Scientists Show More than Half of Health Recommendations by Dr. Oz and The Doctors are Wrong

A new study published in the British Medical Journal takes a look at the health advice doled out by two of the most popular health shows in America: The Doctor Oz Show and The Doctors. Unsurprisingly, they found that most of the wisdom these doctors give to viewers is either baseless or contradicts the best available science.

These researchers didn’t even cherry pick the worst offenders—by randomly selecting episodes, they looked at a representative sample of 479 recommendations from Dr. Oz and 445 recommendations from the Doctors. According to the study, “For slightly over 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 of the recommendations for The Dr Oz Show and The Doctors respectively, no evidence could be found. This is despite us being quite liberal in the type and amount of evidence we required.” Overall, about half of what these good-looking medical professionals are telling viewers is either useless or potentially harmful.

The study’s authors give an excellent summary of their findings: “Consumers should be skeptical about any recommendations provided on television medical talk shows, as details are limited and only a third to one half of recommendations are based on believable or somewhat believable evidence.”

Of course, these researchers aren’t the first ones to call out Dr. Oz for junk science. Check out our previous blog posts on his bogus medical advice.