DoctorOz: Queen Latifah Opens Up About Her Mom's Health Journey | Dr. Oz

Please welcome Queen Latifah. We have time to talk about... Thank you. Love you, too. I heart you, too. That's right. We love you, too. I heart you, too. We'll talk about that in a minute. It's a very personal show for you, and we've talked offline a little bit about the heart, so I'll get to that. But first, I want to congratulate you. Bessie, you all know, executive produced it, was Bessie Smith. Four Emmy wins, is that right? Four Emmy wins, yep. My first Emmy. Is that right? Yep. Congratulations. Thank you. You look beautiful, by the way, as Bessie Smith. Thank you. So Queen Latifah has taken on a new role in something very close to her heart. You'll find out why in a second. She is now talking publicly about the underappreciated epidemic of heart failure in this country. It may be the single greatest threat to African-American women, heart disease. It's the number one killer of all American women, but it affects African-American women even more disproportionately, killing 50,000 every year. Perhaps the most significant risk factor is hypertension. About 70 million Americans over the age of 20 have high blood pressure, and that sets the stage for heart failure, which will strike one in five Americans with symptoms that include shortness of breath, swelling of your legs, feet, and ankles, even trouble sleeping. Do you know the risk factors or the steps to take to stop heart failure before it ever starts? Every minute, at least one person is diagnosed with heart failure, and one of them is Queen Latifah's mom, Rita, who joins us. So good. That's right. Take it out. My mom, right there. Let's talk about your reaction. I love the way you got there for her. What happened when you found out your mom had heart failure? Well, she can tell you, but she was in school, and I got a call that my mom had passed out. She's a high school teacher at the time. I got a call that she had passed out in class, and so we rushed to the emergency room to see what was going on, and after a bunch of testing, it was determined that she had congestive heart failure, which was pretty scary at the time. Say hi, Mom, so they know you can speak. Hi, I can speak. I love to hear your story a bit. So I know that you passed out in school. Did you have any inkling that there was a problem before that? Well, I felt very tired, and I had difficulty sleeping, but I never would have thought it was connected to my heart. And when they told you that you had heart failure, had you ever heard of that before? Very vaguely. I never really thought much about it because I never thought it could happen to me. Which is why you're here today, which I appreciate. What kinds of lifestyle changes are you making now? So easy. I exercise a little bit every day. I cut out the sodium in my diet. I keep track of my weight gain, and primarily that's it. Of course, my doctor is very important because he put together a treatment that was good for me, so the medication was specific for me. Yeah, so taking all those medications on time. And the oxygen is probably the most powerful medication we have. I notice that's what you're getting in your nose. All this, by the way, makes a big difference for folks whose hearts aren't working that well. Yeah, and honestly, Dr. Oz, you've been around for a lot of this journey of ours. That's why this campaign is so important, and we partnered with the American Heart Association, supported by Novartis, to spread the word about this Rise Above Heart Failure movement because, I mean, one in five people, one in five people could develop this in America. That is a huge amount of people, especially something that affects women, and then again, African-American women. So, you know, it's really important for us to get the information out there so that people who may be affected by this and not even know it, like my mom, who was completely healthy up until this sort of happened, can get more information about it. I love you putting your heart and soul into this. It means the world because people think of these illnesses as these abstract concepts. Mom, Rita, you said it right. They think it's someone else's problem. Let's show everybody what the heart looks like. I brought you a little present because you came all the way here to visit with us. Is this when I give you your invisible glasses so you can't see? Oh, you talked about this ahead of time, huh? Well, you know I was a doctor in another life, Dr. Oz. That's right. He still may play one on three. He really does. You know what's so well? She put those gloves on. She snapped them right up. This is something you get used to around our house. Practice with me. Everything is the gloves. Is that right? Yeah. All right, so here's a healthy heart. Just hold that in your hands if you don't mind. Notice it's about the size of your fist. Okay. Don't drop the heart. I'm good. Don't drop the heart. I'm hot in my hands. When you get heart failure, it looks like this. Mom, can you hold that up? I sure can. In heart failure, if you just put them next to each other, you can see one's a lot bigger than the next. The heart gets big to compensate. It's trying to keep up with the needs of the body. What does that feel like to you, Mom? It's like a reality check. I mean, this is inside of me. Was inside of me. Was, because yours decreased in size. Mine is decreasing. Good for you. Your heart is more like this. You're good. Isn't that cool to actually feel that and see how thick the walls are? Is this the aorta? Yes. Massive. Dr. Latifa, she went from a queen to a doctor. Yes. Why, thank you, doctor. I'll be the patient of both of you. Look at that. That's a big difference. Everything gets bigger. Mom, you stay there for a second. Rita, come with me. I'm going to show everybody what heart failure really means. I want you guys to understand this. We have not talked about it quite so graphically. You can keep the gloves if you want, but I think you're better without them. Am I touching something else? No, you got it. I have a no here. This is what normally happens. Just to recap, because this audience is so darn smart. You have the right side of the heart. You have the left side of the heart. The left side of the heart has all the red blood, and it pumps into the brain, all the other parts of the body, including the legs. Then the blue blood comes from the legs, goes into the right heart, and then goes up to the lungs. Two sides, they're next to each other. That's why we're so efficient. Let's talk about heart failure and focus on the legs and the lungs. That's where the action is. In heart failure, let's start with the right side. The blood very slowly, notice how slow it is, goes up towards the right heart, but because it can't pump, the legs, they swell up like that. One of the first things you look for in folks is whether or not they've got swollen legs. Mom, did that happen to you? Oh, definitely. We always keep an eye on her feet, on her legs, to see if there's any swelling, for sure. Again, everyone can pay attention to that. Yes, they did. Not everyone with swollen legs has heart failure, by the way. They'll go panicky out there, but it's one of the things we look for. Then the other thing we look for is the left side of the heart. How well is it getting the blood from the lungs? Now watch the lungs. See how they're pink up there? They'll fill up like a sponge. They'll get boggy if the left heart's not working well. Problems with the left heart cause you to have breath problems and breathing. Problems with the right heart cause leg swelling problems. Together, that's called heart failure, which is what we're talking about. As you mentioned, that happens pretty commonly, and Rita has been through some of that. Yeah. I'm going to invite Dr. Kathy Bagliato here. She's a good friend of mine from years and years ago. She's a cardiothoracic surgeon from St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica, California. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks so much. Help us a little bit. Quickly, causes of heart failure that you worry about. The most common cause, as you know, is coronary artery disease, so blockages in the arteries that decrease the blood supply to the muscle and cause that muscle to get weak. Anything that causes coronary artery disease causes heart failure like hypertension, diabetes, smoking, all of the things that we hopefully can correct and shouldn't do. Lowering risk. How do you do it? This is a perfect—I'm just going to say this is the dream team of heart failure because this is the perfect compliant patient and, of course, Dr. Latifah taking care of mom. You got promoted. Really, it's everything Rita said, right? So it's leading a heart-healthy lifestyle, something that you talk about so often on your show. Eating right, low sodium you mentioned. You really hit them all, by the way. Low sodium, a little bit of exercise every day, and then to not smoke, control your diabetes, and the big one is high blood pressure, hypertension, especially in African-American women, so controlling that is really key, too. Yeah, and if we put these symptoms off thinking they're not important, but when you actually realize they can cause heart failure, which is what we're all worried about, now you can focus. Let's talk about how you manage your mom. I remember you called me once in a panic from an ICU doing what a daughter should do, getting on top of everything, chasing down every little lead. You know, it's been a journey with us, and once again, I can't reiterate how important it is that people go to riseabove.org and really find out more because it's something that had we known a little more about, we could have gotten on top of it, but we can't look at the past. We've just embraced where we are and surrounded, we kind of circled the wagons. We surrounded my mom with a lot of support, a lot of love. Unfortunately, I'm in a position where I was able to hire a chef. I really wanted to make sure she had nutritious meals every day, and when we don't have a chef, we just make sure we cook really healthy food, get rid of all the salty things. You know, some people put salt on their food before you even taste it. Your meal comes, and you're just instantly doing this, and that's something that we can break ourselves out of, and because of her, everyone around, we've all broken ourselves out of those sort of habits that we had. So between my cousin and my sister, myself, a nurse, one of my best friends, we all sort of take care of my mom and just support her because she's the one that's fighting for life. That's a little bit of a role reversal. You're a strong woman. You raised some wonderful kids. What's it like to have people waiting on you for change? Meet my mother. It's funny because that's one of the hardest things as a caregiver, and this campaign also talks about supporting the caregivers, is that it's hard for me. I've always been very respectful to my mother, so for me to say no to my mom is hard, but I had to learn how to do it because I knew it was for her own health. So even in the hospital, people would be bringing her, like, all these cakes and cookies and candy. I'm like, no, she's not here for that. You know, she's here to get well. You're giving her stuff to keep her here longer. So we've even had to sort of train everyone around us, but it's actually made us all more cognizant that just doing simple things could make us more healthy. You know what I love the most? She's got blisters taking care of you here from all the cooking she's doing. God bless you. Even in that kitchen. Me and Betsy in the kitchen. Thanks for being here, Cathy, as well. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss out on new videos to live the good life.