Dr. Oz's Webcast Transcript

Oprah: Right.

Dr. Oz: Those are a great source of probiotics. So—and if you don't want to take it in that form, there are little pills you can take that have probiotics in them. And then you want to take prebiotics. These are foods that actually nourish your intestinal system. They're mostly made of fibers.

Oprah: And when you say take yogurt, you meant real yogurt. Not the low-fat whatever.

Dr. Oz: Exactly. Yogurt with live culture in it.

Oprah: Yes, with live culture.

Dr. Oz: And so if you eat those kinds of foods, you'll naturally replenish the bacteria in your intestinal system, but you also want to give yourself, the intestines in your body, the right kind of food to nourish those bacteria. So onions and garlic. A hundred percent whole grain breads. These provide fiber, which the bacteria love to eat. That's why they give you gas.

Oprah: Oh.

Dr. Oz: It nourishes—

Oprah: So gas is—okay.

Dr. Oz: A good thing.

Oprah: Okay. One of the most important things on Dr. Oz's Ultimate Health Checklist is to find yourself a health advocate. We got an e-mail from Susie in Sacramento, California, she doesn't fully understand what you mean. "Is that a professional person that you hire? Is it expensive?"

Dr. Oz: It can be a professional person but does not need to be a professional person. It can be a friend. What it has to be is someone who is wise about using the healthcare system. There should be a Marvel Comic about health advocates. They're like superpeople. They charge into the system. They ask the challenging questions. They force people to talk to each other, doctors in particular, and they feel pride if they're able to make the system work better for their friends.

Oprah: You know the first book that you wrote, which I can't remember—

Dr. Oz: Healing from the Heart—The Owner's Manual.

Oprah: Maybe it's the second book where you're talking about you the patient.

Dr. Oz: You the Owner's—oh, yes, The Smart Patient.

Oprah: Okay.

Dr. Oz: You have a good memory.

Oprah: Yes.

Dr. Oz: YOU: The Smart Patient.

Oprah: It's a really good book to read because everybody at some point in their life is either going to get sick or know somebody who's going to get sick, and there's lots of great advice in there about how to do it for yourself. And I'm telling you, I mean, my experience this past couple of years, and I know other so-called famous people who also have had—had issues trying to get people, doctors, to listen to them and needed an advocate for themselves. So I really have said I don't know what the average person does.

Dr. Oz: You asked me a question.

Oprah: Yeah.

Dr. Oz: When we did a show on that book, which I struggle with a lot. You said, "I'm not comfortable asking my doctor a difficult question about what they're telling me. Challenging him."

Oprah: Yeah.

Dr. Oz: And I thought to myself, "You know, if Oprah's not comfortable, I bet a lot of people aren't comfortable." And maybe I'm overthinking this a little bit. But then I realized, you know, if you're the only one that puts your hand up, then you'll get shot. But if all of us put our hands up, which is what this webcast is all about, then it becomes a movement. It becomes what we expect to have happen. And here's the real question: Are you willing to challenge the system so it takes care not only of you but everybody else after you? Because at the end of the day, that's what happens.

Oprah: That's right. Because they learn. This is what I learned with my doctors that they learned—they learned from the patients. I mean when I was on thyroid medication and they'd say, "Well, I think you need 10 milligrams." I was on the Thiamazol, and I'd say, "I don't feel that I need milligrams anymore. I'm feeling like my body really needs an 5. Let me try 5, and then let me try 2 and a half to see if that works." And then they—they listened. I had good a team of doctors at that point.

Dr. Oz: The next doctor—the next patient that the doctor sees maybe gets 5 milligrams.

Oprah: Yes.

Dr. Oz: Because, after all, you're better than he expected and maybe the next one will be too.

Oprah: Absolutely.

Dr. Oz: In addition, when you get second opinions, which just for everybody out there, we only get second opinions 10 percent of the time as a people and—but it changes the diagnosis or the therapy one-third of the time.

Oprah: Yeah, I would think that probably women would be less likely to get second opinions because we have this whole disease to please and don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, and I think a lot of women think that—men don't think this way but women think, "If I get a second opinion, it's going to offend my first doctor."

Dr. Oz: That's exactly what they think. That's exactly what they think. It's about self-esteem.

Oprah: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Oz: It's the wrong thing. Put yourself first because after all when else are you going to do it? Remember, if you've got a second opinion and the second opinion person changes the first opinion?

Oprah: Yeah.

Dr. Oz: Think how many lives you changed. That first doctor is going to rethink this issue for the rest of—

Oprah: But let me just ask you this, though as a physician. Would you be upset if a person got a second opinion? And is, in general, do doctors get a little, like, "Well, you want a second opinion?" Do they feel that way? Or is that—is that the way we're thinking they would think?

Dr. Oz: Personally—

Oprah: Is that a false assumption?