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Dec. 1, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:35
Uncovering Hidden Thyroid Issues | Dr. Oz | S6 | Ep 58 | Full Episode
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All new Dr. Oz.
It's a condition commonly missed by doctors.
Is your thyroid the hidden reason why you're tired, irritable, and gaining weight?
The quick checklist to see if it's the culprit.
Plus...
I'm really excited to see my father save a life.
Oz takes his daughter to work.
Come over here for a second.
This is really nerve-wracking.
The shocking moment you've got to see.
Coming up next on Dr. Oz...
Alright, today, why your slow thyroid has gone undetected.
You know what?
It's not your fault.
It's one of the conditions doctors miss most, and maybe the reason why you're exhausted and you can't lose weight.
In fact, 30 million of you could be suffering right now, and many of you may not know it.
Always exhausted.
I'd go to bed at night, sleep for 11 hours, have breakfast, and be ready for another nap.
Even though I was eating healthfully, I still couldn't lose any weight.
Constantly forgetting what I had to do.
I'd have to write everything down.
My hair was thinning.
I'd put my hand through my hair and I was pulling out clumps at a time.
I didn't know what was wrong with me.
I knew what I was experiencing wasn't normal, but I definitely wasn't sure what was wrong with me.
Though they didn't know it at the time, Cindy and Amanda both suffered from slow thyroid, a condition that develops when your thyroid can't keep hormone levels normal, causing your body and metabolism to slow down.
Slow thyroid affects millions of women, and half of you who have it don't even know it.
And all too often, neither does your doctor.
No doctor could figure out what was wrong with me.
One told me it was anemia, another told me chronic fatigue, and one even prescribed antidepressants for me.
I went to my regular physician, I went to an endocrinologist, and I went to a nutritionist before I finally got a proper diagnosis.
That's because slow thyroid can be easily mistaken for menopause, depression or everyday normal aging.
But once detected, your slow thyroid can be healed and your life transformed.
After I was finally diagnosed, my hair's growing back, I have more energy, I feel better than ever, I'm exercising, and I've lost 15 pounds.
Now I'm thinking clearly, I'm full of energy, and most of all, I don't blame myself anymore.
I don't want another woman to blame herself or suffer unnecessarily because it's something that is so common.
So, how do you know if you might have a slow thyroid?
I'm going to ask you a series of questions, and this is a very straightforward checklist I put on DrRodz.com.
It's my slow thyroid checklist.
Everyone in the audience has one of these.
Everyone at home, you can follow along with me now or go to DrRodz.com and print it out, take a test, and share it with your friends.
So, I want you to mark yes or no for each one of the following questions, but it has to apply over the last three months.
So, if it just happened last night, it doesn't count.
So, first question.
Have you gained weight?
Again, over the last three months, have you gained weight?
I'm talking about five, maybe ten pounds.
Check yes or no.
Second question.
Have you experienced brain fog?
Specifically, confusion, forgetfulness, trouble concentrating.
I'm hearing some of you say yes.
Just check the box off, I'll explain it to you in a second.
Third question, have you been unusually tired over the past few months?
For example, do you feel like you have half the energy that you should have?
Fourth question, are you often constipated?
Please be honest about this.
And often if you feel like you can't go, even like when you're going, and you sort of just feel nothing's working right, that's especially a symptom of slow thyroids.
Fifth question is, are you always cold?
Especially in your hands and feet, and particularly when people around you aren't cold, but you're sensing that you're cold.
Sixth, have you been especially moody?
Maybe you should ask your friends and relatives about that question.
Yeah, right.
So, are you depressed?
Are you stressed?
And again, I'm talking about several months of feeling this way.
And lastly, have you noticed changes in your skin, your hair, or your nails?
And very particularly, drying, thinning, and breaking of any of those structures.
So here's the key question, the one that helps you define if you've got a slow thyroid.
I want to see a show of hands.
How many of you answered yes to three or more of those questions?
Three or more of these questions.
So let me borrow that mic if you don't mind.
Keep your hands up.
So how many do you have yes to?
I have three.
Three yeses?
Yes.
Have you ever thought about slow thyroid as a potential cause?
Possibly, yeah, sometimes.
You think about it.
Have you ever tested yourself?
No, I just recently got tested.
You did?
Who else put more than three up there?
Go ahead, ma'am.
Yes, I have four.
You have four?
And have you ever thought about a slow thyroid as a cause?
Yeah, I've had problems with it in the past.
Have you been treated for it?
No.
Alright, you're exactly what I'm talking about because most people sort of in the back of their minds think about thyroids, but unfortunately they haven't actually taken the next step of figuring out if it's really causing their problem.
And what's your name?
My name is Carrie.
Okay, and how many do you have here?
I have five.
Five?
So, let me go through these.
You're experiencing brain fog.
Do you remember signing that little checkbox?
Yes, that I do.
You've been unusually tired.
Yep.
Are you sleeping more, or despite the sleep, you're not sleeping?
Despite sleep.
Just lack of energy.
You're always cold.
Yes, my hands are cold right now.
They are.
Let me see that.
Oh, my goodness.
They really are.
Yeah.
And have you been especially moody?
Oh, you might want to ask my husband about that one.
Has she been especially moody?
Look into the camera, please.
Yeah.
I'm kidding.
It's for a deposition.
You don't have to do that yet.
Here, hold this then.
You'll be coming back.
In what ways is she more moody than she used to be?
It just gets irritated at little things here and there that never used to.
Never used to.
Come on down.
If you don't mind, I'll steal you down here, Carrie.
So have you spoken to a doctor about any of these symptoms?
No, I haven't.
Is that because you didn't think it could be your thyroid?
No, I didn't.
I just thought it was just life, you know, getting older, not as young anymore.
Just life changes.
Stress, just things that you do.
If I get one message across today, folks, don't think that's the cause of why you're not feeling as good as you used to feel.
If you get five boxes or even three boxes on this survey we made up today, I want you to think first, it's my hormones and I can fix that.
Not, I'm getting older, my best years are behind me, which is not the answer usually for any of these questions.
Okay, let me show you why the thyroid is such an important issue.
Alright.
And you can put your purple gloves on.
Perfect.
And I think most folks don't appreciate that this little organ is stuck in your neck right below your Adam's apple, and it looks like that.
Wow.
It's a butterfly-shaped organ that actually is very important because it's the hormone control center of the body.
Think of it as a thermostat in your body.
If your thermostat's not working right, you don't feel normal.
But you can't always quite tell why.
And it's very common as we age for this to slow down.
So instead of blaming aging, blame what aging is doing to our body.
But aging isn't the only thing.
What do you think about your symptoms?
Are you curious about it?
I am, and I think I will be checked.
Thank you very much, Karen.
Thank you.
So, if you have a slow thyroid, what should you do?
Integrative Women's Health Expert Dr. Aviva Ram is joining us.
She frequently diagnoses thyroid disorders in her practice, and she's here with some of the answers that Karen and others are asking.
Thank you for joining us.
My pleasure.
Let's start with this first question.
Why does it get undetected so frequently?
Why are so many women in the audience, as smart as they are today, not figuring out that they've got thyroid issues?
This is such an important question because so many women are struggling with this.
So as we heard, one of the main things is that people think, oh, I'm just getting older or I'm busy and I'm keeping up with my life and I'm just really tired.
Another thing is that some of the symptoms of thyroid are a little bit vague and kind of mimic some other common things that women experience like menopause.
or even depression.
Another reason that it gets dismissed or undiagnosed is that doctors get concerned about fads and they get concerned that maybe women are just looking for an easy way out for weight loss or mood problems or other thyroid symptoms so instead of saying oh well I should go on a diet or I should get more exercise the women just want to blame their thyroid.
I even had one patient whose doctor told her if she had better control over her fork coming up to her mouth she would lose the weight.
So she came to me and she actually...
What bedside manner?
That's unbelievable.
Terrible.
And she actually had a thyroid problem.
Another common reason that thyroid problems go undiagnosed or overlooked is that there's some controversy over what range of numbers we should actually see on the thyroid test that actually diagnoses the thyroid problems.
Let's go through this.
So it is going to be part of the homework assignment to get your thyroid checked if you actually did not do well in the survey.
But when you get the numbers back, explain to us how it's going to look to a doctor and to the patient.
Okay, great.
So there are three different ranges that we look at when we're talking about thyroid problems.
One is this red zone.
And that's when this test called the thyroid stimulating hormone or TSH test that we should be asking our doctors to do or find a doctor that's willing to do it.
It comes back high.
A high TSH is in this red zone.
When that comes back high, meaning a low thyroid function, that's pretty unequivocal, and doctors agree this is a time to treat for hypothyroid.
Then there can be the green zone, and that's kind of like a green light, everything's good, everything's go.
That's a healthy zone, and again, we pretty much all agree on the green zone.
But then there's this whole area in between, the yellow zone, where a lot of women do experience symptoms that could be due to hypothyroid, but doctors say, well, maybe that's in the range, maybe it's not, I'm not so sure, and maybe don't treat.
But we do know that many women who get treated in that zone actually feel better.
So what should they do?
Because obviously it's not just a matter of popping pills.
It's not a matter of popping pills.
In fact, I love lifestyle approaches first.
So anytime we can change our lifestyle, do a little meditation, get a little more exercise, and eat healthy foods that support our normal functions, that's a great way to go over medication when you can.
So this food issue is an important one.
There are four key ingredients that can keep your thyroid healthy.
And this is where you need to all start.
Because today, if you're in that yellow zone, or you might be in that yellow zone based on that quiz, do this before you get to blood testing.
So that way when you get to blood testing, you get a really accurate number.
So also you have examples of the best way to getting these nutrients.
Yes, so what I love about food is it's the yummiest way to eat your vitamins, right?
You can do this without even having to take a lot of supplements.
So one thing about all of these nutrients that they have in common is they actually help promote the production of the thyroid hormones that we need and keep them at the normal level.
So the four we have here today are vitamin A and as you can see we've got sweet potatoes here and cantaloupe.
So really just half a sweet potato a day or one serving of cantaloupe as you can see here.
Now here on this plate we have a source of what's called selenium and selenium is essential for converting one of your thyroid hormones into another.
That's all you get?
I know, but you know what?
Oh, please.
Oh, come on.
Two selenium nuts.
You know what?
Too many can actually be toxic.
And I had a patient who thought that too much of a good thing was a good thing, and so she went home and started making Brazil nut ice cream.
So just two Brazil nuts is all you need every day to get all the selenium.
If you had half a dozen Brazil nuts and splurge, you'd be okay?
Well, maybe one time.
Oh, come on.
But toxic in too much of an amount.
All right.
Zinc.
Okay, so zinc also helps work with these other nutrients to keep thyroid function normal.
And we've got spinach here.
But you can eat several servings a week, preferably cooked or in salad.
And then pumpkin seeds and cashews, also very rich in zinc and nutritious and delicious.
Great snacks.
And Byron, we've got beans, obviously dried fruits.
Delicious looking, lean meat, lean beef.
I thought it was noodles.
I'll go for the Brazil nuts.
Iron is really interesting because not only does your thyroid require iron to function, But women who are low in iron can also feel fatigued.
And when women who have low or slow thyroid function, it can make them have heavier menstrual cycles.
And that in turn depletes more iron.
So there are many, many good reasons with hypothyroid function to keep a good supply of iron in your diet.
Thank you for visiting with us.
My pleasure.
You wrote a wonderful summary for us.
It's on DrRoz.com.
It really does cover a lot of this stuff.
Print it out.
I think it's mandatory reading if you think you're in a slow zone for the thyroid.
If you're concerned your symptoms, maybe you lose a slight thyroid.
I think you should also download the AskMD app, which will help you know for sure.
We'll be right back.
Coming up, Dr. Oz is headed to the OR. And for the first time, he's bringing along his daughter to witness a surgery that they'll both never forget.
Get a behind-the-scenes look at what it's really like on the front lines of the operating room.
Coming up next.
The plan to end toxic acid reflux.
The best foods to neutralize acid, detoxify your body, and end your pain for good.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Today, a behind-the-scenes look at what it's really like on the front lines of the operating room.
I've been a cardiothoracic surgeon for over 25 years, and every day I'm inspired by the amazing courage I see in my patients and their families.
So, I wanted to share these moments with my daughter Zoe.
So I took her to work with me to watch a surgery that we'll both never forget.
What I get really excited about is when I can cure a patient through surgery.
People like Lisa Pacheco.
She's a 41-year-old mother or two who has holes in her heart.
I was told if I did not take care of this condition, I may not last another year.
The holes in Lisa's heart are putting her at risk for suffering a catastrophic stroke.
I have nine-year-old twins, Sebastian and Sophia.
They are my life.
I don't want them to worry about me.
I don't want them to see me sick.
She's super mom.
I mean, if you were to put it in one word, that describes her.
And I'm just fortunate enough to have her in my life.
Can't fathom the thought of not having her.
The plan for Lisa is to stop her heart and then close the holes of sutures.
It's not a simple operation.
How are you?
You doing okay?
Nervous, overwhelmed.
Kids are okay?
They want mommy to get better.
These are things I want you to focus on.
You're going to focus on their beautiful little faces and your husbands, and that's what's going to get you through this.
Yes, absolutely.
Let me walk you through what we're going to do.
Okay.
So we're going to go in there and we're going to fix that hole.
Your hole exists right in that wall like that.
You're having irregular beats of your heart because so much blood is flowing across this way that is overwhelming the heart.
The electrical cables in the heart, they begin to snap.
And as those cables snap, you get the palpitations.
And we don't want that to continue.
Right.
Thank you, Deb.
Appreciate it.
Get her psyched up.
Thank you.
Please come to visit the shelter just to let us know.
I'll find you as soon as we're out.
My 17-year-old Zoe's coming to watch me operate today.
Now, of all the kids, she's the one who wants to see me operate the most.
Oh, there she is.
I'm so happy.
Come, let's go back to my office.
I'm really excited to see my father save a life and to see him do what he does every day.
So what should I expect walking into the operating room?
Are there a bunch of people in the room?
You're going to see like Noah's Ark.
You're going to see two of everybody.
Two anesthesiologists, two profusionists, two surgeons.
And in all that chaos and all that craziness, you have to create a sense of calm and peace right in the smack middle of it.
Look right here.
You can see that this bottom part of the wall that's supposed to be between the right and the left heart never formed.
It's called the atrial septal defect, or a hole in your heart.
I just hope my daughter gets to see an operation that goes smoothly.
Do you need this?
Okay, I'll be Cinderella.
Yes, Cinderella.
Me and my dad are very, very similar.
I think we're both really, really driven, and I think we're interested, obviously, in the same things.
Joy, come over here for a second.
You see this little bulge right here?
That's the wall between the two chambers, and it's bulging up with the hole that she was born with.
Oh, she was born with it?
She was born with it.
Oh, okay.
See the green line, green line, stopping, stopping, stopping.
That's the heartbeat, and it's stopped.
How is she still alive when her heart stops?
What keeps you alive is the fact that blood's still going throughout the body.
And the heart-lung machine's picked up all the slack now.
So that machine over there is doing all the work.
Yeah, no, no.
Don't catch up.
Your pressure's too high.
Wait for a second.
Yeah, it's okay.
Wait there for a second.
Hold on.
This is really nerve-wracking.
Very anxious.
Just waiting for the word that everything's completed.
See the clamp going on, guys?
The clock's ticking.
Zoe couldn't pencil me in today.
She's busy studying, she says.
But I do hope that this left a lasting impression on her, so she offered to send me a little video.
Take a look at what she had to say.
I just wanted to let you know that I loved watching you in the OR, and I was shocked when you stopped Lisa's heart.
But as a result of all that anxiety and stress, I think I'm shifting my focus here at Harvard from pre-med to pre-law.
I'm just kidding.
I loved watching you and I loved having that experience with you and I hope one day I can be as good of a surgeon as you are.
I can't wait to see you over Thanksgiving.
Love you!
Zoe is certainly argumentative enough to be a lawyer.
I love getting young kids interested in science.
If I get at least one of my kids, maybe Zoe, to be a doctor, I'll be happy.
So get back to studying so I stop fooling around.
For everyone else watching, I wanted to share with you some of the symptoms of serious heart conditions that arrhythmias can tell us about.
You saw Lisa suffer from heart palpitations.
They can be harmless.
But in some cases, they're a problem.
And there are warning signs you should never ignore.
So let me walk you through why hers were happening.
Normally, the blood flows through the heart in a very organized way.
The blood on the right side of the heart stays on the right side and the left side of the heart stays on the left side because you've got this big wall here separating the two chambers.
That way, the blood goes to the lungs and to the body.
In Lisa's case, that big muscle wall got a hole.
Watch right here.
That hole Because it was there, she was born with it, the blood shifts from one side to the other side of the heart.
It overwhelms the side of the heart that's getting too much blood, and so this part of the heart here starts to dilate out, becomes so pushed out that the electrical cables in there don't work correctly.
They literally begin to crack and fray, and you end up with these regular heartbeats as she was suffering from.
So here's the big question.
How do you know if heart palpitations are serious or not?
Well, there's three questions you have to ask yourself.
The first question is what?
What happens when you feel these palpitations?
Do you feel dizzy?
Do you feel pain in your chest?
Do you get short of breath?
Are you gasping for breath even when you're doing simple things?
If so, you've got to talk to your doc about this.
Second big question is how.
How long do the palpitations last?
You know, if they last for longer than five minutes, that could indicate a significant heart problem.
And that's different from the, you know, once in a while sporadic little thing.
And of course the last question is when.
It almost always is when.
When do these palpitations happen?
If it's every once in a while for a few seconds, that's pretty common.
I mean, almost all of us will have that in our lifetime.
Or is it more frequent?
For example, more than six times per minute you feel a pound in your chest.
It's not the way it's supposed to be.
That's a red flag, again, warning us that there's some kind of a structural problem in the heart like I just showed you with that animation.
The answer to these questions can help you diagnose whether you've got a problem, and your doctor is going to ask you all these questions.
So keep track of them if you're having irregular heartbeats.
You can see the rest of Lisa's story on Surgeon Oz.
It's a shot at my hospital, New York Presbyterian.
It airs Thursdays at 10 o'clock on OWN. Check it out.
I'll be right back.
Coming up, overindulged and now you feel bloated and sluggish?
A detox may be in order.
Find all of the ingredients to cleanse your body right in your own kitchen.
See how simple staples can be superfoods to undo the damage and get your body back on track.
Next.
Today, all the benefits of a detox with food you already have in your kitchen right now.
So I sent some of my viewers from Merrick, New York, just north of the city, on a scavenger hunt to find the four detox superfoods in each other's homes and then bring them here.
Amy is here.
She actually volunteered her friends from the neighborhood to participate in my detox scavenger hunt.
They're all here in the front row.
I found it.
So why do you and your neighbors think you have to be detoxed?
Well, in Merrick, from Friday until Sunday, it's party after party.
We have football parties.
We have, last weekend, we had one with the big pizza truck, and there were ten different pizzas for us to taste, all different varieties.
Then we go out to dinner after that, took the kids to the farm eating funnel cakes.
I'm coming to Merrick.
I'm coming to Merrick.
All right.
So I emailed you a scavenger list that you and your compatriots over there went through each other's houses and you found a bunch of things that apparently satisfied our list.
You want to start us off?
The first item, a detox item that's really important, is ginger.
It's a wonderful way of detoxing your body every morning when you get up.
What'd you find?
Dump it out?
I'll dump it out right here.
All right.
Are you embarrassed by what you found?
They're proud of it.
Some of it looks healthy to me, some of it I'm not so sure.
All right, we'll see.
You can name names here.
All right, so we got ginger tea, that's good.
Ginger candy, that's actually, that's real, hard ginger candy.
Real ginger.
Real ginger.
What is this, ginger ale?
That's the one I'm not so sure about.
That wasn't yours, though.
No, of course not.
Of course not, no.
We'll name names later.
All right.
Well, this is actually, obviously, sugar and water, but except for that, I'm very proud of all the rest of these things.
Let me show you why I want ginger in your diet.
This is one of the easiest things.
You found it in a lot of people's homes, obviously.
Think of your ginger as a compass.
It's going to point you in the right direction for the rest of your day, if you get it in early on.
It does a couple of things.
It helps kill off cravings.
So you don't overeat.
And something else that's really important, it stimulates digestion.
So your intestines get going the right way.
You do both those together, and you're going to be really happy.
You start off with just a fresh teaspoon of the ginger.
You can put it in different foods.
But one of the easiest ways, and all these could work, you could, for example, leave these in your car, these candies and all.
But the easiest way, I think, is to take fresh or powdered ginger, and then make a tea out of it.
And it looks like this.
You just steep it for about 10 minutes in hot water.
Here, take that up a little bit there.
Okay.
Do you want me to taste it?
Please do.
It's a different taste than most of us are used to in the morning, but I actually like that craving killer part of it.
You're not going to want a lot of stuff around it.
You'll have your normal healthy meal with a little ginger tea and you're good for at least the morning.
And how do you ground it up?
They have little grinders.
They're small little devices about the size of this ground ginger.
They'll do it for you automatically.
You just cut about a quarter of an inch of this, and you can do that.
Or you can just dice it up really small with a knife and throw it in the water.
I feel it working already.
Your cravings are gone.
Speaking of cravings, come over here, because we asked you to crave something else in your detox list.
It was a very important food that you found in one of your neighbor's pantries, which are beets.
And they help deliver, take care of some of that waste in your body.
Now, I noticed you didn't find it in your pantry.
No.
I really don't eat beets as much as I should.
I feel like they're a little messy and don't know how to prepare it.
Most of us got exposed to beets, unfortunately, in grade school.
And they used it basically as a coloring on our plate.
A lot of white things with some beets, and the beets always, you know, Stale or old and mushy.
Please try beets again.
I happen to adore them.
You can get them in many different forms.
They're super easy to make.
I've got tons of recipes on DrOz.com on beets.
But one of the best ways to get them are sliced beets.
Easy, much less messy.
You just rinse them so you get the salt out of them.
And they're a fantastic addition.
And because of the detoxing benefits, they should be a part of many more of our meals than we currently have.
And you put them in salads or you just...
So I like them in salads, or I like them with gorgonzola sauce with a little olive oil.
So good.
It sounds good.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, everybody, everybody in the neighborhood had one of the detox foods that I think is maybe the most important.
Folks, hold it up.
What'd you find?
Everybody had garlic, which I'm very proud of, Merrick, about.
Increase your immunity, which is helpful for a lot of reasons.
If your immune system's strong, you detoxify your body from bacteria and viruses and infections.
It also has to be eaten raw, which is the trick here.
So when you have to eat raw garlic, you have to make a different set of arrangements for it.
You need to actually ideally crush it up and let it sit for about 15 minutes.
So I asked the block to have a raw garlic cook-off.
You guys want to see what they came up with?
Yes.
You excited, everybody?
Yes.
Let's roll the videotape.
Hi, Dr. Oz.
My name is Loretta Wattstein.
My name is Susan Caden.
My name is Terry Lieberman, and I'm making a kale salad for today's cook-off.
It has some organic kale, an avocado, some lemon juice, kosher salt, olive oil, and of course, some raw garlic.
It's crunchy, it's really tasty, and even my kids like it.
My recipe is white bean dip.
It's made with white beans, olive oil, fresh lemon, garlic, sea salt, pepper, and cilantro.
It's packed with fiber, protein, and it's detoxifying.
And my garlic dish for today's cook-off is a tapas-inspired tomato toast.
I glaze my French bread, make my raw garlic, diced chopped tomato, a little bit of basil in it, pop it off with a little sea salt.
Think we have a winner here?
I think my recipe will win the taste test.
That simple.
So the contestants brought in their dishes so I can taste them, too.
I must say, the problem, of course, is raw garlic is much less easy to deal with for a lot of folks.
So how do you guys compare the tastes?
You guys talk amongst yourselves while I taste.
Okay.
And then we're going to vote.
Was it hard to make it raw?
No, I think, though, adding the diced tomato gives it a richer flavor.
That's good.
How about this dip?
It's got a real punch to it.
Oh, my goodness.
It probably punches back.
What do you have here?
That's the kale salad.
I think the garlic gives it like a spice.
It adds to the crunchiness and the creaminess, and it just pulls all the flavors together, especially with the little lemon.
Put some of the kale salad on one of her garlic breads, and you'll really have a nice little lunch there.
You know, I gotta say, these are all really good, and it's surprisingly not as difficult to cope with raw garlic.
Terry, I have to vote for this, but I'm not alone, because we had the whole neighborhood vote.
This was the winner, so congratulations.
Woo!
All right, now who has the artichoke?
Oh, we got artichoke.
How are you?
What's your name?
My name is Lori.
You can hold that, Lori.
Thank you.
All right, so do you know much about artichokes?
I know a little about artichokes.
Was this in your pantry or someone else's pantry?
It was in my pantry.
Well, I'm proud of you for having this.
Artichokes are cool because they actually help your gut break down foods.
They stimulate your gallbladder to make more of the bile.
It also has a lot of fiber in it.
But most people don't know how to eat the artichokes.
They only have the artichoke hearts.
You actually want the leaves.
So you know how to eat the leaves, right?
I steam it, and we sometimes dip it in French dressing.
French dressing.
You can do that.
But that's how you get the kids to eat it.
That's okay.
Because you've got to compromise.
It works.
We stuff our artichokes.
But what you want to do is when they're freshly cooked, pull a leaf off, and then the little white part there, scrape it.
This is raw, so you can't do it.
But you just pull it off like that.
Or you can get it canned or jarred, which is a super easy way to get these.
And a lot of times they'll come with the artichoke heart, but with a couple of the leaves.
So don't forget to eat the leaves.
That's where a lot of the health benefit.
Did you guys have fun in the scavenger hunt?
We had a great time.
I'm proud of you all.
I'm glad you all had these things.
You can find my detox food shopping list at DrRoz.com.
We'll be right back.
Tell us, what's your favorite way to detox?
I've tried almost everything, and my favorite detox is plain old water.
I make sure I stick to a strict schedule, and after a few days, I feel 100% better.
Highly recommended.
Share your tip on Dr. Oz's Facebook page.
Next.
Dry.
Canned.
Fresh.
Cranberries.
Considered one of the most powerful healing secrets out there.
Learn the many ways this little berry can help protect your body from infection to aging.
The healing powers of cranberries.
Next.
The plan to end toxic acid reflux.
The best foods to neutralize acid, detoxify your body, and end your pain for good.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
He's the medicine hunter who's traveled to more than 30 countries.
And now Chris Killam says he's found one of the most powerful healing secrets out there.
It's this little berry.
It can help protect your body from everything, from infection to aging.
Hello, Dr. Oz.
It's Chris Killam.
I'm in a cranberry bog in Carver, Massachusetts.
Carver is sort of the epicenter of the North American cranberry seed, and every year at this time in the fall, the harvest is big business here.
Cranberries are the great North American berry.
They're super healthy for you, rich in antioxidants, and they perform a number of functions that I know we'll talk about when we get together.
Chris Killam, come on out, my friend.
But you can never come empty-handed.
No, no.
I think I get a job here, actually.
So I built you a ladder of power foods.
For all of you to remember, all these are valuable, but you actually argue cranberries should be up top here.
When Hippocrates said, let food be your medicine, he could have been talking about cranberries.
They're more concentrated and protective compounds that help to reduce the risk of disease than spinach, broccoli, cherries, strawberries, or raspberries.
So I put these at the top of the ladder.
Superfood.
So I want you all to look at this bladder, because the ones down here are invaluable.
We talked about them, but cranberries, especially this time of year, are important to have there.
So I want to look at the most powerful ways that cranberries can heal your body.
And these are probably the three most important things I look for in general with superfoods.
The first issue is, are they really anti-inflammatory?
Cranberries contain antioxidants that not only protect your cells but are powerfully anti-inflammatory.
So good for the heart and good for reducing the risk of pretty much every degenerative disease we can suffer.
How about the issue of aging?
Does it reduce that?
Well, cranberries contain a group of compounds called Pax, and they actually cause your body to rejuvenate tissue.
So they have a youth effect, not only internally, but also externally.
So, in terms of foods that are somewhat beautifying, cranberries are on that list.
They cause you to create new, healthy, youthful tissue.
Alright, so they slow aging.
And finally, very specifically, they have a benefit in reducing urinary problems.
One that we've heard of, but there's actually new information here.
When you have a urinary tract infection, you have bacteria that wants to cling to the walls of the bladder of the urinary tract.
Cranberry prevents that clinging from happening.
It's called an anti-adhesion activity.
So the bacteria goes out with the urine instead of colonizing and causing all of the irritation associated with UTIs.
It's like having a Teflon coating of your bladder.
And for guys, it's beneficial especially.
A new study shows that you can reduce the frequency of urination by eating cranberries.
So instead of getting up two or three times a night, it might be one time a night.
That's a huge benefit for guys who get up at night.
Alright, so, cranberries.
Now you know the message of why they're important.
The question is, how do you take them?
Most of us have tried dried cranberries.
But for many of you, for the first time, I'm going to ask you to trust me and try a real, raw cranberry.
So you all have them, right?
Go on, take them out.
You have, like, little pills there.
You're guarding them preciously.
Pop them in your mouth.
And tell me, let me see just your facial expressions, because I think it'll tell us...
It's sour.
Pretty tart, isn't it?
A lot of frowning faces today.
So Chris, unfortunately, says the best way to get the benefits of the superfood is to eat them fresh.
So this is not the facial expressions that are going to go very far in America.
So what should folks do?
Well, first of all, we have our own little tiny little cranberry bog here.
You can take fresh cranberries and you can make a smoothie with them.
I like to do orange juice, banana, a little bit of fresh ginger root, which you just talked about for that zip, and throw in a handful of cranberries so the tart goes way down.
You get sweetness, but you also get all that Concentrated, protective nutrition.
I like them.
When I was standing in the bog, I was eating these like peanuts.
They are tart.
I can see why they are fine.
This is very good though, folks.
It gives it actually a little bit of tartness at the right time.
Yeah, it does.
And what if you don't have them fresh in season?
You know, I like to buy fresh cranberries.
They all come in plastic bags.
Toss them into the refrigerator.
They'll last two months.
Toss them into the freezer.
They'll last the whole winter.
And they're inexpensive now, so buy them now and store them when they won't be so inexpensive.
The next great way to tap into the healing power cranberries is to eat them in a dried form.
These are available all year round.
They are.
The problem with dried cranberries is many of them are just soaked in sugar.
What about when you see cranberry sauce, which around Thanksgiving time It's pretty popular, but I guess we could try it anytime.
Use the whole cranberry sauce rather than the gel.
You'll get more concentrated nutrition.
What I like to do is I like to take a big scoop of this, toss it into plain yogurt.
I like the Greek yogurt.
Mix it up.
And just like you would buy a fruit yogurt, you get this terrific tasting breakfast.
Also, the milk dairy sort of cuts the tartness of it.
It does.
It does.
It's a nice combination.
And what about cranberry juice, which may be the most common way that people get their cranberries?
Cranberry juice is typically so dilute and so high in sugar that while it's going to give you some nutrition, it's not going to give you a lot.
If you really want to go for the gold, you use the cranberry juice concentrate.
If you get a UTI, you probably don't care.
You just drink it.
Yeah, lovely.
Isn't that great?
Nice stuff.
You guys would not like that at all.
That is tough.
Super delicious.
Super delicious.
For more exclusive natural remedies from Chris Killam, go to DrOz.com.
We'll be right back.
Whoa!
Do you have a favorite cranberry recipe?
I love cranberry sauce.
I know that it's usually a Thanksgiving recipe, but I make it year-round.
I cut most of the sugar out so it's slightly bitter, but it's definitely Oz-approved.
Share your recipe on Facebook.com slash Dr. Oz.
Coming up, it's every girl's dream to walk down the aisle.
But for one woman, paralyzed for years, that dream seemed an impossibility.
The inspiring story of what she did to make her wedding day one that most will never forget.
Next. - All little girls dream of walking down the aisle Gina Springhower was no exception, but she faced a challenge that some would have said made her dream impossible.
I'm about to share Gina's story because I want you to remember it the next time you say, your dream will never come true.
An athlete, dancer, and tumbler.
Gina spent her youth living and loving her active life.
But six years ago, when Gina was just 21, she made a decision that changed everything in a matter of seconds.
Gina got into a car with a drunk driver who crashed, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
Between hospital stays and extensive rehabilitation, Gina has had to relearn how to be independent.
Through it all, Gina had one motivating factor.
Her lifelong dream to walk down the aisle at her wedding.
Obviously, it's the dad's dream to have the honor of walking my daughter down the aisle.
So, Gina worked even harder, spending three days a week for more than a year in extra physical therapy sessions.
And this past September, Gina's dream became a reality.
Gina Marie, you are my best friend and the love of my life.
Today, tomorrow, and all the days of our lives.
Please welcome Gina and John.
Thank you.
That's a lot of pressure to walk so well.
It really is.
Come have a seat.
There's a man who loves his watch.
That's perfect.
I love this contraption you put together.
It's fantastic.
It makes everything a lot easier.
I'm so proud to have you on the show.
Thank you.
Thank you for having us.
Please.
You've been through so much.
And I gotta say, for so many of us who say, oh, I can't do that.
I can't keep up.
What did it feel like for you as you just started making your way down the aisle?
Just walking down that aisle, it's a feeling that's absolutely indescribable.
To do something that you took for granted so many years of your life, which everybody does.
I mean, it's so easy to walk, you know, if you don't know any different.
It's just a floating feeling.
It's just like you're just totally free of every disability of everything that you have for the last six years.
And on top of that super excited feeling that I was having, I was also really trying not to fall.
Dad and I were just really, I didn't want to kick any family, relative, anything in the head as we're going down.
Every bride has that fear, by the way, I think.
It's a trip on the gown or something else.
You were paralyzed and in a wheelchair for the first couple years.
What got you motivated to try to walk again?
From day one, after my accident, I always knew I will walk with my dad someday, somehow.
I'm not sure how tough it's going to be, but I'm my dad's only daughter, and I'm the baby of two older brothers, so my dad deserved that, and I would do anything in my power, and he would do anything in his to get us there, and so that was just something that I knew it would happen.
I had to do it.
There was no other way.
And John, what was it like for you?
You're waiting at the end of this long walk that your beautiful bride has to take.
What was that like?
She's an amazing person.
She obviously looked gorgeous.
And so for me, it was just excitement seeing her accomplish yet another goal on her long list that she has.
And she's an amazing person, and every day she continues to amaze me.
Very evident.
What inspires you?
What motivates you, Gina?
I've always been an avid tumbler my whole life.
And tumbling was kind of...
My life.
I did it when I was upset and a boyfriend or whatever.
I would always go tumble and that was just the joy of my life.
And I still do that.
So I still kind of have that.
It's definitely not as pretty as it used to be.
But I still do that and that keeps me going.
But I also do a lot of motivational speaking to high schools and different sorts of colleges and different programs.
And that gives me the feeling that tumbling used to.
And it just keeps me going.
And if I can just change one little kid's life or high school kid or anything and just make them think about, maybe I shouldn't get in this car with this driver or anything, then my goal for life has been set.
I've met that.
So that's what keeps me pushing.
I actually adore having you here.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for being here.
You'll find a last more about Gina and her inspirational story at DrRogs.com.
Be right back.
Nice to meet you.
You made it.
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 DrOz.com slash tickets and sign up.
Put out the fire of heartburn.
Dr. Oz has the plan to end toxic acid reflux.
There is a new food category that actually changed your heartburn reflux.
The best foods to neutralize acid, detoxify your body, and end your pain for good.
Plus...
It's been a tough year.
Divorce, husband in prison.
How do you hold up under the stress?
Real Housewife Favorite Parks opens up.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
I read an article in the New York Times Magazine recently that asked the question, "What if age is nothing but a mindset?" Researchers found that when elderly folks looked at photos of themselves when they were young and then imagined what it would be like again, they were able to perform much better on both physical and mental tests.
It applies to all of us.
Try to channel the spirit of this new research and check out these photo illustrations by Zachary Scott, who had some kids play dress-up.
Here's the first photo.
Maybe this farmer stayed young by working hard in the fields.
And I love this image of a little girl who has pretty good posture for a grandmother.
But this is what really caught my attention.
It's probably what I'll look like when I get older.
There I am, sitting in the doctor's office.
The bottom line, think young, act young.
AIDS shouldn't define us.
Our spirits should always stay young as a child.
Now it's time for In Case You Missed It.
First, I had the best time bringing my daughter Zoe, a budding doctor herself, I hope, into the OR. I operated on Lisa who complained of heart palpitations.
Now, many people think these are harmless, but in some cases, they're a warning sign that you should not ignore.
So if you feel dizzy, if you're short of breath, If you have pain with any of the palpitations, or if they last for more than five minutes, might be a sign of a bigger issue with your heart, so you want to call your doctor and get them checked out.
Next, we talked about detox foods.
If you want to try my new superfood detox, you get all the benefits of detoxing, but with no fasting and no special juicing required.
One superfood to try, don't say yuck, is artichokes.
Artichokes help break down all the fatty foods by helping your liver, and they also are high in fiber, which keeps your digestion on track.
So you can eat one cup of these, especially if you've got a big heavy meal, you want artichokes as part of it.
Next, we tap into the power of cranberries this holiday season.
Cranberries are anti-inflammatory, they can slow aging, and they reduce urinary problems in men and in women.
So if you have some cranberry sauce left over from a holiday meal, try mixing it with some plain yogurt.
It actually is a wonderful combination.
They go well together.
Or you can eat them dried, for example, as an oatmeal topping.
Or just put them in your car.
You can munch on them when you have a little bit of hunger.
Finally, let me close with a warning.
Please be careful about what you buy online, especially weight loss pills.
Do these people online make it seem like I'm endorsing their products.
I don't.
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