Half of Dr. Oz’s medical advice is baseless or wrong...

Pesser wrote: you’re likely better off with a naturopathic doctor or a veterinarian.

I had chest pains diagnosed by a vet once!

I trusted him more than the "doctor" I went to afterwards who carefully examined what were OBVIOUSLY female chest xrays, before pronouncing his verdict. when I pointed out to him that those weren't my xrays, he huffed, switched them, glanced at mine and said "same diagnosis".

Pesser wrote:Doctors have been 6 and 8 years of university and one or two years of practice (this is without specialty). This means that they study for about 12 to 16 semesters. One semester is a little less than three months of study. This means they study for 36 to 48 months. A lot of these are not related to medicine. Government and industry all want a doctor to write you a note showing this or that. Every time the doctor writes a note or prescription he/she gains power. It shouldn’t take long for that innocent doctor’s ego to get inflated. If you really want good family doctoring you’re likely better off with a naturopathic doctor or a veterinarian.

Thank you! Totally, totally correct -- + 1 million!

49er wrote:If anyone thinks that convention medicine is safe, you might want to look at this synopsis of a play by a woman telling her story of harm. Her story is not unusual:

That's all irrelevant. The alternative medicine stuff is almost all either useless or outright dangerous. 99% of the natural medicine practitioners make the rest look bad.

As much as I hate the medical mafia, they're not usually improperly suppressing valid medicine. Occasionally, there is some "alternative" medicine that turns out to actually be useful. If so, It eventually becomes "standard" medicine.

Opium, cocaine, aspirin, digitalis, nicotine, caffeine, and insulin are all "natural" materials. Many plant chemicals are useful cancer treatments, but are also toxic. All of these "natural" things have useful medical properties, but have side effects. Some are miracle cures for some things, but they'll harm you if used improperly.

There's almost no known "natural" plant medicines that are effective that don't have side effects and risks.

For every "alternative" medicine that is found to be useful, a dozen are found to have side effects that are worse than the beneficial effect, and a hundred are found out to have no benefits at all.

We've been using and investigating natural and alternative cures for centuries. The ones that work are now mostly part of conventional medicine.

The medical mafia is bad in a lot of ways. The "alternative medicine" crew is worse. It's a bunch of deluded "true believers," people dazzled by the money and drinking the Kool-Aid, outright scam artists selling stuff they know is bad or ineffective, and a very small number of people actually doing good stuff.

The odds of some piece of alternative medicine being beneficial is really small. Even the "science based" medical compounds with very promising properties often turn out to be more harmful than good when we go through the drug approval processes. Just imagine the odds that some chemical a plant makes being good for humans to consume.

Just because your heart medicine had some bad side effect doesn't mean the benefits didn't outweigh the risks in the first place. It also doesn't mean Dr. Feelgood's organic free-range weasel liver extract is safe or effective. Insulin is a horrible drug with lots of bad side effects. Used carefully, it's probably saved as many lives as almost any any other drug.

I like Dr Oz.
I have watched him promote two diametrically opposed products on two segments of the same show.
I know that much of alternative medicine is just as bad as much of the medical mafia. I pay close attention to both. When I am diagnosed with a problem. like apnea or afib my two current issues, I talk to proponents of all sides and come to my own conclusion, sometimes "encouraged" by my wife.
I understand a clean white sheet properly applied can be very effective ending apnea issues. However the side effects may be undesirable when the sheet is applied tightly around the neck.

Often I don't like any of the choices, but pick the one most likely to work with the fewest side effects.
XPAP might mess up my hair (if I still had any) but it does a pretty good job of treating apnea.

My naturopath relieved me of some cash, i admit it, but he, unlike other traditional medical professionals, successfully helped me control my allergies