Why Dr. Oz Needs to Stop Promising Diet Miracles - IT DOES NOT WORK I TRIED IT!

Why Dr. Oz Needs to Stop Promising Diet Miracles

After five years of touting one ridiculous, unproven weight loss pill and fat-blasting potion after another to an audience of millions, television host Dr. Mehmet Oz testified on Capitol Hill this week that he and his viewers have been victimized by supplement marketers who are using his name to fraudulently promote their products.

Come again? Dr. Oz is one of the victims here? The man who raised frustrated, overweight Americans’ hopes by heralding green coffee extract supplements as a “magic weight loss cure for every body type,”  praising raspberry ketones as the “number one miracle in a bottle to burn your fat,” and promoting yacon syrup as a “metabolism game changer”?

In his written testimony prepared for the Senate’s consumer protection panel, Dr. Oz explained that he soon caught on to supplement makers’ illicit schemes and has toned down how he discusses supplements on the show. In recent seasons, he has eschewed “forceful words like ‘miracle’, and ‘magic’” in favor of “more conservative language like ‘breakthrough,’ or ‘promising’” (because “breakthrough” would never sell someone on a bogus diet pill, right?).

He went on to describe himself as “someone who has done everything possible to try to protect my audience against those who attempt to hijack the conversation between viewer and doctor.”

I would hardly agree that Dr. Oz is protecting his viewers by continuing to feed them weakly substantiated claims about diet pills. On an episode not-so-conservatively titled “Rapid Belly Melt” that aired just weeks ago, he championed yet another dubious, poorly-studied weight-loss aid, forskolin, declaring that the herbal supplement “works like a furnace” and “burns fat from the inside.” He then launched into a demo of how this “proven” remedy purportedly works, torching a big yellow balloon labelled “Belly Fat” to reveal a glistening, rubber chunk of lean muscle inside. By the way, all of this hype was based on one 12-week study of 30 men that was funded by a company that manufactures forskolin supplements. Seems like not much has changed in the land of Oz.

Well-respected health experts agree that most of Dr. Oz’s so-called “breakthroughs” aren’t ready for prime time (or daytime, for that matter). There’s nowhere near enough evidence to warrant bringing them to the public’s attention; they don’t need to be discovered.

In his written testimony, Dr. Oz also asserted that his job as a television host is to help make health and medicine less perplexing for the public. “We meet them where they are instead of demand they traverse a river of dry, confusing terms that are sure to alienate them,” he wrote.

Unfortunately for viewers, his entertainment program is doing the exact opposite. By shamelessly promoting weight loss “cures” based on one-off studies that have never been repeated, he is irresponsibly perpetuating the myth that there is a magic bullet for shedding pounds and misleading the public from the cold, hard truth — that diet and exercise are the most scientifically sound, evidence-based ways to lose weight.

Dr. Oz defended himself by saying that he does not “endorse any products or receive any money from any products that are sold.” He may not benefit directly from supplement sales, but he does reportedly make millions of dollars annually from his television show and related media properties. And how does he stay successful? By promising to unveil “groundbreaking” new ingredients that help “get rid of stubborn fat” to keep ratings up and viewers eager for more. You’ll have to decide for yourself if he truly has the best interest of his audience at heart.

For those who are concerned that they might be throwing away money — or worse, harming their body — by using supplements touted on the air, Dr. Oz offered the reassurance that he only advocates products that he would also recommend and give to his family. I, for one, don’t find this kind of anecdotal support comforting. So much for evidence-based medicine.

At the hearing, Dr. Oz reportedly vowed to publish a list of specific products that can help Americans lose weight. Unless his list is limited to vegetables, fruits, and other nutritious foods, healthy cookbooks, and walking shoes, it will be yet another disservice to his fans. Decades of high-quality research studies show that cutting calories and increasing physical activity are the most effective ways to lose weight, and that is the message health experts should be driving home.