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and Oz had been on his feet for twelve hours. The producer said, “Cut,” and everyone filed out of the room. Oz started over: “If we could find the old you, would that be saving your life?” He assured her that he would help “chip away the part of you that you don’t want, and you will find that the old you, the real you, is hidden inside.” The woman, still dizzy with exhaustion, nodded gratefully. The shot had failed, and they would need to repeat it. Oz asked gently, “If we could find the old you, would that be saving your life?” The woman nodded, then began to describe her descent into obesity, but again the producer waved her off. My grandmother is ninety, and she is in better shape than me. I want to run around the yard with my grandbabies. “It just upsets me that I am so out of shape,” she said. “What got you so emotional?” the producer asked, then pointed at Oz: “Tell him!” The rest of the medical team inched awkwardly to the side, so the camera could home in on Oz and his patient. The woman stepped off the treadmill, sat on the edge of an examination table, and began to cry. As the woman gasped for breath, he continued, “I’ve got to say that I am disappointed in how deconditioned you are.” With her blood pressure showing no signs of easing, the physicians stopped the test. He asked the woman if she could last thirty more seconds.
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Mehmet Oz says that he yearns for the days “when our ancestors lived in small villages and there was always a healer in that village.” Photograph by Ethan Levitas The crew was filming a future episode, and Oz stared into the camera as he spoke: “I have to say this is where the battle will be won or lost.” One of the other doctors, sensing that the test might not last much longer, said to Oz, “If you want to do that pre-commercial thing, you’d better do it now.” Oz nodded and said, “I am very concerned. “In five seconds, this treadmill is going higher,” Oz said, in the soothing voice that has become recognizable to millions of viewers. He stood a few inches away, obviously worried but urging her on. Oz Show,” which is among the most highly rated daily television programs in the nation. There was a third doctor there as well: Mehmet Oz, the heart surgeon and host of “The Dr. After little more than a minute, her blood pressure spiked, at 184/92. Now she was taking a cardiac stress test, and it wasn’t going well. Earlier that day, she had complained of chest pains, and had reported a family history of heart disease. All were watching as a heavyset forty-six-year-old woman, with cornflower-blue eyes, a sweet smile, and auburn hair parted neatly in the middle, struggled to keep pace on a treadmill. The hospital’s chief of medicine, the head of its cardiology department, and a nurse were also in the room. Two men, one hoisting a big camera and the other a sound boom, stood in a corner less than a foot from one another. The sun had set and the light was fading. One evening a few weeks ago, several members of a television film crew crammed themselves into a tiny examination room on the seventh floor of the Research Medical Center, in Kansas City.
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