I acquired many issues immediately after my current write-up on ageing in the February 24th challenge of this newspaper. People would like to know a lot more about the biology of getting older and of a nutritious way of living. They want to know additional about what comes about in our cells how the elements of our every day living replicate in what occurs in billions of our cells what are the mobile mechanisms associated in diet, exercise, sleeping designs, social interactions, attitude and spirituality. Some mechanisms we already know and for some we have only animal information. I hope that soon we’ll be able to translate animal info to human beings however, a human is not a mouse.
At the moment, with artificial intelligence, we are discovering new options on how we can prolong our lifespan – far better nonetheless, our wholesome lifespan. Without a doubt, the responses are concealed within our cells. Let’s seem at them briefly. In accordance to the hottest (May perhaps 12, 2017) information from the “Annals of Human Biology,” our physique is composed of 37.2 trillion cells forming 200 distinct cell varieties that are specialised to complete the unique and distinctive capabilities we will need in our every day living. The cells get nutrients from our food stuff and transform them into power for undertaking these specialised functions.
Even if cellular anatomy is incredibly sophisticated, one particular does not have to have a PhD in biology to understand cellular structure and functionality.
There are at minimum twelve organelles in our cell. Let us seem at some of them. Every human cell has a mobile membrane bordering cytoplasm, a jelly-like fluid where other pieces of the cell are positioned. The most notable organelle is the mobile nucleus, made up of chromosomes exactly where most genetic materials is found. We have 23 pairs of chromosomes for a overall of 46 chromosomes we inherit half of them from every mother or father. Even however all human beings have comparable genes we are all diverse. In all 8 billion of us, not two humans are genetically the same owing to variations in the sequence of DNA from a person particular person to the next. Only similar twins of the same intercourse have all of their genes the identical. In contrast, fraternal or dizygotic twins end result from the fertilization of two different eggs throughout the similar being pregnant.
At the finish of every chromosome is a telomere, that is the protective DNA protein. A mobile can divide only about forty to sixty instances, and with each and every mobile division the telomere gets shorter till eventually the mobile can no for a longer period divide and dies, going through autophagy, or programmed dying. The telomere’s length decreases with age, to the stage that it could even be a marker deciding a person’s lifespan. The for a longer period the telomere size, the for a longer period is our lifespan. We are not there however, but hopefully quickly we’ll be equipped to identify biological age with a uncomplicated blood exam measuring the telomere’s length in our white blood cells. Just a phrase of warning: in some cases a telomere can improve from an mysterious bring about and if telomeres get also prolonged, then the cells can turn into cancerous.
Mitochondria, a further essential ingredient inside of the mobile, convert the foods we try to eat into vitality that the cell can use. We inherit our mitochondria only from our mothers. Mitochondria have their personal DNA, diverse from other cellular elements. Mitochondria are viewed as the powerhouse of our cells they generate most of the cell’s provide of adenosine triphosphate, ATP, that is used as a supply of chemical electrical power in our system. There are about 2,000 mitochondria in each mobile. The far more lively are the cells, the more several are the mitochondria as a result, mind, muscle, kidney and liver cells have increased quantities. However, like many other biological processes in our system, there are byproducts created through ATP electricity manufacturing termed ROS, for reactive oxygen species these really billed ROS particles can likely harm our DNA, proteins and fat. The good thing is, we can counteract the detrimental effect of ROS with anti-oxidants coming from nutritious nourishment, like lots of greens, fruits, fish, olive oil, dark chocolate and, if you like, one glass of crimson wine (white wine has no antioxidant resveratrol) all through supper. Physical exercise and audio sleeping practices can also boost our mitochondrial health and fitness, even though the exact mechanism is not recognized.
We also have lysosomes, cellular cleaners dependable for breaking down mobile squander. When invaders these types of as microbes and viruses enter our cells, lysosomes damage them as very well.
We must not fail to remember ribosomes, the web page where by proteins are manufactured. They read the sequence of the messenger RNA by working with the genetic code, translating the sequence of RNA bases into a sequence of amino acids, forming proteins.
Lastly, we need to have to know the conductor inside of the cell: the epigenome activates or silences the genes for the various functions that our day by day action needs. Although our genes are absolutely below epigenomic manage, we are luckily equipped to regulate the epigenomes through our way of living.
More than enough of torturing your intellect with primary bioscience and biostatistics. Now we can superior recognize how diverse elements of the cells are associated in the performing of our every day activity. As I talked about ahead of, our life style is crucial to our health and longevity. It is time now that we transfer from fundamental science to day by day living.
Our way of life is the most vital element figuring out how nutritious we are, what sort of conditions we’ll get, and how extensive our lifespan will be. Life style consists of diet, actual physical exercise, sleeping, social interactions, spirituality, and perspective. Lots of periods, when my sufferers figured out their diagnosis of cancer or some other ailment, they would say that they were not shocked that their mothers and fathers had most cancers. “It’s all in my genes,” they would say to me. Yes, genes are important but only for about 10 per cent of disorders most of the rest is dependent on a patient’s lifestyle. And, yes, some extremely tiny share is dependent on a person’s luck (motor vehicle accidents and similar mishaps).
Let’s now briefly go to our way of life, how it impacts our bodies on a cellular degree via nutrition, workout, sleeping, social interaction, mindset, and regular studying.
Nutrition: My suggestions: take in considerably less and eat slowly. The Japanese would say hara hachi bu, prevent consuming while you are about eighty p.c total. You can take in practically each food stuff you like. You browse effectively, I explained just about. Continue to, I would propose concentrating on tons of veggies, fruits, fish reduce, do not do away with, sweets and red and processed meats also much alcoholic beverages could shorten your telomeres. Love the meals you consume. There is a relationship among the brain and the gut about 95 {fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} of serotonin, the hormone that helps make you pleased, is produced in your intestine. Individuals on a Mediterranean diet plan have for a longer time telomeres. Step on the scale in your lavatory every day and you will maintain your excess weight below regulate. I need to not neglect drinking water: consume as a lot as you can 8 glasses a working day that will maintain you young and significantly less wrinkly. Vitamin dietary supplements in basic are not essential. If you eat wholesome, they are all in your foods. For special wants, request your physician.
Any form of physical action, from reduced to significant intensity, is beneficial for our overall health. Stroll day-to-day for thirty minutes. 3 to four thousand measures are adequate eight to 10 thousand is not required. Physical exercise raises the size of telomeres. Do not forget, for a longer time telomeres extend our wholesome lifespan.
Sleeping is detoxifying and cleansing our brain and hence protecting against cognitive decrease. The excellent of our sleep is crucial for our cognition. Harmful beta-amyloid proteins resulting in Alzheimer’s condition get washed away with a very good night’s rest. Slumber is our brain’s rinse cycle that clears its waste. If we don’t rest well this method is not getting place and our cognition suffers. Very poor sleeping also influences our immune system, main to persistent irritation and possibly to cancer, primarily cancers of breast, colon, ovaries and prostate. Melatonin, which is created in the course of slumber, has antioxidant qualities that protect against cell harm. So, snooze much better and you’ll make melatonin – great night!
Social conversation is essential – the additional, the better. A loaded social community can be a resource of assist, combats despair, cuts down anxiety and improves our cognition and helps prevent memory decline. It also makes it possible for you to confide in your friends and enable them confide in you. Quite a few scientific studies showed that the lack of social interaction might be a chance issue in illness progression. Also, social conversation can act to a degree as sickness avoidance behavior. Men and women with powerful social interaction stay for a longer period and are commonly healthier. By keeping socially engaged, you secure by yourself and can aid protect other people. We in fact need to have every other. We know that optimistic social interaction of a pregnant lady has presently a beneficial impact on her kid. So, it is never much too early to cultivate a loaded social conversation.
Positive mind-set has a advantageous affect on cellular action as perfectly. The prefrontal cortex is the anatomical spot in which constructive feelings are created. A positive, optimistic frame of mind improves our skill to spend attention, to resolve problems speedier. It also enhances our resilience, the capacity to get well more quickly from complications. So, cultivate positivity your glass really should be fifty percent comprehensive, not 50 {fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} empty. Be open to the earth around you. Attempt new things.
Ultimately, we should really not ignore the influence of spirituality on our overall health. Spirituality has a biological dimension it can help you to recover from disease more rapidly and stay for a longer time. I normally suggest my sufferers to cultivate spirituality: if they are religious, they ought to pray if they are not, they should meditate, if possible twenty minutes a day. We all need to have spirituality in our life.
In summary, I hope I have certain you that life style matters. Become your doctor’s husband or wife in your well being care: adhere to your doctors’ common visits, hear to their guidance, inquire all the concerns. Be constructive and delight in lifetime, be resilient and have enjoyment each day. If you observe these strategies, you have a large chance of living a very long and healthier life, probably you may well even be part of the centenarians. Fantastic luck!
Dr. Ciril Godec is Professor of Urology at Downstate Medical Centre and was chairman of the Office of Urology at Very long Island Faculty Clinic for thirty decades. He recently retired and is an honorary employees member at Maimonides Clinical Heart, the place he served as Urology Residency Director and afterwards Deputy Director of Urology since 2013.He is also a Board member at Cobble Hill Health and fitness Center.
Dr. Godec, who just celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday this earlier Valentine’s Working day, is currently co-authoring his 3rd ebook, “How to Declare Growing old a Condition.”
Just about 1,000 men and women die just about every day from circumstances connected to hypertension – but it generally goes undiagnosed right until it is far too late.
Contrary to common variants in blood tension that transpire involving routines, hypertension occurs when blood strain fails to occur back again down to a usual amount. The continuously elevated force results in problems to blood vessels and improves danger for a amount of persistent health care conditions, which include coronary artery sickness, heart assault, congestive coronary heart failure, kidney disorder and stroke.
“By the time signs of coronary heart ailment or coronary heart failure create, the damage has previously been performed,” clarifies Dr. Borer. “However, it is attainable for some folks to have signs and symptoms when their blood force is quite superior, like headaches, nosebleeds, visual modifications, dizziness, palpitations, upper body pains or shortness of breath.”
Dr. Borer emphasised the value in acquiring your blood stress checked regularly to guarantee it’s in a healthful selection – preferably no bigger than 130/80. It can be checked at a visit to your major care company, a health screening or with a home automatic blood pressure keep an eye on.
Just before age 40, adults must have their blood pressure checked around as soon as just about every a single to two many years. After age 40, it should be checked at least once a yr, and much more regularly if an elevated reading is noted.
If your blood pressure is high, there are a amount of approaches to tackle the concern with out treatment.
“People who eat more healthy meals, work out regularly, keep away from risky substances (these types of as smoking or large liquor use) and have a typical entire body bodyweight are substantially much less probably to have hypertension,” states Dr. Borer. “For example, for each two kilos of excess weight loss, blood strain tends to minimize by about 1 mmHg. So, if someone loses 10 – 20 pounds, they might reduce their blood pressure by 5-10 mmHg, which is similar to the effect of some prescription drugs.”
The Nutritional Ways to Stop Hypertension (also acknowledged as Sprint) suggests having a wide range of food items wealthy in potassium, fiber and protein and decreased in sodium and saturated fats, these as veggies, fruits, whole grains and fat-free or minimal fats dairy, fish, poultry, beans, nuts and vegetable oils. Common food items to stay away from or minimize contain red meat, processed meat (which includes bacon, sausage, scorching pet dogs and several deli meats), extremely processed snack meals (such as donuts and sweet bars) and sugar sweetened beverages.
Actual physical action can also aid maintain you at a healthful bodyweight and reduce your blood tension. The Bodily Action Rules for Americans suggests that adults get at minimum 2 several hours and 30 minutes of reasonable-intensity exercising, these types of as brisk going for walks or bicycling, each and every week, which can decreased your blood pressure a further 5 mmHg. Even lessen amounts of physical exercise, this kind of as 15 – 30 minutes each individual week, can give health and fitness gains.
“When building alterations, it is significant to commence with setting incredibly real looking and achievable ambitions, even if they feel quite tiny,” claims Dr. Borer. “Once these ambitions are realized, new aims can be set and labored in direction of. Attaining these small goals will guarantee higher accomplishment than earning drastic adjustments all at after.”
Dr. Borer currently leads Hartford HealthCare’s new Life-style Medicine plan, aimed at empowering sufferers to make precise and significant improvements in their life style to reduce their chance of cardiovascular illness and boost their overall wellbeing. A multi-disciplinary crew of vendors function closely with sufferers to assess their latest way of living behaviors and deal with the underlying causes of several of the popular continual illnesses. By doing the job alongside one another to figuring out sustainable alterations, sufferers can get on a street to more best wellbeing.
The Tompkins County Overall health Division claims there have now been 20,516 overall positive cases in Tompkins County, 97 extra than on Tuesday, and a full of 1,888,935 checks conducted. The Health Department is also now reporting beneficial self-check final results that have been submitted by their on the net portal. They say there are 29 new beneficial self-take a look at success for a total of 2,601 submitted.
Connected: TCHD: If you take a look at beneficial on an at-home take a look at
As of Wednesday at 8:45am, the Health and fitness Office says 1,190 tests have been executed in the prior day. The Tompkins County Wellness Division publishes NYS vaccine tracking data, showing 84,672 Tompkins County citizens have a initial dose and 77,304 have concluded vaccination (which could be 1 or two doses, based on vaccine).
Similar: A lot of are eligible for second booster or supplemental doses, states Wellness Division
The Overall health Office claims 13 folks are presently hospitalized for COVID-19, a single far more than in Tuesday’s update. As of a shift in details very last winter season, “TCHD is reporting only active instances who are hospitalized,” somewhat than which includes clients recovered from COVID who stay hospitalized for other reasons.
“Of the the latest uptick in hospitalizations, a vast greater part have been of vaccinated people,” Tompkins County Community Well being Director Frank Kruppa tells us, but “of the people today who are vaccinated and have been hospitalized for COVID-19 related factors, the trend holds that they are mostly older adults, age 65+. This data factors to the worth of boosters and 2nd boosters for those age 65+.”
There have been 60 deaths from COVID-19 recorded among Tompkins County inhabitants, together with the death of an space inhabitants documented in late March.
On May 3, Cornell University documented 53 new beneficial cases for May perhaps 2, 105 lively scholar circumstances, and 78 active employee situations. Cornell only updates its dashboard on weekdays, and the timing of their updates does not permit a immediate comparison to the county’s statistics.
As of May perhaps 3, Ithaca College noted 9 lively student situations, with 526 recovered, and six lively worker instances and 223 recovered staff.
The Wellness Section states its studies include things like tests that Cornell College began conducting on July 16, 2020. Cornell launched its have COVID-19 data dashboard on August 25, 2020.
Related: New Cornell COVID-19 dashboard demonstrates check success and alert degree
The Health Office claims the public desires to avert the spread of COVID-19 not just to safeguard by themselves, but others in our neighborhood who are most vulnerable to finding very sick – older adults, these who are immune-compromised, and individuals with fundamental serious well being situations.
Linked: BA.2 variant probably, but not confirmed, amongst “ebbs and flows” of Tompkins scenarios, claims Well being Department
TCHD’s Frank Kruppa claims, “There is a very higher vaccination price for our neighborhood, particularly with the successes that have been noted by our neighborhood colleges. In addition to the arrival and surveillance testing, quite a few of our new conditions are arising from sustained near call with a favourable unique, indicating extra than 10 minutes within just six feet of a good scenario. These close contacts are transpiring far more often in substantial indoor gatherings that blend various teams of people today.”
“Over the previous couple months, our endeavours have concentrated on vaccinating our younger individuals and furnishing booster doses to those who are qualified,” Kruppa says. “We are distributing self-assessments and masks all over the county as we get shipments and thank our local community associates for aiding in this hard work.”
Diabetics are constantly recommended in opposition to fasting. In the course of the holy month of Ramadan, fasting is observed from dawn to sunset. All through this time Islam followers abstain from having and drinking all through the day.
This calendar year, the holy thirty day period of Ramadan is currently being observed from April 2 to May possibly 2.
As for each a study, fasting throughout Ramadan carries a incredibly large hazard for persons with type 1 diabetic issues. This possibility is particularly exacerbated in inadequately controlled patients and those with confined access to health care care, hypoglycemic unawareness, unstable glycemic control, or recurrent hospitalizations.
On the other hand, owing to the religious significance of the holy month of Ramadan, folks do rapid.
In order to give healthy suggestions to all those who are diabetic and are fasting in the course of this thirty day period, we at ETimes spoke to Dr Vanjinathan, Typical Drugs & Diabetology, Prashanth Hospitals, Kolathur, Chennai and Dr. M. Ravikiran, Marketing consultant Endocrinologist, SIMS Medical center, Chennai.
What need to be eaten?
“Do not skip the Suhoor – pre-dawn meal or the Iftar meal first of all keeping it gentle and not weighty. Preserving oneself hydrated is really critical and usage of very low salt and very low body fat gentle diet regime is preferred generally,” says Dr Vanjinathan.
On what needs to be averted during this time, the skilled says, “We require to stay clear of superior unwanted fat food items as properly as caffeinated drinks and aerated drinks and so forth. by changing it with eco-friendly leafy greens , nuts and fluids,” and also suggests versus usage of fried goods and foods with high salt content.
On the sort of meals a single should consume in the course of Iftaar, Dr M. Ravikiran suggests: “The regular routine of ingesting big quantities of foodstuff loaded in carbohydrate and fat, specifically at the sunset food, need to be averted.”
The health professionals have strictly suggested people with gestational diabetes to skip fasting.
Insulin
Dr Vanjinathan implies having doctor’s information for fasting as, he states, controlling insulin stages as a result of change in prescription drugs or insulin ingestion needs to be controlled appropriately. Introducing to this, Dr M. Ravikiran states, “Considering the fact that foodstuff consumption is restricted to late evening and evening, your medical doctor will be shifting major dose of diabetic medicine to evening time. These on insulin can go over with their medical doctors how to properly modify timing and dose of insulin before embarking on fasting.”
“There may perhaps be other problems like sugar, kidney concerns, coronary heart issues, vascular discomfort, peripheral vascular circumstances and so forth. which needs to be regarded as prior to choosing to fast. Continuous periodic consultation like HbA1c rely and sugar levels need to be monitored and regulated just before taking a connect with on fasting,” claims the health care provider.
Other overall health difficulties
As per a wellbeing report, for all those people today who have diabetes problems like bad vision, nerve problems, heart or kidney ailment, fasting can be harmful.
“It is secure to rapidly during Ramadan, if you have secure, nicely controlled Diabetes and no co-current kidney or big coronary heart complications. It is superior to stay away from fasting during this time, if you are dependent on insulin exclusively for sugar manage (Sort 1 diabetic issues) or are obtaining form 2 diabetic issues with weak sugar manage. If you have recent scenarios of really reduced or pretty significant sugar or have kidney illness or have experienced a stroke or a heart surgical procedure a short while ago you ought to avoid fasting,” claims Dr. M. Ravikiran.
Inhale, exhale. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, Well+Good tapped some of our favorite health and wellness leaders to create the Mental Well-Being Challenge, a 31-day action plan to help you trust yourself, cope with stress, thrive at work, and show up for your community. Read More
Recently, social entrepreneur and writer Rachel Cargle posted the following on Instagram: “Today I laughed on the phone for nearly an hour, made myself a cup of hot tea, apologized to my lover for something I said last night, didn’t make time for the full nutritious dinner I craved, and walked gracefully through a heated discussion with a service provider #andthatwasenough.”
Cargle’s hashtag gestures to the fact that it’s an act of grace to end each day by telling ourselves, “Yes, today I was/did/achieved enough,” and after several deeply challenging years, the sentiment seems like a fitting note to launch Well+Good’s 2022 Mental Well-Being Challenge.
It’s fair to say that we’re all in various stages of tending to our wounds and our wounded, which is perhaps why Cargle’s hashtag, #andthatwasenough, feels especially powerful.
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That’s why, this Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re taking it back to the basics. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is defined as a “state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
Let’s break that down, shall we? The four categories of mental health are:
Trusting in one’s own abilities
Coping with stress
Working productively and fruitfully
Contributing to community
Over the next 31 days, you’ll have the opportunity to try expert-backed mental health practices that fall in these four categories. Maybe you do all 31; maybe you’ll just do one a week. Whatever! Pick what schedule feels right to you and try sticking with it. If all goes well, at the end of May, you’ll have a few new tools in your mental health toolkit. Ready?
Day 1: Make a “small wins” list
Major life milestones (promotions! babies! escrow!) don’t come along every day—and that’s why celebrating the small stuff is worthwhile. As clinical psychologist Sophie Mort, PhD (who goes by “Dr. Soph”), previously told Well+Good, it’s time we start celebrating when we make a really delicious lunch, take a midday walk break, or fold the laundry the same day we do it. “We’re [always] going for bigger, bigger, bigger,” she said. “The small win is the thing that can give us those small boosts throughout the day. They’re the things that are often linked to our values, roles, and our goals.”
Call to action: Celebrate three small wins today. (Reminder: No win is too small.)
Day 2: Move for 5 minutes
When it comes to hitting the reset button on your mood, exercise endorphins can’t be beat. “Making time to regularly work out is an important long-term strategy for stress prevention and management,” said Natalie Dattilo, PhD, director of psychology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry and a member of the American Psychological Association (APA).
Despite the proliferation of the “harder, better, faster, stronger” workout mentality, you don’t need to move for an hour to incite a major mood boost. Turn on your favorite song and dance it out in your kitchen, jog around the block, move through a simple yoga flow, or do some push-ups to get your heart rate up.
Call to action: Set a five-minute timer and move intuitively until it goes off.
Not sure what to do? Try this full-body workout on for size:
Day 3: Look back at last month’s spending
Reviewing last month’s expenses may not scream mental health to you, but it can help you foster trust with yourself and mitigate (at least some of) the stress you feel about money. “One of the best ways to start to get a handle on your finances is to look back at how you’ve been spending money. That way, you can get a sense of things you might be able to cut back on and shift,” says Kimberly Palmer, personal finance expert at NerdWallet.
If you have no idea what you’re spending on, you’re probably not putting your money where your values lie. Auditing your transactions is the first step in coming into alignment with your income, which can be such an empowering experience.
One of the simplest ways to access your money rundown is by subscribing to a fintech app that suits your money style. Well+Good Trends Advisor Dani Pascarella, CFP, founder of the financial wellness platform OneEleven, said it best. “I see new fintech as handling the third point of the wellness trifecta: First, you have physical health, and that’s been in motion for a while with fitness apps; then, you have mental health, which has been having its app moment, too; and now, financial health is emerging in the tech space,” she told Well+Good.
Call to action: Use a budgeting app or your bank or credit card statements to review last month’s spending. What categories required the most money? (Rent? Eating out? Entertainment?) Don’t take actionyet, though; we’ll circle back to this on day seven.
Day 4: Step out of your comfort zone
Psychologist Aimee Daramus, PsyD, is a big fan of leaving your comfort zone in the dust and engaging in some “type two fun.” This is the outdoor lover’s term for something that’s not necessarily fun in the moment, but brings you great joy and satisfaction later on.
“We have this natural desire to create a narrative arc of our lives and the meaning that we bring to the world, and overcoming challenges helps us do that,” said behavioral scientist Brooke Struck, PhD, research director at The Decision Lab. “Challenge is the site of growth, and growth helps define who we are as people.”
Sure, this could looking like running a marathon or taking on a hike with several thousand feet of elevation. Or, it could be as simple as running a whole mile without stopping or weathering a new workout class that makes you use your body in a different way. Take a walk on the wild side (but stay safe, please).
Call to action: Locate your comfort zone. Take a detour.
Day 5: Reach out to a friend
This tip is simple, but powerful (particularly in the wake of a pandemic). Grab your phone and text or call a pal. “Social isolation often creates a feedback loop leading to depression and loneliness, making it even harder to get the motivation to connect with others,” said co-founder and chief clinical officer at Frame,Sage Grazer, LCSW. “It’s important to disrupt the cycle and reach out to a friend, even when you don’t feel like doing it.”
Call to action: Humans are social creatures, so go ahead: Drop a line.
Day 6: Enjoy dessert with all 5 of your senses
“Some people never stop to think about what they enjoy. Your five senses can help you to re-activate your pleasure centers,” says Dr. Datillo. “Taking time to really taste your food has been shown to have great benefits in stress reduction. It’s another form of meditation.” This present approach to eating is one of the major principles of intuitive eating, and it can apply to any dessert you love.
Call to action: Really think about what dessert sounds good to you in this moment. Peanut butter brownies? Gummy worms? Ice cream? Pick something that sounds amazing and pay close attention to each bite.
How about a lemon bar?
Day 7: Set some money goals
Remember that spending deep dive we did earlier this week? Well, it’s time to translate all that data into goals. “Setting money goals for yourself can give you inspiration and help keep your everyday spending on track,” says Palmer.
Today, pick two goals, max. That way, you won’t feel overwhelmed or strapped when it comes time to follow through.
For example, if you want to start saving up to, let’s say, take a three-month sabbatical, maybe you pledge to put away $500 each month or some percentage of your income that feels safe to set aside. Alternatively, maybe you just want to spend less money eating out (same). In that case, you could limit yourself to shelling out $X restaurant money per month.
If you’re not sure where to start with this, those fintech apps we mentioned earlier offer expert advice for putting your money to work.
Call to action: Set one to two concrete, actionable money goals.
Day 8: Make a to-do list for your day or week
Grab your colored pens and list out everything you want to check off this week. “The human brain can only manage holding a certain number of pieces of information at once,” said Dr. Soph. “The moment we write it down, we give our brain a break. We’re not holding everything in mind.” Basically, a to-do list is like a giant exhale for your mind.
If your list starts to feel overwhelming, try ordering it from most urgent to least urgent, breaking it into categories, and marking what can wait until next week. Since this is the first day of this week, you have a ton of time to get it all done and, hey, now it’s not taking up space in your brain.
Call to action: Turn on your favorite playlist and make a list, fam.
Day 9: Pledge to stop using stigmatizing language
It’s a well-researched fact that language and mental health are intertwined. So if you find yourself using stigmatizing language, like “crazy” and “insane,” consider self-editing so your words become kinder and more inclusive. “I think the words we choose reflect more on us. If the goal is to feel better about ourselves, how we communicate and what we say matters,” said Dr. Dattilo.
According to the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, you can start using kinder language by simply asking people what mental health terms they prefer, or setting an example by being upfront about how you expect other folks to talk about your mental well-being.
Call to action: Start to filter stigmatizing language out of your vocabulary.
Day 10: Break out the crayons and color
Art supplies gathering dust? It’s time to break out the colored pencils, crayons, pastels, and markers so you can make a masterpiece. “When you concentrate on one thing, whether it’s coloring, breathing, music, exercise, lighting a candle, or guided imagery, it’s a form of meditation,” says Dr. Datillo.
In this case, that “one thing” may be a self-portrait, a stunning rendition of your dog, or some free-form doodles. No matter how it turns out, you’ll be reaping the mental health benefits of creating art, which include relieving stress, loosening the grip of depression, and coping with difficult life events like divorce or death.
Call to action: Paint. Sketch. Collage. Do you.
Day 11: Identify your coping style
The APA defines coping as “the use of cognitive and behavioral strategies to manage the demands of a situation when these are appraised as taxing or exceeding one’s resources or to reduce the negative emotions and conflict caused by stress.” Our coping mechanisms start from a very young age, according to Dr. Soph, and it’s good to be aware of them so we can identify when we’re leaning on unhelpful forms, and when we’ve found more helpful alternatives.
There are three major coping styles: problem-solving coping, emotional coping, and avoidance coping. Here’s the deal with each:
Problem-solving-focused coping: This coping style is solutions-driven. When a problem crops up (like a high credit card bill), they strategize about how to keep the same problem from reoccurring in the future (like creating a budget).
Emotional coping: Emotional copers take stock of what they can’t control and seek positive emotions in the things they can. This may look like calling up a friend, signing up for a yoga class, or taking a relaxing bath.
Avoidance coping: This type of coping should be avoided, when possible, and involves creating harmful habits that are ultimately different forms of self blame.
Call to action: Identify your coping style and practice being aware when you’re using it.
Day 12: Create process-based goals instead of outcome-based goals
Gala Jackson, director of coaching and lead executive career coach at Ellevest, wants you to shift your mindset when it comes to setting goals at work. “For example, a common outcome-based goal when you’re searching for a job is, ‘I want to be in a new role within three months.’ While that’s a reasonable goal, it’s ultimately outside of your control. A better goal, a process-based goal, would be, ‘I will dedicate 45 minutes to my job search every day for the next 90 days,’” she says.
That way, you’re focusing on a goal that’s 100 percent in your control, and making a habit along the way. Bam.
Call to action: Make one process-based goal.
Day 13: Create a shared digital photo album with your friends
Revisit your memories with a digital photo album featuring your besties, pets, and family. “This gives you an opportunity to say, ‘Do you remember that thing?!’ It creates these really normal moments where you’re connecting to important parts of your identity, and getting those lovely oxytocin boosts that you do when you make a connection with a friend,” said Dr. Soph.
Plus, it’s a really good way to remind yourself that you have a community of people who love you. Every time you look down at your phone or tablet or Google Home, you’ll experience a little burst of “those are my people!”
You don’t need to tackle an entire room; instead, pick a small area like your desk or your underwear drawer and organize it to your heart’s desire. “We should always break tasks down into smaller parts,” said Dr. Soph. “When I think about cleaning the whole house I feel overwhelmed and immediately put it off for next week, or to a time when I can do it in one go. When I think about cleaning one area, the tension in my brain decreases. It feels manageable, and I can be realistic about getting it done today.”
Call to action: Take satisfaction in cleaning one small space.
Day 15: Find your “anchors of normality”
Even though things are starting to feel a little bit more “normal” after two years of uncertainty, it’s possible that you still feel out of place. Maybe you’re returning to in-office work and it doesn’t feel natural, or the government’s decision to roll back mask mandates on public transportation is making you feel nervous.
In times like these, Dr. Soph is a huge advocate of finding four ordinary actions you can latch onto, and letting them be your “anchors of normality.” “Our lives has been tipped upside down. Everything that’s happening around us is creating a sense of uncertainty, which is activating our survival response,” she says. “When the brain is in survival mode, and it’s panicking about what’s happening, it’s looking for anything it knows so that it can go: ‘Okay, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought.’”
You can give your brain some much-needed reassurance with simple actions like going for a morning walk or using a face cream that smells and feels amazing. Choose four easy rituals and stick to them.
Call to action: Choose four “anchors of normality.” Write them down and put them somewhere visible, like in your planner or on your fridge.
>Day 16: Set realistic expectations for yourself at work
It’s easy to set high expectations of yourself at work. Maybe you want to earn a promotion, lead a high-profile project, or take on expanding responsibilities. (Maybe, you want to do it all at once.) The problem? There’s only so much you have to give to your work, and that’s why Jackson is a strong proponent of choosing realistic—not ambitious—work goals.
“Be very honest with yourself about what you can accomplish in a day. And know that ‘no’ isn’t a bad word, and it’s not a bad thing. I think it’s worse when we say yes and then we don’t show up and deliver. Remember that saying no can honor your time, of course, but someone else’s time, too,” she says. Apart from saying no, setting a realistic expectation may mean giving yourself a few extra days for a deadline, or turning down an opportunity that might be “huge” for your career, but just isn’t right for you in this moment.
Take heart that you’re also setting a great example of boundary-setting for those around you. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll starting feeling empowered to do the same.
Call to action: Today, be aware of how much you’re asking of yourself while you’re on the clock. Can you turn an unrealistic expectation into a realistic one so you feel fulfilled at the end of the day?
Day 17: Fix something that’s been bugging you
You know that crooked painting in your office you’ve “been meaning to” straighten or that doctor’s appointment you’ve “been meaning to” book for months? Today’s the day! You’re finally going to check this off your list. By taking care of this one, teensy-tiny thing, you’re clearing out a little bit of space in your brain. If you do one mini-project and feel empowered to take care of a few more lingering to-dos, opt for choosing no more than three for today. Then let the satisfaction pour over you.
Call to action: Do the thing you’ve been meaning to do forever.
Day 18: Make an “eco-map” of your social resources
Summon your inner-cartographer and create a visual “map” of your most important relationships. Nurses are often use this technique, called eco-mapping,” to track their patient’s care networks—and you can use it to visualize your own inner-circle.
To start, draw a little stick figure of yourself, then add anyone you live with—your dog, your close friends, your family, and anyone else you’re glad to have in your orbit. (Bonus points if you also reach out to a couple of these people and tell them how grateful you are that they’re part of your eco-map.)
Call to action: Make your eco-map.
Day 19: Build a personal board of directors
You don’t have to be a CEO to have a board of directors, friends. When you’re on the brink of a major life change, it helps to have a few people in your corner who can listen and provide advice.
These pivotal moments are great times to tap your personal board of directors, or people you trust with your capital “b” Big decisions, says Jackson. “Think of it as a team of mentors and sponsors who would be there for you if you wanted to chat through a potential job change, or a career risk, or another big decision. They can cheer you on and tell you how awesome you are, but also help you see things from an outside perspective. And maybe advocate for you if they get the chance,” she says.
Relocate your eco-map from yesterday and decide if any of those folks would make a good addition to your board. Maybe you worked with someone a couple years back who has been your cheerleader in the professional world, or you’re still in touch with a childhood friend who has a 360-degree, lifelong view of your hopes and dreams.
And don’t forget to pay it forward: Think of who might put you on their board, and how you can help them out.
Call to action: Identify three to five people who you want to sit on your very own personal board of directors.
Day 20: Get your hands dirty
Science shows that gardening boosts your mental health, and you can reap the benefits whether you have a massive yard or three hours of sunlight per day in your tiny apartment.
Like many activities we do with our hands, gardening has a meditative quality that stills the mind. “We often think that to meditate we must be still and in complete quiet, learning to let go of our thoughts out of that basic type of meditation. We’ve had other things evolve, such as guided meditation and what I call moving meditation,” said Carla Manly, PhD. “When we are involved in something like gardening, we are very much able to, in the meditative sense, let go of our thoughts and be focused in the moment on what we are doing.”
Making plant friends offers short-term and long-term satisfaction because you get to watch your little plant babies sprout, outgrow their pots, and maybe even bear fruit. But if you’re really just not up for the responsibility of taking care of an indoor jungle, just buy yourself a little bouquet of flowers. One small study showed that even just looking at blooms can make you feel more relaxed.
Call to action: Buy one, easy-to-care-for plant or a bouquet of flowers today.
Day 21: Expand your recreational horizons
You know what brings you joy, but when was the last time you tried a new hobby? “We know that hobbies promote good mental health. And, in part, it’s because hobbies are often creative. They get you out of your head—where your to-do list and other stressful thoughts might dominate—and into something new that doesn’t often have any pressure,” said Dr. Soph.
If you normally get your kicks by going to bookstores, heading to the beach, or going on a bike ride, try something new like bullet journaling or skateboarding. This recreational activity doesn’t necessarily have to stick around forever; just give it a shot and see if it cracks open something new inside of you.
Call to action: Try a new hobby and see if it’s worthy of becoming a habit.
Day 22: Face your stressors with the “Emotional Freedom Technique” (EFT)
Sometimes you don’t have time (or the budget) to book an acupuncture session or a full-body massage, and that’s why learning EFT can be so transformative. EFT involves tapping on specific acupressure points along your face, torso, and hands to reduce stress and reconnect with your body. It’s a great practice to return to in times when you’re feeling worried, anxious, angry, or disconnected from your physical self. Try it out for yourself today with this 30-second technique from Reiki master Kelsey Patel.
Call to action: Identify a moment when you’re feeling stress or worried and try EFT.
Day 23: Say an affirmation
“Affirmations activate the areas in your brain that make you feel positive and happy. Specifically, it activates the reward centers in the brain—the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum,” said Columbia University faculty member Sanam Hafeez, PsyD.
Apart from simply being soothing, affirmations can help you interrupt self-sabotaging thoughts, bring down your stress levels, and help you feel more optimistic towards your life in this moment. If you’re feeling creatively-stunted, self-affirmation can also help you get unstuck so you can start following your passions again.
Call to action: Come up with an affirmation that feels helpful and calming for you right now.”I am healthy. I am safe,” is one good one.
Day 24: Sign up for an online class with your friends
Flex your brain muscle by hitting the books with a couple friends. Sites like Masterclass offer 101s on everything from creative writing to acting to cooking so you can start sharpening your skill set. “The beauty of doing any class is that we’re engaged, we’re learning, and we’re given a sense that we’re doing something,” Dr. Soph told Well+Good. “When we do that with people, the benefits are two-fold. Afterward, you have something to talk about.”
At the end, you’ll walk away with a brand-new skill and a closer connection with the people you love. Win, win.
Call to action: Grab your pals and sign up for an online class
Day 25: Ask for help
Take a moment and think about the last time you uttered the phrase “I need help.” When you’re constantly asking your boss for feedback and input, it can feel like you’re bugging them, but in most instances, this just isn’t the case. Fledgling research shows that those who ask for advice and backup are perceived as hard-working team players, so being willing to admit what you don’t know is actually an advantage.
“Coming to terms with your own limits can be an emotional experience, but it does come with a bonus perk: the relief that comes from admitting that you, your team, and your boss are not robots,” says Jackson, who has a game plan for deciding what tasks to bring to your next one-one-one with your manager. “Spend a few minutes identifying your work tasks and getting a sense of how much time you spend on them. Next, think about what time of day you work best and how much time you have free in your schedule. If your workload is too big for your schedule, it’s time to communicate that and ask for help prioritizing or delegating,” she says.
Then, you’ll be able to huddle up with your team and make a plan for working well together.
Call to action: Tap a coworker for help today.
Day 26: Schedule in worry and dream time
Pull up your Google Calendar and block out two, 10-minute increments—okay? Rather than slotting in a doctor’s appointment or a quick coffee break, we’re going to schedule time to worry and time to dream. “Worry time is amazing,” said Dr. Soph. “Most of us have this kind of free-floating anxiety. Our brains are negatively skewed, so worries arise all the time.” Labeling this little pocket of time as “worry time” will let you pour all your worries out at once so your brain has a little more square footage for better things.
You can even seal the deal by imagining those worries in a container. “I envision a container, any container—a coffin, a box, a bag—and I actually envision where I want to place those worries,” said psychotherapist Lia Avellino at a Well+Good TALKS event from yesteryear. “[This really orients me] to the fact that it is my choice to revisit those worries.” Bury those worries.
Meanwhile, you can schedule that dream time for late in the afternoon when you’re losing interest in your to-do list and itching for “closing time.” Write down or draw your wildest dreams, envision what you want for the future, and walk far away from that worry coffin.
Call to action: Schedule and complete worry time and dream time.
Day 27: Work smarter, not harder
For far too long, we’ve measured our work like we measure baking ingredients. As in, eight cups of flour—er, hours of work—equals a day well spent. Really, says Jackson, we should be measuring our days by the quality of work we whipped up. (How does that cake taste?)
“Get clear on how your work is being measured,” says Jackson. You can practice this motto on a small scale or a large scale. For example, you may decide that instead of finishing an entire project today, you’re going to make sure that one small piece of it goes above and beyond expectations.
Or, try something a little more macro. “One of the best things that you can do is connect with your manager and team around key performance indicators, or KPIs. What does success look like? That way, you’ll know what’s most deserving of your time. And when it comes time to ask for a promotion, you’ll be able to pull out examples of how you’ve added value to the organization in each of those areas,” says Jackson.
Call to action: Choose a different definition for “work success” today, one that relies on quality not quantity.
Day 28: Donate to a community fridge
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), more than 38 million people (including 12 million children) are food insecure in the United States. Community fridges are one way to make an impact on changing that statistic.
“Community fridges are grassroots, collaborative initiatives centered on helping people meet their basic needs and bringing more awareness to food insecurity through creativity, team building, neighborhood participation, art, and placemaking,” Emma Hoffman, a member of Freedge, an international network of community fridges established in 2014, previously told Well+Good.
Not only will this give you the connection that comes from helping a fellow human (which is really enough on its own), the kindness you can offer in the forms of canned goods and grains will also benefit your mental well-being. “Practicing kindness is an emotional regulation tool that helps us get out of our own heads and focus on someone else,” says Change Food founder and activist Diane Hatz.
You can even start a community fridge in your zip code if there isn’t one nearby.
Call to action: Pick a grocery spending budget that makes sense for you, go shopping, and donate to a community fridge. (One extra tip: Make sure to read up on your local fridge’s guidelines so you can ensure you’re buying things that can actually be donated.)
Day 29: Do a “brain dump”
You know that moment when you come home from a day full of errands and dump literally everything—groceries, prescriptions, phone, wallet, keys, jacket—on the ground? Today’s the day to do that same thing with your brain. Collect all your worries and dump them onto a scrap piece of paper.
“When we ruminate or worry, our brains are inefficient. We spend a lot of time focusing on solving a problem that may not be solvable,” said Dr Datillo. Rather than penning these in a journal, she recommends recycling your brain dump at the end of the process, or if you’re in the mood for some drama, you could even burn it. That way, you’re symbolically letting go of the clutter in your mind.
Okay, okay—so it’s not that easy to clean house in your head. But over time, maybe it will start to feel like your troubles have a more ephemeral life in your brain. And hey, that’s something.
Call to action: Brain dump your worries onto a scrap piece of paper and let them go.
Day 30: Create rest goals
So often, our goals are active. We want to increase our fitness or step it up at work or get better at cooking. But what if rest goals are the new stretch goals? (Someone put that on a t-shirt.) In a world that’s constantly telling you to go, go, go, what if you stopped and cared for yourself first?
According to Black Girl in Om founder Lauren Ash, this type of goal is particularly important for Black people (and Black women, in particular), who often bear the brunt of the world’s burdens. “We [Black women] need to give ourselves time to rest,” she said. “Sometimes this means literally taking a nap, sometimes this means getting eight hours of sleep. It means prioritizing yourself even when there is so much work to be done.”
Take a moment to consider when you feel the most drained. Is it after work? On Sunday morning? Once you’ve dropped the kids off at school? Pull your calendar out and carve out time directly after the tiring event to fully rest in whatever way feels good to you. Maybe you go to yoga and lie savasana the whole time, or take the world’s longest bubble bath.
Don’t forget that we’re setting goals here, so maybe decide how many hours a week you want to dedicate to rest or go ahead and book future restful activities like massages so those goals are basically carved in stone (or, okay, at least carved into your calendar).
Call to action: Write down what activities are restful and rejuvenating for you. Carve out space in your calendar to do them.
Day 31: Pick the practices you want to keep up all year
You made it to the end of our mental well-being challenge! You have arrived, and even if you only check off one of the challenges on this list, you’ve taken a giant leap forward in caring for your brain and body. Now is the time to take stock of the last 30 days. What tips helped you the most, and what tips just aren’t a fit for you? Cogitate on that for a bit and decide what rituals are worth keeping for the other 11 months of the year.
Call to action: Choose what activities are going to fit into your future mental health approach. (And remember to say Cargle’s words to yourself at the end of each day: “And that was enough.”)
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It’s never been a secret that we at SBM are not fans of Dr. Mehmet Oz. It’s hard not to have encountered him before, given his fame and now his full embrace of President Trump for his campaign to become the Republican nominee for the Senate from Pennsylvania. As you might recall, Dr. Oz was a young rising star in academic cardiothoracic surgery in the 1990s, and even I have to admit that his achievements back then were impressive. Then something happened. Dr. Oz embraced reiki, founded Columbia University’s integrative medicine program, and ultimately, after having met Oprah Winfrey and been featured on her show periodically as “America’s Doctor” (which led me to start referring to him as “America’s Quack” beginning years ago), hosted The Dr. Oz Show, which ran for nearly 13 seasons; that is, until Dr. Oz cut the last season short a few months ago and ended his show to run for the Senate for Pennsylvania. Of course, Dr. Oz being the long-time quack and grifter that he was, it didn’t faze him in the least that he had lived in New Jersey, not Pennsylvania, and worked in Manhattan for decades; he voted absentee in 2020 using his wife’s parents’ address in the Philadelphia suburbs. When last we discussed him on SBM, unsurprisingly Dr. Oz was pulling a common quack trick by challenging his critics (in this case, specifically Dr. Anthony Fauci) to a “debate”.
Those of us who promote science-based medicine and try to counter quackery and antivaccine misinformation have long lamented how Dr. Oz, despite promoting misinformation about health for over a decade, maintained his positions at Columbia University as professor and vice-chair of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, as well as the medical director of the Integrative Medicine Program (i.e., Columbia’s quackademic medicine) program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. It’s a lament that we tended to repeat almost any time Dr. Oz hit a new low in promoting quackery (which was depressingly not infrequent). We kept wondering why Columbia would continue to employ him in such high level leadership positions for so many years, despite his increasingly awful reputation in medicine for promoting quacks like Joe Mercola and even Mike Adams. That’s why a spate of stories that appeared over the last couple of days caught my eye:
Given Dr. Oz’s history, I thought it would be interesting to discuss what happened in relation to his longstanding leadership positions at Columbia University, calls for Columbia to disassociate itself from him over the years, and his general history of having promoted dietary supplement scams, cell phone-cancer pseudoscience, homeopathy, psychic mediums, and other quackery going back decades.
Dr. Oz and Columbia: What happened?
The first story about this appears to have been the Huffington Post report, published in January:
TV doctor-turned-politician Mehmet Oz has apparently retired from clinical practice and his faculty role at Columbia University since announcing his Senate run in Pennsylvania.
Oz, who once served as vice chair of the surgery department, now holds the title of “professor emeritus of surgery” at the Ivy League school.
The title reflects the fact that Oz, 61, no longer sees patients, according to a Columbia spokesperson, but it’s unclear how long he’s been retired from his clinical practice. Oz didn’t have the emeritus title as recently as last month, just after he launched his campaign.
An emeritus status is conferred to retired professors and faculty members “in recognition of distinguished service to the university and eminence in their discipline,” according to the university.
The university didn’t respond to questions about when the change took place or how involved Oz still is with its medical faculty. Oz is also now a special lecturer in the surgery department.
More:
Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center maintains a page for Oz, listing an office for him at its Washington Heights campus and noting that he specializes as a board-certified cardiac and thoracic surgeon.
But as of early December, Oz was still listed as a professor of surgery and as director of the Integrative Medicine Center — a department that, according to its description, would combine traditional medicine with alternative practices such as acupuncture, meditation and yoga. It’s unclear what happened with that role.
I was actually surprised at how long ago this news article was published, as I thought I had become a bit of an expert on Dr. Oz and his quackery. Yet, for some reason, before the more recent reports (the other three in the list, all of which were published over the weekend), I had never heard about the change in his status at Columbia University, nor had I known that he had stopped seeing patients at least a few years ago. Indeed, it made me wonder whether the very convenient resurrection of the Huffington Post story two weeks before the May 17 Pennsylvania primary election next week was the work of one of Oz’ Senate rivals. Whatever the reason the story resurfaced, I’ll mention again how I’ve often wondered how Dr. Oz could hold those leadership positions at Columbia and host a daily hourlong syndicated TV show with an insatiable maw for new material, and still maintain competence at a surgical specialty that, even among surgical specialties, is very technically demanding. It requires regular practice to be able to stay slick and smooth sewing those little blood vessels together so that the anastomosis stays open and doesn’t clot, for instance.
It’s also interesting to note that if you click on the original Columbia webpage link for Dr. Oz mentioned in the HuffPo report, the page is no longer there, and the Wayback Machine at Archive.org gave me an error message searching for it. Interestingly, his former page at the Department of Surgery at Columbia returns an “access denied” message, but the Wayback Machine does return a version of it as late as December.
As mentioned in the article, it would make sense if Dr. Oz had been kicked up to emeritus status, as that is frequently what happens when long time faculty members retire. It allows them to keep a title, continue to have access to university email and library services, while maintaining some connection to the university for teaching or part-time research. (Indeed, I hope that when I finally retire I can become an emeritus, as one of my partners did a couple of years ago.) However, apparently the HuffPo article got that part wrong. Although a January 26 addendum to the story states that Dr. Oz “became a professor emeritus and special lecturer in 2018,” the story in The Daily Beast notes:
His name no longer appears in website searches for doctors with the school’s Irving Medical Center. A Columbia faculty listing still says Oz has an office, along with the role of special lecturer—though not “professor emeritus.” But as with a handful of other names on the list, Oz’s listing no longer links to his faculty page, as it did one week before he launched his campaign. (Nearly every other faculty member without a link is no longer affiliated with the medical center; one of them died last year.)
The outgoing message on Oz’s voicemail for the listed number is quite dated, directing callers to medical services when Oz stopped taking patients four years ago. The message also advertises audience tickets to his now-extinct daytime TV show.
The timeline I’m getting here is that four years ago Dr. Oz’s position at Columbia changed. Whether he stepped down or was pushed out, apparently he no longer had a leadership position at the medical school, nor did he even (again, apparently) continue to have a position as a full professor in the department of surgery there. What truly happened in 2018 is likely known only to Columbia University administration and Dr. Oz himself. What these reports do reveal is that, whatever happened, both the university and Dr. Oz kept it on the down-low, which led to the headline of The Daily Beast story on Saturday, ‘Chickenshit’ Move: Columbia Quietly Cuts Ties With Dr. Oz:
Dr. Daniel Summers, a Boston-area pediatrician and writer, called Columbia’s stealth purge a “chickenshit” move.
“Their handling of his status there is a massive blot on their reputation. What a chickenshit thing to do,” Summers told The Daily Beast.
Dr. Summers is not wrong, of course. It was a rather cowardly way of cutting ties with Dr. Oz after he had been there for more than three decades, during most of which he promoted his brand and quackery. However, even after that, Dr. Oz remained a presence on the Columbia website. Knowing how university websites tend to work the way that I do, I rather suspect that the usual slow (or nonexistent) process of updating Columbia’s website to reflect Dr. Oz’s true status ran headlong into the news coverage of Dr. Oz’s impending Senate campaign that began in late 2021, leading to a panicked scrubbing of the website. In other words, it’s unlikely that the most recent scrubbing was anything nefarious, but Dr. Summers does have a point that, if Columbia and Dr. Oz severed ties four years ago, it was rather slimy to have done it so secretly that no one really noticed until Dr. Oz decided to run for the Senate. That, of course, assumes that this severance occurred in 2018 and not a few months ago.
As bioethicist Art Caplan notes in a story from The Guardian yesterday:
The prominent medical ethicist Dr Arthur Caplan, who in 2014 accused Oz of “promoting fairy dust”, told the Guardian he was not surprised Columbia had “quietly eliminated” Oz.
“They won’t have a press conference in the middle of this guy running for the Senate saying they were throwing him out … it could be seen as trying to influence an election, it could be risking bad blood should he become a senator,” said Caplan, professor and founding head of the Grossman School of Medicine Division of Medical Ethics at New York University.
“My question becomes, ‘What took so long?’ He’s been a huge danger to public health in the US and around the world for a long time with respect to quack cures for Covid and touting quackery to treat diseases.
“I was among the voices saying he had to be removed years ago. And I still think it’s the right thing to do because he really has forfeited credibility as a doctor. Whether that will matter in terms of the election, we shall see.
“I think it should, I doubt it will.”
All of this is true but assumes that this severance occurred a few months ago, when Dr. Oz first decided to run for the Senate. If it happened in 2018 and the Columbia website just never reflected it until now, then the reasons mentioned by Dr. Caplan don’t apply. Whatever happened, though, I think it’s useful to relate Dr. Oz’s history at Columbia and wonder why Columbia defended him and maintained him in multiple leadership positions at its medical school for so long. I also can’t help but briefly relate an incident very much like what Dr. Caplan described from years ago when a group of doctors did try to shame Columbia into doing something about Dr. Oz, an effort that backfired spectacularly.
The long and quacky road of Dr. Oz
As I said at the beginning of this post, I’ve long been extremely critical of Dr. Oz, even having coined the term “America’s Quack” to describe him, an obvious riff on Oprah’s name for him, “America’s Doctor.” Of course, Dr. Oz didn’t catch Oprah’s eye for just being a rising star in academic surgery in the 1990s. Rather, long before Oprah ever noticed him, Dr. Oz had made a name for himself by embracing pseudoscience and mysticism in the form of reiki. However, his embrace of pseudoscience goes back to long before even the 1990s, back to his childhood, as related by Julia Belluz at Vox in 2015, in which she noted the disconnect between his promising start and what he had become:
Oz has achieved some of the greatest scientific accomplishments of his career at Columbia. While a resident there, he was the four-time winner of the prestigious Blakemore research prize, which goes to the most outstanding surgery resident. He now holds 11 patents for inventing methods and devices involved in heart surgeries and transplants. This includes helping to research and develop the left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, which helps keep people alive while they’re awaiting a heart transplant. Oz had a hand in turning the hospital’s LVAD program into one of the biggest and most active in the world.
Dr. Oz has been a rare beast on one respect. It’s pretty uncommon these days for an academic physician or surgeon to spend his entire career after medical school at one institution, but that’s what Dr. Oz appears to have done, starting with his residency, after which he became junior faculty and made his way up the academic ranks. Whatever the shape of his career, I always imagine what could have been if Dr. Oz had not been seduced by the siren call of quackery. Can you imagine the scientific and surgical accomplishments that he might have made in an alternate timeline in which, instead of embracing reiki and then other forms of nonsense, he had stuck to science-based medicine and research? Unfortunately, though, as Belluz notes, the “roots of Oz’s experimentation with alternative techniques go all the way back to his childhood, and that his departures from evidence-based medicine have gotten more extreme as he’s become more famous”. Although he had had exposure to quackery as a child in Turkey, his turn to the dark side appears to have really accelerated after he met his wife:
There was another influence, too. While he was studying for his medical degree and MBA at the University of Pennsylvania, Oz met his wife, the actress Lisa (then Lemole). Lisa’s dad was also a cardiothoracic surgeon who embraced alternative medicine and Eastern mysticism, and, according to a profile in the New York Times, her mother “believed fervently” in homeopathy.
In 1994, Oz launched the Cardiac Complementary Care Center at Columbia-Presbyterian with a certified perfusionist and registered nurse, Jery Whitworth. The center, one of the first of its kind in the nation, was “created, in part, as a response to consumer demand for comprehensive care,” Oz and Whitworth wrote in a 1998 scholarly article.
I also note that Lisa Oz herself became a reiki master, and later in the 1990s:
They also used audiotapes to try to subconsciously relax patients before surgery and brought reiki — or “energy medicine” — into the operating room. Reiki, an ancient Japanese healing art, has never been shown in scientific studies to alter the outcomes of patients. One high-quality study on the effect of reiki on pain in women after C-sections showed that it had no effect. Science-based thinkers have wondered whether it’s ethical to continue studying reiki, given that we know it works no better than a placebo and we may be diverting funds from treatments that could actually help people.
Oz’s work with the center drew critics. One Mount Sinai physician told the New York Times in 1995: “I call practitioners of fraud practitioners of fraud. It’s my feeling that the [center] has been promoting fraudulent alternatives as genuine.”
I can’t help but note that Belluz cited an article by Steve Novella and me that questioned whether clinical trials of “magic” (like reiki and homeopathy) could ever be ethical. (Spoiler alert: We concluded that the answer was—and is—no.) I also can’t help but note that the problem of academic medical centers legitimizing quackery under the guise of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine” is nowhere near unique to Columbia, although Columbia’s integrative medicine center under Dr. Oz’s leadership was one of the “pioneers” (if you can call it that) of “integrating” quackery into medicine. Just look at the examples of the Cleveland Clinic, UC-Irvine, UCSF, Georgetown, the University of Michigan, and many others, if you don’t believe me. Dr. Oz, unfortunately, is merely the most famous example (among the general public, at least) of physicians “integrating” mysticism, pseudoscience, quackery, and just plain grift into medicine.
In any event, instead of Dr. Oz continuing his research prowess to provide actual advancements in cardiothoracic surgery and cardiology, instead we got the huckster Oz, America’s Quack. But why? Michael Specter once noted in 2013, quoting Dr. Oz:
“I would take us all back a thousand years, when our ancestors lived in small villages and there was always a healer in that village—and his job wasn’t to give you heart surgery or medication but to help find a safe place for conversation.”
Oz went on, “Western medicine has a firm belief that studying human beings is like studying bacteria in petri dishes. Doctors do not want questions from their patients; it’s easier to tell them what to do than to listen to what they say. But people are on a serpentine path through life, and that is the way it is supposed to be. All I am trying to do is put a couple of road signs out there. I sit on that set every day, and that is what I am focussing on. The road signs.”
As I’ve long noted since I read that article, back when our ancestors lived in small villages, medicine consisted of shamans, priests, and magicians who couldn’t actually do much for anything other than relatively minor physical injuries, for which they could bind up wounds, sew up lacerations, and splint fractures. Then, they could do little or nothing to treat serious infections and other diseases. If people got better, it was usually because the disease was self-limited or the victims were fortunate. Oz also appears to buy into the false dichotomy that drives me crazy whenever I hear it: Namely that in order to be a good “holistic” doctor, you have to embrace the quackery that is much of what is now referred to as CAM or “integrative medicine”. My retort is always that you don’t have to become a quack to be “holistic”. I also question Oz’s romantic view of these “healers”. It sounds all too much like the “noble savage” myth, a case of Oz falling for romantic primitivism, which he seems to want to fuse with modern medicine.
If you want to know why Dr. Oz promotes so much quackery, I’ll refer back to Specter, who explained it by letting Dr. Oz speak for himself and asking Oz how he can feature on his show people like Joe Mercola, who are anathema to science and promote pure quackery. This passage is what I view as the central exchange in Specter’s entire article, as to me it revealed exactly why Dr. Oz has been the way he is and why he promotes the quackery he promotes:
“I’m usually earnestly honest and modest about what I think we’ve accomplished,” Oz told me when we discussed his choice of guests. “If I don’t have Mercola on my show, I have thrown away the biggest opportunity that I have been given.”
I had no idea what he meant. How was it Oz’s “biggest opportunity” to introduce a guest who explicitly rejects the tenets of science? “The fact that I am a professor—one of the youngest professors ever—at Columbia, and that I earned my stripes writing hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals,” Oz began. “I know the system. I’ve been on those panels. I’m one of those guys who could talk about Mercola and not lose everybody. And so if I don’t talk to him I have abdicated my responsibility, because the currency that I deal in is trust, and it is trust that has been given to me by Oprah and by Columbia University, and by an audience that has watched over six hundred shows.”
I was still puzzled. “Either data works or it doesn’t,” I said. “Science is supposed to answer, or at least address, those questions. Surely you don’t think that all information is created equal?”
Oz sighed. “Medicine is a very religious experience,” he said. “I have my religion and you have yours. It becomes difficult for us to agree on what we think works, since so much of it is in the eye of the beholder. Data is rarely clean.” All facts come with a point of view. But his spin on it—that one can simply choose those which make sense, rather than data that happen to be true—was chilling. “You find the arguments that support your data,” he said, “and it’s my fact versus your fact.”
The problem, of course, is that Mercola was overjoyed to be on The Dr. Oz Show, recognizing it correctly as a great opportunity to promote his brand. Did Dr. Oz point out all the quackery that Mercola promotes? (I think you know the answer to that one.) Worse, it’s clear that Dr. Oz bought into what has become known as the “post-truth” narrative, in which science is just another way of knowing, another religion so to speak—before the term “post-truth” was coined. Sadly, it was all of a piece with Oz’s other stated desires in the article, namely to have healers the way we used to hundreds or thousands of years ago. Many of those healers were shamans or priests, and much of what they did was little more than placebo medicine and faith healing. So for Dr. Oz to pine for a return to that time made perfect sense in the context of his other activities. Of course, I’m sure that Dr. Oz has always imagined that he will “integrate” those ancient healing practices with modern medicine. That’s what “integrative medicine” is, after all.
The Teflon doctor
It’s long been clear that Dr. Oz is a huckster, dedicated to being a showman more than he was ever dedicated to science—or even being a “shaman-healer”. That’s why one consistent thread throughout Dr. Oz’s career going back 30 years (at least) is his uncanny ability to promote his brand while defending it quite effectively from attack. Julia Belluz noted that in her article:
Monique Class, a family nurse practitioner and another former employee of the center, said the media attention negatively affected their work. “It became about Oz. Not about the project. Not about the patients. Not about the work. That all became secondary to his rise to the top.”
It wasn’t uncommon, Class said, for Oz to say some version of the following to her or to the other employees: “Give me a patient because the cameras are coming in, and tell me what I need to know.”
Class said, “He was always acting. He didn’t know this patient. He was not connected to this patient. We’d give him a two- or three-minute sound bite and he’d sit there in front of the cameras like he’d done this work and had this deep connection.”
Which is actually exactly the opposite of what shaman-healers did and also an indication that it’s not about the patients but rather about Dr. Oz and his brand. Shamans actually tried to form attachments to their patients based on their long history of living in the same villages and communities, of which patients and shamans were both part. In contrast, Dr. Oz has long used his patients as steppingstones to become famous, which he justified to Michael Specter thusly:
One day, I asked Oz whether he minded that many of his medical peers criticized him for following the dictates of daytime television more than the demands of scientific truth. “I have always played offense,” he responded. “So I don’t care what people call me. I used to. I felt that to say I was an entertainer was dismissive. But it is part of what I have to do. I want to get my message across to people who are not going to get it in other ways. And I can’t do that if I am not palatable to the people who watch the show.”
I’m sure he tells himself the same thing about his decision to become a carpetbagger from New Jersey running for Senate in Pennsylvania, just as he did when he invited Donald Trump to appear on his show before the 2016 election. I’m equally sure that he told himself the same thing back when he started promoting hydroxychloroquine and other unproven treatments for COVID-19 two years ago, when the pandemic was new.
The perfect example of Dr. Oz’s uncanny ability to defend his brand occurred in 2015, when a group of ten doctors led by Dr. Henry Miller wrote a letter to the Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia University arguing that Dr. Mehmet Oz shouldn’t be on the faculty at Columbia University because of his “disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine, as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops” and “an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain”. The letter produced a fair amount of media attention at the time, but I predicted that it would backfire for a simple reason, which I’ll briefly explain now.
Of the ten signatories, two were from the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank based at Stanford University whose fellows tend to be climate change denialists. In other words, it’s an institution whose commitment to science is highly questionable to nonexistent in one area, and it’s attacking Oz for pseudoscience? Two others are affiliated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a group that is pro-science when that science aligns with industry interests, particularly the pesticide industry. ACSH’s late president Elizabeth Whelan was known for dismissing any concerns about various chemicals as potential health hazards as “chemophobia” and even referring to “chemophobia” as an “emotional, psychiatric problem,” which is not very skeptical at all. Indeed, as I’ve mentioned before, a few years ago, when ACSH invited me to be on its board of advisors, I turned it down because I perceive ACSH as going too far in the other direction (not to mention the problem of its behaving largely like an industry shill) to the point that it takes the germ of a reasonable idea (that there’s too much fear mongering about “chemicals”) and takes a despicable turn with it by implicitly likening concerns about chemical pollutants and other chemicals that might cause health problems to mental illness by labeling them “chemophobia”. More recently, ACSH demolished whatever credibility it might have had as being about science more than politics when a week after President Trump’s inauguration ACSH President Hank Campbell published an article on its website heartily endorsing Trump’s picks for key science and medical posts. (I note that the article is no longer there, producing an Error 503 message of “This article is temporarily unavailable. Please check back in a few days,” but thankfully the almighty Wayback Machine at Archive.org has preserved it.)
I bet you can see where this went. Dr. Oz is nothing if not masterful at propaganda. He struck back on his show, sighing heavily about “ten mysterious doctors” with industry ties to for trying to shut him up because he criticized genetically modified organisms (GMOs), before predictably attacking the ACSH using predictable lines of attack, many summarized in a TIME interview with Dr. Oz that was so pro-Oz that I thought someone from his staff had written it:
The attacks were particularly devastating, as cheesy as they were on his show, because they were mostly true. ACSH is basically an astroturf organization that represents industry interests, particularly for the food and pesticide industries. Its stances on vaccines, alternative medicine, and GMOs do align largely with those of SBM, but also largely for the wrong reasons (particularly GMOs and pesticides). Basically, the stunt resulted in a lot of attention from the press on ACSH’s more unsavory elements and history, to the point that even Ross himself regretted signing the document, saying in an interview:
“Given the mistake I made more than 20 years ago, I now recognize that I should not have added my name to (the) letter,” Dr Ross is quoted as saying. “Even though I believed in the letter’s content — to focus attention on the often-questionable medical advice Dr Oz dispenses on TV — I see that by doing so it only opened me up to personal criticism. It also diverted necessary attention away from challenging many of Dr Oz’s unscientific claims. My involvement was solely based on trying to protect America’s public health.”
Ya think?
I also can’t help but note that one of the signatories of the article is someone who’s become rather famous since the pandemic hit, Dr. Scott Atlas, the neuroradiologist with no expertise in infectious disease, epidemiology, or public health and was associated with the conservative Hoover Institution think tank who headed up President Trump’s coronavirus task force in 2020. He was known for advocating for fewer interventions to slow the spread of the virus, consistent with his admiration for the Great Barrington Declaration and it’s “let COVID rip” strategy to achieve “natural herd immunity”.
Currently, the polls that I’ve seen show the contest for the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania Senate to be close, with some polls showing Oz leading and others showing him behind, but none by that much and the overall trend being that Dr. Oz is slightly behind. It’s still possible that Oz could win the primary.
Still, if politics is the reason that Columbia finally severed ties with Dr. Oz (or at least led them to finally fire him from his leadership positions), all I can say is that it’s sad that it took politics, rather than Dr. Oz’s long promotion of quackery and pseudoscience to motivate the administration there to do the right thing, something that should have been done at least a decade ago. Unfortunately, if Dr. Oz overcomes the odds and becomes the next Senator from Pennsylvania, he’ll be more powerful than he’s ever been and able to influence health care policy in a major way. Even if he loses (as I suspect that he will), I’d be willing to bet that it won’t be long before he resurfaces to quack again.
