Television shows like The Dr. Oz Show and The Doctors have grown in popularity as viewers are interested in learning more about health and wellness, but a new study suggests you shouldn’t blindly follow their recommendations.
In order to determine credibility of the medical advice being touted on these shows, researchers screened 80 randomly selected episodes (40 of each) and analyzed whether the advice the doctors were providing was backed up by any actual medical research. In order to determine if the advice was credible, two healthcare professionals searched for the claims in a variety of medical publications, including Pubmed/Medline, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews, Natural Standard Database, and Google Scholar. Researchers deemed the advice credible if it was confirmed by a clinical study, a case report or other hard evidence.
After looking at the results, it’s astonishing to see how much “expert advice” is lacking scientific basis. According to the study:
- 33 percent of health claims on the Dr. Oz show lacked any scientific evidence.
- 24 percent of health recommendations on The Doctors had no firm scientific basis.
- The Doctors gave evidence-based medical advice 63 percent of the time, while Dr. Oz did the same at a 46 percent clip.
- Among both shows, only 54 percent of their recommendations were supported by actual medical evidence.
Christina Korownyx, MD, who worked on the study, said the findings should be used as a “baseline” for regular doctors to talk to their patients about not taking the television advice as de facto information.
“These shows can be quite charismatic and entertaining, and maybe people aren’t even thinking about those things,” said Dr. Korownyx. “This [study] just gives clinicians a starting point to have that discussion with their patients and say ‘Well, you know, maybe not everything is completely evidence-based on those shows.'”
Additionally, doctors rarely discussed the potential drawbacks of their recommendations. Dr. Oz only discussed the potential harms 9.8 percent of the time, while The Doctors discussed the potential pitfalls only 7.6 percent of the time.
“Having a woman come on a show and saying that she took her son off [foods made from genetically modified crops] and [that] cured his autism is very dangerous. It gives people false hope,” said Joseph Perrone, MD, chief science officer for the Center for Accountability in Science in Washington, D.C.
Despite the lack of factual advice or discussion of the potential harms, millions of people tune into their TV doctor on a regular basis. Both shows average more than two million viewers a day, and both shows feature doctors listed in the 2012 report of the top 100 health and fitness influencers as determine by Greatist.
Dr. Silverman comments
As the article states, watching these shows can be a great way to get the ball rolling for a discussion with your physician, but you shouldn’t take the advice at face value. The fact of the matter is these shows are more about entertainment than information. There are many programs that offer better information, but they don’t have the personalities you see on The Doctors or Dr. Oz.
The doctors on these shows are all a little full of it. Because medicine is an art not an exact science, many things that we know to have truth in them may not have been proven true and many things assumed to be true are actually false.
But even I am a little full of it too. Some of my beliefs are based on my experience not on science. But, that’s why you go to a surgeon or a doctor with good experience; knowing what works for me and my patients is important for patients to consider.
Related source: MedPage Today