Dr. Oz Truly is The Bane of My Existence!

Definitions of bane from American Heritage Dictionary;

1.Fatal injury or ruin: "Hath some fond lover tic'd thee to thy bane?" (George Herbert).

2.
a. A cause of harm, ruin, or death: "Obedience,/Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,/Makes slaves of men" (Percy Bysshe Shelley).


b. A source of persistent annoyance or exasperation:


3. A deadly poison.

Sorry Dr. Oz, but it's true. You fit precisely with definition 2 b (or not 2 b, sorry, couldn't resist. Definition 3 could easily pertain to the consumption of carbs, but I'm here mainly to vent out my frustrations against Dr. Oz)

Whenever I have a chance to peruse his show I always get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that millions of viewers are watching him & believing the nutritional nonsense he spews forward & then I pace back & forth, back & forth and wonder why this guys on television and then my auditory hallucinations start again and all I hear is the repetitive mantra Oprah...Oprah...Oprah (I know that was a run-on sentence so just put your red pens down and follow me on this one :-)

The latest comments from and about his show are how he is promoting baryatric surgery as the be-all-end-all solution to weight loss and as a diabetes cure to name a few. While my patients know I am not against gastric bypass and/or the lap band (we now have a gastric sleeve procedure to add into the mix) as a 'tool' to help facilitate weight-loss; everyone needs to understand that this surgical option should not be promoted as first-line therapy.

So long as Dr. Oz continues to disseminate the incorrect way to eat, millions of people will continue to believe that low-fat, low-cholesterol is the right way to eat. The end result will be exactly what we physicians continue to see on a daily basis; people getting heavier, cholesterol panels getting worse, blood sugars & pressures going higher and the list goes on and on.

A few weeks back when I was unlucky enough to come across his show..ok I was channel surfing and I heard someone mentioning L-arginine and my biochemical ears became pointy and my fingers immediately came off the channel up button and there it was...the Dr Oz show. He was talking about L-arginine and how it can help increase the pituitary's production & secretion of Growth Hormone, which, by the way, it cannot and this was shown in studies performed years ago. I then wondered why anyone would even mention the L in front of arginine as the only arginine our bodies can utilize is the L version so its superfluous to even say 'L'-arginine. It only suggests to me that that person just wants to look clever in the eyes of others. (As an aside the letter L is a designation of the chirality of particles, that is, bio molecules can have mirror images of one another referred to as enantiomers, the mirror image of the L is the D molecule go do an Internet search to learn more if you wish)

Anyway, my point is that I just happened across his show, heard an amino-acid mentioned, noticed it was the Dr Oz show and couldn't stop myself from watching. A good analogy here is like when you are cleaning out your refrigerator (finally) and you come across that Tupperware container you know you put in there about a year ago; you simply cannot discern for the life of you what once resided in there, you just know it's been there for about a year; and you must, just must take the top off and smell what now remains before discarding the decomposed organic remnants into 5 thick padded garbage bags, immediately rushing these hermetically sealed bags outside to the garbage for fear your smoke detectors will go off due to the thick pungent odor you can cut with a knife;; then worrying you might have to explain to fire rescue what that 'terrible odor' is....ok, I think I've made my point.

The fact of the matter is I actually like Dr. Oz, but I vehemently opine he should not be attempting to educate us on any way to eat. But then of course why should I be picking on Dr. Oz? The vast majority of doctors, nutritionists, dietitians and just about every self-proclaimed health guru promotes the low-fat, low-cholesterol dietary myth, so now I guess I've come full circle....

I guess what's happening is that I am just sick & tired of people promoting the wrong dietary message and believing in it's so-called virtues, despite the fact that we are getting heavier, still dying from heart disease and the complications of diabetes and failing to see 'the emperor's new clothes' for what they really are.

As I've implored many times in the past....

"When will it all end?"

I really do not know.

OK, my dogs need to go outside and i need to figure out what I'm going to eat for lunch today before i work out later with my beautiful & wonderful wife Gloria; yes, I have actually started to train once again....could body-building Jim, er,  Dr. Jim be making a come-back? You all just have to wait and see :-) Have a great weekend everyone!

And before I forget......GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dr jim
http://www.drjamescarlson.com/