I recently had the pleasure of going to see Dr. Mehmet Oz at Temple University. I’d like to thank Dr. Amy Harvey, Temple alumnus for inviting me. Dr. Oz was introduced as a F.O.O. aka ‘friend of Oprah.’ Dr. Oz is the Vice Chair & Professor of Surgery at Columbia University and Director of the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital, all while having his own syndicated TV and radio program.
Dr. Oz stressed to the doctors in the audience that you cannot just tell your patients what to do, for example, "you need to stop smoking." It’s ineffective. What is effective is telling people the story of health and disease and using illustrations. This is why Dr. Oz frequently shows us diseased organs. Seeing a blackened, shrunken lung from smoking certainly grabs at your heart strings. He says that people need and want to be engaged in their healthcare but it needs to be fun!
He said the 5 biggest things you can do to promote your health are:
1. Keep blood pressure under control, ideal is 115/75
2. Eliminate cigarettes and toxins. He didn’t specify what toxins, but surely highly processed foods, additives, chemicals and excessive alcohol are all on that list.
3. Exercise – 30 minutes/day. He specified that at least 3 times each week you should elevate your heart rate for at least 20 minutes (i.e. a total of one hour each week) enough to be sweating.
4. Eat a healthy diet that you love. If you don’t like Brussels sprouts, then don’t eat them.
5. Stress control
For stress control, Dr. Oz highly advocates diaphragmatic breathing, aka, deep belly breathing. He said that this type of breathing increases nitric oxide, a chemical in the blood that reduces blood pressure by dilating blood vessels and bronchioles in the lungs. The highest concentrations of nitric oxide are found in the nasal passages. By inhaling deeply, nitric oxide is brought from the back of your nose and your sinuses into your lungs. A nice confirmation for me since meditation is part of our 8 Weeks to Wellness™ program.
Dr. Oz shared, "What kills Americans is not cancer. If I could remove all cancer in America it would elongate a life expectancy by about 2.8 years — nothing. What kills us is frailty. We’re so weak we can’t weather the storm when we do get cancer or heart disease. So that’s number one...and included in physical activity is some weight-bearing exercise." This was exciting to us as we are such big advocates of resistance training in our office. Dr. Oz specifically stated that the 5
killer of Americans is frailty.
He also talked about "waist management." A good rule of thumb is to ensure that your waist measurement in inches, is less than half of your height in inches. If you are 6’ tall, i.e. 72 inches, your waist measurement should be no bigger than 36 inches. Or as you may have heard me say, "It may be ugly to have a big butt, but it’s deadly to have a big gut." Harsh, but true.
What made us most excited as we listened to Dr. Oz and sat only 15 feet from him, is that everything he advocates, not only do I do, but I teach my patients. Dr. Oz’s website is terrific: www.doctoroz.com