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July 21, 2025 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:43
Fast Food Pizza Exposed: What Are You Really Eating? | Dr. Oz | S10 | Ep 113 | Full Episode
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Time Text
Fast food pizza.
A quick go-to wheel, but our subject is cutting corners where it counts.
Looks like a biotech cheese.
What the USDA says, it's a two-hour rule for any potentially hazardous food.
What?
Chicken flavoring.
They've recreated a simulated version.
A simulated version.
How do they do it?
That tastes like chicken.
That's amazing to me.
coming up next.
Oh, oh, oh.
Y'all ready for season 10?
Yeah!
I love you, Dr. Holly.
Every single second, an average of 350 pizza sizes are sold in this country, even champion pizza tossers like Nino Caniglio.
Oh my goodness.
And then he couldn't keep up.
It's why the modern-day giants of American pizza keep finding ways to make this stuff faster, cheaper, and cheesier.
But are they taking shortcuts, right?
They're cutting corners that are putting our health in jeopardy.
And how are they able to sell pizza so cheap anyway?
They're less than five bucks a pie.
Well, today, I'll be right back.
We are investigating fast food pizza from America's biggest pizza chains.
Scott Wiener is a professional pizza enthusiast, and he's not only the foremost expert in pizza, but he's also the Guinness World Record Holder for owning the most number of pizza boxes.
Why would you even do that?
Is that your living room?
Where is that?
Listen, I don't want to talk about the collection.
It's a personal thing for me.
Personal thing, all right.
So pizza chains have dropped their prices so much.
You start to wonder, instead of cutting triangles, are they cutting corners?
You know, it's a good question because the independent pizzerias can't compete on price.
They compete on quality.
But the big chains have to figure out how to get people.
So they do it by buying tons and tons of cheese, tons of flour, and tons of sauce.
So this way they can charge way lower prices.
Let's investigate some of these shortcuts.
We'll start with the cheese.
Is that okay?
That's a great place to start because 40% of a pizza's food cost is the cheese.
So if you're going to save money, that's how you do it.
So how it used to be done?
In New York, it's the mozzarella town.
Absolutely.
Mozzarella is the absolute number one pizza cheese in America, but there are two different types of mozzarella.
And this is kind of confusing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, because you know like the normal standard pizza you get is covered in cheese.
Yes, it is.
But a pizza margarita has these clumps of brighter white cheese.
That's fresh mozzarella.
And fresh mozzarella is when you take curd from cow's milk or from buffalo milk, you cook it down and you stretch it, but it's a really high hydration.
There's a lot of water in it.
So that means that its shelf life is pretty short.
So about 100 years ago, the dairy industry started working on the shelf life thing, and that's how we got this.
Low moisture mozzarella has lower than 52% water content, so that means that this cheese will last a lot longer because it's just got less water in it.
But the issue is, when you're using this type of cheese in a big commercial setting, you got to take this block of cheese and you got to shred it down.
So, I mean, try shredding this cheese right now.
This is crazy labor intensive.
It takes forever.
Certain stand mixers started adding in cheese.
Is that all I got for all that?
I honestly expected a little more from a doc, but I guess you're not a pizza doctor.
But listen, this type of thing, we kind of got around this because rather than shredding it yourself, the pizza industry, or rather the cheese industry, started working on pre-shredded versions of it, which is good because it saves on labor cost, but it's not so great because if you leave this stuff to itself, it starts to clump up.
So they added in all these kind of anti-caking agents like potato starch, calcium silicate, all this other stuff, which prevents the cheese from clumping up.
And that results in more of a greasy shine on top of your slice.
See all that shiny puddle of oil on top?
Oh, you know, this is fat from the cheese.
It's not all bad, but yeah, if you do the blot test, I mean, a lot of people eat their pizza like this.
Oh, no, look at that.
And this is, I thought this was just fat coming up, but it's because they have these different products in there?
Some of it's fat coming out, but also some of it is the residual from that.
It's just anti-caking agent.
Look at that, guys.
And now your pizza tastes like a napkin.
Yes, your pizza tastes like a napkin.
I don't want to do that.
All right, so that's the first thing, cheese is.
I understand now that the industry got involved in this.
All right, second big issue, the cheesy chain pizzas.
They've got breads.
You often, you know, you get bread, right?
Bread with cheese when it comes with the pizza.
So it's more bread and cheese with the bread and cheese that's already in the pizza.
Absolutely.
I mean, and cheese is a great part of a pizza, and it's definitely the most exciting thing.
You know, like in the commercials, you always see the chain pizza commercials with the slice getting, you get the cheese pole in the sky.
It's breaking it apart like this.
And it's a good idea.
But it's actually, it probably saved the dairy industry, I bet.
It probably did, because, you know, about a year ago, since the dairy industry had this crazy issue with overpopulation of dairy cheese, the U.S. government started asking chain pizzeries and other chain food companies to start using more cheese.
So one of the big chains increased one of their products' cheese by 25%.
So this means that the dairy industry might be saved a little bit by this, but it also means that you're eating all this extra cheese that you might not need because I don't know about you, but I think a good pizza is a balanced pizza, not a cheese.
It blows my mind to think that they're, first of all, that cheese industry is being bolstered by the pizza industry, but they would add 25% more.
It does take the balance away.
It totally takes it away, but you know what?
It makes it look real good.
And cheese has a high perceived value.
So less cheese makes you think it's a cheaper pizza.
All right, the next shortcut, it's a big one, is the dough.
Yeah, I mean, look, dough is probably the most significant part of a pizza because all pizzas might not have cheese, might not have sauce, but they all have dough.
And you only need four ingredients for dough.
Water, flour, yeast, and salt.
And some of the independents don't even use commercial yeast if they're doing natural fermentation.
So the other end of the spectrum with the big chains, some of them are using all these kind of oxidizers and strengtheners for dough.
And some of them are even not great for you.
Like there's one ingredient that's in this pile over here, potassium bromate, and that's an oxidizer.
So it's going to help the dough ferment faster and trap more gas.
But that's actually on America's list of potential carcinogens.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It's a type category 2B carcinogen.
And we're still allowed to use it, but if you have too much of it, or if you underbake the pizza that has it, it could be dangerous to you.
Do other countries have the same problem with it?
Other countries have a huge problem.
It's not illegal in China.
It's not legal in Canada.
It's illegal in most places.
It's not banned in the U.S. yet.
Oh, my goodness.
But there is some good news, I understand, because that chemical you just mentioned earlier, other changes are happening.
Yeah, at least one of the chains is using a flour that doesn't have any potassium bromate, and their flour is unbleached.
So that's great.
Look, so the industry listens.
If you guys tell people what you want, they'll actually come along with it.
All right, no one knows this better Scott than Nino Kadiglu, who you saw earlier spitting around the pizza dough.
10-time world pizza maker.
He's a world champion pizza maker than the Brooklyn Pizza Crew.
So what are the markers of a good crust?
Educate us.
A great dough is, you know, all about the fermentation.
So you want to have, like Scott was saying, a long fermentation.
The best is using like a poolish Abigail or Wild East starter culture.
And it's just going to make for a healthier bread product.
I think a lot of the problem with the industry is, you know, they're not fermenting right, which is making like stuff that's going to fill you up.
It's going to, you know what I mean, not break down, not digest either.
This smells so good already.
You haven't even cooked it yet.
Yeah, it's amazing.
And it's, you know, chock full of probiotics, great tomato sauce.
Pizza's simple.
That's why Italian food's so popular.
It's just simple stuff.
And the secret to making it world-class is just a couple of ingredients done right, or is there anything else special?
Yeah, I mean, that's it.
Like, as long as the most important thing is fermenting the dough properly and using that because that's what's going to give you a healthy, really healthy pizza.
I mean, is this arugula?
This is basil.
Get the basil man.
Oh, I like basil.
I like green stuff.
I like the green stuff.
All right.
Now, we actually cooked this one ahead of time.
Go ahead and pull it out.
Who wants to taste a little pizza?
World-class pizza?
All right, let's just cut it up.
Cut it small.
Believe me, they'll eat your fingers off.
You'll lose a couple here.
We need you to make more.
How many pizzas do you make a day?
About like 200, 300 a day.
Two, 300?
All right.
Let me feed the audience up next.
Good.
Cold pizza.
You like cold pizza, everybody?
What gives?
How is that possible?
Everyone loves cold pizza.
Is it a health gamble or is it good to go?
If you've ever eaten leftover pie for breakfast, you will not want to miss this.
Hope you like it.
We're going to find out.
Stick around.
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A victim's brother reveals.
I got this big secret, you know.
What some won't believe.
I was there.
I saw this guy.
I looked him in his eyes.
Plus, actor-singer Donnie Wahlberg talks true crime and shares chilling details about Charles Manson.
He almost got a record deal.
He didn't, and that's one of the things that set him off on his murder story.
All nuance.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Dude, what are you doing?
Oh!
Why are you filming me?
Sometimes my cheat dinner turns into my cheat breakfast.
It's good.
Pizza's good.
I love pizza.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
Who eats pizza?
This early in the morning.
Yo.
Who cares?
My body.
I do what I want.
So unhealthy.
Oh, so unhealthy.
I can eat it whenever I want.
Nighttime, daytime.
I don't care.
Nah.
So gross.
You're all dangle.
I love that.
What are you doing?
I get that from my kids.
So some call it the breakfast of champions and others call it a ripe harvesting ground for bacteria.
So what's the deal with cold pizza?
Is it safe to eat?
And what's the real reason it tastes so good to some people, especially the next day?
Professional pizza enthusiast Scott Wiener is back and he looked into the science behind why the taste of pizza can improve as it gets cold.
So what's the deal?
Why are people so obsessed with cold pizza?
Well, there's a couple reasons.
First of all, you know, you have all these active aromatics like garlic and onions and herbs and all that.
And you know how it is?
When you make something fresh and something's still warm, those flavors all stand out pretty independent from each other.
But if you give them time to meld, you know, like day-of-the lasagna tastes really good, so good.
Right?
That's because those flavors tend to mellow out and then they combine.
So you get a little bit of a more mellowed and mesh of a flavor.
It's a little bit more rich.
But then we can't ignore the fact that, of course, fat is flavor.
Yes.
And fat and water separate.
So the fat from this pizza all rises to the top as it cools off.
So when you take a bite, you're actually going to get the fat right on the roof of your mouth.
So you get that flavor first.
All right, so this explains why the cold pizza tastes so good, but is it safe to eat?
My medical staff went inside our pizza lab testing and experimenting with how to store leftover pizza.
They chilled one pie in the fridge overnight and the other one, well, we left it on the counter, right?
That happens sometimes at home too.
Now you can't see them with the naked eye, but these could be harboring some harmful bacteria.
To find out, I asked German specialist Peter DeLusha to join us.
So let's start off with the pizza we put in the fridge last night.
Last night's pizza in the fridge last night, like it's supposed to be theoretically.
Is it safe to eat cold today?
I love cold pizza, so I'm not going to ruin it for anybody.
It is good to eat today.
If it's in the refrigerator 40 degrees, it's good for four days.
So here's the reality though.
So many of us, we leave the pizza on the counter overnight.
It doesn't make its way to the fridge, right?
Does that make sense if it's been on the counter to eat?
Well, you know, you forget about it, you leave it out there overnight.
What the USDA says is a two-hour rule for any potentially hazardous food, and pizza is one of them, has to be put under refrigeration of 40 degrees within two hours.
No one does that.
Well, I'll give you the big butt on this one.
So I'm going to say, you know, but in this case, first of all, health department, we're not getting big pizza complaints.
We're not getting big pizza outbreaks.
It's not happening.
We're not getting those calls.
Maybe we'll get a call that someone finds a hair or something else in their pizza that they don't want, but it's not happening.
So what I'm going to say is that it's, you know, it's a safe, it's, let's say, a semi-safe thing to do, and this is why.
It's because of water activity.
Water activity is the big issue.
What do germs need to grow?
They need a good pH in water activity.
And when you're looking at baked bread, baked cheese, add the acidity of a sauce on there, it's really not the environment where germs want to grow.
So it makes that regular plain pie.
I'm going to say, you know what, roll the dice, eat it in the morning.
Odds are you're going to be fine.
I was going to do it anyway, but I know it's the entire audience.
But let's go on to the next thing is let's have toppings.
People like to have all these exotic pizzas and toppings.
You start adding chicken and broccoli and fresh tomatoes and all these different things.
Now you're making a much more potentially hazardous pie.
Don't forget to put that one in the refrigerator.
Or if you leave it out overnight, you know, I say when in doubt, throw it out.
So generally good news for Peter Delusion from the health department.
Generally, I try.
I want to keep pizza good.
I love pizza.
All right, here's the challenge, though.
Does it still taste good?
What's the best way to store leftover pizza if you get put it in the fridge?
World champion pizza maker, Nino Cadiglio, is back in our pizza lab to test two methods.
Two methods, everybody.
Science meets savory.
So do you like cold pizza, by the way?
Yeah, cold pizza is all right once in a while.
I prefer the room temperature, to be honest with you.
Room temperature is okay?
Room temperature is nice.
Out of the oven, it'll cool down, you know what I'm saying?
So we're going to explain how you and my medical unit tested storage methods.
This is a stack and rack technique or the other version, but there they are very diligently doing it.
Just take a darn box, put the pizzas inside of it, right?
Throw it in the fridge.
This is what a lot of folks do.
Yeah, once again, I wouldn't recommend this.
The oxygen's going to get there.
Your product's going to become very hard.
All right.
It's not going to be enjoyable the next day.
But, you know, sometimes we don't feel like wrapping stuff.
So we're all guilty of it.
But the stack and wrap is definitely the way to go.
You think?
Well, I'm going to put it to the test because I've got our bike club here.
They're tasting me coming over here.
You know, reheated the pizza that we stored straight in the box and he heated the pizza that was wrapped, stacked and wrapped rather, right?
We're going to see if you guys can taste the difference.
So Minnel, you want to go first?
Yeah.
Okay.
So I definitely want to say that this one was a little bit drier than this one.
I could definitely tell a little bit of a difference.
Not a huge, but definitely the cheese in this one just tasted richer and it just tasted like if it was fresh instead of just microwaved right away.
Were you happy with the red plate?
Very happy with this one.
I'd rather choose this one than that one.
Amanda.
Yeah, I agree.
This one was definitely more crumbly.
This one tasted a lot fresher, it was moister.
So you're a red plate person too?
Yeah.
And guess what?
The red plate was the wrap, the stack and wrap.
It actually seems to pay off.
But here's the thing I didn't know till just before this show.
How do you actually reheat pizza?
How many of you microwave your pizza?
Oh, bad, bad mistake.
Real bad.
Real bad, right?
What's the way to do it?
Is it putting it in the oven?
Putting it in the oven is a good way to do it, but what we really prefer, what most pizza guys prefer to do, is to get it in a hot pan.
All right.
I like to put a top over it and just fry it up a little bit.
It takes about like one or two minutes.
All the pizza guys are doing that, and you know, no one ever told us.
The secret is out.
Guys, thanks for joining me right back.
Love your chips and dip?
We have a guac shock.
If you're buying pre-made from the store, how do the companies get away with that?
You may be getting more in your supermarket salsa than you think.
All nuance.
That's coming up on Wednesday.
*Cheering*
We've been investigating some of your favorite weeknight meals.
Now, the crowd-pleasing side dishes I know you all love because they save you time, money, and they taste so darn good.
Rice and couscous and pasta with, of course, chicken flavor.
But did you ever stop and wonder, is there any real chicken in there at all?
And what exactly does chicken flavor really mean?
Well, Mark Shasker wrote a book called The Dorito Effect, which remains one of the most surprising windows into how the food industry develops flavors in a lab that gives us wanting more.
So what do we know about how they actually make these fake copies taste even better than the real thing?
Yeah, so when I was researching the Dorito Effect, I contacted a flavor company and they told me the whole story.
They had just released a new line of chicken flavors.
And the way they made this is they got a whole bunch of super high-end chefs in Europe to get the best pastured chickens they could find and make the most wonderful chicken broth they could find.
And then they took those broths and they chemically analyzed them.
They figured out what are the flavor compounds in that broth, then they recreated a simulated version.
See what's going on.
Mark hit the road to get some answers.
He visited a chicken farm and he asked, why doesn't chicken taste like it used to?
Isn't that all your question?
What happened to our chicken?
Take a look.
Chicken these days doesn't taste the way it used to.
The question is, why?
What happened to chicken?
Why does it taste so bland?
To find out, I headed to a 200-acre farm in Indiana run by my friend Pete Eshelman.
How you doing?
Good to see you.
Great.
Okay, Pete, tell me, why doesn't chicken taste the way it used to?
When I buy chicken, it is the blandest meat.
It tastes like white paper towel.
What's going on?
Simply, chickens are not raised like this.
They're out all natural, on grass, eating bugs.
They're harvested around 14, 16 weeks versus six weeks.
That's the difference.
So you're saying the fact that these chickens live outside on pasture eating this stuff and they grow more slowly, that makes them taste better?
Absolutely.
So if most chickens today don't live on farms like Pete's, where do they live?
I set off to find a modern-day chicken farm.
There's one.
But it looks more like a factory than it does a farm.
And something tells me it's not open for tours.
Inside, there may be as many as 25,000 birds.
And they spend their entire lives not doing much of anything other than eating.
But just what are they eating?
To find out, I'm going to check out this local feed store.
Tell me, what's in modern day chicken feed?
Basically, you got corn for your calories here, soybean meal for protein, and then the vitamins and trace mineral mix.
So would you say then that this food is designed to make chickens grow big and fast?
Basically, the diet is always designed, I would say, for chickens to grow faster.
You've heard the expression, you are what you eat.
What about chickens?
Well, there's some debate on this, but certain scientific studies show that the flavor of chicken is influenced by what chickens eat.
And if chickens grow up never eating bugs or grass and only ever eating bland feed made from corn and soybeans, that's how the chickens taste.
Bland.
I had one more stop to make to find out why chicken these days tastes so boring.
Greg.
Hi Mark.
Greg Gunthorpe runs a chicken processing plant that supplies some of Chicago's best chefs.
So Greg, if I think chicken tastes like tap water, it's not my imagination.
It's not your imagination at all.
Most commercial chicken is soaked in bleach water for about 90 minutes in a large automated chiller.
And how does that affect the flavor?
It washes out a lot of the flavor.
To maintain flavor, Greg avoids water.
Instead, he air-chills his chickens inside this refrigerator.
And these chickens, when they cool like this in a fridge, they taste better.
They taste less watery, I'm guessing.
Yeah, you know, you can wash some of the flavor out by chilling them water.
It would be like taking a ham sandwich and dunking it in water.
Right, exactly.
Yeah.
All this talk of bland chicken was making me hungry for the real thing.
So I decided to go back to Pete's farm to see what a slow-growing, pasture-raised, air-chilled chicken actually tastes like.
It's a moment of truth.
Try my chicken.
Oh my God.
It actually tastes like chicken.
Here's what I take away from that.
Instead of using real chickens to give us chicken flavor, the food industry has turned to science.
So here's how chicken flavor is often made.
I just take what Mark taught me and put it in some pictures for you.
First of all, they don't start with chickens.
So get rid of the chickens.
There's no chickens in this thing.
Instead, they start with boiling soybean meal.
Soybean meal, right?
They do this in large vats of hydrochloric acid, and they leave it in there for about six hours.
It's basically a chemistry lab.
That wrenches apart the protein molecules and turns them into amino acids, things that Mark was talking about.
Corn syrup can then be added to the mix for an even more intense browning flavor.
Then the solution is neutralized with sodium hydroxide.
Why am I telling you all that?
Because sodium hydroxide, sodium is salt, right?
It leaves the product with an abundance of salt.
And then it tastes like chicken when they're done.
Go figure.
But it's never ever had a feather and it definitely never lived on old McDonald's farm.
I just want you to be clear on that.
That first, I mean, a bunch of questions come to mind, Mark, but first, how did anyone ever discover this?
Who put the pieces together and thought they could make something chemical that tasted like chicken?
Well, like I said, you know, they've got very sophisticated equipment.
They can analyze the flavor chemicals in actual chicken.
They don't bother with the nutrition.
It's not about the protein.
It's not about the vitamins.
It's just about the flavor.
And they recreate that.
Are you worried about these flavors?
Do you think they're dangerous at all?
So a lot of people ask me, are these toxic?
Are they going to give me cancer?
That's always the big worry.
Is it going to give me cancer?
I don't think that's a danger here.
What is the danger is that this is the stuff that makes food delicious and it keeps us going back and back and back.
And let's face it, our big problem when it comes to food is eating too much.
I would say if you're looking for flavor, go to nature.
Use herbs.
Use spices.
Use parmesan cheese.
Nature does not have a flavor problem.
The processed food industry does.
On that note, if you want savory, mouth-watering tastes of box size without all the added chemicals, got good news for you.
Up next, it's the three tricks to naturally flavor your favorite grains.
And guess what?
You have them all in your fridge this very second.
Stay with us.
I love getting to talk with you on my show every single day.
But when the cameras stop rolling, the conversation is not over.
I still have a lot that I want to talk about.
So download the Dr. Odd podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Are you obsessed with the taste of boxed side dishes but don't want all the added chemicals and the salt?
Well, there's good news today because Chef Nikki Dinky is breaking all the flavor rules down to revealing three all-natural tricks for tastier side dishes that are going to blow your mind.
All right, so we're going to put Nikki's new side dish solutions to the test.
To do that, we assemble a team of crack tasters who are obsessed with the box stuff.
They're going to give us their honest opinions on how naturally flavored sides stack up.
Are you ready to do that?
Yeah.
All right, here it goes.
First up, you're going to add salsa to your water, and then you're going to boil the food in there.
Yeah, so I'm going to boil my rice in a mixture of half salsa, half water.
And what this is going to do, oh, feel free.
What this is going to do is it's going to put that salsa flavor directly into our rice and give it great color.
So if you're making rice for, say, a big Mexican feast, you've got some tacos, this is a great side dish.
All right, Kaya, you've been tasting this whole time.
Please compare this to the usual box product you eat.
Wow, this is fresh and flavorful.
It's definitely not as overpowering and salty like the box stuff.
It's really great.
That's a winner.
It's great.
We love salsa.
Who would have done that?
I didn't think you could boil the salsa.
I thought you'd mess it up.
No, people are so afraid of messing things up.
Sometimes we don't take chances, and that's one that you want to take.
All right, next up, we're going to replace the butter or your oil with schmaltz cubes.
Yeah.
Schmaltz.
It's a word.
I looked it up.
What do schmaltz mean?
So schmaltz is just chicken fat.
So anytime that I cook up, say, chicken thighs or skin on chicken breasts, that fat that renders into the pan, I save it just like you see here, and then I just scoop it into an ice cube tray.
And you can see it's got all that great gelatin.
And what this does is it adds intense chicken flavor to your dish.
And it's one of those things that you would have otherwise thrown away.
So it's free, and we're going to have it on hand because we're freezing it.
I think it's brilliant.
I used to always get upset throwing this away.
No more.
So once you freeze it, it looks like this.
You pop it open.
Yeah.
Like that.
And you take these little babies.
Put it right in your finished couscous or whatever kind of grain you have instead of, say, a pad of butter.
And that chicken flavor will perfume the dish.
And it just adds this lusciousness, this richness.
You can smell it.
It's great.
She perfumes it.
I love it.
She perfumes it.
Who doesn't want chicken perfume?
I want it.
So, Maria, would you perfume with schmaltz, your couscous?
Absolutely.
Well, Dr. Oz, admittedly, I am a horrible cook.
And when I use anything, it's very bland and it's very dry, but this was very flavorful.
It was very rich and creamy, so I certainly do have an appreciation.
It's mana from heaven.
Yeah.
I like it.
Absolutely.
Finally, we're going to cook your grains in orange juice.
Now, the first two I sort of got, this thing seemed crazy.
It's a little crazy, but crazy in a great way.
So we are simply replacing your boiling water with orange juice.
In this case, we did some quinoa.
It's got a little sesame oil, a little scallions.
Not many ingredients here, but because the grain is so flavorful, the whole dish just sinks.
Not many ingredients, but the name, think about this: orange juice infused quinoa with some sesame oil.
Some adjectives, please, princess.
It was definitely tangy, very tasteful, savory.
I really enjoyed it.
I like the ginger, it's my favorite.
Yeah, a little bit of spice.
All right, I want to thank Chef Nikki Dicky, and her book is called The Meat.
Actually, just meat on the side.
Just meat on the side.
Leuvo.
You put all versebooks at drodes.com.
I'll be right back.
Love your chips and dip?
We have a guac shop if you're buying pre-made from the store.
How do companies get away with selling guacamole and doesn't have real avocados in them?
And you may be getting more in your supermarket salsa than you think.
Sugar, sugar, sugar.
Oh, coach.
All nuance.
That's coming up on Wednesday.
For those of you in pain, I get it.
You're desperate for fast relief to an aching back or sore muscles.
Over-the-counter pain-relieving creams and lotions may seem like a safer choice than taking a pill.
But can those numbing ointments that you're using be addicting?
Today we investigate pain-relief cream confessions.
Can you be overusing these over-the-counter solutions or worse, overdose on pain-relieving creams?
I keep my pain relief cream with me every day, all day.
I keep one in my purse.
I keep one in my car.
I even keep one at my desk at work.
It's essential that I have my pain relief cream with me every day for my chronic back pain.
I need my pain relief cream.
I use it so much if my husband tries to hide it from me.
I rely on pain relief cream.
It's my security blanket to get through the day.
I love my pain relief cream.
I use it every day even more than normal lotion.
Pain specialist and anesthesiologist Dr. Anita Gupta is here to help investigate pain cream addiction.
What kinds of pain relief creams are people using, overusing, maybe even getting addicted to?
Dr. Oz, there are so many pain creams at the pharmacy right now, and this is the issue.
People find them very easily.
There are tubes, there's gels, and there are patches, and people want to take them right now.
They don't want to take pills.
They're fast, they're easy, and you can get them without a prescription.
And they think they're safe, and that's why we're here today to talk about them.
All right, so let's talk about what's specifically in them that might be addictive.
That's right, that's right.
So there's many ingredients.
Menthol is one of the most common that you'll hear about, and that gives you the cool sensation that you, when you apply on, you feel good about that.
Also, camphor oil, very traditional type of medication that you'll find in many countries.
It's an essential oil.
Eucalyptus from a tree.
And also menthol salicylate.
Now, that is one that we have to be concerned about.
When you use a lot of it, that's when we can run into trouble and it can actually be toxic.
So what's the amount that you're supposed to use?
How do you know when you're using it more often than you're supposed to?
Give me some of the rational guidelines from an expert.
And that's what we really need to be worried about.
You know, look, as a doctor, a pain doctor, we really have to be concerned here three to four times a day, no more than seven days.
So I'm interested.
You said, so three to four times a day for a week, and after that, you've got to talk to somebody.
That's right.
This goes out to Kimberly.
That's right.
Kimberly, one of our audience members, she uses the cream five times a day.
Hello.
Thanks for being here.
And five times a day, which I didn't think was an unusual amount.
And when I hurt myself, that's probably what I would probably do.
Explain how you first learned about these creams and how you've built up to five times a day.
About seven years ago, I ran my first half marathon.
I noticed my knees started hurting during the race, so I stopped at the medical tent.
It was the first time they lathered me up, and I continued the race, and after that, it just became every day I started using it so I could run, and I got into CrossFit.
This is exactly what I often hear.
It starts with once or twice you get introduced to it, and it does sound like other types of addictions.
You're slowly building up more and more and more.
So Dr. Gupta, what's actually happening?
Look, what she's experienced, Kimberly's experience, is the common thing that I hear in my office.
The most important thing here is that we have to remember drugs are drugs.
You have to remember that if you use too much of it, you're going to run into trouble and harm can happen.
And we're going to talk about that.
War is not better, even though this is America.
There's the rational amount.
Here's a picture of a burn that could happen after using too much of these creams.
That's actually what happened to this patient.
And there was one case, Dr. Gupta, of an overdose in a teen who used too much of a pain-relieving cream.
I don't know how much they were using, but they had a pretty benign problem, but it ended up becoming a lethal complication.
Right.
Let's come on over here, Elizabeth.
Have a seat in that chair because I've got a little surprise for you in a second.
Dr. Gupta, I'm going to show you why the heating pad is such an issue here.
Yes.
I never thought heating pads and creams would ever interact with each other.
It never crossed my mind.
I thought you're supposed to use them together.
That's right.
Your skin, this is what it represents, right, has little pores in there.
And when you add a pain-relieving cream, in theory, these little pellets of pain relief go through the hole and you're good to go.
When you put a heating pad on your skin, what happens to the pores?
So the pores get bigger, and this is the problem.
So as the pores get bigger, now let's both add a handful of cream, right?
And as we do that, you'll notice mine don't all go in.
They're sort of sitting on the surface.
Whereas yours are falling in there pretty readily.
In fact, yours is so big, I could probably just pour this straight in there, right?
And if you look at the amount that's actually getting into the skin, it's dramatically different.
You're absorbing the active ingredient at a different rate.
And that can result in symptoms which lead to confusion, vomiting, headache, nausea, complications that you never could think could be associated with a pain relief cream.
That's right.
So instead of using a heating pad plus a cream, or if you are going to do this, this is not irrational, how often would you do it?
Look, you have to be careful.
Heating pads have the risks that we just talked about, but very cautiously and talk to your doctor.
I mean, I would tell my patients to avoid combining these type of treatments together.
And people still do it, but talk to your doctor if you're going to do all these things together.
All right, let's not want something simply like knee pain.
Let's say you have knee pain because you're trying to do the right thing for your body.
That's right, that's right.
Kimberly wants to put the cream on there, but since you're a pain specialist, teach us what else might be causing the pain.
We just deal with the root issue, not cover up paint over the cracks in the foundation of our health.
There are things that you can do at home.
So one thing you can do is have an upright back in a chair, cross your legs over your knee.
What I can do, take your leg, and what I'm going to have you do is place This knee actually right here, and this, and I'm going to have you straighten this leg, and then lean forward, and then I'm going to have you put your hands over this knee right here, both hands like this.
And now I want you to lean towards this hand, lean and actually cross your back.
And do you feel that stretch in your back?
Very much.
And so you're going to feel it in your back and in your hamstring and in something called a piriformis.
And this muscle, if you do alternating repetitions, actually can actually stretch multiple muscles, not only your back, but your hamstrings and your knee.
And this is an exercise that I'll recommend to my patients very frequently just in the office, whether you're an athlete, whether you're someone that has back pain or knee pain.
Very effective.
It's a much more holistic approach.
I hope that's helpful to you.
Keep running.
All right, we'll be right back.
The Atlanta child murders.
Most of the people did not believe that Wayne was the killer.
A victim's brother reveals what some won't believe.
I was there.
I saw this guy.
Plus, actor-singer Donnie Wahlberg shares chilling details about Charles Manson.
That's coming up tomorrow.
One thing I loved about visiting China with my trusted sponsorship partner, USANA Health Sciences, was the ability to explore how traditional Chinese medicine and conventional Western medicine work together.
They each have so much to offer, but how do you decide when to incorporate an ancient practice into your life today?
We'll take a look.
Beijing is fast-paced and fast-growing, a city that radiates hope and prosperity.
The best part, the people.
Wherever we went, we were greeted with tremendous enthusiasm.
Another joy of this journey, the food.
I sampled exotic snacks by day, and on my first night, an extraordinary classic, Peking Duck.
The next day, a stiff neck I developed during the flight was getting worse.
But I was in China, where the approach to medicine often blends the latest in high-tech without casting off what's worked over time.
I was game to give the age-old methods a try.
At the Dao Fu Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic, some of the practices date back thousands of years.
But are they still relevant?
Chinese medical doctors are very important in China.
Currently, we are confronting a lot of challenges, such as drug-resistant viruses and chronic diseases.
Therefore, we value traditional Chinese medicine even more.
How does traditional Chinese medicine differ from Western medicine?
The biggest difference between traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine is their different worldviews.
One way to look at it is that traditional Chinese medicine takes a holistic approach to health, centering on balance and energy flow, or qi, while Western medicine focuses on curing disease.
And if you have a patient, how do you decide if they should get traditional Chinese medicine or if they should get Western medicine?
The difference between them is that Western medicine is more suitable for certain diseases.
For example, pneumonia.
Administering antibiotics can result in a speedy recovery.
Other complicated chronic diseases may require treatment using traditional Chinese medicine.
One of the most fascinating aspects of traditional Chinese medicine is the use of herbs.
I watched what is essentially a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacist prepare a prescription.
I mean, look at this.
There's so many herbs here.
They're all so different.
How many herbs are there in traditional Chinese medicine?
There are more than 10,000 herbs.
There are about 450 that are commonly used.
And what's the most common solution?
What problem do you solve?
Some of the common ones are used to treat colds.
It was time for me to be the patient.
So I'm with Dr. Peng.
He's helping me with this neck pain I've had since flying to China.
Dr. Peng will use box substitute, where an herb is burned over certain areas of the body to facilitate healing.
It's warmer than a heating pad would be and more intense.
Dr. Deng, can you explain what you're doing?
Well, in traditional Chinese medicine, the pain point is called ashishra.
Through the stimulation of that point, we can promote the relaxation of the muscles and the pain will dissipate.
It has a powerful smell.
It's like an incense.
What is the smell from?
Oh, my goodness, you're getting it.
This is mugwort leaf.
The session lasted about 11 minutes.
Does it still hurt?
It's amazing.
It has been non-stop aching for three days.
I mean, it doesn't hurt at all.
It's remarkable.
Who would have thought?
I have witnessed in China a unique blend of ancient and modern and a people open to both who do their homework and hold on to what works, learning from the past to help shape the future.
I know that USANA Health Sciences Chief Science Officer Dr. Robert Sennett also shares in this belief.
What kinds of ideas has USANA adopted from past Eastern philosophies?
Well, we've adopted a very holistic approach towards health, which comes from Eastern medicine.
But holistic means that we pay attention to the body, the spirit, the whole person rather than just organs and cells within their body.
And we're not just a bunch of molecules.
We're actually connected in ways that are special, unique.
Exactly, in ways we don't even understand yet.
So scientists often infuse Eastern knowledge into modern supplements that are being created today.
It's happening all over the place, but it's especially evident when we try to take care of ourselves.
So Dr. Sener, walk us through some of the traditional ingredients that you're seeing out there, especially the ones that USANA is starting to use in its supplements.
Okay, so we actually share quite a few ingredients in common with traditional Chinese medicine.
We use certain mushrooms such as reishi and shiitake.
They've got polysaccharides that stimulate the immune system and help your body Fight against things that are invaders.
We also use a form of baker's yeast called beta-glucans.
So it's the cell walls from the baker's yeast that stimulates the immune system and keeps it modulated.
And then we also use the mineral zinc quite a bit because zinc is a micronutrient that your body needs actually increased amounts when you're under stress and when you're exposed to things that you shouldn't be exposed to.
It's remarkable to me that traditional Chinese medicine figured a lot of this stuff out a thousand plus years ago.
I mean, imagine walking through the forest and seeing this.
It looks like a piece of art.
Yeah.
You're just coming close on these.
Look how pretty those are.
Then understanding exactly how these might work.
I'm stunned, for example, the baker's use.
It makes sense, right?
If you showed me the wall of a bacteria that could have been invading me, of course I'm going to think it's a bad thing that I want to knock out.
So since there's no bacteria there, I just get my tentacles go up to watch out for problems, but I don't actually overreact.
Exactly.
You've got it exactly right.
So how does you kind of take all these ingredients and put them, package them into one product?
Well, the pro-glucaimmune is really a compilation of all those particular ingredients from traditional Chinese medicine.
So we've got the reishi, the shiitake, the beta-glucan, and then we've also got zinc in there.
So it's all formulated together at the appropriate effective amounts.
It's been clinically studied.
We've shown that it not only improves the immune system function, but also improves a measure called protective qi, which is a TCM measure of protective immunity.
Well, thanks to my trusted sponsorship partner, USANA Health Sciences.
You can go to drozz.com right now to enter for a chance to win one of a thousand bottles of USANA's Pogu Commune.
And for the entire studio audience, you're all winners too.
You're not taking any marshals.
You're going to get home to USANA's Pogu Commune.
Enjoy it.
We'll be right back.
Stay healthy, everyone.
Thank you.
Doctors are notoriously known for having bad handwriting.
So I wanted to look a little deeper into this theory and to see if there's really a science behind how we write and what it could possibly mean about our personality.
So I asked handwriting expert Michael Hernandez to analyze my handwriting to see what it says about me and what it says about doctors.
How are you supposed to meet you doing well like I did?
But just before you get started, why do doctors seem to have bad handwriting?
Well, quite frankly, doctors have a lot of things on their minds.
They process information very quickly.
And as a motor skill, their hands just can't keep up with how quick their brains are functioning.
So it's a great thing.
Maybe.
It's a good excuse.
It used to bother me before I became a doctor.
Now I can't read my own handwriting.
All right, so what should I write here?
You can write whatever you had for breakfast this morning.
So I'll say, for breakfast, I had yogurt and berries.
Okay.
Excellent.
Now, first and foremost, from looking at your handwriting, I'm going to say that you're a very good listener.
You're actually, you not only like to talk, but you're a very good listener.
And more importantly, you are very good at keeping secrets.
But more importantly, what we do find with you also is that you process information very quickly, which is a great trait.
What I would probably say, you know, is you're not someone who beats around the bush.
You're very direct.
You're to the point.
And more importantly, I would say that you're very open-minded as well.
And you're very ambidextrous.
You're dexterity.
I'm going to take it home with me.
All right, good enough.
And you know, about ambidextrous, surgeons have to be ambidextrous because you have to be able to operate from both sides of the body.
Right.
This is remarkable.
Well, just from handwriting.
I'm not telling you anything that anyone who doesn't know you well wouldn't tell you.
All right, we're going to put more on droz.com together.
Change is happening.
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