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Jan. 26, 2026 - Dr. Oz Podcast
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Keto Diet Explained: How to Burn Stored Fat Safely | Dr. Oz | S7 | Ep 153 | Full Episode
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Ketogenic Lifestyle 00:14:50
It's the diet and lifestyle trend everyone's talking about.
It promises to boost your brain power, fight diabetes, and burn fat instead of storing it.
I've lost 75 pounds and 10 inches off my waist.
See what it is and if it's right for you.
Then, ketoxing took social media by storm.
Now we're taking it to the next level.
See how to get the same benefits without the expensive price tag.
Coming up next.
We'll save lives today.
We are great and healthy!
So today, imagine your body working in a whole new way.
What if you could hack your body, resetting it into a whole new mode where you actually burn fat for fuel?
Now I'm talking about something called ketosis.
It's a state where your body can enter when you eat these extremely low carb diets, even more extreme than the Atkins diet a lot of you remember.
And you consume mainly fatty foods.
Now this goes past weight loss.
Doctors who support ketosis say that it gives you more brain power.
It can fight diabetes and cancer.
And it can help you burn fat instead of storing it.
So I'm going to reveal everything you know about ketosis and the ketogenic lifestyle that has so many excited.
Then an update on one of our most talked about diet trend investigations.
We're taking tetoxing to the next level, showing you how to get results without a $90 price tag.
And our hidden cameras uncover the controversial world of skin lightning and find out if they are dangerous to your health.
But first, can you hack your body into burning stored fat?
More than just a diet bad, it's a scientifically designed lifestyle that sends the body into ketosis, a metabolic state which forces your body to burn stored fat for fuel.
Inducing ketosis wasn't originally intended for weight loss.
Its roots in medicine go back to the 1920s when it was used to treat seizure disorders in children and also to treat diabetes in the years before injectable insulin.
The therapeutic potential for ketogenic diets for weight loss was first realized in the 1960s and took off in the 1970s with the introduction of the Atkins diet.
The ketogenic diet, now commonly called the keto diet, is an extremely high-fat, low-carb approach that has stirred controversy among doctors and researchers, concerned about the health risks of a diet high in saturated fat.
But advocates claim that the keto diet does much more than promote weight loss.
It increases stamina, boosts your immune system, and lowers your risk for heart disease, cancer, even Alzheimer's.
So is it really possible to trick your body into burning your stored fat?
And if so, should you try the keto diet?
Joining me as author of Eat and Dirk and the doctor of natural medicine, Josh Axley, you often recommend ketogenic diets to your patients.
Why so and how does it work?
Yeah, well I recommend a ketogenic diet for those patients who have tried everything else and nothing seems to work.
Also especially those patients who tend to be insulin sensitive and may have issues with carbohydrates.
And really the ketogenic diet is for anybody who wants to experience a breakthrough and really reset their body in those insulin levels.
So if you don't mind, I'm going to take a second now just explain how a ketogenic diet works.
And this is important because if you don't understand the principle, you can't do it right.
So let's go through what normally happens in your body because it's sort of a factory in there, right?
And the typical American diet that you put in this factory, you know, the little bit of rice and some chicken legs and all the foods we have.
Some fruits, of course, but I know you get pasta in there as well.
Your body takes these and converts them to sugar, literally sugar cubes almost.
And that sugar is used for energy, for fuel.
If you keep the calories down, eat a balanced diet, this works just fine.
But if you eat too much sugar, what happens?
Your body starts to get bonus delarged as it stores fat.
You all know this, right?
You've all been there, a lot of you.
But what?
Just what would happen if you could trick your body into running a little differently?
That's what ketosis is.
You're primarily going to be eating fat if you do this.
So if you do it long enough, now avocados are fat, but so is meat, so is butter, cheeses.
Now instead of eating all that sugar, there's no sugar left.
So because of that, your body has no choice but to burn off the fat, all this fat starch that you rode away, because you've got to use that fat that you used to store, you've got to break it down in order to make energy for yourself.
And when you do all that, you produce chemicals.
These chemicals, they're called ketones.
It's spelled like this, ketones.
And that's why when you're eating foods that are primarily fat and you get ketones, we say that you're in ketosis.
That's the ketogenic diet.
So Dr. X, what do these ketones do to help us with weight loss?
What allows these ketones to sort of hack our body so we begin to lose weight?
Sure.
Well, ketones do several things in the body.
Number one, it helps your body hormonally.
The other thing it does is it causes your body to work harder, which is a big thing as well.
So I said, when I go on these ultra-low carb diets, I get a little irritable.
And I don't know if that's commonly felt, but I want you to, if you don't mind, explain to everybody how they actually do this.
And when people hear that they're going to not eat carbs anymore, they all know that those carbs give them energy.
It helps with their mood.
Is this safe to do long-term?
Well, you know, I think a lot of people think, Dr. Roz, that your body just burns carbs for energy, but here's the truth.
Your body can burn fat for energy as well.
Now, as a long-term diet, I don't recommend the ketogenic diet for most people.
I recommend the ketogenic diet for about a 30 to 90 day period, almost like you do a fat or cleanse.
This is going to help reset the body and really also it helps with people overcome addictions to carbohydrates that so many people experience on a regular basis.
So I'd like to meet a couple women who are in ketosis, who are actually doing this diet to see what's really happening.
That might be useful for you as well.
Camille, Rebecca, and Paige are joining us.
And I understand you've all been on a ketogenic diet.
Is that right?
So Camille, how many pounds have you lost?
60 in the last year.
60 pounds.
And as I hear Dr. Axe describe this diet, it's not something that I would have naturally tried on my own.
What got you to give it a shot?
I worked out forever, never lost a pound.
And somebody said to me, try this ketogenic diet.
And I said, okay, I got to try something.
And I started it a year ago and lost the 60 pounds.
And my family started it a year ago.
We lost 250 pounds altogether.
As a family.
Rebecca, what was the hardest part of staying on a diet for you?
The hardest part is giving up the sweets.
But, you know, you give it two weeks, you'll start losing the cravings and you'll start wanting to eat real food.
And I've lost 75 pounds and 10 inches off my waist.
Lost 75 pounds?
Lost the weight.
And Paige, what does it feel like when you're in this ketosis state?
When you finally get into a state of ketosis, you have a renewed sense of energy, you sleep better, you're satiated and satisfied in between meals.
You really feel like a superwoman.
Superwoman?
So I'm hearing more than just weight loss.
And I'm hearing it's a little difficult in the beginning, but after a while you actually feel pretty comfortable with it.
So I know that there's a trick you all use to sort of tell if you're doing it right.
And you're done with a urine strip, is that right?
And you brought your urine strips.
Can I see them?
All right, so they're all purple.
Is that good or bad?
That's good.
Very good.
That's good.
And what's bad?
No color at all.
No color.
And what color does it turn if you're pregnant?
That's a good question.
All right, up next.
What does eating for ketosis look like in real life?
He's eating all of this.
Take a look at all this fat safe for your heart.
Think about that.
We'll be right back.
Next, Trader Drew shows us how a ketogenic lifestyle can work for you too.
It's a high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb approach.
The foods he eats from breakfast till dinner.
And what I have to say about this diet and your heart.
You're not concerned that this might be unsafe?
Find out next.
Are the health foods you're eating high in arsenic?
See what our investigation uncovered.
You say there are also some rice products we should be especially concerned about.
And raised by killers and had no idea.
There is so much intense dysfunction in my family.
All nuance.
That's coming up tomorrow.
We're back talking about a ketogenic way of eating when you hack your body into a state of ketosis where you start burning fat for fuel.
Now I'm joined by trader Drew Manning, who swears by ketosis.
And just to give you an example, a few years ago, Drew gained 75 pounds.
There he is.
To understand what it meant to be overweight so he could relate to his clients.
Then what he did, he lost in six months all that weight.
And he has maintained it through a ketogenic lifestyle to what we're talking about today.
So I wanted to break it down so we can all understand exactly what we should eat on a ketogenic diet.
So I've got sort of a representation here.
Explain to me how this works.
So you want to make sure you get enough fat in.
So 75 to 80% of your total calories should come from fat.
That's why I see all this butter here.
10 to 15% should come from protein and about 5% from carbs.
You got to make sure and keep your carbs low and load it up with fat.
So one more time.
So three-quarters of everything is fat.
Yes.
Which is more than I talk about.
Only about 20% is protein.
That's a lot lower than I usually recommend.
Exactly.
It's a high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb approach.
And what's the problem with having more protein and less fat?
Because if you eat too much protein, it can actually kick you out of ketosis through a process called gluconeogenesis.
So if you eat too much protein, it'll kick you out of ketosis and it'll convert it to the protein to glucose.
Yeah, which is interesting.
We do make glucose from lots of things, except we can't make it from fat.
So fat's your ally.
You're saying the more fat you eat, the less sugar you're going to have in your body, no matter what your body tries to do.
Exactly.
And what happens if you have some really healthy, colorful vegetables that happen to have a little carbohydrate in them?
Yeah, so you definitely want to limit those types of vegetables like sweet potatoes, jams, carrots, because they're a little bit starchier and they're higher in carbs.
You definitely got to make sure to keep those carbs low, otherwise it'll kick you out of ketosis.
So you know I do for a living.
I'm a heart surgeon, right?
I spend my day taking people's chests and opening with a bandsaw and getting in there to pull out stuff that looks like this from arteries.
So this makes me a little nervous.
You're not concerned that this might be unsafe?
You know, I used to think that way as well.
A lot of us have thought that way for a long period of time, but if you look at a lot of the new research, it shows when you eat these good quality fats without the presence of refined sugars and processed carbohydrates, it actually forces your body to use that fat for fuel instead of storing it in the body and clogging your arteries.
And you say these good fats.
What fats do you prefer to eat?
I got it.
It's probably not going to bother you.
No, I don't eat this much butter.
This is not what a typical day looks like for me.
But coconut oil, coconut, avocado, avocado oil, things like fattier meats, bacon, salmon, fattier cuts of beef even.
So real whole versions, but not a lot of saturated fats.
Are there any fats that are off-limits you won't eat at all?
Yeah, you definitely want to stay away from hydrogenated oils, margarine, soybean oil, vegetable oils, those types of oils, you definitely want to stay away from.
All right, so bacon, French fats, right?
The whole egg.
And so healthier fats, would you risk the count of that?
All right, so if we take this as our basic formula, you also understand this right now.
Your body will then begin to burn the fat that you have on it.
It has to, no choice.
Yes.
That's what you found in your life.
That's how you got rid of that.
That's how you got that six pack.
Let me see this.
Uh-oh, I wasn't prepared for this.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
All right.
I wasn't ready for that.
All right, so forget about embarrassing me.
I've got Kendi here who matters more.
Kendi, Kendi is thinking about coming on a ketogenic diet.
How are you, Kendi?
Good.
How are you, Dr. Ras?
So, you just heard Joe explain a little bit about this diet about what's getting you thinking about doing this.
Bacon, first of all.
Bacon.
I just said not to eat bacon all day.
I can have bacon.
Well, you can have some bacon.
Some bacon, yeah.
But not only bacon.
Well, you know, the thing that really excites me is, you know, I have been trying to lose this 35 pounds for the past year.
I've tried every diet.
I've tried shakes.
I've tried low carb.
I exercise regularly and nothing's working.
So I'm really excited to see what this can do for me.
I guess you've got me interested as well with that six-pack.
So let's go up to the monitor here.
Come over here.
I'll keep you company.
I want you to show me what you really eat every day.
And this is going to just walk.
I know this is what a woman would eat, not you.
You probably eat more than this.
But give us an example tailored for a guest or a viewer of what they would eat.
So first of all, I start off my morning with coffee.
Everybody likes coffee, but I'll add coconut oil and butter, blend it up.
It tastes delicious.
It's actually really filling.
And that'll last me a couple hours.
That's all you have for breakfast?
Coffee with butter in it?
Coffee with butter and coconut oil blended up.
I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually really filling.
The fat will definitely keep you satiated throughout the day.
And that's why it lasts me until noon.
You put some bacon bits in it.
Could be a new thing.
So then for lunch?
So I wait until my body tells me I'm hungry, which is usually around lunchtime.
So a couple eggs, spinach, saute that in some butter, you know, add a slice of bacon, half of an avocado.
Bacon.
Right, you love bacon, eggs, avocado, right?
Everybody loves that.
And that should last you hopefully until dinner.
But if you do get hungry, one of my go-to snacks, you guys, is macadamia nuts.
High in fat, low in carbs, very tasty.
And that'll help carry me over to the bottom.
It's so crazy because, you know, we all grew up thinking macadamia has had too much fat in them.
You're saying you like the fat in macadamia nuts.
In fact, you eat them because they don't have too much protein in them.
Exactly.
Lower protein, lower carbs, high fat.
So it's perfect for the ketogenic lifestyle.
My goodness.
Okay, and then dinner.
And the dinner, bacon, cheeseburger.
Enough said.
This is a typical one.
I mean, you don't have to have bacon every meal, but what I'm saying is that the fattier cut of meat, the cheese, the bacon, and the avocado is all low carb, right?
High fat, moderate amount of protein.
So you worry more about the bun than the burger.
Totally.
Tetoxing Trends 00:10:31
Yep.
Let me think about that.
Could you do this?
Yeah, I really do.
And the thing that I like about it is it's structured.
I need rolls.
I definitely need rolls.
Well, I gotta say, I'm intrigued, but I'm gonna, if I can't speak openly about some of my concerns.
So first off, I'm fascinated by the science.
And thanks for bringing it up to my attention, Dr. X, as well.
The whole idea that we could hack our body to work more efficiently is pretty cool.
We don't know enough about its effect on diseases.
We just don't.
But it has been shown to work for weight loss, so maybe it's worth trying.
And if nothing else has worked, like you're telling me, Kenny, so many folks at home, I like this idea.
Maybe try it for just a couple weeks, see how it works for you.
But here's the thing.
I do worry that it's not sustainable as a long-term diet.
It's not as good long-term, I don't think, as some of the other diets we talked about in the show.
Because let's be clear, if you fall off the wagon and you have a little bun with that burger, right, and you reach for a carb, you're basically now on a high-fat, high-calorie diet, which is the opposite of what you want to be on.
It takes a very little bit of mistake to make a big problem happen in your body.
So, can you be really strict about this?
I can.
Yeah.
And you kept those six packs like he has, but you don't want six packs, do you?
No.
No.
You're just a good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Up next, pricey packaged tetox trends.
They are sweeping the nation, but I'm giving you a cheaper, safer way to get the same benefits.
with us.
Coming up next, we switch gears with an update on the T-toxin craze.
We've got an alternative method that doesn't break the bank.
Whether you're looking to boost your metabolism or curb your cravings, we've got the odds-approved tetox you'll want to try.
It's fantastic.
Next.
All month long, we're giving you a brand new approach to weight loss.
We pulled apart the best of the best from the latest research and diet plans out there and broke them down to just the essentials.
It's called diet layering, and it allows you to mix and match just what works for you.
It's a game changer for all of you looking for real solutions that fit into your real life.
When you're watching the show over the next month, if you see this, it means we're giving you one more layer to add to your overall weight loss plan.
This is about you tailoring a weight loss plan for you.
Today, an update on one of the most popular segments we brought to you this year: our investigation into tetoxing, the expensive pre-packaged detox trend that is sweeping the nation.
I know you're looking for the cleansing benefits of tea without getting scammed.
So, today, the truth comes out.
Tetoxing.
I first told you about it because it had taken social media by storm.
Both A-list celebs and real women swear by it, posing proudly with their daily tetox regimen and claiming it helps them lose weight.
But these pre-packaged cleanses are expensive, ranging from $40 to $90 for a 14- to 28-day cleanse.
And many brands don't even list their ingredients.
And the long-term effects of tetoxing can often be harmful.
You can develop electrolyte problems, which can cause issues with your muscles, all your muscles, muscles in your legs, your arms, also the muscle of your heart.
That's what worries me.
So, how can you get the cleansing benefits of tetoxing without breaking the bank or risking unknown and potentially harmful ingredients?
Our team searched out the most healthful teas and herbs for the cleanse benefits you want at a price you can afford.
And three of our viewers road tested our DIY tetox.
I'm really excited to try them.
They were really easy to find, and the store had all three.
I'm ready for more energy, and I'm also ready to feel a little thinner in the waist.
Grabbing my tea for the tetox.
Can't wait!
Here are some of the claims packaged detoxes make.
They claim that they can detoxify you, actually improve, for example, how your skin looks.
They claim to curb your cravings.
We all want that.
Some of them say they can boost your metabolism and they can help to debloat and alleviate constipation.
But here's the problem: with a $90 price tag, you may be buying into more than you bargain for.
After all, who wants to buy the whole cow when you just want just a glass of milk?
You hear a version of that for your parents a lot of times.
But you can get the benefits you want from buying tea in your health food store.
You just need to know what to look for.
This is another diet layer.
Put it in your memory banks.
We can use all these.
Let's start with the first promise that these pricey tetoxes make.
They claim they can detoxify you.
Here to show us how to do this at home: naturopathic Dr. Pina La Juda Shay.
How are you?
Hey, good to see you.
So, Peter looked at all these packaged tetoxes and she picked her favorite teas for each health concern.
So, if you're interested in making sure it's a detox, what should you look for?
All right, my very first herb that I always go to for a detox is dandelion leaf and dandelion root tea.
It works directly on the liver.
It's fantastic.
And so when it works on the liver, it also helps clears your skin.
It helps your digestion.
It helps even work on your blood pressure.
And it works on so many body systems that you just automatically feel physically better and lighter.
Absolutely wonderful.
So you saw earlier our three DIY tetox road testers where they're all here in studio.
Andrea wanted to detoxify herself.
So you tried the dandelion tea.
What do you think?
It's amazing.
I feel lighter and brighter.
My skin is amazing after drinking it for about a week.
And it tastes wonderful.
The taste is sort of smooth actually.
Sometimes these things taste like medicine, but this is okay.
It does.
Dandelion inherently is a very bitter plant, and that's how it stimulates the liver for it to work.
So I tell patients if they can't tolerate the tea to add either some fresh juice to it, a squeeze of lemon, or if they even need cevia.
But I'm used to this growing up as a Sicilian girl and I love it.
In Sicily, they have dandelion tea?
Yeah, you pick it off the side of the road.
It's so good.
Oh my goodness.
Come on.
Next detox claim is that it can help you curb your cravings.
So what tea can people use if they don't want to get one of these expensive options?
So licorice root tea is also a personal favorite.
I actually drink this every single morning.
The reason why that licorice root is so great, it helps your adrenal glands work better.
So when people have their stress hormones out of whack, their stress hormone of cortisol is dysregulating.
So they're going to be more prone to hypoglycemia and then want that food craving.
So licorice actually allows that cortisol to stabilize so you're not craving so much.
So it's wonderful that way.
And the fact that it tastes like black licorice, it's like you're getting a sweet treat.
And if you add a cinnamon stick to it, it also further stabilizes your sugar.
All right.
And the last common detox claim we're going to talk about right now is that the need to boost metabolism, which we all have, is on the label somewhere.
What's your favorite way of doing that without getting buying into one of those expensive options?
Right.
So I love oolong tea.
So oolong is the same leaf that comes from the green and black tea.
So it has the same little bit of caffeine in it that will stimulate your metabolism and it's also a very powerful antioxidant.
And I think it's delicious.
So Tisha, I heard that you wanted to boost your metabolism.
You tried the tea.
Yes, I did.
And I have to be honest, at first I was very skeptical about this, but I'm glad I tried it because as a result, I was able to walk about four miles every day.
I lost three pounds and I was eating a mostly plant-based diet.
So it was a positive experience.
And the tea was great.
So when you prescribe a tea cleanse, the divitty gritty, what rules do you give your patients about how to consume these teas?
Right.
So my first recommendation is that, you know, if you want to do, if you're healthy and you're young and you want to do this as just a tetox for a day, that's fine.
But, you know, if you're on a lot of medications, I would always say please consult your physician first.
And also, if you're going to do a cleanse for one to three days, I would also encourage you doing it with some fruits and vegetables.
So we covered three pretty common complaints folks have, but I've gotten your feedback.
And a very big reason you're going on a tetox is to de-bloat and relieve constipation.
I don't know if that's true for anybody here, but that does come up in conversation.
We have a tea for that too, and it is next.
Next, suffering from bloating and constipation, we reveal an ancient tea to cure it.
It's really wonderful because you could drink it throughout the day and it helped alleviate that boat feeling that you have.
It flush out your system and promote healthy digestion naturally.
Next.
Are the health foods you're eating high in arsenic?
See what our investigation uncovered.
You say there are also some rice products we should be especially concerned about.
And raised by killers and had no idea.
There's so much intense dysfunction in my family.
All nuance.
That's coming up tomorrow.
The main benefits from a T-Tox is to de-bloat and to alleviate constipation.
And we actually today have the ancient tea to cure constipation.
But first, Dr. Peter wants to help us with the de-bloating problems.
What tea do you recommend for that?
So, my first recommendation is milk thistle tea.
I love this one because what most people don't realize is that the reason why they're bloated is that they do have this underlying reason of constipation.
So, milk thistle is wonderful at helping the liver move, it functions on the liver, it functions on the gallbladder, it helps flesh out the kidneys.
So, again, it works on Multi system to help the body go.
And so, I love this because it's very safe, it's a very traditional herb, and it's really wonderful because you could drink it throughout the day and it'll help alleviate that boat feeling that you have.
My father-in-law used to use this for his patients who had liver problems before heart surgery.
Absolutely.
He does it in one of the older-time treatments, but both happy about it.
Yeah, and actually, there's been plenty of studies on milk thistle and how it benefits the liver cells, so I could see why he used it.
All right, now there's a common ingredient that's mentioned in a lot of these packaged tea toxes, the expensive ones we've been talking about, and it's Senna Leaf.
It's an ancient constipation cure, it's FDA proved, interestingly.
It works as a laxative.
We use it in hospitals sometimes, and it comes packaged as a tea as well.
Correct.
So, I was concerned about people drinking Senna leaf tea, but I wanted to find out if you use it in your practice.
Absolutely, and you should be concerned because how Senna Leaf works is that it flushes water into the intestine and it also causes contractions in the intestine, so it promotes a laxative effect.
So, the reason why I don't recommend it as a daily tea is because when people use it all the time, the bowel becomes very lazy and then therefore dependent on the Senna.
So, then now they can't go whether they change their diet or not because now they're dependent on the Senna.
But, you know, as a weight loss thing, I don't recommend it because it does damage the bowel in that way.
The Dark Side of Skin Lightening 00:11:52
Yeah, but again, for constipation specifically, one or two weeks, maybe give it a shot.
Shot, absolutely.
Thank you, Dr. Pina.
Thank you, Dr. Oz.
You can find our personalized DIY tea tox guide on drive.com.
be right back next we take a turn and expose the controversial practice of skin lightening Some people think that lighter skin equals beauty.
Whether you buy them on the black market or over-the-counter, we go undercover to investigate.
Next, it's a multi-billion dollar business worldwide, and it has a lot of people very angry.
Skin lightening products.
They're advertised with the promise of making your skin appear brighter, even insinuating in the marketing that lighter skin is more beautiful.
Today, we're going undercover to investigate the controversial practice of skin lightening and revealing if these products are dangerous to your health.
It's one of the fastest-growing cosmetic trends in the world: skin lightening.
Driven, its critics say, by a culture that equates beauty with lighter skin and marketed primarily toward African-American, Indian, and Asian women.
Skin lightening products and treatments are everywhere, from creams and facials to pills and injections.
And its popularity continues to skyrocket, thanks to high-profile celebrities like Nikki Minaj and Lil Kim, both rumored to have lightened their skin.
Lil Kim shocked the world when she debuted a new face that is visibly lighter.
Although some skin lightening creams can be used safely to treat problems like dark spots, acne scars, and aging skin, there are potential hazards.
Many lighteners contain high levels of mercury and other toxic heavy metals, which over time can cause damage to kidneys and wreak havoc on the nervous system.
And some of these products are manufactured overseas and sold illegally here in the United States, in stores and online, with no guarantee of what's actually in them.
So today we investigate the dark side of skin lightening.
Quarantine expert Tia Brown is here because she has been outspoken about skin bleaching.
Now, there's a question over whether these products are safe, whether they have medical risks.
But these products are also part of a much larger, big-time cultural controversy.
So, I know you've been talking to women of color about what they feel regarding skin lighting.
What are they telling you?
Yeah, there's a huge divide among women of color and different ethnic groups about how they feel about this process.
The thing that I can equate it to is: you know, people who want to have blonde hair and blue eyes, right, as a standard of maybe mainstream beauty.
Some people think that lighter skin equals beauty, and they are willing to go to any length using chemicals, artificial creams, anything to make sure that they appear as light as possible and to get rid of a darker hue.
Let's clarify that there are lots of different kinds of products out there, these lightning products.
We're going to start with the creams sold by cosmetic companies.
They're labeled in ads as brightening creams and dark spot removers.
Are these safe for the skin?
And by the way, this advertisement you're all looking at, we made that up.
Yes, it's a mock-up.
It's a mock-up, but it's based on a real ad that is in stores that people can see.
So, what are the concerns here if these products are used correctly?
They're based on tons of ads.
If you go and look in any store in an ethnic community, whether it's Indian, African-American, African, Asian, you'll see ads with women who have a darker hue on one side and a lighter hue on the other.
And they basically are saying the fairer you are, the more beautiful you are.
So, the issue isn't with creams that have the legal percentage, which is less than 2% of the whitening ingredient.
It's health-wise, it's okay.
But the sad part is that it's telling women, it's perpetuating through marketing that the only way you can be beautiful is to be lighter.
Which, again, I'll be clear on this.
These are not the creams your dermatologists might give you because you've got some blemish that needs to be fixed.
This is something that's sold in drugstores and in beauty shops.
And I agree with you, it's not the medical safety of these products, it's what it's doing to our minds.
Absolutely.
Especially the minds of women of color.
Next, the products being sold on the market that are illegal.
Think about this.
There are black markets out there, and this is one of the big issues.
I have a major concern about these.
Where are these coming from?
They're coming from overseas, and a lot of people think that black market means you're going into a dark alley and you're getting these.
A lot of times, you might be getting it from someone else bringing it overseas or a store that might even have a section that has products that aren't legal, but they're from overseas.
They're dangerous, and the big issue is that they have more than 2% of the whitening ingredient, which people say are unsafe, or medical experts say are unsafe.
And they also have heavy metals, arsenic, and lead.
All of these are unsafe for your body.
Biggest deal, they're illegal.
They're illegal and dangerous.
So, they're something that people should not be using.
All right, so we wanted to see how easy it was to find these illegal lightning products.
So, Tia, brave as you are, she went undercover to investigate.
Dr. Oz, I'm here in Harlem, New York City, where tons of skin lightening products are marketed to African-American women just like myself.
So, I'm going into a beauty supply store with a hidden camera undercover just to show you how easy it is to get these products.
So, here's a whole section of skin discoloration, skin whitening cream, tone, and bleach cream.
It's evident if you go into any of these beauty supply shops that this is a booming market.
You see aisles and aisles of products.
There's a lot of products here that are all geared towards lightening your skin.
When I asked the salesperson for the stronger stuff, she showed me the skin lightening products that she kept behind the counter.
You have any besides that?
Thank you.
And it's not just in Harlem.
I'm here in the middle of Chinatown where tons of beauty supply stores sell products catering to lightning skin.
So, we have a whitening and moisturizing essence mask.
This one says Lift White Milky Lotion.
I couldn't read any of the labels because they're in a different language.
These products could contain high levels of mercury and illegal toxic chemicals.
Clearly, a lot of these products are imported, so we don't even know what's in them.
You don't know what you're putting on your skin.
Once again, I asked for a stronger treatment to lighten my skin, and the salesperson gave me a kit from behind the counter.
But is it safe or legal?
I was also surprised to find out that there are spas that offer skin bleaching facials.
I found one down the street.
I'm going to go in and check it out.
How are you?
So it's gonna be skin bleaching?
Surprisingly, it was not listed as one of their services, but as soon as I talked to one of their estheticians, she volunteered the service.
I want to get my skin a few tones of few shades lighter.
Yes, because I apply bleach than the standard of my favorite.
Where are the products from?
Is it Korea?
It's from where?
Korea.
Korea?
Okay, and it's totally safe?
Okay.
As soon as she realized that we were filming, she changed her story.
She told us we had to come back another day and speak to a manager because she wasn't able to do the service.
My name is Naka.
If you want to come out of your experience, okay.
Dr. Oz, the craziest thing is that you don't even have to leave your house to buy these skin lightening products.
There are pills, creams, even injectable kits online.
Medically speaking, there's no pill on the market proven to lighten your skin.
So these ads are targeting women like me and making false promises.
It's a scam.
Chances are they could be dangerous and illegal.
I'm shocked.
Every place you go, there are secret products behind the counter that, as a physician, I don't even know if I can tell if these things are legit or not.
What surprised you the most about the investigation?
What surprised me the most is how pervasive this is in every community.
Whether you go to an Asian community, an Indian community, an African community, you see products that are geared towards lightening the skin and it's really hitting people like we said earlier.
Self-love.
You have to love the skin that you're in.
You have to be focused on your health.
You have to be focused on your happiness, right?
But, but people probably know that and they're not processing it.
So when we come back, our investigation continues.
A dermatologist reveals what's really in skin lightening products and how they can be really harmful to your health.
Next, desperate for lighter skin, meet a woman who's been obsessed with bleaching since she was 14 years old.
And put bleach in my skin to make myself more fair.
How she went from this to this.
Next.
Are the health foods you're eating high in arsenic?
You say there are also some rice products we should be especially concerned about.
See what our investigation uncovered.
And raised by killers and had no idea.
All nuance.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Being Indian, it's often dictated that the fairer you are, the more beautiful you are.
I'm going to take you through my nighttime routine for keeping myself fair and bleached.
All of these products are from India where, you know, people do tend to try and keep themselves more fair according to our culture.
What I use here once a week is my chemical bleach.
Do it for half an hour once a week just to lighten my skin and the hair on my face.
This product that I use here, I keep it on my face at night for 10 minutes, really lifts all the dirt out of it.
Then what I do is finish it off with some cream and some undried cream that does contain minute traces of bleach in it.
That was Leona who says she has been bleaching her skin to appear lighter since she was 14 years old.
I also have core team expertia Browns with Leona sitting on the couch with me.
So why is it so important for you to have lighter colored skin?
Well I'm from India, Dr. Oz, and in India, the fairer you are, it is dictated to be more beautiful.
I've always grown up around women that are a lot lighter skin than me and it affected my self-esteem growing up.
I mean, when you're 14 years old, you want that attention from guys, you know, being in high school.
And I never got that.
Everyone used to say to me, you're so dark, I can't see you at night.
Why don't you smile for me?
So I took it on board when I went to India and I went behind my parents' back and I got a chemical skin peel and I took two layers of my skin off and put bleach in my skin to make myself more fair.
And now it's been 10 years, my skin's lightened, God, seven or eight skin tones and I feel amazing.
So you've described how you've gotten your skin several tones lighter.
Yeah.
I have a picture of you from when you were 14 that you provided us.
And I want to show it to everybody, but especially to you again, just to juxtapose them to your picture today.
So if you can put that up, tell me what you see when you look at those photos.
I mean, you hear the audience response.
It's a profound difference.
Yeah, I see myself when I was 14, someone who was not attractive, someone who was really, really dark, and it brings me back to how I felt then, which was, you know, not attractive at all.
And I don't think that I'd ever want to go back to that.
I feel pretty now.
I'll just speak as a guy, forget about the doctor part.
I think you were beautiful at 14.
And I know that it's hard to hear that.
And I completely get that, especially at 14, you want to be beautiful as much as possible to everyone around you.
But it's a big part of what I think we're all struggling with in America.
And I think this brings it home.
But if you look at that 14-year-old girl in isolation, do you not think she's a beautiful woman?
Breaks My Heart 00:03:14
Not at all.
Not at all.
I mean, look at the celebrities we have now that we're trying to emulate.
Like, I find Kim Kardashian to be my spirit animal now.
So I didn't do the safest things, but I did what I had to.
Let's talk about what you've done.
I'm going to bring Dr. Judine down here on.
She's a world expert in this area.
Dermatologist.
She's been listening, Liona, to your story.
And before you opine on the medical risks, because I think there are some risks of what you're doing that I want to be clear about, I'd love to hear what you feel emotionally.
Okay, so this breaks my heart.
As an African-American dermatologist, it breaks my heart.
As a mother, it breaks my heart.
Your self-esteem is not where it should be.
And it just, emotionally, it makes me so upset.
For you to say you're not beautiful is just not true.
And it's within the Indian culture, within the Asian culture, within the African-American culture.
The thought is that lighter and whiter is better.
And it's just not good.
It's not where we should be as a society.
We should be all-encompassing and all-embracing.
It's so upsetting for me.
So share with Liona some of your concerns as a physician with the skin lightning.
What could it do to her?
Okay.
So I was in South Africa several years ago talking about skin bleaching with beauty editors from Johannesburg and from Cape Town.
And what they do is they bleach themselves with compounds that have, like you said, mercury, arsenic, and lead in them.
This shoots out their liver, it shoots out their kidneys.
They have a ton of steroids within these compounds that thin your skin that can lead to actual bone damage later.
And then arsenic on your skin causes different types of very, very, very aggressive skin cancers.
So this is not something that's safe.
It's not something that's recommended.
And it's absolutely not something that you or anyone should ever do.
There are serious health consequences to this.
It's not, not, not safe.
So look at my skin color.
Is that a reasonable color, you think?
Yeah.
So I'm Turkish.
And Turks, when they go in the sun, they turn dark.
It was adaptive for my ancestors.
So when I was a little boy, my cousins were not allowed to go into the sun because my uncles would tell them they'd get too dark.
I never understood it because I thought they looked pretty good the way they look.
I still do.
And I was thinking that's just a personal issue that my family had.
And I'm hearing that this is something that's all over the planet.
So I'd like to give the last word to Tia because she did the investigation.
She's been outspoken on this area.
What do you have to say to Leona?
How do we, not just for Leona, but all the other women out there, whatever ethnic background they have, who aren't quite happy with what they're born with?
Let me ask you this.
Would you want your daughter to feel the way that you did at seven, at 14?
Absolutely not.
Do you know by bleaching your skin, what you're telling her is that she's naturally not beautiful, and that is continuing the cycle?
Yeah.
And that's what we really have to do.
We have to decide that we're going to break the cycle.
We're always going to find things about ourselves that aren't perfect.
We all go through it.
We all go through it.
It is a fight.
You'll think about this.
I just want you to look at me in the eyes and acknowledge that you heard what we're saying to you.
I did.
You can stop for many reasons.
You picked the ones, but the main reason is because you're worth it.
Definitely.
All right.
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