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Oct. 23, 2024 - Dr. Oz Podcast
40:46
Can Infection Cause Mental Illness? Dr. Oz Investigates | Dr. Oz | S7 | Ep 103 | Full Episode
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The same way you catch a cold or flu, can you catch a mental illness?
Why a simple infection could be to blame?
Then, could man's best friend become our first line of defense in detecting disease?
Compared to humans, they have more of the little receptors in their nose that capture the odors.
Elizabeth is back to investigate what these animals with superior sense of smell are capable of.
Coming up next.
We'll save lives today.
day We are ready to get healthy.
Quite often on this show, we take a look at the health headlines, and we help set the record straight for you.
Today, we're doing just that.
First up, we're going to investigate the claims of a controversial book that says an infection can actually cause mental illness.
Could it be possible?
Stunning connections I've never heard before.
Also making headlines, Preachers of Atlanta.
They are a new generation of pastors who want to help you, but some would say their methods are a little bit radical.
Well, they're here today with a spiritual prescription for your health roadblocks.
And finally, could man's best friend become our first line of defense in detecting ovarian cancer?
Elizabeth Leamy goes on a fact-finding mission.
Let's begin with our investigation.
The medical community is always trying to unravel the causes of disease because if you know what's making you sick, you can start to solve the mystery of how to cure it.
There's a provocative new book that's offering surprising science, arguing that you can catch mental illness from some types of infections.
Today, we investigate this controversial theory.
The Human Brain.
Mysterious, powerful, complex, and controversial.
And now a new book written by an award-winning medical journalist makes the shocking claim that certain mental illnesses can be caught by exposure to specific strains of bacteria, viruses, or parasites.
Brain chemical imbalances or environmental stressors.
Now some believe bacteria and viruses could be behind as many as one in five mental disorders.
It's actually an ancient theory dating back to the beginnings of medicine, but pushed aside as genetics, brain chemical imbalances, and environmental factors became mainstream.
Were ancient medical practitioners correct?
Could these mind-altering infections be the key to unlocking the mysteries of mental illness?
And perhaps to better treat, even prevent them?
Arthur Harriet Washington is here.
I've also asked psychiatrist Gail Saltz to look at the research and weigh in.
Now, before we hear more about this intriguing idea, I want to be really clear about this.
We're not saying you can catch mental illness from someone who has mental illness.
It's not contagious that way.
But Harriet's arguing that there are many studies linking common bacterial infections like strep and some virus infections maybe as well with mental illness.
So what convinced you that maybe we should be looking more at infections as causing a lot of very common mental problems?
Well, we know of some illnesses, and we've known for a long time that some infections can cause mental illness.
Rabies is an example everyone's familiar with.
But I found a medical journal article in the mid-1990s, an Italian journal article, saying that Bornavirus, which is more common in Europe than here, might cause schizophrenia.
And I began thinking, what other diseases might have some infectious cause?
And I found a great deal of data, more than I had ever expected.
So, the book, which is very well written, by the way, argues that maybe 20%, one in five of us who have common problems with the way we process information and behave towards each other might actually have as a root cause of those problems, infections.
So, if you can just list me a couple of these different illnesses so people can understand who might be affected.
Sure.
Some very common mental illnesses might be caused by infection, and then researchers do estimate 15 to 20 percent might be caused by infection.
A good example is schizophrenia, quite common.
Bipolar disorder, most people are familiar with that.
Even symptoms like anorexia and obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, seem to have infectious roots, as recent studies have shown.
This is reminding me of a conversation that happened probably 15 years ago in America.
Remember ulcers, right?
A generation ago, if you had an ulcer, what was causing it?
It was stress, right?
It was spicy foods.
That's what caused ulcers.
We now know, thanks to some very innovative researchers, it's caused by a bacteria.
Which is why we check for that bacteria, H. pylori, in a lot of folks, and try to treat it.
So it's not shocking to me that this kind of concept might apply to mental health, but I had my medical unit, some well-trained people, physicians, actually go out and search the data.
And what they said was that there's pretty good evidence.
They actually talked to people, some of the folks that you have in your book have been public about this as well.
Imagine this.
If there's evidence suggesting mental illness can be linked to earlier problems you may have had in your life, like infections, Then maybe inflammatory processes that result from that could be identified and we could help people.
And these are the reasons that psychiatrists often order blood tests.
So I would love if you just take a second now and explain to everybody what is it about the science that relates an infection to something like OCD or anorexia, as you mentioned.
There are actually many ways in which infection can eventually cause or contribute to mental illness.
The two major pathways I think of are where the microbe directly affects the body.
It changes the way the neurotransmitters are used.
It causes inflammation in the brain and nervous system.
A variety of ways the microbe can directly derange the development and cause mental illness even 20 years later in schizophrenia.
But the other pathway is indirect and that's when the microbe invades your body and your body's immunological defenses try to fight it off.
But the fight is very strong but not always accurate and they end up hurting your own nervous system sometimes even more than the microbe.
So it's an innocent bystander.
Exactly, the innocent bystander thing.
Let me show you, if I can, what Harry is speaking about here.
There are other researchers who spend their lives studying this.
So, here's your body, right?
Your body is trying to do its best to help you out.
This is an old idea, by the way.
It's one that we've been talking about since the dawn of medicine, not just in this country, but around the world.
But think of your body's immune system.
Let's go in there.
It's like a fuse.
Right?
When your body comes in contact with bad bacteria like strep, it lights that fuse.
The bacteria lights that fuse causing inflammation that burns throughout the body.
And then some researchers believe the inflammation actually goes up into the brain.
And in certain people, sets off a fire.
Literally fireworks inside your brain because of the changes in chemistry.
And that can lead to OCD or bipolar or other mental illnesses.
This at this very core is the argument here.
So, Dr. Salts, you spent your whole life studying psychiatry.
You have a big practice.
Is it possible that we have been missing something, a clue, that maybe another cause, like bacteria, viruses, could be causing mental illness?
Well, I think increasingly we're looking for what we don't understand the causes might be.
So, is this a possibility?
I think in certain instances it is a possibility.
In fact, for pediatric cases for children, we know of certain instances where it may in fact be a cause.
But I also think it's important to know that for the majority of cases, there has been no particular identified, in other words, For instance, something that's been linked to toxoplasmosis that's been linked in your book, you noted, it's important to know, for instance, a third of the world has toxoplasmosis, but only 1% of the world has schizophrenia.
And most of those people with schizophrenia do not have toxoplasmosis.
So I don't want people to get the idea, wow, this is the whole ball of wax here.
We know there's a genetic component to psychiatric disorder.
We know That there are environmental components that are clearly tripping off whatever this genetic predisposition is.
We think things like early-life trauma definitely correlate.
But is infection one possibility?
It may be.
I think further research does need to be done.
So Harriet, how do you respond to critics?
Dr. Stolz has articulated beautifully some of their arguments that you're overstating the possibility or the role that infections have in mental illness.
Well, first of all, I think it's really important to note that I say, as Dr. Saltz just did, that infection is only one route.
The traditional risk factors are still there.
Genetics are still there.
Psycho, you know, social factors are all still important.
But infection is also important.
So, I was going to emphasize this again.
This is not contagious.
You can't give it to the person next to you.
But if we have come into an agreement that there's a link between bacteria, viruses, whatever, and mental health, then it's actually a message of hope, I would think.
That you're telling people there may be solutions for lifelong problems they thought they could never get past.
That is the most exciting thing here.
Understanding that there are new unrecognized risk factors for mental illness gives a chance to address mental illness.
If you think about schizophrenia, only half the people in this country get adequate treatment.
If we could pinpoint infectious causes, that's another way for us to help them.
Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, many other disorders.
So we can craft new ways of treating the disorder that were not available to us some time ago.
So I was curious about your ideas.
So we went looking.
And up next, I'm going to introduce you to a young woman who cured her symptoms of mental illness by treating a very common infection.
Stay with us.
Next, we're answering the controversial question, can you catch mental illness?
Did her virus turn into an emotional disorder?
Our expert says yes.
The steps to protect yourself from infections that can lead to mental illness.
Coming up.
Extinguish heartburn in less than 60 minutes.
There's a new therapy that may reverse your heartburn for good without surgery or pills.
This just sort of jumps past that, which is what makes it exciting.
Plus, Hoda Kotb's rules for waking up energized.
I want to learn those secrets.
Her handy trick, you've got to see.
You got it.
Pull up.
There we are.
It's almost there.
All new eyes.
She got it.
That's coming up tomorrow.
We're back with a controversial question.
Can you catch mental illness?
Here's a young woman's story about how she came down with an anxiety and OCD-like series of tendencies, all from a common infection.
When I was 12, a common cold completely changed my life.
It turned into something that affected me for months to come.
I decided to spend the night at my friend's house, and the next day I woke up.
I was sneezing every other second.
It was a rhythmic pattern.
It never let up.
I couldn't eat, read, sleep without having to stop every three to five seconds and sneeze.
The only time I ever stopped was when I was sleeping, but even getting to sleep was a challenge.
We went to tons of doctors and they thought it was allergies or just a cold.
It was a mystery to everyone.
After sneezing 25,000 times a day for months, I didn't know when my life would ever be normal again and that caused a lot of anxiety in my life.
The local news covered the story.
The national media started reaching out to us.
People were fascinated with it.
They just knew the sneezing girl.
Some people accused me of being crazy or a fake.
Some doctors thought that I was being emotionally abused that had led to a physical manifestation of the sneezing.
Nancy Snyderman from Today Show reached out to us about a doctor that she knew that she thought could help.
I was diagnosed with PANDAS, which is an acronym for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus.
It's a rare disorder triggered by things like strep.
After that first IVIG treatment, my sneezing just kind of slowed down like a car running out of gas and just stopped.
My anxiety just went away overnight.
It flipped like a switch.
I did a complete 360. Today I'm a senior in high school.
I'm involved in band, track, soccer, looking forward to graduation in June.
I even wrote one of my college essays on my pandan's experience.
It changed my life, so I thought that was important to share with others.
What a great story.
I applaud Lauren and her family for persevering.
Let's say, everybody, if you suspect your symptoms are being brought on by an infection, don't be shy about this.
It's part of the search for what might be causing your issues.
This is a new area for doctors.
I had not heard of a lot of these connections, so I'm sure that it's going to be a slow-moving process.
Author Harriet Washington is back with us, as well as psychiatrist Gail Saltz.
They're going to help us figure out what you should do about it.
So, Dr. Saltz, this is a beautiful story.
Yes.
And I think to myself, my goodness, everyone has had strep.
Everybody, literally.
Everybody in this room and watching at home.
How does an infection, so common as strep, cause problems like OCD and anxiety?
Right.
Well, this is the one actually really recognized, research corroborated mental health diagnosis that can be brought on by infection.
It seems that the strep bacteria hides in your body, essentially, by covering itself with receptors that look like other organs in your body.
Eventually, the body catches on and goes in to attack it, but when that happens, it creates antibodies that also attack parts of your body, and it can attack your brain.
And when that happens, you can develop, because it causes a dysfunction in the brain, OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or ticks.
And in her case, in Lauren's case, right, it was this sneezing tick.
And she had a classic presentation because it's basically somebody who's been fine up until that moment.
And then the symptoms come on like gangbusters, like really more than you would see.
Because look, lots of children get ticks.
In fact, one out of every five children get a tick at some point.
But it's slower to come on.
It's more minimal.
It grows slowly.
Or OCD, the same thing.
But when it comes on like this, you have to think about strep.
You have to think about pandas.
Let's be practical about this.
If someone is concerned, fearful that infection is causing their mental health problem, what do they do?
Well, first of all, I think if you're really presenting with mental health problems, it is wise to go seek an evaluation.
And probably if it seems like mental health is the major issue, you want to go to a psychiatrist.
If you go to a child psychiatrist with your child who's having recurrent tics or recurrent OCD symptoms, and they get the history from you, hey, this came on like pow, after I had a cold.
They should send you to the pediatrician to be strep tested.
If they don't, you should bring it up and you should seek out that pediatrician who will do that.
Harriet, last word to you.
You spent a lot of time researching this.
What can folks do to protect their families?
There's a lot you can do.
And in fact, prevention is even more important than treatment in some ways because by the time you give treatment, damage is often already done.
Prevention is as simple as always getting a flu shot.
Because we think influenza may be implicated in schizophrenia.
It's as simple as all the things mom told you to do.
Wash your hands carefully before you handle food.
Cook your food thoroughly to kill the bad germs in it that might cause things like bipolar disorder down the line.
And if you have cats, you can keep your cats.
In fact, one very prominent researcher in this field has two cats.
Be careful with your cats.
You know, use gloves when you handle the kitty litter, for example.
And if you have children, don't let your children play outside the sandboxes unless these sandboxes are covered and locked at night.
Because sandboxes tend to be used as kitty litter boxes by feral cats.
Oh, of course they would.
How come no one ever says that?
Of course, why would you go play the sandbox?
It's kitty litter.
These are good health things to do anyway, but I would say that if you are presenting with mental health symptoms, even with a case like Pandas, like Lauren, you should be treated for the symptoms anyway.
In other words, they'll treat your strep, and slowly the symptoms will diminish, but it can be really interruptive in your life like it was in hers, and being treated by a psychiatrist for the OCD or the tics, which are both, by the way, very treatable, will help your life get back on track much sooner, and the child goes through a lot less suffering.
Thanks both very much.
We'll be right back.
Coming up next, could man's best friend become our first line of defense in detecting disease?
Elizabeth is here to investigate what these animals with superior sense of smell are capable of.
Can these dogs really sniff out cancer and MS?
Find out next.
Our next investigation involves the latest technology in cancer research.
The highly developed sniffers of these three dogs.
I'm serious, this is big stuff.
Could man's best friend become our first line of defense in detecting ovarian cancer?
I recently sent investigative reporter Elizabeth Leamy on a fact-finding mission to meet these highly developed dogs.
Remember these dogs, McBain, Tsunami, and Foster, because they may become famous for finding a way to detect one of the most elusive and deadly diseases, ovarian cancer.
It is a silent killer because the signs associated with it are so vague that people don't recognize that they have it until it's very far advanced.
Veterinarian Cynthia Otto heads the Penn Vet Working Dog Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where they're training dogs to use their keen sense of smell to identify the unique odor of ovarian cancer.
They have an incredible sense of smell.
So compared to humans, they have more of the little receptors in their nose that capture the odors, and they have a bigger part of their brain that processes the odors, but mostly it's because they work so well with us.
Here's how the trainers help dogs hone their incredible skills.
They take blood samples from both healthy women and ovarian cancer patients and put them into ventilated cartridges attached to a wheel.
When the dog smells the odor of ovarian cancer, then what their natural response that they've been trained to do is sit.
Good girl!
Only one cartridge holds the ovarian cancer tissue.
Can the dogs sniff it out?
How accurate are they?
Incredibly accurate.
They're really working about 90% of the time.
They're able to tell us, yes, this is the sample that is from the cancer patient.
A 90% accuracy rate is extraordinary.
There is no other early detection test for ovarian cancer that can beat these guys.
So you may be wondering, will cancer-sniffing dogs someday be a fixture in doctor's offices?
No.
Instead, chemist Dr. George Preti from the Minnell Center is collaborating with Dr. Otto to try to capture the dog's unique sense of smell and mimic it in a handheld screening device.
What we're trying to do is build an electronic nose that will detect the odor signature of the cancer that the dogs tell us is there.
That goal may not be so far-fetched.
McBain, Foster and Tsunami have proven they can smell cancer and that skill might someday save your life.
It's a great story.
And Elizabeth Levy is here for more details.
So, when will doctors be able to use dogs to stiff out cancers?
And why can't we just use traditional medical tests that are out there?
Listen, conventional medicine has nothing on these dogs, at least for detecting ovarian cancer very early.
They are amazing.
But we're really trying to capture the dog's unique ability and turn it into conventional medicine with this idea of a mechanical nose that could do the same thing and get the Detection to many more people that much more quickly.
It's probably true that some dogs are better than others.
Do they have an insight about that?
Which are the best dogs to get to sniff out cancer in you, for example?
Okay, well, they do say that some of the hunting dogs were bred for their sense of scent.
Dogs do have many more smell receptors than we do, especially those with longer noses.
In this case, as you saw, they're using a German Shepherd, a Labrador Retriever, and a Springer Spaniel.
And the amazing thing is just how sensitive they are.
I mean, can you imagine?
It's like a tsunami hitting them when you cook dinner in your house and your dog is there.
I'm putting Rosie to work.
She's a Labrador.
So I want to understand what the future is going to look like.
Are we going to be able to capture these aromas and be able to use them?
They think they can do it.
It is quite a task, though, because these dogs, they can detect what I was amazed by.
One drop of blood plasma is all these dogs needed.
And they can actually detect that one drop of blood in two Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Parts per trillion is what we're talking about here.
If they can capture that, it will be groundbreaking.
Wouldn't that be cool?
Yes.
People have been talking about this for decades, but most of us in Western medicine discounted it as impossible.
Pooh-poohed it, frankly.
Well, we're used to the idea of clinical sterile things being good, and these are slobbering, shedding cutie pies.
But they're amazing.
That save lives.
So the question then becomes, how much does your nose know?
When we come back, how to use your sense of smell to find disease.
Stay here.
Coming up next, we just saw how dogs with their incredible sense of smell can detect cancer.
But can humans be capable of doing the same thing?
Are there cancer smells that even we can pick up?
The at-home smell test you can do to detect disease is next.
Extinguish heartburn in less than 60 minutes.
There's a new therapy that may reverse your heartburn for good.
Plus, put a copy's rules for waking up energized.
I want to learn those secrets.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Sometimes you can ignore your sense of smell, even when it's the first warning that something is wrong.
I want you to meet my next guest, who credits her dog with using her sense of smell to find her cancer.
Please welcome Diane and her Doberman, Troy.
What a beautiful dog!
That is the most beautiful dog period I've ever seen!
Isn't he handsome?
Hi, Troy.
Say hi, Dr. Oz.
So what's the story?
I'm fascinated by this.
You understand all this.
This is a true story.
So Troy started behaving a little differently.
What happened?
We had taken him home.
He was about two and a half months old.
He still had his little puppy cones on his head.
And my husband insisted that he stay sleep in bed with us.
So he was in the middle of the two of us.
And he started persistently nuzzling.
This is not your ordinary sniffing.
This was like serious, I'm working hard here, sniffling.
And he was persistently leaning against my left breast and he kept pushing at it.
And I said, what the heck's going on?
And I would shoo him away and he came back at it again.
And I finally started to itch because I'm highly allergic to his dander.
And that's when I felt the lump.
A breast lump.
Yes.
It was about, at that, well, the next day I went to the doctor and I had been for a mammogram six months prior.
P.S. girls, just do the self breast examinations yourself because I went through the, you go for the mammogram, you go, shh, good for a year.
And this was six months later and it was stage two and it was already three centimeters.
So had it not been for this dog, honestly, I, I, who knows?
What would have been, right puppy?
So you didn't think anything was out of the ordinary, and his nuzzling was the first clue?
First time.
He only did it once, thank God.
He's never done it ever again.
Are you okay, by the way?
Yes.
All right, good.
We'll do well in the world.
Good.
When I was petting him, is this called nuzzling me?
I just want to know if I'm in danger.
No, nuzzling is serious when he's really focused on it.
This is just plain sniffing and love.
So, you know, dogs and humans can actually use our noses to make an early diagnosis.
It's not the first time we've heard about a pet having it, and I appreciate you sharing the story here, because it's so compelling.
Dr. William Lee, who's always on the front lines of cancer research, he's a member of my core team, he's been studying cancer smells that even humans, you and I, can pick up.
Hi, Dr. Oz.
Dr. Lee here.
It goes without saying that one of the things we're always looking for with cancer is early detection, by any means necessary.
And sometimes it's a change in how you smell.
Here's what we know.
As cancers grow, some parts of the tumor can die and rot, and this can create a terrible odor.
Colon cancers, for example, are associated with smelly bowel movements.
Some describe it like rotting meat mixed with natural gas.
And oral cancers, cancers of the mouth, can give your breath a terrible odor, the worst bad breath you've ever had.
So my advice is, if you smell anything odd in your stool or your breath, it's time to call your doctor to have it checked out.
The cancer isn't the only disease we're able to smell.
Human and dog noses are able to pick up additional scents for other diseases, too.
I'm going to put Nikki here to the test, both for your sense of smell, but also see if you can pick up any abnormal odors.
How do you smell normal?
Is it okay?
Yeah.
No issues?
Any family history I should know about, issues you worry about?
No.
Pretty healthy.
I'm pretty healthy, I'm sure.
You ready to go?
I'm ready.
Alright, come on back here.
So, this is a test for Alzheimer's.
And it turns out that one of the first scents that we start to lose when we start getting Alzheimer's is our sense of smell.
And so I'm going to show you a test that everyone can do at home as well.
But if you can't, close your eyes and face me.
Trust me now.
And I'm going to ask you to close one nostril, then the other.
Okay?
So let's put the ruler right here.
As you closed your left nostril.
Ruler's there.
Tell me when you start to smell what I have in front of you.
Now.
Now.
At, let's say, 13, 14 centimeters.
Are you ready to do it again?
Close the other nostril.
Tell me when you smell it.
How about now?
Just checking.
Tell me when you smell it.
Now?
A little closer.
Seven, eight centimeters.
So, here's the deal.
It turns out that folks who have Alzheimer's start to lose the scent on the left nose before the right nose.
I'm not diagnosing you.
I'm just pointing out interesting differences.
Who would have thought that different sides of our nose would smell differently unless you appreciate that those nose receptors are connected right to your brain?
It's more common in some kinds of dementias than others, but it's something that alerts us.
Now, researchers actually did a study showing that this difference was there.
It wasn't replicated in a follow-up one, but in this one study, it was pretty cool that they showed that.
And to me, it's a clue.
Any clue you can get to tip you off early is a worthwhile one, especially if all you need is a ruler and a jar of peanut butter, because you can always eat the peanut butter afterwards.
Worst comes worse.
Useful?
Yes.
All right.
Test yourselves, everybody.
We'll be right back.
Coming up next, a spiritual checkup.
Meet the preachers of Atlanta.
Their radical methods to help others.
Even if it feels like you're a turtle stuck in peanut butter.
Find out what they have to say about what's holding your health back.
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 DrRoz.com slash tickets and sign up.
It's time for a spiritual checkup from a new generation of healers who are known for thinking way outside the box.
Get ready because the preachers of Atlanta are about to get real about what's holding your health back.
The preachers of Atlanta are here!
You guys are not about sermons behind a pulpit.
You're handing out cigarettes, condoms, I think, maybe.
Things that are controversial.
It's not what folks expect.
What, Andrew, committed you, convinced you to go beyond what was traditional?
Well, you got to meet them where they are, you know, and I'm not saying that I would do it all the time, but any time that it needs to be done, that's what I'm there for.
You know, you got 20 cigarettes in a box.
You got, you know, you walk in the street, you lighten them up.
Hey, let me get a cig.
Talk to me about Christ.
I'll give you the cigarette.
We're talking about Christ.
Next thing you know, you're in the church.
I'm giving you what you want now, but at the end of the day, you're going to get what you need later on.
So it's a sacrifice.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Dr. Canton, in medicine.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I can take someone's temperature.
I can get lab results.
I can sort of tell if their health's in the right spot.
How do you do a spiritual checkup?
How does someone know they need help?
Well, I mean, sometimes they can analyze their emotions.
Joy.
We feel like...
God will give you joy in the midst of sorrow.
So, a lot of times people are looking for happiness, but we feel like you can have joy that'll sustain you.
Another thing is, you know, when you talk about people holding grudges, unforgiveness, when you feel like you'll do better if somebody's doing worse.
You know, and so that's spiritually unhealthy.
And then a lot of times, you just got to look at, do you feel like the results that you're getting in your life are the results that you want to have?
You know, and sometimes people are daily doing things that they're not happy with, but not willing to change, and those are spiritually unhealthy.
Well, Pastor Kimberly, let's take that one step further.
What do folks get wrong most often about the health of their spirits?
You know, I think that we get so lost in life, you know, just trying to keep up with the Joneses, you know, trying to allow ourselves to get, get, get, that we don't pay attention to our insides.
We don't pay attention to what's going on.
Why am I walking around?
Why do I have everything in life going for me, and yet I'm still so unhappy?
You know, why is this depression carrying me?
You know, and there's a thing called generational curses.
Yeah.
And I think that when people start realizing that you don't have to be like your DNA. You don't have to be like what your mom and daddy were.
You don't have to repeat cycles over and over.
It's one day taking a look in the mirror and saying, you know what, girlfriend, like today is the last day you stay depressed, you stay bound, you stay worried.
You're going to get up, you're going to put one foot in front of the other, even if it feels like you're a turtle stuck in peanut butter.
Just get moving.
So I think it's looking on the inside.
As up next, the preachers of Atlanta are going to do what they do best.
They're going to get real with spiritual prescriptions for what's holding you back.
Stay here for the fireworks.
Coming up next, the preachers of Atlanta are sticking around to answer all your health questions.
Inspirational remedies to some of your biggest health roadblocks.
Soul-changing advice we can all use.
What's going on on the inside of me?
Extinguish heartburn in less than 60 minutes.
There's a new therapy that may reverse your heartburn for good.
Plus, Hoda Kotb's rules for waking up energized.
I want to learn those secrets.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
We're back with the preachers of Atlanta who are about to get real with some of the biggest roadblocks that are hurting your health.
The preachers are here with their spiritual prescriptions for what's really holding you back.
We asked our audience members to share health issues that they just can't seem to shake.
Tasha's going to start us off.
Tasha says there's a health issue she cannot shake.
What is that?
My health issue, Dr. Oz and pastors, is that I seem to get stressed out.
I'm a single mom with two children and trying to balance work, church, and home can sometimes be very stressful where I find myself losing sleep at night and worrying a lot.
Well, since most of us are where you are, I'm glad you asked that question because we can get an answer to help a lot of us.
Especially Andrea, start us off.
What is the pastoral spiritual prescription for constant worrying?
Well, I mean, first of all, you got to give it to God.
If you're going to pray, then, you know, why worry?
You know, if you're going to worry, then don't pray.
It's just common sense.
You know, I was once a single mother, you know, married twice, and it was the stress that was upon me.
It was just unbelievable.
But, you know, I was dealing with bozos.
That's why, you know, I had all that stress.
So God got rid of my bozos and sent me my bo-ass.
You get what I'm saying?
So you just pray to God, keep him first, and everything will be great.
It'll be wonderful.
There are many ways of getting to that sense of calm.
Meditation can help as well.
Get past whatever barriers you may have to allow in your brain just to be quiet for a little bit.
But you can train yourself to do that.
And use whatever crutches work for you.
Thank you.
Next roadblock is something a lot of us are struggling with.
It's emotional eating.
Take a look.
Hi, Dr. Oz.
My name is Erica, and I struggle with emotional eating.
I go to a food for comfort, whether I'm happy, sad, or angry.
It's 10 a.m., and I literally already bought fudge brownies.
Do I really need them?
No, but it helps me.
When I'm stressed, I eat.
When I'm angry, I eat.
When I'm sad, I eat.
I just don't know what to do.
My weight has fluctuated even because of it.
I really need to get a handle on this.
Erica's pretty compelling.
So that's your catcher.
Can you help us with this?
What's the spiritual prescription for emotional eating?
Well, you know, I believe that so many of us go through it.
You have to ask yourself, what's going on on the inside of me that has made me feel like I need to reach for things instead of getting an activity or getting involved in a support group or allowing yourself to start believing in yourself, lay hands on yourself and say, God, you know, help me see myself the way you see me.
And I'm I want to tell you something.
I want you to know one thing.
That nobody else can do it for you.
And you have to decide one day that, you know what, this food, it's not fulfilling a void on the inside of me.
And you need to do what I did.
I would get little post-it notes.
And I would get post-it notes and I'd put them all over my house.
I would Google, what does God say about me?
Not what my ex said about me.
Not what my dad or mom or whoever abandoned me said about me.
But what does God say about me?
And he says that I'm awesome.
He says that I'm wonderful.
He says that I'm made in his image.
And your nose, like all the things that we hate about ourselves.
He took so much time to create that.
And sometimes we just need to remind ourselves.
And so I put little post-it notes all over.
And let me just tell you something else.
I would see those post-it notes every day.
And then they started outweighing everything my past said about me.
And then once you start getting joy back in your heart, you no longer want to reach for that stuff because you're so busy living, you don't even want to go to sleep at night because you're so excited about what life is bringing you.
And let me just tell you something else.
Give yourself permission to have a meltdown every once in a while.
- I know, it's hard.
- It's okay.
Have a meltdown.
Cry and get back up. - All right, let's go to Alex.
What's your issue, Alex, is you might be helped with a spiritual prescription with?
Well, I have a tendency to get pretty angry pretty quickly.
I have no patience and it's just not beneficial to my life whatsoever.
Well, I suspect Pastor Canton, help us on this.
It probably does quite a bit in other areas.
I was a guy that had anger issues as well.
And I started living by this principle that every air condition has a vent.
And so where there's hot air coming out, there's cool air coming out on the other side.
And so you got to let your hot air out.
You kind of got to have people that you trust that you can go to and pour out, you know?
I mean, there are things that's going to come at you day one, as soon as you get out.
You know, and just fly above all that mess and stress like an eagle.
Force yourself to smile because it's contagious.
Speaking of smiling, you know, Patrick Catton's got another talent.
Yeah, he can inspire us with rap.
If you ask him nicely, of course.
Oh, can you rap for me?
Okay.
Um, check it out.
It wasn't the stylish clothes you wear.
It wasn't the way you comb your hair.
Oh, nothing material, but it was all spiritual.
Blame it on salvation, not your education.
Believe that.
Uh, I know that things have been hard on you.
Uh, you still look good.
You got God on you.
Uh, let's keep it moving.
Don't quit.
Make sure that God is a part of your daily outfit.
Yeah.
All right, come on.
Come on.
Come on.
Green gas appraisers in Atlanta options, Wednesday nights at 10. I'll be right back.
Pretty good.
Addicted to the internet.
You're always looking for the next hit.
It affects your ability to focus at all.
Could you give it up for 30 days?
It's tough.
I fail miserably.
We have your digital detox without going cold turkey.
You gotta retrain your brain.
Plus, the new way to remove fat without surgery.
It claims to melt away your fat.
And fast food chains are stepping up their game.
How your favorite spots just got healthier.
All new Oz.
That's coming up on Monday.
We have the story of a courageous little girl captivating the country and making headlines.
Take a look.
New parents Cassidy and Chad were told their infant daughter Tegan was born with only one lung and half a heart.
Tegan is a twin and one of four children.
Together the family remained hopeful and prayed for a miracle.
So what do you do when you're faced with news that could be catastrophic?
Well, Tegan's parents didn't give up.
They went to Nicholas Children's Hospital in Miami to see if there's anything that could be done to save their baby girl.
These days, doctors use remarkable 3D technologies to better visualize the structure of any organ, but it's especially important in the heart.
As a heart surgeon, I can speak to that.
Now, in this case, the surgeons needed to do something a little bit different.
They were able to use a $20 Google Cardboard.
It looks like this, right?
And they opened it up.
And they could actually put their iPhone in there.
Any smartphone will work, frankly.
And you put the smartphone in there, and guess what happens?
With this Google Cardboard, I can look in here, and what I'm seeing is what you're literally seeing behind me.
Every time I move my head, I might look foolish to you, but I'm actually seeing 3D what's happening Inside Tegan's heart.
That behind me literally is Tegan's heart.
That's it.
These two-dimensional pictures were made of three-dimensional structures.
That gave doctors a 3D moving image of Tegan's heart to better understand what they were dealing with.
The reason it was so difficult to imagine fixing it is people just couldn't see the whole thing in the right way.
And I believe, as is often the case, necessity is the mother of an invention.
So I actually called Tegan's surgeon, Redmond Burke, who's You know, someone that I've known, and it turns out her heart was plastered against the left side of her chest wall, literally stuck so hard that they couldn't decide how to get in there and try to fix it.
With this technology, they were able, 3D imaging, to figure out not only how to free the heart, but how to come up with a game plan to rebuild it from almost scratch.
Now, how amazing is that?
They're able to build a heart because they had insights from a $20 cardboard box.
Now, we received a letter from Tegan's mom and dad who wrote, and here's what they said.
It's beautiful.
As tough of a journey as it has been with all the ups and downs, Tegan has proved that she has a will to live.
We tell her she is the strongest little person we know, and she truly is.
And children are just that, warriors with a strength that is amazing.
I wish them all the best.
Thank you for joining us today.
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