A new study shows that Dr. Oz is full of crap and tends to give bad medical advice to millions of people.
Do you tend to get your medical advice from Dr. Oz? Well you should probably stop. A new study from the British Medical Journal says that his advice is wrong about half the time.
Researchers randomly watched 40 episodes of his show and examined 160 recommendations. Their measure for whether something was truthful hinged on an ability to find at least one case study that supported advised. Researchers were only able to do that 54 % of the time.
Dr. Oz became famous on Oprah Winfrey’s show in 2004 and from there his popularity skyrocketed. The doctor has come under fire in the past year for using his show to promote unproven cures and unscientific ideas. he even had to testify in front of a Senate subcommittee this past June where he was grilled for being full of crap.
Dr. Oz later agreed that some of the stuff he promotes on his show is not actually scientific.
“I actually do personally believe in the items I talk about in the show,” Dr. Oz testified in June. “I passionately study them. I recognize oftentimes they don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact, but nevertheless, I would give my audience the advice I give my family.” [Emphasis added, obviously.] [Gawker]
It is hard to deny the number of times Dr. Oz likes to use the word “magic” and “miracle.” Here are some of the few things he said on TV.
“‘You may think magic is make believe but this little bean has scientists saying they’ve found the magic weight loss cure for every body type—it’s green coffee extract.”
“‘I’ve got the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat. It’s raspberry ketones.”
“‘Garcinia Camboja. It may be the simple solution you’ve been looking for to bust your body fat for good.”
You may want to stop listening to Dr. Oz. At least if you prefer that your medical advice come from someone who knows what the hell he’s talking about. [Washington Post]
