courtesy; Wikipedia
Is doctor Oz bad for you health? it seems the star of the medical world is coming up with advice that might have little foundation in medical science.
More and more people are eagerly following the show featuring the erstwhile doctor. While many of his pronouncements seem to be good medicine, lately he has doled out advice that has raised the eyebrows of the medical community.
The doctor, who graduated from Harvard, seems to be distancing himself from the standards of good medicine.
One of the pet peeves of the doctor is that of using only traditional medicine versus accepting blindly traditional medicine as the only solution, and he extolls the benefits of countless things that are not standard treatment for ailments.
One of the things that has raised eyebrows recently was a declaration that he believed organic food to be no better than commonly available staples at your nearest supermarket. If this sounds odd it's because it is. The contention that people eat organic food because it tastes better is wrong: people eat it because they are afraid of the amounts of pesticides and herbicides employed in farming, and the fact that the long term effects of gmo farming are yet unknown. He also added that the nutritional values of the gmos is no different than that of organic food. But where is the evidence?
What is really causing the medical community consternation however, is the adoption of terms that are usually used by snake oil salesmen, such as "radical, revolutionary, and miracle' when describing or promoting a cure. The medical community is aghast. Such dictionary is taboo for a serious doctor.
Some of the things that he has promoted lately come off as slightly off-field: red palm oil, green coffee beans, and Reiki, a healing practice. But none of these things have any track record of being effective.
The good doctor says he wants to revolutionize medicine, although in a 'soft' way according to him. In other words, he would like to see unconventional medicine go hand in hand with standard medical treatment. But is this good medicine?
When someone is on a tv show watched apparently by millions, the same should be aware of the weight his words carry. When he says that one should not rely on facts all the time, because using your sense sometimes should trump incontrovertible data, that is even more astounding.
To his defence, clinical data is sometimes not true, either because of error, or because it is doctored, but then this problem should be addressed clearly on a case by case basis. Throwing it out there, and saying doubt everything, is not a good way to go.
adapted from a New Yorker article
Source: New Yorker/Dr Oz
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