Earlier this year Dr. Mehmet Oz defended himself in a Senate subcommittee hearing on potentially deceptive advertising for the weight loss and dietary supplements he routinely recommends on his show. When Oz said that green coffee extract is a “magic weight loss cure for every body type,” a manufacturer was moved to start producing “Pure Green Coffee,” using footage from the show to promote it. The company was later sued by the FTC for making false claims about the product’s efficacy. “The scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you called ‘miracles,’” consumer protection panel Chairman Claire McCaskill told Oz at the hearing. “I get that you do a lot of good on your show, but I don’t get why you need to say this stuff because you know it’s not true.”  McCaskill’s reproach wasn’t the first: Oz has been roundly criticized for promoting products on his show that don’t have the evidence to warrant such strong recommendation, or any recommendation for that matter. And now there seems to be scientific evidence to back that concern: A new study in the journal BMJ randomly selected episodes of the show, and looked at whether the products promoted in those shows were backed or refuted by actual scientific evidence. And the results for Dr. Oz didn’t look so good. More than half of the advice given had no scientific merit to it.  The researchers from University of Alberta selected 40 episodes of The Dr. Oz Show and 40 from another TV doctor show, The Doctors. The team pulled out the medical recommendations in each and combed the scientific research to determine whether there was any evidence to back them up.  The results are intriguing, but not surprising. The media and the medical community have long noticed and questioned the “Oz Effect,” the phenomenon where products fly off the shelves after a mention on The Dr. Oz Show. My first article for Forbes looked at whether the effect was a matter of good medicine or good marketing. Now it seems like we have an answer.  Representatives from the Dr. Oz show told me today that the apparent lack of scientific evidence behind his recommendations is actually a good thing, and speaks to the show’s larger goal of challenging conventional scientific wisdom. “The Dr. Oz Show has always endeavored to challenge the so-called conventional wisdom, reveal multiple points of view and question the status quo. The observation that some of the topics discussed on the show may differ from popular opinion or various academic analyses affirms that we are furthering a constructive dialogue about health and wellness.”  The study authors don’t see it that way. They advise viewers to take the TV doctor shows will a grain of salt. “Consumers should be skeptical about any recommendations provided on television medical talk shows,” they say, “as details are limited and only a third to one half of recommendations are based on believable or somewhat believable evidence… Decisions around healthcare issues are often challenging, and require much more than non-specific recommendations based on little or no evidence from media health professionals.”  The bottom line: Talk to your doctor. And if you do indulge in the TV doctor shows, don’t take their advice as gospel or even as science. Take it for what it really is: Entertainment.  Follow me @alicewalton or find me on Facebook.
A new study confirms what critics have long thought: There's not much science behind the TV doctor shows.