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Dr. Oz: And I remember saying to myself, "What an idiot I am. How could I have operated on this guy? How could I have let him talk me into this?" But once you're in there, you're partners for life. You're just not going to part. So we worked on him and worked on him and worked on him. After a couple—we finally got him out of the operating room and he bled and bled and he finally awakened. After all this. And I went to talk to him about what had gone on and he said, "I felt like I was an ether. Like I was floating around. And I looked up, and I could see a light. And I knew that if I lost sight of the light, I'd be dead."

Oprah: Wow.

Dr. Oz: "So I just kept pushing myself in this thick soup that I was in toward the light so I could stay under it. And then finally it came to me, and I woke up."

Oprah: Wow.

Dr. Oz: And that guy is still alive.

Oprah: Wow.

Dr. Oz: He's still alive.

Oprah: Aren't you glad you said yes?

Dr. Oz: I'm glad he forced me to.

Oprah: Yeah. That's what we're talking about. Knowing yourself and knowing your body and pushing, pushing, pushing. Even for you. So Debbie from Woodland, Washington, is on the phone. Debbie, hi. Isn't that a story?

Debbie: Hi, Oprah. Hi, Dr. Oz.

Dr. Oz: How are you Debbie?

Debbie: Great. Great. I live in a sun-deprived part of the country. I like to use a tanning bed about twice a month even though I've heard lots of negative things about them. I also take a vitamin D supplement along with my multivitamin. So Dr. Oz, am I getting any vitamin D. from using a tanning bed? I feel better. My skin looks better. And I even sleep better when I use it.

Dr. Oz: You do get vitamin D from some of the tanning beds. They don't all secret the same wavelength. But the reputable ones do give you vitamin D. I'm concerned about damage to the skin from constant use of tanning salons. That's one of the reasons I don't push people to go out there and do it. Natural sun by far is the best way of solving your vitamin D deficiency, and I know in some parts of the country it's cold, but whenever it's warm enough to go outside, try to get 15 minutes of direct sunlight. If you're dark-skinned, Oprah, someone your color needs more like an hour of sunlight.

Oprah: Without sunscreen.

Dr. Oz: Without sunscreen.

Oprah: Yeah.

Dr. Oz: So put sunscreen on your face and your hands because that's where aging shows, but the rest of your body needs to be able to see it, especially in the summer months.

Oprah: But how is it getting it through your clothes? Because I'm not out there in a bikini.

Dr. Oz: No, no, you need to expose your chest and your back and your—

Oprah: Oh, really.

Dr. Oz: Those big surface areas. It's critical.

Oprah: I've been doing it wrong all this time. I've been fully clothed, all my sweats on, but I'm in the sun.

Dr. Oz: But you know our ancestors, someone your color never lived here. Oprah—

Oprah: That is for damn sure. Let me tell you. (Laughter.)

Dr. Oz: But, you know, the thing about it is if you look across all human species.

Oprah: That's right.

Dr. Oz: Within five years of your tribe moving to Chicago.

Oprah: Yes.

Dr. Oz: They changed color. They looked like me. And vice versa. Our species began to change skin color because skin color—

Oprah: As they moved across—

Dr. Oz: Absolutely. The whole battle is about vitamin D and folic acid. The whole battle is balancing because too much sun wipes out folic acid but gives you vitamin D, which, by the way, is an important hormone. And not enough sun depletes vitamin D and you get a lot of folic acid, but who cares because you're getting cancer and autoimmune diseases from the vitamin D. So the one exception are the Eskimos, the Inuit, because they get their vitamin D from their food.

Oprah: Wow.

Dr. Oz: They eat fish liver.

Oprah: I can tell because when I got off the plane in Africa the other day, I mean it was like Africa hot. The sun is like so intense.

Dr. Oz: No vitamin D deficiency there.

Oprah: Yeah, no vitamin D deficiency there.

Dr. Oz: I want to finish real quick with probiotics.

Oprah: Okay.

Dr. Oz: Because we're going to get a hundred calls about this if we don't because we got off on the medicine.

Oprah: Okay.

Dr. Oz: Real quickly, the issue with the bacteria in your gut is if you're taking antibiotics, if the bacteria aren't growing correctly in your intestinal system, then you get the wrong bacteria, which overwhelm the good bacteria. And that's what it looks like. This image shows that those little coral reef–looking structures are the lining of your intestine. Those big railroad cars, those spheres, those tubes, those are actually the bacteria, the good bacteria, the lactobacilli so historically we would eat yogurt and kefir and all these fermented foods?

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