Dr. Oz's Webcast Transcript

Terry: These are—you boil them and eat them like a dessert. So that's something else that I'm not—that I've started to eat that I haven't eaten before. And also the fresh vegetables and everything else. My diet's completely changed in that way.

Dr. Oz: You also have a better ratio of fats, more of the healthy omega-3 fats. That was one of our action step items for—

Oprah: My question is, Clare, you're eating the same thing, right, and you're not growing hair in all these strange places? 

Clare: I'll show you. I—(inaudible)— five color vegetable every day. We can show it.

Dr. Oz: But are you growing hair? 

Clare: The bright vegetables. It's green. It's white. You know. I heard it's very important, the colors of the vegetable, yeah. I make the soup every day. For lunch or dinner.

Oprah: Isn't it true the more colors you have on your plate the healthier?

Dr. Oz: It is. And the reason, of course, is because these fruits make colors—and vegetables make colors to protect themselves from the sun.

Oprah: Yeah.

Dr. Oz: So they're antioxidants. So they are naturally protecting themselves, and when you eat them, you're benefiting from what they made for themselves. You showed me the sesame might be you mentioned also, rice bran, the rice germ, all of these also will influence those paba, p-a-b-a, levels. And so they may be partially responsible. Maybe you had a deficiency of that before. If you don't have enough biotin, which is a B vitamin, if you don't have enough folic acid, another B vitamin, and you don't have this paba, which is the precursor to those, then you'll prematurely gray your hair.

Terry: One thing folic acid, in England we have a product called Marmite, which is a use product that we—which contains a lot of folic acid, and I've always eaten this all my life, so I don't think that would have been a big difference. But the fish and the omega-3 I would say I definitely eat a lot more than I ate before.

Dr. Oz: Maybe we should biopsy your buttocks?

Terry: I'm sorry?

Dr. Oz: He's not excited.

Oprah: "Maybe we should biopsy your buttocks" is what he said. Let's biopsy your buttocks.

Terry: Yeah, I mean, I'll send some of the hairs over if he wants them.

Dr. Oz: (Laughter.)

Oprah: Terry and Clare, thank you so much. I don't even know is it the next—it's already the next day there, right?

Terry: Yeah, it's the next day. 

Clare: The next day. It's early morning.

Terry: It's early morning, but we'll probably go for a foot massage this afternoon because that is something else that I know you did mention that can have some good effects on your body because that gets rid of a lot of toxins as well.

Dr. Oz: It does. It also relaxes you and that ultimately may be one of the more important things that's happening because if you allow the dyes, the melanin to be secreted naturally and you have the normal mix of hormones at the level of the skin, you'll have a very different pattern on your hair. Anyway, thanks for being with us.

Oprah: Thank you both.

Terry: Thanks. Bye, Bye. Bye, Oprah. Bye, Oz.

Oprah: Bye, Oz. As I was leaving Africa the other day, Sunday evening, as I was leaving Africa, and just as I was going, the guys at the passport thing there. Hi, hi, hi, and as I was walking out to go to the plane, he says, "Please say hello to Dr. Oz."

Dr. Oz: I love it.

Oprah: "Please say hello to Dr. Oz." Our next Skyper is Laura, Skyping from an Internet café in New South Wales, Australia. She's Canadian. She's having a bit of trouble adjusting. What's happening?

Laura: Hello, yes. Well, within the last year I started driving here in Australia. Prior to that I was living in Canada. I was driving there for about eight years. So the change from the right- to the left-hand side of the road was a bit of a challenge for me so I'm actually wondering what happens in the brain when a skill like that needs to be changed and how long can I expect I'll get used to it?

Dr. Oz: Well, you're actually lucky, you know, I've been in places where you cross the border and they switch sides of the road. So that's a pretty dangerous setup. You know, I—I think that the way we change our ability to think about challenges is one of the most brilliant parts of the human brain. It's what gives us the plasticity to address the challenges of life. And I think that if you look at your need now to shift to sort of do everything upside down and backward, something is going to happen because your brain is going to secrete a chemical, a hormone, called brain-derived growth factor. It's like Miracle Grow for the brain. And what this does is force neurons to grow new connections. So like trees growing new branches. Those have to touch each other in different ways. However, it takes two to three weeks. That's why, by the way, all of these self-help programs, they're always two weeks or three weeks? That's how long it takes to change one habit—

Oprah: Twenty-one days. Twenty-one days.

Dr. Oz: Twenty-one days to perfect health.

Oprah: Yeah.

Dr. Oz: So this is 21 days to driving right. But you've got to do it every day. You've got to practice and reinforce it over and over like any other habit you want to alter. We know in surgery when we teach physicians to use those endoscopic tools, the ones that are far away, so instead of touching it yourself, you have to learn to use instruments, it takes a couple of weeks of day-in-and-day-out thinking about it to reshape how way the brain works through these problems. But like all other human beings, you have the prefrontal cortex that will let it happen.

Oprah: How are you liking Australia, Laura?

Laura: Thank you.

Oprah: How are you liking Australia?

Laura: Oprah, I love it here. Yes, I do. I really enjoy it.

Oprah: Is it summer there yet?

Laura: It is. It's very warm right now. It's mid-30s.

Oprah: Wow.

Dr. Oz: She looks flushed.

Laura: I'm on summer holidays. I'm a teacher, so I'm on summer holidays for a few more weeks.

Oprah: Mid-30s Centigrade she means. So tell me is the movie Australia, is everybody excited about the movie Australia over there?

Laura: Yes, yeah, everyone was really excited about it. I actually saw the show that you did with the actors but I haven't actually gone to see it yet, so I hope to see that soon.

Oprah: That will be great. Thanks for talking to us, Laura.

Laura: Thank you very much.