're not going to be able to tolerate that if that's your problem.
But you can get almond milk or soy milk.
But what if you don't like the almond milk or something?
Then, bring the milk back, but you gotta take lactase pills with it.
Lactase is the enzyme that your intestines use to digest it.
People who have lactose intolerance, like I just showed, they don't have enough of that enzyme, or you overwhelm the enzyme with the milk.
So adding a little bit of extra lactase will help you out so you digest the milk before it gets into your colon, that way your bacteria aren't feasting on you, you're feasting on you.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Blessing on you and your spouse.
All right, all season long, I'll be answering your awkward questions.
Send me yours on Facebook and Twitter.
I'll be right back.
Next, move over Mediterranean diet.
A new diet from another part of the world has people buzzing.
It's heart healthy, can lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and help you drop pounds.
And best of all, no counting calories.
Coming up next.
All new Dr. Oz.
How do you deal with all these rumors?
Kris Jenner sets the record straight.
Going through a divorce, that can make you sick.
It can be very toxic.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
You all know about the Mediterranean diet, but there's a new diet from another part of the world that can help you lose weight and improve your heart health.
It's the new Nordic diet.
Chef Marcus Samuelsson is here.
He grew up in Sweden eating the foods of the Nordic diet.
Welcome to the show.
How are you?
Thank you for having me.
I'm fascinated by it.
You know, when I think of Nordic, I think about Swedish meatballs, I think about smoked fish.
So what is this new Nordic diet all about?
Well, you know, it's really more a lifestyle play than just a diet.
You know, it's actually, you know, in Sweden, the seasons are very short.
So we go out and do a lot of foraging.
We use our berries.
We use also root vegetables much more.
We don't have tomatoes and things like that.
So kale, cabbage becomes really, really important.
And then on top of that, our breads are different, right?
It's all rye bread, whole wheat, and pumpernickel.
And you think about that versus white bread, for example, it's a major difference.
So I became curious about this because there have been some big studies looking at the Nordic diet.
Here's what they've shown.
First of all, it seems to be heart healthy.
It lowers your cholesterol.
It seems to lower your blood pressure in as little as six weeks, which is a big difference in a small amount of time.
And it seems to result in pretty easy weight loss without counting calories.
And whenever I see that, I get curious because I want to know how it works.
Alright, so here's the deal.
I've asked a couple of viewers coming over who are going to look at the Mediterranean diet because they take it right now and they're going to compare it To this new Nordic diet that we put in front of them today, and they're going to taste and then vote.
And all of America gets to witness the vote, so you'll get to get an idea of what our taste buds would accept.
You ready to go, women?
Can we bribe them?
No, they're not bribable.
No, they're very rigid.
They're very rigid.
Look at them.
And they're ruthless in their voting.
With a very sophisticated palate, by the way.
I see that.
So let's start with canola oil versus...
Olive oil, which is much more known, of course.
You know, when you travel throughout Scandinavia, you see raps fields, which is essentially, as we call it, raps, right?
This is an oil that we do most of our cooking in.
We do maybe a little bit of olive oil, but just to finish off, you know, we don't have olives in Scandinavia.
Ladies, please taste the canola oil.
We need some honest opinions.
And once again, olive oil actually has more saturated fats than canola oil, and you can't cook olive oil.
So there's a couple reasons why canola oil might be better.
It actually seems to help with the cholesterol quite a bit.
Okay, so you're saying we should choose proteins that come from seas and lakes.
Yes, absolutely.
Not from farms.
So how do you actually use these fish in the Scandinavian diet?
Well...
You have mackerel, which I grew up on, and salmon.
And, you know, we just, we seared or grilled salmon or mackerel a couple of times a week.
We pickled and preserved them as well.
That's where our smoked salmon, our gravlax come from.
And these have all the good fats that you want.
So, ladies, we put in front of you, plated for you, a salmon with some dill.
That's a very traditional Nordic meal.
Please take a taste of it.
Ladies, I'll come back to you in a second.
I want to see how this compares to your taste.
Let's walk, as we're doing that, move on a little bit.
Talk about the Nordic diet, sort of staples, which are...
As opposed to potatoes and the things we often give people, this is about berries and about cabbage and about root vegetables.
Yes, absolutely.
Should we be eating more of this?
Well, I mean, you have Brussels sprouts and kale that became so popular over the last couple of years here in America, right?
That's where I grew up on.
In Mediterranean food, there's a lot of pastas, right?
If you think about what we eat, we eat kale, we eat cabbage, we eat those things, it's much better for you.
So, you're trading off couscous and potatoes for these root vegetables and berries and the like.
And now let's talk about the rye bread.
This is a big deal.
A lot of people don't like rye bread, but this is dark rye bread.
It's different.
If people have not had rye bread, explain why this is so critical.
And please taste your rye, if you don't mind, before I come back to my voters.
You know, you have great fibers, and you talk a lot about digestion.
The fibers you get from Rye Bright is so beneficial.
And this is a perfect afternoon snack.
It's healthy.
You can have it before a workout or afterwards.
It's super delicious.
And this you can buy in any store now.
Yeah, we checked this out, available.
If you're going to eat these things, they will fill you up a lot, which is good, because you won't eat that much, which is one of the reasons I think it helps the weight loss.
Okay, those are all the health benefits we talked about.
We talked about all the foods.
Now for the voting.
Lindsay, you want to go first?
Just give me an idea of what the foods you liked and didn't like.
I absolutely love the salmon.
It was great flavors.
I liked the added dill.
I thought that added a nice touch and it was fresh and was cooked really, really well.
I want to keep eating it.
Jennifer, what are your thoughts?
Well, you know, I loved all of it, but I'm really partial to just good bread.
I could be very happy.
Would the kids eat that?
The kids, as long as it tastes delicious, which it does, they'd be eating it.
And Meredith, I understand you're a fan of the rye bread.
Is that true?
I am.
Well, you know, I'm Jewish, so we grew up eating the Jewish rye bread all the time.
But this one, I think, is a little better.
A little better.
Nice.
You want to see if we convinced them?
Let's let, come on.
Without bragging you guys even.
Come on.
Let's see if we convince you.
You have cards in front of you.
I'm gonna see you just flip it either to Mediterranean or Newark, depending on what you like.
I'm closing my eyes.
Three, two, go, vote.
There you go!
Thank you!
I even brought my yellow shoe.
Take a victory lap.
He'll take a victory lap while I introduce you.
You can check out Marcus, a fantastic book.
It's called Marcus Off Duty.
It's in stores now.
For these recipes, you can go to DrRoz.com.
I'll be right back.
Coming up, what's in your medicine cabinet?
Is it empty or overflowing?
Cut through the clutter with inexpensive and multi-purpose must-haves.
The three essential items no medicine cabinet should be without.
Coming up next.
We are bringing a healthy back this season and want you to bring it too.
Grab your prescription pad for fun and sign up for free tickets today.
You can go to dros.com slash tickets and sign up.
So what's in your medicine cabinet?
These are photos from Facebook and Instagram and Twitter.
Now notice, some of them are empty, some are overflowing, and then there's everything in between.
So today, I'm making it easier for you with my three medicine cabinet must-haves to get to the first thing everyone ought to have in the medicine cabinet.
How are you?
Hi, good.
Nice to meet you, Dr. Oz.
Bambi, I understand this is your medicine cabinet, which is quite sparsely adorned.
My cupboard is bare like Old Mother Hubbard, but I do have a drawer with toothpaste and I have a cosmetic bag.
Is that where you put everything that's supposed to be in your medicine cabinet?
It's a medicine cabinet.
I don't have a lot of medicine.
Good for you.
All right.
So the first medicine cabinet must have...
Okay.
...is actually aspirin.
Aspirin?
Lifesaver in a bottle.
Aspirin I've talked about a lot on this show, but let me get concrete about this.
Do you have aspirin, by the way?
Do you use it at all?
No, but Poppy's 94 and I take care of him and I make sure he has an aspirin every day.
I thought I was a little too young to start an aspirin project.
How old are you?
Can I whisper?
Whisper.
She said 50. I did not!
Is Poppy your father?
Yes.
Good for him.
Yes, he's here.
He's 94. Where's Dad?
Way behind Dad.
That's his bucket list.
He wanted to see you.
Being on this show is his bucket list?
Yes.
Oh, I love that.
This is not his bucket list.
I love all of you who have that in the bucket list.
They get to come and join us.
Thanks Poppy.
I'm proud of you.
So women over 55 ought to probably be on aspirin.
Okay.
So you're not quite there yet.
Okay.
But I think you ought to have this in your medicine cabinet.
And plus you can give it to Poppy if he's not taking some already.
Aspirin can help prevent cancer.
Really?
Yes.
In esophagus, in lung, in pancreas, in colon.
You know, heart issues, of course, more about heart attacks.
But these are of huge benefits.
And they become more evident as we get a bit older.
This is for men and women.
For men and women, men actually start taking it younger usually than women.
So you have a couple years, maybe you have some men who are your age who might benefit.
And Poppy's always there as a backup.
And just one a day?
I usually give two baby aspirin a day.
Two baby aspirin.
Yeah, so it's half of an adult one.
And I have all the guidelines on dros.com, so please don't make mistakes.
It's pretty simple, straightforward, easy to get.
Thank you very much.
Well, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Next is the overflowing medicine cabinet.
This belongs to Leader.
Leader, why do you have so much stuff in there?
Well, my husband and I recently relocated from Florida, so I'm adjusting to New York lifestyle and not a lot of room and lots and lots of stuff.
Plus, I love my products, and if there's a good sale, hey.
So what's the item you use most commonly from your medicine cabinet?
Probably my facial products.
Moisturizer, exfoliator, creams and stuff.
And my husband uses it too, even though he won't.
Oh, husbands.
Yeah, he's there.
Husband.
Husband's here too?
Yeah.
Where's the husband?
Wave your hands.
Over there.
He's next to Poppy.
He's across from Poppy.
He's very shy back there.
Okay, second medicine cabinet must have, may surprise you, it's baking soda.
Oh, really?
Of all the things down there, I didn't notice baking soda.
No, I have it in my kitchen, but I would never think of it in my bathroom.
Yep, just like most folks.
Kitchen's a common place.
We can use it for cleaning, for cooking, lots of good things there.
But if you mix it with water, it's a fabulous antacid.
So what you do, take one teaspoonful of baking soda, put it in eight ounces of water, warm water ideally, mix up a little bit, put it down.
And it works well.
So if you ever have a little bit of reflux or a little bit of indigestion after a big meal, that's a present from me to you.
Oh, thank you so much.
And share it with your husband.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
All right.
The next medicine cabinet for it belongs to Dr. Elizabeth Tanzi, one of my favorite doctors.
She's here on behalf of our sponsorship partner, Aquaphor, which is our third medicine cabinet must-have with Dr. Tanzi.
Since she's so busy taking care of people's skin issues, why is Aquaphor in everyone's medicine cabinet that you see?
Aquaphor is a medicine cabinet essential because it is such a great solution for so many skin care needs.
It works beautifully for dry hands, dry feet, chapped lips.
I use it to prevent diaper rash for babies.
And for me, I'm a physician.
I wash my hands 40 times a day when I'm seeing patients.
It's the only thing that keeps my hands soft and supple.
And how does that help heal the skin?
Well Aquaphor is interesting.
It really creates the perfect skin healing environment.
Because first, it gives you a layer of protection to reduce outside irritants from getting into the wound.
But then, unlike petroleum jelly, it's semi-occlusive.
And what that means is oxygen is allowed to get through and stimulate healing from the wound.
So it's really a perfect environment for wound healing.
In fact, I use it for all my patients in the office who get a skin biopsy or a small mole removed or any laser procedures because it promotes healing so beautifully.
So I was curious about how this would work for a more garden variety problem.
Susan has been putting it on her feet for the past five days.
Now, she was honorable enough to share her feet with us when she started.
Here they are.
Here's her feet.
And she's in the audience now.
How are you?
Very good.
Did it go well?
It went excellent.
May we see the results?
Yeah, sure.
She's like Cinderella here.
Oh my goodness.
It looks really good.
Yes, it works great.
And how did you apply it?
I put it on very generously and then I put a sock on and I slept with that on.
I just put it one time on right before I went to bed and that was all.
You know, Susan, this is interesting because a lot of people would consider this just a cosmetic issue, but for a lot of people it isn't.
It's a medical issue.
Because if you think about it, when the heels get very, very dry, they can become cracked.
And if you get cracks, that can introduce bacteria which can become infected.
And particularly for people who have diabetes or poor circulation, an infection in the foot is a very serious thing.
So I talk to all my patients about using Aquaphor with the socks, just like you did, to keep their skin supple and soft in their feet to prevent the cracks.
Yeah, because I've had cracks in the past where that happened.
So it worked wonderfully.
She's a happy, happy customer.
I'm very happy.
So, listen, thanks to Aquaphor.
Beginning tomorrow at 3 p.m.
Eastern, the first 2,500 people to go to DrRoz.com will get a coupon for a free tube of Aquaphor healing ointment.
You know what?
This is the usual, polite pitter-patter.
Can we give some to the audience, Elizabeth?
Absolutely.
Everybody in the audience, you're going home with some, too.
Enjoy it.
Massive applause.
We'll be right back.
currently battling a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer.
And now cancer patients from all around the world are sharing their bald photos in support of Joan.
These pictures are being posted on social media and they have gone viral.
All of you out there, you guys keep fighting.
We are very proud that you're sharing your story, and we're gonna keep telling that story on the show as well.
Now it's time for in case you missed it.
First, before getting a growth hormone injection, specifically human growth hormone, I want you to try going the natural path first.
There are two things you can do to keep your HGH levels up naturally, and guess what?
They don't cost much.
One is the sleep.
Seven to eight hours a night works.
When we sleep, we produce HGH. Step two is some kind of resistance exercise, like 10 minutes a day.
Get a band and focus on different parts of the body, different muscles every day.
Now, I know a lot of you have awkward problems with smelly clothes, especially the bra, which is what we talked about today.
And I know many of you are not washing your bra every two times they're worn, which is what the experts are saying you should do.
I could ask for a poll, but I won't embarrass you.
So, when you wash your bra, You ask yourself that question.
And whenever you do wash it, the best way to get rid of the odors is by adding a half a cup of vinegar or baking soda to a hot load of laundry.
The vinegar will kill any odor causing bacteria and the baking soda works fabulously to absorb smells.
Finally, I want to thank the dedicated people at Jersey City Medical Center's Emergency Services.
I had an incredible time learning a lot, especially from paramedics David and Joseph.
They allowed me to ride with them as we went out, and I got to witness them as they save lives.
We all need and appreciate what they do, because when it comes to saving lives, every second counts.
I'm in awe of all they're able to accomplish.
Let me close with a warning.
Please be careful about what you buy online, especially weight loss pills.
There's some dubious people online that prey on folks like you who are trying to do the right thing for your health.
Sometimes they even make it seem like I'm endorsing their products, but I don't.
To see a full list of our trusted sponsorship partners, go to DrRoz.com.
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