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Oct. 24, 2025 - Dr. Oz Podcast
41:44
The Truth Behind America’s Biggest Health Myths | Dr. Oz | S7 | Ep 156 | Full Episode
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We bust the number one biggest health myth Americans believe.
You'll never guess what it is.
Then, ear stapling.
Is it the weight loss shortcut you've been waiting for or a dangerous scam?
And Kristen Cavallari speaks out on her car accident and her brother's sudden death.
coming up next We are ready to get healthy!
I love when my friend neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta is here to Today he's breaking down the biggest health myths from the human brain, that's his specialty, to inside your belly, and even to outer space.
Sanjay's giving you an inside look like only he can.
And then we are turning our hidden camera on the latest quick fix for weight loss, ear stapling.
Now, I promise this is big results for a small price.
Is it a scam or is it the secret taken off the pounds?
We are investigating.
And I've got Hill star Kristen Cavallari here speaking honestly about the sudden death of her brother.
But let's start with my good friend, CNN's Sanjay Gupta.
Come on out.
Thank you, my family.
Good to see you.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I've always wanted to do a myth show with you because we both get inundated with folks who come to us with ideas.
Which is the myth that bothers you the most?
The myth that bothers me the most is that people believe cardiothoracic surgeons are better than neurosurgeons.
Big myth.
Big myth.
If it wasn't for the heart pumping blood to the brain, where would we be?
Come on.
It'd be nothing, just a blob.
You can't transplant the brain.
Yet, yet.
We got health myths.
Well, you know what?
We'll start with the brain and we'll work our way down a little bit.
The first big health myth that I want you to address, as only you can, is that we only use 10% of our brains.
This is a widely held myth.
And what's interesting about it is if you look at the brain, you have all these various sort of big cities within the brain, okay?
That's where all the action's happening.
But you need the roads to get to all these cities.
And it's those roads that sometimes aren't being used as much, but sometimes there's traffic jams on those roads as well.
So the reality is we use our entire brain, but the big cities is sort of where the real action is happening constantly.
Let's apply this.
Let's do a little experiment.
You guys in the experiments today?
They're busted myths.
I need someone to help from the audience.
Put your hands up.
Who wants to participate?
Well, we've got a victim right there.
Come on down, Madman.
And that's our teal shirt.
All right, so this experiment's going to involve some hot water.
Are you good with that?
Sure.
What's your name?
Brittany.
Hey, Brittany, come on in here.
All right.
Do you like tea?
Yes.
All right.
So we're going to do a little experiment to demonstrate how we use our brain.
And just out of curiosity, what percentage of your brain do you think you use?
We probably use an eighth percent of the brain.
Okay, an eighth of it.
Okay, and how much would you use just drinking tea, which is a fairly simple thing?
Seems pretty mindless, maybe a sixteenth, half of that.
A 16th.
Yeah.
All right, so you're not using much of your brain to drink tea.
So I want you to go ahead and use the 1 16th of your brain.
Put that tea bag in that tea and go ahead and make it for us.
And walk us through.
So you're going to put the bag in the tea.
Now stop right there.
Sanjay.
Okay, let me just use that.
Brittany, was it?
Yes.
Every time Brittany does something, I want you to explain how much of a brain she's using.
Well, the first thing Brittany did was you actually just looked at everything.
And that actually took up a fair amount of your brain.
That's your visual cortex.
That's sort of in the back of the brain.
You can get an idea right there of how much of your brain you used before you even did anything at all.
Next thing you did was you took that tea bag, you put it into that teacup.
That's the beginning of starting to use what's known as the motor cortex of your brain.
That's right over there.
So that's what you've done so far, and you've already used that much of your brain.
Okay.
All right, so go ahead and mix up the tea bag, pour some water in there, all the good stuff.
I'll even help you so you don't use as much of your brain.
All right.
Now, Sanjay, what's going on here?
What part of her brain is she using?
All right, still using a lot of your motor cortex here.
But when you poured that water into the cup, you actually had to do a few things.
Besides actually using the strength, you had to actually figure out where the cup was and start to use your spatial relations.
So you can see where spatial relations sort of pops up in the brain.
Yellow air.
Pretty big chunk of the brain just to do not pouring the example all over the and of course you have to your tea.
Do it dainty.
You're only allowed to use one 16th of your brain per your assessment.
All right, now what's going on here?
All right, still using now several things.
The motor cortex, as you saw, the spatial to get that to the mouth, but also a little bit of sensory as well.
Was that too hot or too cold, for example, for you?
No.
Just right?
Yeah.
Okay, a significant amount of your brain actually went into determining that.
Was it too hot or too cold?
That sensation part of it.
And then you've got to do something really important.
You've got to decide, are you going to add cream or sugar?
Can I have both?
You could have both.
Here were two doctors, though.
We were two doctors, so maybe not.
Is that a big one?
Actually, you don't have to big either, because just the fact that you chose both itself shows what, Sanjay?
That is one of the biggest parts of the brain.
That is your judgment, your executive decision-making, and you can see some of that pop up right in front there.
That's the green area.
Decisions like that actually require a fair amount of your brain.
You're using lots of different experiences you've had, the different flavors that you've tasted, putting it all together, and making the decision about this.
So to be clear, if you look at that picture of the brain, it looks like almost all of it's being used.
Right.
Not 1 16th or even 1 8th.
Right.
Or even the difficulty you had calculating that percentage.
Just calculating how much you use, use all your brain.
Right.
Did I get it right?
Yeah, that's right.
Brittany, nicely done.
You want to take this tea with you?
Sure.
I know you've been coming here.
Here's the cream.
Go ahead, give some sugar to her.
I'm sure it's cry.
What happy people?
Thank you.
Don't spill it.
It's a different part of your brain you're using.
Pain.
All right.
Come on over.
Sanjay.
All right.
Enjoy yourself, Brittany.
Can you get back to me?
Share it back there.
People, just on the brain, before I leave it all completely, they say left side is used in half the time.
If you're right-handed, you use only the left side.
How does that work?
There's this whole left brain-right brain, and this is also an interesting concept.
And the idea is that the left brain for most people is where your language is stored.
It's where you find words, you actually use those words.
Right brain is more spatial relations, but also your more artistic side, musicians, for example.
We use all of our brains all the time.
There's no left-brain-right brain sort of thing, as interesting as that may seem.
We're constantly using it.
Here's something interesting.
If you sing a song, it's one of the best ways to integrate all the various aspects of your brain.
You're remembering words, you're putting them into a tune, you're putting it to a rhythm.
If you start dancing with it, it's even more of your brain.
So you're using all of your brain, as you just pointed out, pretty much all the time.
Another myth, busted, everybody.
All right.
Now we're going to move on to another myth of fact.
It has to do with potatoes making you fat.
Now, you all know they can be shapeless, they can be lumpy, they can be crispy, it can be fried.
We've got to face it, potatoes have an image problem, a big time one.
Does it deserve to have an image problem?
I don't think so.
I mean, first of all, they're pretty healthy food.
They're relatively low in calories.
And they also have what is known as resistant starches.
And basically, all that means is it's resistant.
It doesn't digest as quickly.
It doesn't digest in the stomach, doesn't digest in the small intestine.
That's good, because your blood sugars, for example, won't raise as quickly as a result of that.
That's the big concern.
Blood sugar spike, insulin spike.
Potatoes are going to be less likely to do that versus, for example, a piece of white bread.
How do you like your potatoes?
I like my potatoes a little roasted.
There we go.
Roasted, chopped up, roasted, a little bit of garlic, a little bit of olive oil, for example.
Make sure you eat the skin.
Keep the skin on it as well.
The skin's where you get some of the healthiest parts of it.
I'd like mine juggled.
Whoa!
These are hard to juggle, though.
That's it.
23% of your brain.
Myth busted.
All right.
Last myth or fact has to do with butterflies.
This is fantastic.
Your stomach.
So explain to everybody, if you don't mind, what happens when we get those senses of queasiness?
You know, the butterflies in the stomach usually are a response to something that might frighten you, something unexpected, something that makes you anxious, and you get this response known as the fight-or-flight response.
You literally want to either fight or fly away.
And that's sort of the beginning of those quivers, if you will, in your stomach.
So we made a little demonstration together.
Sanjay now, you put our brain power together, this is all you come up with.
All right.
So these little ping pong balls represents blood inside your body.
And they're all in your stomach when you eat food, right?
Because the food's got to be digested.
So what happens?
You can be the drummer here when we start to get that fight or flight response.
Now you get hormones, adrenaline inserting to our body.
It pushes the blood away from the stomach muscles into the arms and the legs and into the brain because those parts of the body have to actually run away, fight, or they've got to fight to defend you.
And so what's left?
Not much in the stomach.
And that's not enough blood to keep the stomach muscles happy.
So that's one of the reasons we think you get that quivering feeling in your summer.
That lack of blood flow to your stomach.
Another myth, my friends, busted.
All right.
Now, finally, let's talk about a myth that actually is really important for us to understand.
And I think this happens a lot to folks.
People watch the show talk to me about this all the time.
They're told that their stomach issues, whether they're irritable bowel or pains in their belly, are linked to their head.
In fact, caused by their head.
It's all in your mind, people will say.
And this idea that if you have depression or anxiety, it's going to cause abdominal problems.
What is really interesting is that you think about the brain, obviously, that you have in your head, but your gut sort of is a brain as well.
It's a second brain.
And what they're learning, and I think this is really fascinating, is that people who develop things like inflammatory bowel syndrome, they develop that first.
And that actually can then lead to depression or anxiety.
So it's not so much that the depression or anxiety or things in your head, as you say, cause the problems in the bowel.
It can often be the other way around entirely, which, you know, if you think about that, that changes the way that we doctors approach it and possibly treat it as well.
Treating depression by treating the gut.
And there's brand new studies showing this.
There's tremendous power here.
Because imagine, yeah, you can use your mind to overcome physical barriers, but the physical problems cause the mind issues in the first place.
That should be very freeing to a lot of people.
All right, up next, Sanjay Gupta's exclusive report on why a pair of astronauts may hold the key to solving your health problems right here on Earth.
Stay here.
Next, Sanjay Gupta is at a mission with an experiment that's out of this world.
Study NASA twin astronauts separated by space.
Will they age differently?
How outer space may hold the key to health problems here on Earth.
Next.
A Dr. Oz investigation.
That's Maggot.
What's happening in your favorite restaurant?
None of that is edible.
Plus, Padma Latch began surviving a scary health challenge.
All nuis.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Imagine two twin astronauts.
One goes to space for almost a year, one stays on Earth.
Would there be a difference in their health after that year?
Well, now we can find out because NASA is conducting the first ever space twin study with these brothers.
Now look at them.
This is actually after the brother in the left came back from space.
Notice his jowls, by the way.
Could that saggy neck and that skin be the result of gravity in space?
What's going on in the inside?
So Sanjay recently spoke to Scott Kelly, the twin astronaut in space that's on the left, that picture.
He was traveling at 17,000 miles an hour on the International Space Station.
Take a look.
So why is the twin study done in space so important to our health back here on Earth?
Well, putting people in these sort of extreme environments gives us an insight into what our bodies might go through here on Earth and what we can do about it, I think most importantly.
So walk us through what NASA is doing right now if they compare these two brothers.
There's several things they want to look at, and it's interesting.
If you take a look, so obviously you have one twin on the right with the space, and then the other guy with the suit on the side.
They want to look at several things.
Some of them are going to be a little non-intuitive.
For example, psychology.
You want to look at the psychology of what's happening here.
He's up in space, basically without many, many stimulations of Earth for a long time.
But also very specific things, eye health.
You get all these different sort of changes in your body overall, including fluid shifts.
And they're really concerned that people's vision may start to diminish in this environment.
That could be catastrophic if you're in space for a long time.
What happens to your heart?
You'll appreciate that.
Again, these same cares about the heart.
I fucking asked for it.
He has to go to space to care.
Got to go to space to care.
But you get so much fluid shifting.
It's not staying in your legs or in your torso as it normally does.
Also, your gut.
We talk a lot about the gut.
Your food choices are very limited when you're up in space.
So what are the best foods you could possibly eat in space?
And what can that teach us about being here on Earth?
And what if gravity doesn't push the poop down?
What happens?
Well, that's a big issue.
Interesting point.
We could talk about that.
Let me tell you, though, as well, that aging overall, it's interesting.
You actually age differently when you're in space versus when you're here on Earth.
And that, you know, look, as the population grows on this planet, we need to look for other places to live.
Space is one of the places we're looking, and that's why this is also important.
Yeah, and what if putting us in a weightless environment helps with heart problems, or with glaucoma in your eyes or things that we never couldn't, or never would have thought about?
Exactly.
And they're directly putting some of those practices right here on Earth.
So they're learning things in space and starting to use it here on Earth.
What about some of the more pedestrian problems?
Like do you get a cold in space?
What happens?
You blow your noses, you go back into your head, right?
No, this is fascinating.
This is sort of the ultimate isolation, right?
Being up in the International Space Station.
Talk about isolation.
This is it.
So you really don't have bacteria and viruses around there, but you do have just about anything else that you could possibly inhale because everything gets aerosolized.
So you get a lightstrap powder of something, it's in the air.
Our skin is constantly flecking off.
So I'd be breathing in your skin if we were in the international space.
How lucky you'd be.
Yeah, something like that, right.
So I know that you spoke to astronaut Scott Kelly about this a little bit, and he didn't get a cold there, but you learned a lot about how you can tell the difference between colds and allergies.
Yeah, no question.
So he's breathing in all these various things.
They're not, again, viruses.
They're not causing a cold, but he is feeling like it because he's got congestion, he gets a little stuffiness, all that sort of stuff.
And it's a really good point because it's not a cold, it's an allergy, and there's ways that he could specifically tell.
So, you look at the nose on the outside, it can be hard to tell, but as soon as you start to look inside, there's some big differences, and this is again relevant, I think, to anybody here on Earth as well.
This side, the bluish side, that's going to be more the allergy side.
Your nose starts to swell a little bit, you get a little bit of fluid, and what you're looking at are these blood vessels, actually the veins in the nose.
That's why it looks blue.
So, allergies are going to look more like that.
Allergies often last a lot longer as well, not typically associated with fever.
On the other hand, if you have a real cold, this is inflammation.
That's the redness.
So, if you've got a red nose like that, especially when you look inside, much more likely to be a cold.
You might get a fever with that.
So, you've been avoiding this poop issue.
Let's go back to it.
I got to have facts fixated us for a reason.
How do you go to the bathroom in space?
I mean, there's nothing to push it in the right direction.
You are really focused on this.
Don't you think if I was an astronaut, that's what I'd be thinking about.
I go to the bathroom and there's nothing to fall into because it falls up into me.
That's a great visual, by the way.
You're sitting there, they have space toilets.
They do?
They have space toilets and suck it out of them.
Kind of like that, yes.
You do a lot of the work yourself still.
I mean, you do have your bodily functions are still operational up in space.
So, that part of it works, the muscles that sort of squeeze, if you will.
You will?
Yes.
I will.
And then there's a space, which actually there's vacuums and things like that that will actually pull it then down.
Well, they are vacuuming.
I knew it.
You knew it.
Yes.
You should have been an astronaut.
But typically, what they do, what's interesting here, is they dispose of it, right?
Who really needs it?
But for this space study, with this twin study, they need to keep that because they want to look at what's going on in the gut of the brother up in space and compare it to the gut of the brother here.
They bring it all back on the spaceship.
They're bringing a lot of poop back.
Yes, they are.
In fact, there was so much that they couldn't bring it all back with Scott.
They're going to have to send up another craft to bring some of the poop down.
Get out of here.
I'm not kidding you.
You're making that up.
I'm not.
I'm not.
That's true.
Different missions are going to bring more.
That's a free model.
Go into space.
That's right.
Don't forget the poop.
Don't forget.
All right.
So you learned a lot about gut health in your investigation.
So for all those of us who are still stuck on Earth, what are the best things for us to eat in order to make sure our bacteria checks in healthily?
So, I don't know, have you ever had these sun chokes?
Or Jerusalem artichokes?
They're fantastic.
These are great.
These have a great, something known as inulin in them and sort of a prebiotic.
Polenta, you want to cut the polenta?
Yeah, cut it.
You're a good surgeon.
This feels like a heart artery.
Feels like a heart artery.
I'd open an artery like this normally.
You split it like that.
See, you are good.
It's pretty good.
Take the plaque out.
There you go.
That's what it looks like.
This feels like brain over here.
Yeah, it's a little mushy.
Is that your point?
Exactly.
But polenta, insoluble fiber.
You cut it like that, you can fry it for a little bit, not too long.
Bad for the heart.
But polenta is another source of insoluble fiber, which again helps feed the gut.
And then one of my favorite, I think you and I have talked about this because these are fantastic.
Obviously, low calorie, tastes great.
What is interesting about these as well is that once they start to break down, they actually can help feed the bacteria themselves.
The bacteria don't repopulate themselves.
They need help.
And these foods will do it.
I love having you here.
So I just sticking around till the end of the show to give us NASA's best stress-relieving tip that he learned that the astronauts apparently used to stay calm.
It might surprise you.
We'll be right back.
Next, is ear stapling the weight loss shortcut you've been waiting for?
You want to look your best, want that quick fix.
Or just a dangerous scam.
Some say it works like acupuncture and can help drop pounds.
But are they telling the truth?
We investigate.
Next.
Now I'm looking into a weight loss trend that's gone viral.
Ear stapling.
Now supporters say it works just like acupuncture and can help you lose weight.
But are they telling the truth?
I sent core team member Tia Brown to investigate if the weight loss shortcut you've been waiting for is this or if it's just a dangerous scam.
Take a look.
In the weight loss world, outlandish trends come, go and come back again.
So when I heard ear stapling was back gaining renewed buzz online as a silver bullet for losing pounds, it caught my ear.
I asked Tia Brown to investigate.
There seems to be a number of places doing this around the country.
And the interesting thing is that they're listed as acupuncturists, tanning salons, and all different types of beauty businesses.
When you type in ear stapling, it's popping up on weight loss messaging boards, YouTube channels, Facebook pages.
It seems like a lot of people are doing it.
Let's make some calls.
I'm calling because I wanted to know if you guys do ear stapling.
Sure, the hands would be inserted on a certain part of your ear that is an acupuncture point.
That acupuncture point is to help curb the craving.
So I kind of asked like you would have acupuncture 24-7.
How much weight can I expect to lose?
There's nobody confused with the test.
An average client loses 2 to 5 pounds a week.
Anywhere between 25 to 55 pounds.
And most of your clients that have this done, what kind of results do they see?
We have a 90% effectiveness rate.
Tell me a little bit about how it works.
Well, it's really hard to explain.
So I decided I'm going to go visit one of these practitioners, bringing a producer and a hidden camera with me.
How much weight did you lose?
Five pounds.
Five to eight pounds.
Oh, it's not.
Okay, let me explain how it works.
What it is.
So this is a model of the ear with all points in Chinese.
But this is 0.0 and this is stock.
Modern share.
Does it leave a mark or anything like that on your ear?
Yeah.
No, you're going to have a staple.
It'll be in there, okay.
I mean, it just brings the skin.
I mean, brain skin.
Occasionally you may have a little bounce, like I did it myself.
I have a couple of bounce that goes away.
Okay.
Okay, there's no side effects.
When it's time to take them out, I'll come back to you.
You can come back to me, or I'm going to give you later one of this staple removal.
You can remove yourself.
A staple removal?
Yeah.
How to take it out.
Okay.
That's very alarming.
So how common is ear stapling for weight loss?
Now, we looked into it and we found that this trend hit its peak around 2006.
It was really big on the East Coast with a lot of acupuncturists performing this procedure, but there were a lot of people coming back complaining of ear infections, so they stopped doing it.
But the trend picked up momentum online.
Why?
Because on YouTube you see videos with people boasting about having great results doing ear stapling.
So the promises that I heard that taper are very concerning to me.
What other kinds of things are you hearing on the web?
Well they sell you that big golden egg.
You can lose three to four pounds in a week.
If you keep it on for two to three months you can lose up to 40 pounds.
And of course that's very enticing because they're saying weight loss, no work.
It's perfect.
Right.
So what is it that makes this time right now so enticing for people?
Well we know it's the summertime coming up right and everybody's going on vacations.
They're preparing for weddings.
It's reunion season and you want to look your best and you want that shortcut.
You want that quick fix.
And this seems like it can be it.
But it's also potentially very dangerous.
I bet you if I went through this audience right now and offered free staples, who would take a free staple right now?
You're just saying that.
So here's the question.
Can ear stapling really work to help you lose weight?
That's what we're all thinking.
Find out when we come back.
Next, we talked to some of the women who tried it.
Did the patients lose the weight?
And what happens after the staple is removed?
This is an area that's pretty delicate.
It's not where you get your ears pierced only for a reason.
But you need to be here first before you put your health at risk.
Next.
A Dr. Raz investigation.
That's Maggots.
What's happening in your favorite restaurant?
All the Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
I decided I'm going to go visit one of these practitioners and I'm bringing a producer and a hidden camera with me.
Does it leave a mark or anything like that on your ear?
Yeah.
No, you're going to have a staple?
It'll be in there.
Okay.
I'm going to give you later one of this staple removal.
You can remove yourself.
That was undercover footage obtained by core expert Tia Brown.
It's part of our investigation into ear stapling as a weight loss shortcut.
Now there are testimonials that build these ear staples as the best kept secret for keeping your hunger at bay.
See all these things, 90% success rate, you get results in seven days.
These online ads tout this practice as a quick way for big weight loss results.
And just from this tiny little staple you see here.
Imagine if that's possible.
Or is it?
Or is it just another scam trying to take advantage of people struggling to lose weight?
We decided to find out.
I've asked Natasha to join us.
She had one of those staples in her ear for about a month before having it removed.
How are you?
Hi, how are you, Dr. Os.
So what was it that made you take what I think is a pretty big step, radical step, of having someone staple a piece of metal in your ear?
Well I was actually getting ready for a wedding and of course I wanted to lose a couple of extra pounds right before.
I have a very hectic schedule.
Sure.
A friend of mine recommended it.
She had it done.
She lost about 16 pounds.
So I said, hey, it was $80.
Why not?
And where'd you have it?
I actually had it placed here in my right ear in between this cartilage.
That central area.
And how painful was it when they stapled it?
It was about a prick.
I mean, nothing compared to childbirth.
Yo, I hope not.
I haven't been there myself, but I've witnessed it.
So it's about having like your ear pierce?
And did it help you lose weight?
I was promised to lose about 20 to 30 pounds.
You're supposed to kind of rub on it to help with the cravings.
Yeah.
It didn't really work for me.
I lost about six pounds in the month, and they do give you a diet, so I kind of attribute that to the diet.
I feel like the staple was more like a placebo.
And when you took the staple out, what happened?
It didn't hurt.
I actually ended up gaining back the six pounds.
And then some.
So it didn't really work for you like you might have hoped.
Yeah, no.
And what would you say to someone watching right now who's thinking about getting their ear stapled because they want to go to a wedding or some other big event?
I tell them to take the $80 and invest it in fruit and vegetables.
Thanks, Natasha.
Here's everybody what the biggest risk is of ear stapling.
Now Natasha showed you where the staple was placed in your ear.
The staple gun is actually used to apply staple in what we call the stomach of the ear, right?
This is an area that's pretty delicate.
It's not where you get your ears pierced normally for a reason.
There's cartilage here, unlike down below where it's just pretty much skin.
So there's not enough blood flow and it raises the risk of infections, infections that are really hard to treat, again, because there's no blood going there.
Now ear stapling is supposedly rooted in the practice, an eastern medicine practice called acupuncture.
And this acupuncture has been shown in case control studies to help with a bunch of things.
It helps relieve pain, improves the sleep and digestion.
It seems to influence emotional well-being in a lot of people.
Some say that if it helps induce labor, back to the childbirth comparison, that Natasha was offering us.
But the studies on weight loss have been very mixed so far.
So I asked Dr. Dan Shu, who's one of the world's leading acupuncturists, to join us.
He's here with Tia.
So you argue that ear stapling wouldn't even be considered in your specialty of acupuncture.
Yeah, well, when it comes to licensed acupuncturists, we don't really condone it or do it.
It's not taught in acupuncture schools, especially ones that have special ear clinics.
And also, there's no national standard when it comes to it.
And the bottom line is there's really no way to make it sterile.
And you're putting it into cartilage, like you said, and without a whole lot of blood flow.
So it's not something that we do.
Plus, nowadays where the acupuncture world is veering away from allowing patients to leave the clinic with needles.
Oh.
So Tia, I know before you started your investigation, you're enticed by the possibility of an ear staple.
It'll help you lose just a couple pounds.
Who doesn't want to lose some weight, right?
What happened after you did your investigation, you decided not to get stapled?
Absolutely.
There were two major red flags.
The first one was, as you said, there weren't reputable acupuncturist offices offering the procedure.
And the second was that any place that said that they were promising great results had a diet and weight loss regimen that complemented it.
So it wasn't just about the ear stapling.
It was also about following this weight plan, following this diet, and really doing the work.
I mean, I guess the idea is you rub it, as Natasha was saying, is it reminds you.
But you can probably remind yourself in other ways.
Put a rubber band in your wrist, snap it, or do something.
Absolutely.
So Dan, for someone who's trying and thinking about doing this, using maybe tried and tested acupuncture approaches.
Come on over here.
Explain the theory behind how these ear seeds work.
And I put a little picture up here.
This is how an acupuncture sees our ear seed.
An acupuncturist will see the ear like this.
These are just some of the points.
There are hundreds of points, but these are just some of the points.
A lot of these are used for orthopedic reasons.
So as you can see, up there there's a point for the knees.
And now near that point, actually between the legs at that point, is the point that we, one of the points that we use for stress and for weight loss.
All right.
So for someone who wants to have acupuncture done in order to help them lose weight, specifically what would they have done?
And I know you actually put some of these beads on Tia.
So I have one in Tia's ear right now.
Now, normally in the office we'd use small needles and then when the treatment's done we take the needles out.
But if you want to leave the office, you know, we don't leave needles in people when they leave the office.
So we use acupressure and we can do that using numerous things, but I like using these ear seeds.
And these are actual mustard seeds that are treated with rice wine that we use.
Real mustard seeds?
Real mustard seeds.
They're kind of picked out by hand and they're chosen to be two millimeters or so and they're great for acupressure on the ear.
Right.
Exactly.
I know a lot of people are always wondering if something hurts.
They don't hurt.
You can't feel it.
It's very comfortable.
Right, and they come off after a couple of days, and it's great constant acupressure on points that will help with stress that would help with weight.
So, in this model, for example, you'd put it up in there somewhere.
Not that I'm going to do it myself.
Of course, no, we'd put it here.
We'd put certain, we maybe put it down here or in other places in the ear.
But, you know, the more seeds that you use, the stronger the treatment's going to be.
So, the question is, does it work?
So, Tia, let me get the patient's perspective.
Have you lost weight?
Has it benefited you?
Well, I definitely think that it's helped me with the mindfulness of eating healthy, paying attention to my diet.
It's like a physical manifestation of my commitment to be healthy, and I definitely feel more relaxed.
Right, well, acupuncture and acupressure as part of, and part of a diet and exercise regimen, obviously, like you guys always say, is a great way to help with weight loss.
Has it worked in your practice?
It has.
Oh, all right.
Of course.
Listen, this is at least safe.
I'm not less worried about this, the needles and staples in my dress.
You can eat it after you use it.
Yeah, we're grinding up.
Stop saying that acupuncture and acupressure or weight loss may just be a placebo effect.
That's possible, but if it's safe and performed by reputable specialists, it might be worth trying as part of a healthy diet and exercise program.
Be right back.
Next, star of Laguna Beach and The Hills, Kristen Cavallari speaks out on her car accident and the sudden death of her brother.
When you lose someone that you love like that, it makes you realize how precious life is.
How she's made the transition from reality star to real-life bomb.
Next.
She's one of reality television's biggest names, Kristen Cavallari.
You know her from the hit reality shows, Laguda Beach and The Hills.
Today, she's speaking out about her car accident and the sudden death of her brother and how she's made the transition from reality star to real life as a busy mom of three.
Please welcome Kristen Cavallari.
Thank you.
How are you?
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me.
You're as beautiful as you look on television.
Oh, you're so sweet.
People at home can't tell that because they're still watching you on TV.
Thank you.
Let me talk about one painful event that's been a big topic recently.
You lost your brother, your older brother recently.
Yeah.
How's the recovery been?
It's been tough.
You know, it just has been.
I had my daughter about the same time though.
And so I've really just been focusing on her and my kids.
And I've found a lot of strength in them.
And when you lose someone that you love like that, it makes you realize how precious life is.
And so I'm just thankful for my family and everyone else in my life.
Now, speaking of life, about a month after you lost your brother, you were in a pretty bad accident.
What happened?
Gosh.
I was just driving down the road and the guy in the lane next to me just didn't look as he would have been changing lanes, came in my lane and hit me.
And I was driving with my left arm.
And I think just the impact of hitting, you know, I tensed up and braced and my elbow just got dislocated.
You dislocated your elbow?
I dislocated my elbow and so I'm almost at full range of motion.
Yeah, doctor, you tell me what do you think of my elbow here?
It's remote.
Almost full range.
I'm going to trade them both out.
So I'm a little double jointed in this elbow.
So I don't know if I'll ever have that back, which I'm okay with.
And then I can almost completely bend it.
So getting there, doing rehab and all the good stuff.
I bet lots of rehab.
Yeah, it was really painful.
It was scary.
But again, you know, so my brother died and then I was in a car accident.
I was just so thankful that my kids weren't with me and that it wasn't worse.
It could have been so much worse.
So it's all good, you know?
So I noticed on your Instagram account you posted, I think, a very beautiful insight about 2015.
I'm just going to record it.
It said, it said, 2015 brought my sweet baby girl that you mentioned, but it also took my brother's life, hoping for no extreme highs and lows this year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You really don't want to have the highs and lows race?
I'm good.
I did it all in 2015.
Yeah, I just want an easy, easy year.
Let's talk about a big high.
Obviously, your marriage, which is Jay Cutler, you all probably know it's a star quarterback for the Trager Bears, but you're married, you have three kids.
Yeah.
And if I understand this correctly, Jay is a very good diaper changer.
He is, yes.
From day one, he has been.
He's been very hands-on.
I've never had to push him or nudge him or ask him.
He just gets up right away and changes diapers.
I'm very lucky.
I've always loved changing diapers.
Really?
Yes, I don't know.
I don't know that I say I love it.
I don't do it.
You grab their feet up.
I have grandchildren now.
You grab both the feet up twice, twice, twice, wipe, big diaper.
Is anyway, what?
I wish it was that easy.
You know, now I have a girl too.
It's a whole different ballgame with a girl.
Well, girls are safer.
They won't pee on you.
That's right.
Boys wait for the opportunity and they're targeting you.
They're watching you back.
100%.
You know, they make these little things now.
You can just put right over the little pee-pee and then they don't pee on you.
Well, it takes the fun out of it.
True.
When we come back, I want to share a big surprise about Jay with everybody.
And I also want Kristen if you're willing to do this.
You've got these wonderful weight loss secrets.
You're going to share them?
I'll share them.
I will.
Nothing held back when we come back.
Stay with.
Next, Kristen comes clean about her past relationship with food.
I beat myself up over it, and it was just a horrible way to live.
And what she did to bounce back.
You can eat what you love and enjoy it.
Her secret weapons to keep her husband and family healthy.
These are all very easy.
up next.
We are back with reality star Christine Cavallari.
So let's go back to when you first hit the limelight.
You're 17 years old, going to high school, innocently minding your own business, and them TV guys come by and they start doing a casting call.
Yes.
And I understand in the middle of all that, you discovered you didn't have the best relationship with food.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think most of it was due in part to me being a teenager.
You know, I don't know that the show necessarily was the reason why I didn't have a great relationship with food.
So what changed you?
How did you bounce back?
Well, when I got pregnant with my first son, Camden, I decided, all right, I'm gonna enjoy being pregnant.
I'm gonna indulge, but I'm only gonna eat food that's real.
So instead of reading the calories, I would only look at the ingredient labels.
And I decided no more processed foods, no more additives.
If there were crazy things in it that I couldn't pronounce, I wasn't gonna eat it.
And during my pregnancy, I finally had an enjoyable relationship with food.
I enjoyed it.
I loved it.
I loved food.
And I didn't blow up, which for me was really validating.
I thought, okay, there must be something to this.
You can eat what you love and enjoy it.
And I've since maintained it.
Let's talk about Jay for a second, since we started talking about his diaper changing tendencies.
So Jay Cutler's a type 1 diabetic, everybody, which is remarkable that you can play pro sports and be able to maintain a blood sugar level that is narrow enough that you can focus.
Absolutely.
And that's so low that it might kill you.
I don't know if you know this, but when men have type 1 diabetes, the chance of their offspring getting it is 1 in 10.
When women have it, it's only 1 in 100, by the way.
So men have a little extra risk.
Yeah, I just heard that recently, which is a really scary fact.
Well, the good news is we're getting better and better at understanding not just how to treat it, but maybe even be able to cure it.
But I would love to understand as the mom, as the chief family officer, how does his diabetes affect your family?
Well, I mean, we're very careful about what we're eating, you know.
So we try to stay away from a lot of sweets, white flour.
And so we eat a ton of protein and veggies and complex carbs and things like that.
And I'm just, you know, I'm sort of obsessed about it.
It's my goal to keep him healthy and to keep my babies healthy.
So you're so obsessed about it.
This is the part I love.
She actually developed a secret weapon that keeps Jay and her family healthy.
These are white flour swaps.
Yes.
And they taste good.
They do.
You can try.
I'm going to show you.
Show off to me, but share the secret with everybody else.
The first flour Krista recommends is cashew flour.
Now I love cashews, but I've actually never cooked with cashew flour.
Yeah, cashew flour is great because it has a bit of a nutty flavor and there's a lot of texture in it.
So I think it's great for pancakes.
So these are just regular pancakes with a little cinnamon brown butter on them.
What do you think?
They're better than regular pancakes.
Really?
I will take that.
And high in healthy fats, as you know.
Yep.
And protein.
Exactly.
What's the swap out for regular flour versus this kind of?
One to one.
It's really easy.
The same temperature, everything doesn't hurt at all.
Nope.
That's no brainer.
Plus, it's gluten-free.
Okay.
Exactly.
Next, this is a swap out for all of you who want that grainy feeling.
This is spelt flour.
Yes.
It's an ancient grain.
All right, so these muffins look a little crazy because they're green, but they're essentially banana bread muffins, and I just puree spinach and put them in.
But spelt flour is great for muffins and breads and stuff like that.
Well, you can taste the fiber in this.
It's got three times more fiber.
Exactly.
And it's also one-to-one still?
One-to-one, very easy.
Does Jay know there's spinach in these?
He has no clue.
Go for it.
You can't tell from the green food.
I'm a football player.
And finally, oat flour.
So, just, again, a non-gluten.
Yep.
But again, a whole version, a whole grain.
Oat flour is great for smaller things like cookies.
So these are almond butter cookies, sugar almond butter cookies, I should say.
Do it with chocolate chip cookies.
No, these are good.
Good, right?
These are so good, you have to share them with the audience.
I absolutely will.
Come on over here.
Is it one-to-one also?
One-to-one.
All very easy.
Very simple.
These are fantastic.
You can find the recipes.
Pass that along.
Don't eat them all.
The first stroll always eats all the cookies.
Ash them up there.
All these recipes and lots more in Chris's new book, which is very well done.
Plus, you got exercises in there, bouncing in heels.
Can you do that?
I can bounce in heels.
We'll be right back.
Is salad overrated?
Find that if you should stop eating salad today in our Food Truth series.
Next Oz.
That's coming up Friday.
We're back with Sanjay Gupta who has been looking to outer space to help you with your biggest health problems Sanjay says the astronauts perform in some of the most stressful environments humans have ever been put in.
So, what was the fascinating way that they cope with stress that you're so secretive about?
Well, they decided to garden, actually.
The garden in space.
Garden in space.
Look, you don't have all the stimulation.
You don't get to smell fresh-cut grass.
You don't get to see flowers typically blooming when you're up in space.
So, this ended up being something that was really satisfying for them.
They build them gardens.
They have these little gardens.
And by the way, there's a real practical reason to this bomb.
All right.
I knew this was going to happen someday.
I'll see.
Is this the right?
Yes.
It's like surgical gloves.
Yes.
There you go.
Never thought I would do that.
Yes, I'll support you.
So, what's the interest that you found out about?
But if you're going to be up in space for a long time, one of the real issues is that you don't.
That's upside down.
Come on.
I'll try to help.
You can't take enough food if you're going to be up there for a very long time.
So you've got to learn how to grow your own food when you're up in space.
And this is one of the things that they're learning to do.
So there's a practical reason for this, but it's also very soothing.
That's a pretty good job there.
You know what?
My father, who's a surgeon, as you know, to garden very young.
But listen, I know a lot of you don't have acres and acres of land in your backyard.
So you don't have to have that.
You can get a $5 planter like this, use your windowsill.
And I was looking at some of the data on this because you shared that you were going to talk about this.
They did a big study in the Netherlands.
It's actually more relaxing to garden than doing things like reading.
You know, activities you would think would themselves be about the most relaxing.
And you actually get, by the way, these are pansy seeds, which I thought would be perfect.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
I don't know what to say.
I won't say anything.
Here's a water down your pansy seeds.
But you know, this idea that you also get to see your food grow, you get to see things blossom.
And, you know, a lot of people saw the movie The Martian where they saw food being grown in that sort of environment.
That happened as well for Scott Kelly.
I think we have a picture of him actually seeing a flower blooming up in space.
That grew in space?
That's in space.
In a micro or zero gravity environment, that is gorgeous.
That can happen.
And going back to what we were saying about earlier, you got to figure out what are the best foods you want to grow in space.
You're going to be up there for a few years.
What are you taking with you?
Love having you here, babe.
Saje Gupta.
Thank you.
Everybody, happy and healthy.
Starts at home.
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