HEALING from the HEART - Dr. Mehmet Oz
Published by Haseeb April 2nd, 2006 in Book Reviews, Science/MedicineNote: I heard about this book from Sister Nisa’s Blog, I soon afterwards ordered the b
ook on Amazon, and as promised, here is a brief review:
I was particularly interested in this book after learning about alternative, or rather completmentary medicine (as it should be called) in school, and how popular it is across the world. Complimentary Medicine includes (but is not limited to) Homeopathy, Hypnosis, Music therapy, Aromatherapy, Massage, Yoga, Acupucture, Therapeutic Touch/Energy Healing, and osteopathy (which Dr. Oz refers to as musculoskeletal healing).
This book is basically a series of personal accounts in Dr. Mehmet Oz’s medical career where particular complementary medicine practices helped in his treatment and care for his patients. Dr. Oz is a leading cardio-thoracic surgeon at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City (His research team helped fine-tune the LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device), an important device that helps critical heart failure patients “buy time” until a suitable heart donor is available. He is also the co-founder of the Complementary Care Center at that hospital. Some personal stories in Healing from the Heart include :
- How Frank Torre (yes, Joe Torre’s brother) used hypnotherapy to help recuperate from a heart transplant
- Two almost identically critical patients undergoing the same procedure and treatment, while the first, who had no family support - died, and the second - with a wife staying bedside throughout the procedure and even staying during the subsequent coma, survived.
- Based on Sufi Turkish music and its healing/relaxing ability, he played music into his patient, Texas Bluesman Johnny Copeland’s ears, during a complicated recovery from a LVAD procedure. He miraculously recovered and survived to go onto to continue performing.
- How a foot massage techinque helped save the life of a 16-year old LVAD patient.
Moreover, we also get an insight into Dr. Mehmet Oz himself. Although born in Turkey, he was raised in the west and had a secular upbringing. However, many experiences in his life have helped him gain an open-mindedness that helped him take on such ‘alternative’ practices. This began with a trip to Turkey as a young man, where he questioned why his relatives didn’t use toilet paper (lol I asked my relatives the same question in my recent trip to a village in Pakistan). One of his relatives replied:“If you had some stool on your hand, would you wash it off with water, or would you wipe it off with dry paper?”
Another key turning point in Dr. Oz’s life was during Medical school, when he encounterd the “grandmother cell theory“. This theory states that the brain contains neurons that represents a person’s grandmother or, more generally, any complex and specific concept or object. Dr. Oz mentions how he can tell you scientificially how exactly he can recognize his grandmother’s shape (neuron synapses, visual receptors-> path through the optic nerves, etc.) but he cannot explain how this particular grandmother cell knows that is your grandmother.
For me the grandmother-cell theory undermined the entire Western-based allopathic system of medicine because it didn’t answer the main question: How do you truly recognize Grandma? If you push the understanding of the physiological basis of medicine far enough, you’ll usually come to a point that you can no longer defend it scientifically, that you must take it on faith. I couldn’t.
This brings up an important issue that many proponents of scientism have difficulty in dealing with. Ill save this issue for another post.
Nonetheless, Healing from the Heart is a fine book. It introduces many complementary medicine practices, and the personal accounts of their uses in his own practices were quite touching to say the least. However, one criticism I did have is that he listed religion as a type of complementary medicine. However, for one engulfed in scientism and its world-view, to even accept that religion does play an important role in one’s healing and health is a good step for the field of medicine.
Thanks again to sister Nisa for the recommendation!
Use both.
So I guess this means you will play Outlandish and Sami Yusuf for your patients?
“If you had some stool on your hand, would you wash it off with water, or would you wipe it off with dry paper?”
-beautifully put, like poetry.
I usually just read and never post except to say how much I love this blog, because I am not a Muslim. I am just trying to understand.
However, I feel compelled to respond to this blog.
it introduces many complementary medicine practices,
I hope that the emphasis here is on “complementary”
for one engulfed in scientism and its world-view, to even accept that religion does play an important role in one’s healing and health is a good step for the field of medicine
Please everyone. If a loved one dies, this does not mean that they didn’t have God or Allah
on their side. It just means that they are dealing with a difficult disease. Please don’t make them feel worse by implying that faith can help. Please. 
Sorry. Meant for the italics to be a quote, but forgot to turn off the italic html code.
Noo, dont get me wrong Jo Ann.
Basically, what i meant by that is religion, and belief in God, or any higher being for that matter, greatly helps (at least psychologically, in terms of alleviating worries/anxiety to some degree, and physiologically, in terms of boosting the immune system) in not only the healing process for the patient, but for the family’s handling of the situation of their loved one. And even if a loved one dies, religion can help in coping with the loss of the patient.
by the way, im glad you enjoy my blog
The attack on genuine and legitimate scientific endevour by people who charge it with scientism is first and foremost preposterous. This is yet another ‘criticism’ by the same people who brough you postmodernism and so much other fluff. At the end of the day so many scientists have proven that the whole postmodern project is just a whole lot of baloney, jibber jabber, i like to use big words and say things that have no real concrete value, that a real analysis or defense of the scientific endevour is not necessary. Science has been attacked by many brilliant people such as Bergeson, Nietszche, the Romantic, some strains of Marxist thought but in the end Science continous to build, continous to understand the world…despite what any of the maniacs of loney ideas want, the dark ages arent coming back, neither the ancient Egyptians, the Greeco-Roman culture, the ancient Chinese or Indic civilization, the Myans, the Incas, Timbaktu, or Jeffersonian Agrarianism…None of it is coming back…just let it go…freaking New Age junkies man…Science has been reductionistic…i agree…it has some short comings..yes but a far cry it all is from this scientism charge….just go and ask the scientists and they’ll tell you how much fluff this stuff is by social science majors that are more hacks than anything else.
Wow…you are the King of nonsense and jibberish, Smokey Bear. Bravo.
There’s something called spell check, you might want to check it out sometime.
Leave Hadweebo alone. Hes too lazy to paste his entry into MS Word to fix the spelling mistakes and paste it back.
Mispellers of the world untie!
P.S. Is it just me or are the comment times an hour behind from what it should be?
My sincere appologies to you Jenn and for that matter to anyone whose into being all soft and cuddly and who believes in faires and how wonderful twinkle little star is. All jokes aside as i do clown around a lot, there are times when i am serious. The truth is that so much of what passes as intellectual thought/criticism is truly nothing of the kind. I dont actually step on anyones toes in real life in regards to what they believe, there are far more mushy type people in my own family than myself and i respect their right to believe what they want to believe no matter how foolish i think they are believing it. The reason why i posted my rant is that i feel that because Haseeb is my boy he should know how i feel about some of his opinions. I believe that the malice that affects so many of our generation is the utter disregard for rationality, for seeing the world in logical terms, instead we get all these wierdo ideas that simply arent true. Many of these nonscientific ideas do make people feel good, they give meaning but their truth value, their actual truth content is dubious at best. Believe it or not I’m actually being serious!
Good post and I am glad that a doctor thinks complementary med can help patients as well as religion. However I wonder what’s the deal with the latest news stating that prayer does not help patients recover from heart surgery? ( It has been on google news the last few days)
In other news: MR’s site is down!
Breaking News: MR’s site is back up!
Smokey, I don’t think anyone is saying to discard or even belittle science. But science does not explain everything… that’s a fact. Obviously this sort of complementary medicine would be nothing without science but sometimes science needs help.
Dr.OZ is a worldwide famous&successfull doctor.He’s Turkish.i appreciate him.mashaAllah..
If you had some stool on your hand, would you wash it off with water, or would you wipe it off with dry paper?”
so we supposed to use the lota or not?
Dr. Phil hispanic origins and he’s famous and well known. He’s the same ethnicity as me. therefore i respect him
religion has a placebo effect. thats why its effective sometimes. Just ask Benny Hinn.
Excellent Review!
You didn’t have to thank me, dude. But thanks for the shout out! and thank you for posting a review!
I had a lot to say about alternative medicine but im so occupied with trying to change the da… …erm… blessed template that i’ve lost most of my brain cells. Thanks Goldi and MR! Thanks A LOT!
And yes people should be using a lota! i say: Aaahaaaaaaaaah! to all you fools who gave us Mooslims weird looks for wetting our toiletpaper in public bathrooms.
Enjoy:
“In Western culture, the theory goes, a man shakes with his right hand so he can’t use it to grab his sword. You know what Eastern Culture says? We shake with the right because we know darn well you just wiped yourself with your left. Besides, Pilates, the best thing you can do for your bottom is to buy wet wipes. Why? if you accidentally got feces all over your hand, would you wash it off or wipe it off with dry toilet paper? Exactly.
You’d run over to the sink faster than a sprinter in an Olympic qualifier. So why do we wipe ourselves with dry, sandpaper like toilet paper after we go to the bathroom? It’s also not the right cleaning system because it’s irritating and increases the lilkihood of getting hemorrhoids. While we’re not recommending you install a bidet. you can get the same effect by simply wetting toilet paper in the sink before using it, or using disposable wet wipes that are small versions of the ones you use on babies.” (205)
(’You - The Owner’s Manual’ by Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz M.D)
I don’t know if you guys are done with this topic or not but here are some of my thoughts:
1. Pharmaceutical industry is one of Washington’s most powerful interest groups. FDA is basically controlled by Drug Companies.
2. Doctors don’t always want to be… just healers, they need to make money, just like the rest of us.
3. Modern medicine, allopathic medicine, which is mostly composed of drugs and invasive procedures, is not concerned with “healing,” rather its focus is profit-based-treatment.
Given the very cushy circumstances, why in the world would people who are in power think about spending money on modes of therapy that will reduce profits for everyone?
Incidentally, even though the Pharmaceutical industry/Modern medicine at every given chance discredits alternative medicine, yet it continues to exploit indigenous cultures (i.e. the aboriginals of the Amazon), in order to steal their ’secrets’ and revamp them as their own and push it on us in form of a pill, which incidentally is still better than the crap pills pushed on us during commercial breaks, that may or may not cure you, but will def cause you bleeding, ulcers, nausea, headache, and/or a heart attack. Enjoy! Or Consult your Doctor in case of sudden death.
what?
exactly.
Related Links:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/altmed/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/
Well actually modern /allopathic medicine (at least at my school) is not as skeptical about alternative medicine as many ‘traditional’ allopathic doctors are. We spent quite a bit of time discussing various complementary medicines in class, and our faculty do recognize their benefits.
Lets not be too anti-allopathic/modern medicine. … :-/
Yeah Nisa, its the corporations fault. Blah blah blah. Corporations are destroying us. They are terrible people. Corporations make money because people give them money. They either give them money for a reason; either they are dumb or There IS NOT ALTERNATIVE
I agree bottled water companies make money off people because people are dumb and think it must be better since it costs more
I disagree that all medicine and drug companies can be balled up into an evil evil “corporation”
When you need a cure for something, i urge you to you book a flight to the Amazon and get the cure from there. Give me a break. Of course it’s commercial and its for profit. But if it weren’t, would you go over to the Amazon and try to find new medicines every time you got a cold or the flu or the cancer? And usually, youd probably need to eat like 200 ants or leaves to get the same amount of stuff you get in one of these pills if you ever even found anything.
And if allopathic medicine is such a bad thing, i urge you to consult your nearest church or mosque if a car ever hits you or if an uncontrolled growth starts up in your brain. Yeah, its all based on making money. If they could make money by killing more people they would do it, uh huh, yeah, sure. Chiropractic medicine on the other hand must be all about altruism, seeing as how its not owned by any “corporation”. Everyone doing that and massage and reflexology are only in it for healing people - not making money. Oh and i got an amazing amazing healing rock to sell. It came from a sacred desert. Since im not in it to make money, ill sell it to you for only $5. first come first serve. did i mention its blessed by 4 imams from diff continents? yeah, i knew that would get you off your seat
oh man i had to comment on this
“Incidentally, even though the Pharmaceutical industry/Modern medicine at every given chance discredits alternative medicine”
I heard of them. theres a special committee of phd’s who meet every week and discredit any alternative therapy that comes out…ARE YOU KIDDING? They do RESEARCH. If you look at 10 cases and see 1 guy got cured and 9 became ill because of some alternative therapy, the FDA doesnt say, ‘ITS A MIRACLE! WE MUST MARKET IT!’ They say ‘its dangerous and it cant be used’
“yet it continues to exploit indigenous cultures (i.e. the aboriginals of the Amazon), in order to steal their ’secrets’ and revamp them as their own and push it on us in form of a pill”
Yeah, and did you forget they go through something like 9,000 different chemicals, artifically made, from a rare insect or plant, etc, before they find one that can get approved by the FDA as safe and effective?
If it were up to people like you, we’d be back in 1844 when you could bottle snake oil and sell it as a cure for arthritis, cancer, TB, baldness, or blindness..depending on the label. Incidentally, if you go to india, you can still buy alternative medicines - over there theres no such oversight committee like the FDA - oh i meant ‘corporate influenced government thugs’, that will regulate alternative medicines sold by independent corner ‘pharmacists’. Over there, if someone wants to sell cow urine for cancer treatment (and they do), people will actually be able to buy that cure (and they do!) thanks to people like you.
Br. Haseeb – I think your school sounds ideal (intergrative medicine, is it?) and you should exert every effort to expose yourself to as many different modes of treatment as you can. Perchance, next time you’re in Pakistan you can gather hundreds of years of wisdom just by jotting down granny’s home remedies; you’ll be surprised how much they know.
Oh brother indeed - lol, have I touched a nerve? Would it help if was married to a Doc? Does that entitle me to my opinion? Or do I still get to be some jungle hopping, insect sniffing, urine drinking freak that smokes pot and wears tie-dye shirts?
First of all, cut out all possible caffeine from your diet, and then reread my post. I’m not painting all drug companies or doctors as illegitimate kids of SATAN, all im saying is there is a problem with the current system; and it is unfixable until we change our perceptions of alternative medicine –as we know we tend to use our perceptions to validate our treatment of subjects and/or people- and keep a tight check on our Modern God, THE FDA.
Who controls the FDA? Are all scientists/researchers just a bunch of passionate people discovering drugs for the betterment of the society? If not, then there is room for dialogue, which was the main purpose of my initial post. Is it all that shocking to find drug companies and FDA in bed together? Surely, Vioxx must ring a bell? Merck researchers and Merck’s patent team were well aware of the heart related risks and dangers of using Vioxx, yet it went to the FDA anyway. And FDA approved it in 1999. Merck’s called for a worldwide recall and is being litigated, meanwhile FDA (whose job it was to monitor it in the first place) is working ‘closely’ with Merck. Really am I the only one who wants to raise her pinky to her lips?
And no need to be all dramatic with your my-way-or- the-highway scenarios. Yes, we need modern medicine but we also need our physicians to be healers and teachers, we need to connect with our patients and understand their beliefs in order to not just treat them but perhaps edcaute them to become better caretakers of their health. But who has time for that anyway? pssssssh.
and yes, you are entitled to your opinion.
Btw, the links i posted are interesting, do check them out.
How could you FDA? You broke my heart. and tear.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/18/news/fortune500/merck/
Smokey Bear=oh brother?
I’m not “oh brother”. I’m far more tounge in cheek with far less subtextual anger. Brains over hearts baby. Seriously I do sympathize with “oh brother” Theres a great deal of validity in what he’s saying. However i dont discount what Haseeb and Nisa are saying either. Danya put it best when she said that sometimes science needs help…it puts the relationship of the new stuff with respect to the old in perspective. Alot of the new stuff may be placebo, may be inexplicable, may be stochastic, but one thing is for sure within certain boundries it works. The medical industry and medical establishments are paying attention so who am i to discount it. Besides I’ve been into this kind of stuff most of my life anyway, not in medicine per say, but yeah Jenn Smokey Bear is no mere reductionist.
i dont know who smokey bear is, but ‘brains over anger’? my entire argument is based on logic. i just dont need to be nice when i say it because that doesnt concern me
This dialogue is pointless. Its not caffeine that got me - its your extreme, one sided, hippy diet induced statements that are beyond illogical. If i criticze, you’ll just “refute” it by lying about what you said. Mustve graduated from the gwbush scool of debate. And i didnt say negative things about ALL alternative therapies b/c some of them work, but they dont ALL work while ALL pharmaceuticals are terrible - the thrust of your original argument. And I hate to break it to you, but look around you. I dont know if you live in Bahrain or Mountain View, Colorado, but in the real world, most people dont even have healthcare, let alone a personal, sympathetic, physician that can spend all day with them convincing them that a diet of Burger King isnt good and influencing them to change the way they live their life. Do you run 5 miles a day? Do you eat absolutely healthy? are you at peak physical condition? If you have access to the internet or a television, you should already know that you need to be doing all those things, and yet people find it easier not to. im sure its the medical personnels fault. I urge you to look into the practices of managed care and i think thats when youll find satan. good luck taking it down.
Incidentally, if granny’s medicine in pakistan was all that useful, you can be CERTAIN that at some point, someone with an IQ greater than 50 wouldve tried to figure out what it was so they could extract the active ingredient and market it…but youll probably figure out most of them dont work, and the ones that DO work, can be found on the drugstore aisles already. magic potions from granny…give me a break
I know it’s kind of late - but I think Smokey Bear is a scientismist… coz he got all his feathers in a ruffle when the word “scientism” was mentioned… scientism, doesn’t attack science at all (or at least it shouldn’t - modern science, I believe is one of the greatest products of the human mind) - it does critique though, those who espouse the assumption/faith of materialism (the philosophy, not the hankering) and try to say that materialism and science are one and the same, thus trying to back up their world view with the methodological rigor of modern science - unfortunately that just doesn’t hold true. So, I’d say, “Scientism accusers, stop equivocating science with scientism, and ’scientismists’, suck it up - your materialistic vision is as faith-based as the guy who belives in God, Krishna, or whoever else.”
One of my friend’s father-in-law did a presentation in a Church about Islam, many years ago. When he was talking about “bathroom etiquette,” he did a demonstration in which he rubbed mud into a piece of wood. He asked the audience, “Now, what is going to clean this wood? A scrap or two of toilet paper, or water?” They all got it.
I know many non-Muslims who use water and not just T.P.
please contact with my i nead your halp
my name is nouhaila and i’m from morocco i’m fourteene years old my msn is zizi_1993@live.fr i watch the show oprah evry day and i watch you thier . our phone nomber is 051939324
hi