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Jan. 21, 2026 - Dr. Oz Podcast
40:12
How To Lower Alzheimer’s Risk and Protect Your Brain | Dr. Oz | S9 | Ep 49 | Full Episode
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Morning Rituals to Reduce Risk 00:15:13
Kidnapped, abused, and sexually assaulted at just 14 years old.
Now, Elizabeth Smart today and her new mission.
Plus, phase three of our Alzheimer's action plan.
The key to prevention may be as easy as closing your eyes.
The simple quiz that can reduce your risk now, today on The Dr. Oz Show.
Are you ready to say some lies today?
Yeah!
I love you, Dr. Oz.
All month long, we're bringing you your Alzheimer's action plan.
Today, how can you reduce your risk with a new approach we have never taken before?
Now, we know food is medicine, but today brand new research reveals the other most powerful tool to protecting your brain.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Today, the anti-Alzheimer's sleep power team is here, bringing you the sleep quiz to learn your risk and the sleep solutions you need to protect your brain.
First up, Dr. Richard Isaacson is an Alzheimer's prevention specialist.
He has everything you need to know about reducing your risk at home.
Today, he's teaming up with Sean Stevenson.
Every month, millions of you follow his podcast, The Model Health Show, because he has found the secrets to transforming your health through better sleep.
Together, and they put it all together, they're revealing why their two specialties are so important for preventing Alzheimer's disease.
Come on over and join me, guys.
Now, these two experts are about to show you how you can seep your way to better brain health.
So many folks think sleep is just a luxury.
But Sean, you say we need to change that mindset.
Why?
Absolutely.
You know, all of us believe that when it comes to reducing our risk of Alzheimer's, that obviously food is medicine, but sleep is medicine too.
And for a lot of us, we look at sleep as, you know, an added bonus.
You know, a great night equals a great morning.
But the reality is I had a subset of patients who simply weren't getting better by reducing their risk of Alzheimer's disease using diet.
And once we focused in on optimizing their sleep, it blew my mind at the results we saw.
And from that, it really opened my eyes to just how much our sleep quality impacts our bodies and our brains.
So Dr. Isaacson actually has proof that sleep is important.
Later in the show, for the first time, we're actually bringing a patient, a real patient, who improved his memory by sleeping better.
But I want you to explain to me why you even had the idea that sleep was so vital to Alzheimer's prevention.
So you may have heard about a toxic protein, something called amyloid, that gets built up in the brain.
And that's really what causes the problems with Alzheimer's disease.
Well, amyloid builds up in the brain, but sleep helps you dispose of the amyloid.
It's like taking the trash out at night.
If you're not getting adequate sleep, that trash, it builds up and builds up.
And when you don't take the trash out, you're going to get sick.
So sleep is a way to detoxify or clean out the brain.
And that's a way to reduce a person's risk.
All right, so let's get to the anti-Alzheimer's sleep quiz to help you know your risk so you can reduce it right now, right?
Kendi and Aline are in a brain booth.
We've locked them in there, the brain booth.
They're here to take the quiz.
The audience, you've got clipboards, get them all out and see the clipboards.
They always got that clipboard out.
Everyone at home, just follow along.
It's a couple simple questions.
The first two questions are all about quality of sleep.
Sean, take it away with the first question.
Great.
So the first question is, how many times do you typically wake up during the night?
A, it's none.
B is once.
C is twice.
And D for more than twice.
Kendi, what's your answer over there?
Well, it just depends on the night, but I'm going to go with D times like three.
Three times a night.
Yes.
All right, Sean, we're going to come back to that.
Sean, next question.
All right, next question.
How do you actually feel 30 minutes after waking up?
A, wide awake.
B, waking up but ready to face the day.
C, groggy or exhausted.
Which one?
Eileen, let me hear from you.
I am so groggy when I get up in the morning.
I used to be a morning person, but now I don't know what's going on.
I am so sleepy.
It's hard to get it together.
Totally agree with you.
Yeah.
So both of you put the C for that.
All right, Dr. Isiskin, what answers were we looking for?
And guys, we're going to discuss these one by one.
I want you to audit yourself for each question.
So when it comes to sleep, you know, waking up once, maybe even twice in the middle of the night, you know, that could be expected, especially as we get older.
It's normal to wake up once or twice.
The problem is, is that it depends.
If you go back to bed and it takes you 30 or 45 minutes to go back to sleep, well, that's not a good sign.
In fact, when you actually look at the data, you look at the research, it shows that waking up multiple times during the night increases that amyloid deposition, the amyloid collection in the brain by over 10%.
That's a lot.
That's a fair amount.
So if you're waking up several times in the middle of the night, talk to a doctor.
Let's try to figure out why.
Hey, what about this issue of waking up groggy?
How critical is that?
Yeah, so you know, if you don't feel well rested during the day and especially during the morning, it just means that the sleep quality wasn't that great.
So if someone's waking up and they're groggy, they're not feeling well and they're just not really rising and shining like they used to, again, it's a time to possibly talk to your doctor.
All right, come on over here.
Next one, Dr. Isis has got a question to ask you.
This all has to do with alcohol.
Now, you know, I'm sort of a fan of alcohol, I'm going to admit, but this is an important issue of whether you can truly tolerate alcohol.
Take it away.
How many drinks do you have within three hours of bedtime?
I want some honesty here, guys.
How many audience members will have more than three drinks a night?
Oh, I love this.
Look at that.
A single person in 200 people.
All right, forget I asked the question.
We're going to pretend, pretend that you're all telling the truth.
A lot of us will have a little bit of alcohol.
Candy, what's your answer?
I have to be honest with you.
So I don't know how you measure.
I love red wine.
It's going to be around three.
All right.
Around three, all right?
Probably not every night, but when you have.
Not every night.
I don't think my husband would like that.
So what answer are you looking for?
Thank you for being honest with the answer, because I think that's pretty typical for a lot of us.
Yeah, well, if you didn't like your answers to the first two questions, this might be the first thing you want to throw out.
Now, the good news is alcohol has been proven.
It does, in fact, help you fall asleep faster.
It does.
The bad news, because there's some bad news here, is that it's been found to create something called a REM rebound effect.
And this is where there's a big disruption to your REM sleep.
This is an issue where we found that this loss of REM sleep is directly related to Alzheimer's as well.
So I just want to be clear on one thing.
If you're going to have a drink a night, just one drink a night, and it's more than an hour before bedtime, is that reasonable?
Absolutely.
You know, the issues get into two, three, or more drinks.
And what I recommend people to do is to have basically a booze curfew.
Give your body some time for that to fully metabolize and get out of your system.
And another little tip is have some water.
Drink some water to help dilute it.
You know, nature's solution to pollution is dilution.
So utilize that.
He's a poet.
We've got a poet here.
So rough numbers you gave, one drink, at least an hour before, two drinks, finished two hours before, three drinks, at least three hours before, so you metabolize it.
Let's head over to the brain booth for the final question.
And this has to do with sleep and sounds you might make during sleep.
And it's not a riddle, and you may not know the answer to this question, but the person next to you in bed for sure will.
Has anyone ever told you that while you sleep, you A, never snore, B, store lightly or occasionally, C, store heavily and often, D, you're gasping for air during sleep, and you're scaring me because you're not breathing for part of the time, right?
Those are the four choices.
This is a really important question.
Kendi and Aline, your answers.
I would like to say that I don't.
However, I've been told that I have, and I will say this too.
I've woken myself up a couple times, you know, going.
You hear your own snoring?
Have you ever woke up like that?
Well, no, but.
It doesn't work you.
It hasn't worked.
I just want to hear it one more time.
What does it sound like?
And Aline, what about you?
Oh my goodness.
I definitely have been told that I snore.
I don't think I snore as much as everyone tells me that I do, but I do know I've woken myself up a couple times, but I think they exaggerate.
Dr. Isaac's laughing at the comment that you don't think you snore as loudly as they claim.
So why should folks be worried about snoring?
Why does it matter?
Okay, so this is important, and this is something that we can all learn about.
So having problems at night where you're snoring, gasping for air, and then when you wake up in the morning and don't feel well-rested, well, that could be a sign that someone may actually have something called sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea are periods at night where you're actually stopping breathing and you're not able to get the appropriate oxygen that the brain needs to survive during the night.
So what happens is that when you have sleep apnea, if it's not treated, it's like pressing the fast forward button on the way to Alzheimer's disease.
And we don't want to do that.
We want to press down the brakes.
So what I recommend for you guys is to talk to your doctor.
There's different ways to get assessed.
There's different lifestyle changes we can make.
Getting a sleep study can really figure out what the problem is.
And I think we can really make a lot of great progress when it comes to that.
They're at home test.
But at the end of the day, if you find yourself waking up because you're gasping for air, that's a clue that you got to deal with it.
And it'll change your life.
It's not a bad way to lose weight either because you sleep better.
Lots of other good things happen.
All right, up next, the anti-Alzheimer's power team secrets to better sleep so you can reduce your risk starting right now.
But first, here's one more question.
Pay attention to this one.
What time of day do you prefer to exercise?
A, morning, B, midday, C, evening.
Our big Thanksgiving show with Valerie Bertinelli, her famous blueberry nectarine crumble, all new oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Your Alzheimer's Action Plan continues with the sleep solutions that cut your Alzheimer's wrist.
Author of Sleep Smarter, Shawn Stevenson, is back.
Now before you break, we ask you this very important question.
What time of the day do you prefer to exercise?
I know you're all exercising, so I didn't ask if you were, but what time?
Is it A morning?
Don't laugh.
A morning, B midday, C evening.
Kendi and Aline have swapped the brain booth for a bed.
Your answers, please.
In the morning.
A morning person?
I definitely do it in the morning because if I don't do it in the morning, I won't do it.
That's another good reason to do it.
But it turns out, and Sean, you got some thoughts around this, that exercising in the morning, it may be the most important thing you do.
You got a five-minute morning ritual.
First of all, the answer is the morning.
Why?
And why do you like this ritual?
So Appalachia State University did a fascinating study.
They sought out to find what time of day exercising can have the biggest impact on your sleep quality.
And they found that when individuals work out in the morning, they spend more time in the deepest, most anabolic stages of sleep.
They get more efficient sleep cycles.
They tend to sleep longer.
And they have, and this is the coolest part, about a 25% greater drop in blood pressure at night compared to working out the other times.
That means a deactivation of that fight-or-flight nervous system.
The gift that keeps giving.
All right, so hop up here.
We're going to try out this little exercise.
You say, you first get up in the morning and do this before anything else.
So this is something we call a cortisol reset to help boost your cortisol to get on a natural rhythm so you can sleep better at night.
So this is, we're going to do a frog jump, and there's an alternate version.
We can just do a bodyweight squat.
When he took his jacket off, I knew I was in trouble.
That's my first clue.
So this is a really good metabolic move.
And so watch me demonstrate it first.
So we're going to drop down, touch the ground, and I'm not going to rip my pants.
They're going to hop up.
Oh, sure.
We're just going to do as many of those as we can.
What we got going on in the farm?
Drop it like it's hot.
Oh, okay.
Drop it like it's hot.
Let us do it.
All right, let's go.
Drop it like we're hot.
The frog move.
I'm like buddy rabbit.
There we go.
Now, good job.
Sean, good job.
Five minutes of that's going to wear some folks down.
So for the mere mortals in the group, show these two beautiful women how you would do it.
Absolutely.
So you can even use your bed as a marker, and we're going to do some body weight squats.
Just reach your butt back to the bed, and you're going to stand back up.
It's just as simple as that.
Just touch your bottom.
Yeah, tap your butt on the mattress and stand back.
Like you're about to sit in the toilet.
There you go.
There you go.
That'll sit neat.
Oh, yeah.
And also, you could just even do this for one minute and just go walk around your house for a little bit.
Okay.
First thing five minutes.
We could all do that, I think.
With those kinds of important changes, forget about sleep and Alzheimer's, which is our key focus, but you get other derivatives as well.
Why not take advantage of it?
All right, thank you both.
God bless you all.
Thank you.
All right, next up, Dr. Isaacson.
He has a world-class Alzheimer's expert, and he has a sleep solution to reduce your risk of Alzheimer's.
If you're doing it in your own life as an expert, I want to understand it.
So walk me through specifically and get into the details.
So, you know, I have to have my own plan.
Life is crazy.
Whether it's the pager going off or the kids screaming or things going on, you have to kind of get in the mindset that sleep is a priority.
So actually, what I do every night is I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to get ready for bed.
But I have a plan.
That's your actual alarm there.
Walk the dog and go to bed.
Yep.
So it takes me a little while to get ready for bed.
And there's my dog.
Okay.
Here's my reminder.
Oh, my goodness.
Cute little guy.
His bonbon.
He's a cute little guy.
But you weren't going to forget to walk him anyway.
Why would you put it in your calendar?
Well, because I'm trying, I need to get on a schedule.
So if my alarm goes off at 11 p.m., that means I'm going to go get the dog ready.
I'm going to take him out for a walk.
I should be back by 11.25, 11.30.
That's when I can say, okay, shutting off all my devices.
I want to be asleep in bed by midnight at the latest, wake up at 8 o'clock in the morning.
And that way I have time.
No more of that light resetting my clock in my brain.
I'm going to close the blinds when I get into bed.
I'm going to keep the bedroom just for sleeping.
Look if you get a little crack like this.
This is what happens to me all the time.
I have a windowsill.
It goes like this a little bit.
And what I'll do is actually remove the bonbon picture, and I will, all the way down.
You know that little crack?
That little crack can really bother you at night?
Whether it's putting a piece of tape down or putting something against it.
Put bum bun against it.
There we go.
Put the bonbon down.
And then when you wake up, let's reset the circadian rhythms.
Let's get the brain to realize that the light is shining.
Let's start the brain again and we'll rise up and shine and get the light to reset and give you some energy to be awake throughout the day.
And a long time ago, we didn't have alarm clocks.
We really used the sun to set our mornings and set our nights.
And that's really what we have to kind of get back to.
Up next, the proof that better sleep can improve your memory.
Dr. Isaac says he's bringing me a patient whose results shocked even him.
50th Percentile Improvement 00:06:31
So stay with us.
Hollywood power players accused of sexual misconduct.
They promised to clean up their act.
But is it all for show?
Inside Sex Rehab, all nuance.
That's coming up on Thursday.
We're back with Dr. Richard Isaacson.
And for the first time ever, he brought one of the patients from his Alzheimer's prevention clinic.
And when we're talking about these segments, Dr. Isaacson, he gets excited, but this time he was so jacked up about this patient who improved his sleep and his memory that he wanted to bring him together with him.
So Steve is here on the show.
Thank you for joining us.
Glad to meet you.
Why were you interested in seeing Dr. Isaacson?
What was making you concerned about Alzheimer's?
A little over two years ago, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
We have a family history.
Were you fearful that you already had any changes?
Did you notice anything that was not normal?
I didn't feel anything, but with the family history, I almost just sort of felt that this is just a genetic thing and I'm doomed.
Right.
Dr. Isaac, you followed Steve for the last year and a half.
And you did all the usual things, things we've talked about all month long.
We're talking about Alzheimer's prevention, right?
So we've talked about diet and exercise.
But what got you focused on sleep and why did it make a difference?
So, you know, Steve, when he came in, no symptoms, no problems, but we still had things to optimize.
We had things to change and we did the diet, exercise on a regular basis, and things were improving, but we still had room to go.
And the one thing that we hadn't address was Steve's sleep.
Steve was sleeping five and a half hours on average every night.
Which is about average before we start pointing fingers.
I can't live on that.
But hustle-bustle, New York City life, going back and forth, and that was normal for Steve, but it's not normal for the brain.
The brain can't thrive on five and a half hours of sleep.
Think about the body as a fancy sports car.
And the brain is as the engine, the fine engine.
What about the fuel?
Are you going to give the body good fuel?
Are you going to give your car good fuel?
You want that engine to be functioning at peak performance.
You want the spark plugs to be cleaned.
You want the oil to be changed.
We did some of these things, but he still wasn't optimized.
So when we did all of these things, the results were amazing, were astounding.
He had already done better.
But then some of these tests were in the top two percentile when we checked his cognition.
I'm going to get back to these tests for a second because this is really important.
But just what did you do?
How did you go from sleeping five and a half to how many hours do you sleep now?
About eight on average.
You guys sleep eight hours a night?
Seven and a half to eight.
So what did you do differently?
I started to approach sleep the way that I approached exercise and diet and nutrition with a plan.
I actively started to try to get more sleep and to develop a routine instead of passively just allowing sleep to happen at night.
And so in order to achieve that goal, I've got to get to bed by a certain time.
So I start prior to that period, a shutdown period.
I turn off the electronics, I put myself in bed, I do some mental relaxation exercises, and I do this shutdown to get my brain and body relaxed to the point where I can actually get the sleep I need.
This is a big breakthrough idea.
You don't just fall asleep.
I don't know where that phraseology even came from.
It implies that all you've got to do is just lie, you know, lean over and you'll tilt into sleep.
It doesn't happen like that.
I think, especially as we get a bit older, we've got to work at it.
But let me go back to this testing issue.
So you felt normal.
Yes.
Okay.
When you first did the testing on Steve, Dr. Isaacson, what percentile was he in the population?
Of 100 people, what number was he?
In terms of how quickly his brain was functioning, how fast his brain was firing, I would say he was average, 50th percentile, give or take, maybe a little higher.
Who wants to live their life at 50th percentile?
Just curious.
Good.
Nobody.
None of us want to be 50th percentile.
50th percentile school gets you an F. You don't want to be there.
And you mentioned earlier, but I want to hear it again.
With the change that happened, what number did he move up to?
Yeah, this is shocking.
It happens, but this was shocking because this was one of the first time I saw such a drastic change.
Going from five and a half to eight hours sleep, he went from the 55th percentile to the 98th percentile in terms of how fast his processing speed was functioning.
Over 98, at least, people are behind him.
Two people may be in front of him, which is impossible to me to comprehend that kind of a change, but it happens with just sleep.
So just to give us a taste of this testing, what does it actually, how do you do it?
So in terms of the car analogy, right?
How fast does a car go from point A to point B?
It's the same thing with the brain.
How fast does a thought, does something get processed from point A to point B?
How quickly can the brain function?
And what we do with the testing is we do, we show a variety of pictures and we try to examine, does this picture look the same as this one or do they look different?
Give your answer quickly and answer as many times as you can in a minute.
So you guys want to do this test?
You all ready?
Everyone at home?
I need 10 seconds for this test.
That's it.
Just 10 seconds.
All right, we're going to play this video.
Your only goal is to keep track of how many of these pairs are the same, right?
And how many are different.
That's it.
Are you ready to go?
Right, three sets of pictures, three seconds each.
Notice how many of the same are different.
Take it away.
Let's play the images.
All right, we got a flower.
Three seconds are up.
We got thunderbolts.
Three seconds are up.
And we got apples.
This is just a taste of what Steve had to do.
You know, a few minor at-home changes dramatically changed your life.
How many of you think there was one that was the same?
How many think two were the same?
And how many think three were the same?
All right.
So there are a fair number of people who said two were the same.
Dr. Isaacson?
So believe it or not, there was just one image that was the same.
Okay?
So about two-thirds of you, you got to play it again if you don't mind, Scott, so people can look at it again.
You may have missed it the first time.
You're missing a leaf on the flower.
Ah, now you're worried about Alzheimer's or Thunderbolts.
Elizabeth Smart's Resilience 00:03:05
Those are the same, right?
And look at this last one.
There's no stem on the other apple.
Now, it doesn't mean that you got some unfixable problem.
It means that your brain is not processing at the speed that it could.
And I think you all deserve it.
Listen, my goal with these Alzheimer's prevention plans, the action plan to beat this thing back, is to prove to you that people, and this is possible for all of us, that brain health is something you can improve on.
So I want to thank you, Steve, for telling your story, as personal as it is, because I think it'll help people believe that, because you brought her to life for us.
Dr. Isaac Singh stands for your research and your support.
We'll be right back.
Now next True Crime Tuesday, Elizabeth Smart made national headlines after being abducted from her bedroom at age 14.
She's here sharing her story of resilience.
And for the first time, we are reuniting her with the doctor who helped put her captor in prison for life.
Stay with us.
This show is committed to keeping children safe.
Friday, we took on teachers sexually abusing children in talents across America.
And just yesterday, child star Corey Thuldman was here to stop down pedophilia in Hollywood.
Abuse could happen anywhere.
My next guest knows this all too well.
Elizabeth Smart made national headlines after being abducted from her bedroom at just 14 years old.
She was abused, raped, and ripped of her identity for nine long months.
Now, nearly 15 years after being rescued, Elizabeth is happily married and a mother of two.
Today's True Crime Tuesday, Elizabeth Smart is here.
And she's speaking out on what you can learn from how she overcame unimaginable trauma.
And she's revealing her new mission to make sure no victim suffers in silence.
Please welcome back to the show, Elizabeth Smart.
You look wonderful.
Thank you.
So happy you're back.
Come have a seat.
It's been three years already.
You can imagine this.
It does.
And I remember being so impressed when we first met at how you'd be able to figure things out after such a difficult time in your life.
And I remain, because I follow what you do three years later, all of the achievements you've made, the remarkable resilience that you've shown.
Where does that come from?
I have so much to be grateful for in my life, and I think I am who I am today because of the way my parents raised me.
I mean, there never was a day growing up that I didn't feel that they loved me.
Survivors' Forgiveness 00:08:01
I mean, I don't know how many homework assignments and music lessons they both helped me through, but it was their lifetime of love and support that has helped me be who I am today.
So as painful as it was for the nation to watch your disappearance, there was also joy when you were found.
And you've made a new movie.
You're telling the story, along with a documentary.
And there's going to be a huge appetite to revisit what we saw without you now through your eyes.
What was the most difficult thing for you to look back upon?
Well, making the decision in the first place was a pretty huge decision, but in the end, I'm ultimately glad that I did.
Because as I've moved forward in my advocacy and as I've met other survivors and other victims, I've just realized what happened to me is not unique.
It's not an isolated incident.
I mean, rape unfortunately happens every day, as we have daily proof right now in the news.
And kidnapping happens every day.
And for me, I've been asked many times over the years, well, why didn't you run?
And why didn't you scream?
And why didn't you do this?
Or why didn't you do that?
And whenever I used to be asked those questions, I'd feel really defensive and I couldn't understand why.
And then one day I realized it's my brain was not hearing the question.
It was hearing an accusation.
It was hearing, you should have run.
You should have escaped.
You should have got away.
You didn't do enough.
When, in truth, everything I did, I did to survive.
And ultimately, I made it.
And just having had my experiences with survivors, that's really bothered me because I don't think a survivor should have to be questioned like that.
I mean, they survived.
That's a pretty big deal.
I mean, we should be there to support them.
What a profound insight.
The reason I asked the question was they're more worried about you, that it would trigger something in you that maybe you'd been able, and God bless you for being able to accomplish it, leave in your past.
And by revisiting it, it might bring it back into your present.
I think if I had decided to do a movie or a documentary the day after I got home or the year, maybe even five years, maybe even ten years after I got home, it could have easily done that.
But I feel like I've come to a point in my life where I choose to do what I do.
I choose to speak about it.
I choose to work in this field.
And I've had so much attention over the years.
I feel like this is something worthwhile that I should be doing, that I can speak out to, and hopefully people will listen.
Up next, Elizabeth's surprising message to her captors.
So stay with us.
Thank you, guys.
Inside Sex Rehab.
Can sex addicts really change their ways?
We go behind closed doors, all nuise.
That's coming up on Thursday.
It's riveting.
That was Elizabeth Smart reliving the first moments of the ordeal that changed her life forever.
Remember, the trauma she experienced following that night led her on a path and an unimaginable path you would never have expected to be on.
Do you ever think back and mourn the life you didn't get to live?
I think I wouldn't be human if I didn't wonder if this hadn't have happened to me, what would I be doing?
Where would I be at today?
Of course.
I've spent time thinking about that.
So one of the things that you've done that really caught my attention, and I'm not going to mention the name of the couple that kidnapped you.
I don't think they deserve that.
But I do want to mention that you forgave them.
And I'm curious about the motivation and how you would forgive a couple that abducted you and caused serious harm to you, albeit you overcame much of it.
I think we often think of forgiveness as something that we do for someone else.
But I don't know.
That's not me.
I guess I, maybe I'm a selfish person because I think of forgiveness, you do it for yourself.
Because if I still held on to my hate and anger and resentment, that would mean that I couldn't love my husband 100%.
That means that I wouldn't be able to love my children 100% because part of me would still be taken up with this hate and this anger and this disgust.
And I don't have extra emotion to waste on them.
They stole nine months of my life.
I'm not going to let them steal anymore.
So the couple is in prison now.
But if they could see you, if they could watch you, what would you say to them?
Nothing.
I have nothing to say to them.
They took so much away from me.
I don't feel like they should take any more, even if it's a sentence.
Good for you.
You showed remarkable maturity in articulating how you wanted to spend all of your energy loving your husband and those two beautiful kids, and they are cute little ones.
So what did it take for you to make the extra jump beyond just putting emotion to them to putting trust into them and especially your husband?
I talked to many women who have been caught and kidnapped or raped and trusting a man is hard for them.
Was that difficult for you?
I think there was a number of things that have that made a difference to me.
One of which was I was abducted and I was raped and I was abused by a stranger, not someone I knew.
And that, as I'm sure you're well aware, is not the norm.
So that was thing number one that I'm actually grateful for.
I'm grateful I was kidnapped by a stranger and not someone that I knew.
The next thing is that when I came home, I was allowed to go back to being the kid as much as I could that I was before.
I think that was hugely beneficial as well.
Plus, I chose my husband.
I mean, I didn't, I wasn't forced.
I chose him.
He was my match.
He was who I was supposed to be with.
He's a smart man.
How is your past shaping the way you mother those two children?
It's a constant battle, definitely.
On the one hand, I want to just protect them and be there with them and constantly watch over them and never let anyone that I don't know near them or anything.
Never want to let them out of my sight.
But on the other hand, I know that if I shelter them and protect them from everything, that's not preparing them very well for the life ahead.
And so finding that balance, I still don't know how to do.
If anyone has advice, please share it with me.
I'm going through it myself.
Believe me, it happens faster than you imagine.
All right, up next, Liv is reunited for the first time with the doctor who helped put the man who abducted her in prison for life.
Stay with us.
Our big Thanksgiving show with Valerie Bertinelli.
Her famous blueberry nectarine crumble.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
I am back with Elizabeth Smart, who is here revealing her new mission to make sure no victim, no victim suffers in silence.
One of the things that shocked me the most about this story is that even after you were freed and they had the perpetrators in custody, it still took nine years to put the man in jail.
He was able to convince people that he was crazy.
Powerful Testimony 00:07:36
Did you think he was crazy?
No, he's not crazy.
He was able to con people for that long?
Isn't that remarkable?
Yes.
But I know he can do that.
He was that manipulative.
Extremely.
So the case ultimately did go to trial when prosecutors sought out a forensic psychiatric examiner to evaluate the captor's mental state and testify in court.
The psychiatrist, his name is Dr. Michael Welder.
He's here today.
Dr. Welder, please join us.
Good to see you.
Thank you for joining us.
It's interesting to just look in your eyes and watch you process the fact that this man was manipulative.
So the evilness was not just that he stole you, but he was good at lying to people, at conning people.
And I had no idea that you had to intervene at the level you did to change that around.
So how did you ultimately diagnose and then convince people that Elizabeth's captor should be on trial?
This matter turned on a very complicated question that many, many, not just one or two, many psychiatrists and psychologists arrived at an idea that he was delusional, that he had a grandiose delusion, that he was a prophet, that he was the one who was the one mighty and strong.
And so when the case was first presented to me, he was on a track to release.
Did you know that, Elizabeth?
So, when the case was...
Wait, wait, did you realize that?
I, when...
When they asked me if I wanted to move this from the state courts to federal courts, they did say, if I didn't, that he could possibly do.
If I was your father, I would have been crawling out of my skins.
So this case was gone.
And part of the reason that it was was because there was really a convergence of a number of highly trained, highly qualified professionals who said he's got grandiose religious delusions.
His idea of being the one mighty and strong was something that I came to learn as I became more immersed in the Mormon culture.
There are fundamentalist splinter sects that derive from one person saying, hey, it says in Doctrines and Covenants, chapter 85, that one mighty and strong will rise up from outside the church and put the church on the right way.
And hey, I'm devout.
I'm good.
Why can't I be the guy?
And so what I found the more I learned was that his own sense that he was the one mighty and strong was not a dramatic departure or deviation that we would say in a false belief.
And religion, one has to have context, otherwise we're just judging another religion as irrational.
And what I came to learn over the course of reviewing a tremendous number of documents is that he was very much involved in plea negotiations at one time.
And when the plea negotiations went south, he didn't participate, but he was assisted by a psychologist who hid the evidence.
And so the court never knew.
And that's why the court continued to find him incompetent because the testimony was, I can't get him to talk about his case.
Why would a psychologist lie?
That's for another show.
It's for another show.
Are you allowed to lie to protect your client if you're a psychologist?
It's really, we'll go off on a tangent.
Oh, my goodness.
Let me.
Does that make you angry?
But the third key, what I learned from Elizabeth and other people who were courageous enough to speak to me, is that he was a pedophile.
And the intensity of his pedophilia was something that bore itself out in a fascinating way in our interview, in our interview.
He wouldn't participate.
He wouldn't speak to me.
But when I put on a tape of Elizabeth, he swiveled in his chair, opened his eyes, and he was engaged.
And what I was able to communicate to a court was his perversion trumped his religion.
What did Elizabeth tell you that woke you up to that insight?
What Elizabeth told me is a very important lesson to anybody who might be watching.
I think that in this day and age of CSI and all of the police dramas that we watch, people forget.
I'll share with you this from my experience.
In the courtroom, forget DNA.
There is no more powerful evidence than the testimony of the person who's been through it.
What you lived, where you lived it, when you lived it, when it started, how it happened, because you brought truth alive.
And many people put in this situation, they're frightened because they have to relive an ordeal.
But what they don't realize, and what Elizabeth certainly realized ultimately, is when you stand in court and you confront the perpetrator, the person who victimized, you have the power and they are silenced.
And they must listen to you, holding them accountable.
And there's so many people out there who, because they're silent, a person may get off.
I've worked on too many cases where people who could have come forward and done what Elizabeth did were silent, the person got off and then offended again.
So hers is not only a powerful example of what she's done, but she's not only renewed, rejuvenated, resilient, but she has power.
She has power.
I see you smiling.
They're in jail for life.
Thanks to your bravery and your insight.
What is your message for the victims out there who are struggling still overcoming problems similar, analogous in their lives to the ones that you were able to overcome with these perpetrators?
The first thing I want them to know is that it's not their fault.
Whatever it was that they experienced, it's not their fault.
It doesn't matter if you're a young girl in bed, kidnapped at knife point, taken up into the mountains, or you're a prostitute.
Rape is rape.
Violence is violence.
It's not your fault.
You don't deserve for that to happen.
There's no circumstance in which that's okay.
You deserve to be happy.
You deserve to be loved.
You deserve to live the life that you want to live.
So don't let whatever it is that's happened to you to define you.
It'll probably shape you, probably mold you, probably change and alter the course of your life.
But don't let it define you.
You define who you are by what you decide to do.
I truly pressure having you back here.
Michael, make sure to catch the movie.
I am Elizabeth Smart, premiering this Saturday night on Lifetime, along with the A ⁇ E documentary.
Plus, there's an interview special with Elizabeth on November 20th so you can get more of this wonderful insight.
We'll be right back.
And now, Thursdays on Dr. Oz.
Behind Closed Doors: Sex Addiction Rehab 00:00:57
So we understand you're willing to take a report about a crime that was committed, a sexual assault, 20 years ago, 25 years ago?
Yes, we take our reports regardless of when the crime occurred.
Okay, well, let's give it a shot.
If you've been watching this show, you know we are done letting sexual predators hide and remain nameless.
And this Thursday, we're going behind the latest sex crime headlines that everyone's talking about.
Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey headed straight to rehab after allegations over sexual abuse and misconduct emerged.
But many are asking, is that just a PR stunt?
We want to know.
So for the first time ever, we sent cameras into a sex addiction rehab center that has catered to high-profile patients like Anthony Weiner.
Watched a full investigation into sex rehabs that cater to the stars on Thursday's show.
Plus, insight into the mind of a sex-addicted predator.
Find out what really makes them tick.
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