DoctorOz: Reduce Stomach Cancer Risks: Prevention Tips and Insights | S6 | Ep 29 | Full Episode

Next, Dr. Oz. Cutting-edge cancer prevention. New ways to slash your risk in half. The groundbreaking test that may save your life. And what to do before it's too late. Plus, how menus mislead you into overeating. Don't get duped at the diner. Learn to decode the menu. What to look for and what to avoid. Coming up next on Dr. Oz. It's the disease you fear most, cancer. But there are ways to help prevent this devastating illness. And today, I'm revealing the new ways you can slash your cancer risk. Dr. Kate Rowland was instrumental in designing a groundbreaking new screening tool, the Siteman Risk Assessment Test. Welcome to the show. So this new test, what makes it so unique, so valuable for our audience? We finally have the data to give people an evidence-based way of assessing their own individual cancer risk. And the reason that that's so important is it's going to allow us to tell people today what they can do to cut their cancer risk by as much as half. And why now? How are we able to pull it together? You know, we've been doing these studies, following people for decades, and it's been an accumulation of evidence. And we've been able to validate that this tool works. This is a real evidence-based tool to lower your cancer risk. All right, let's get to it. These are new ways, again, to slash your cancer risk. The first cancer I want to talk about, unfortunately, affects about 8,000 women every year. And half of them will pass away. But knowing your risk can help save your life, which is, again, why we're doing this show. Now, this is a normal stomach. This is someone with stomach cancer. And you can see, when the stomach is invaded and occupied by these cancers, it's devastating at many levels. So how do we assess our risk of this becoming this? So we're going to ask the audience members to stand up if you eat at a restaurant two or more times a week. Fair number of folks. Yeah. Now, remain standing or stand up if you eat canned foods three or more times a week. Keep standing. If you eat twice out, keep standing. In addition, anyone else who also eats canned foods, what is it, twice a week? Three times. Three times a week. So we want more people to stand. But keep standing. No one sit down. And what's the third question? If you eat processed or packaged foods three or more times a week, please stand up. Processed or packaged foods? That gets a lot of the audience up. All right. So please keep standing. For the folks who are standing, why are these questions so important? So look around. Those of you who are standing, if you answered yes to all three questions, you are at three times the risk of developing stomach cancer. Three times. So you can all sit down because I want you all to be able to listen to why this is so important. All of those things increase your salt intake. And salt can damage the lining of your stomach, cause abnormal changes in the cells that line your stomach, and it also makes your stomach more susceptible to infection by H. pylori, which is also going to damage your stomach lining. And the end result of that are abnormal changes that increase your risk of developing stomach cancer. So when you have bugs like this thriving because of salt in your diet, it causes issues. So the new way to slash your risk of stomach cancer is to eat less salt. So for everyone who doesn't eat, doesn't cook, or doesn't want to make stuff themselves, what can they do to cut down their problems? We know canned beans are a healthy food, part of a healthy diet. All you have to do is take those canned beans and rinse them, and it lowers the salt content by 40%. Simple little maneuver. If you're using broth in your cooking, just dilute it with a little bit of water, lowers the sodium content. If you're going to go out to eat, just do it once a week. Lowers your sodium content. And try to cut out those processed and packaged foods. Things like luncheon meat are very high in sodium. So just cutting those out of your diet can lower your salt intake. In addition, if you just want to switch out to salt, there's some interesting salt alternatives a lot of folks have not thought of. Garlic salt is fantastic. Nutmeg, cumin, paprika as well. Experiment with these. Play with them. They're not the same as salt. They're different from salt. But when you know you can cut dramatically your chance of getting something as deadly as stomach cancer, it's worth making the investment in learning about these. Okay, let's get to the next cancer. This one has to do with the colon. This is the normal colon here. And that's a cancer. You see how it's invading the central part of this intestine? Huge problem because there are 64,000 women diagnosed every year. 25,000 of you, unfortunately, will die with this cancer before we can stop it. But you can stop it completely if you know your risks. So walk us through this. How do we assess? So raise your hand if you eat dairy most days of the week. Okay, so keep your hands up. And if you don't have your hand up, raise your hand if you think you get enough vitamin D and calcium. So good number of hands up. Those of you who don't have your hands up are at increased risk for colon cancer. We tricked you. So the new way you're going to cut your colon cancer risk is to get more vitamin D. You're going to slash that risk if you do that. So let's walk through some ways of getting vitamin D. Obviously, you can get it from foods, but the best way is sunlight. You want 10 minutes a day, ideally, if you can. At least a few times a week, get out there and get a little bit of sun. These foods, however, that you can easily get it from milk, a lot of packaged products actually are fortified with vitamin D, the cereals in particular. Salmon has it naturally. Leafy green vegetables have calcium and vitamin D. But actually, for most folks, myself included, you're going to need a supplement, a vitamin D supplement. You want to aim for 1,000 international units a day. You want to make sure it's a vitamin D3 supplement if you can. Ready for one more cancer? Yep. All right. The last cancer we're going to talk about is actually the deadliest of the cancers I'm going to discuss. It's pancreatic cancer. And a lot of you are appropriately fearful of this. It's called the silent killer. It takes the lives of about 20,000 women every year. Unfortunately, most do pass away. So ideally, we'd prevent ourselves from getting this. So how do we assess our risk? So you want to ask yourself if you have high blood sugar or if you're overweight. And if you have either of those, you're at increased risk for getting pancreatic cancer. So the pancreas makes insulin. Insulin is really important in regulating our blood sugar. And people who are overweight also tend to be at high risk for having abnormal blood sugar levels. And so managing those two things is really important to lowering your risk. Folks, all of the things I'm talking about now, I know they seem fearful because I'm showing you actual cancers, but you can prevent these. That's the point of the show. These are simple little things. Frankly, doing the little tasks you're offering are good for many reasons beyond preventing cancer. But especially when you have this kind of cutting-edge breakthrough information that allows us to very directly correlate them makes a big difference. So we're going to slash our risk of getting pancreatic cancer by eating a low-glycemic diet. As a benefit, you'll happen to lose weight, by the way, if I need to give you that as impetus as well. And these are foods that very specifically will help keep your blood sugar levels at the healthy level and protect you from this terrible cancer. So examples of hummus, which I happen to adore. You can combine it with broccoli. It's a combo punch. Sesame seeds, peanuts, shrimp, all these are fantastic. But I've saved my best tip for last. This is actually my personal favorite meal. I have it a lot. It's the sweet potato. And I want you all having sweet potatoes. You die. Find ways to make it happen. Remind yourself by saying, you know what? That looks like a pancreas to me, which it does, by the way. So get the vegetable that's shaped like a pancreas. Now, how you make it makes a difference. You fry it up. It doesn't count. You can bake it, which these are very good for kids in particular. You can steam it. You can roast it. Don't boil it. Don't sap out all the nutrients. Make it in simple ways like this, and you'll get all those nutrients to prevent these cancers, which is how we're going to beat these bad boys. Dr. Wolfe, thank you very much. Thank you. To get a full cancer risk assessment, you go to DrOz.com. Share the quiz with your friends as well. I'll be right back. Coming up next, will the pill make you ill? A Dr. Oz alert. Is the most common form of contraception causing women and girls more harm than good? The breakthrough news your doctor may not even know. Coming up next . . . . Shut down your sugar cravings in no time. Stop feeling fat, tired, and sick. The no-fail plan to break the grip that sugar has over you. The easy routine to reprogram your brain. Plus . . . . . . . . many believe in the power of prayer. I do believe that there is something more. How it can cure disease and add years to your life. All new Dr. Oz. That's coming up tomorrow. Today, the big conversation. Can a birth control pill be hurting millions of women without them even knowing? Hailed as one of the most popular forms of birth control, doctors are now finding that the pill may be causing many women more harm than good. Since first introduced more than 50 years ago, the birth control pill has revolutionized the sex lives of three generations of women. In fact, the pill has become such a fact of life that four out of every five of you take it at some point in your life. But for some women, that can lead to serious side effects. Now, a breakthrough study says the cause of those side effects may actually be found in your DNA. Today, how to find out if your body is genetically predisposed to reject the birth control pill. Joining us is Associate Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University, Dr. Lauren Stryker. So why is this study so significant for women? Well, many gynecologists are well aware that many, many women on the pill have low libido. Many women are aware of that. But what 99% of gynecologists don't know is that some women on the pill can actually have physical changes that cause them to have vaginal pain. And a woman will go to her doctor and say, something's not right. It hurts when I have sex. And he'll say, you're young, you're fine. There's nothing wrong with you. And she starts to think that she's crazy. When, in fact, there does seem to be women who have a genetic component that causes a physical pain that causes a syndrome called vestibulodynia, which is also known as the burning vulva syndrome. Burning vulva. The burning vulva syndrome. What is that specifically? Well, the way we think of it as a ring of fire around the outside of the vagina. And women that have this syndrome have terrible pain when they have intercourse. It can be a stabbing pain. It can be a burning pain. Sometimes even a tearing pain. And it's not just when they have intercourse. Many of these women have this discomfort with any pressure at all. It could be from tight jeans. It could be from sitting. It could be even from putting a tampon in. And what we think is going on here is that women that are prone to this condition, it's almost as if they have not only too many nerve endings around the outside of the vagina, but they're too sensitive. And this is not in a good way. This is a very painful condition. I mean, I'm shocked. The pill has been around for more than 50 years. How is it possible that we are only just now connecting the dots between the pill and pain in a pretty important part? This is the reality check. Yes, the pill has been around for 50 years, but the pill today is very, very different than the pill 50 years ago. The amount of hormone in the pill is much lower, and the types of hormones in the pill are very different. But what's most important is that now there has been the identification of an actual genetic defect that causes the cells in the vaginal tissue to not respond to hormones in the correct way. Why wouldn't it have come up earlier? Why wouldn't a doctor have put together the pieces that I gave you a birth control pill? Now you have so much pain, you can't have sex or can't put a tampon or any other things you have to be able to do in life. Well, I think these are young women, and no one is expecting to see this in a young woman. When we think of vaginal dryness and vaginal pain, people are thinking of perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. So I think a lot of women, quite frankly, have been disregarded when they've gone to their doctors. And in the doctor's defense, this is not commonly known. This is very new information, new research. Again, this is one of the reasons I do the show. I want folks to talk about things. They've been embarrassing things like having pain down below, the burning vulva syndrome. It should not be a mystery for 50 years. We should have heard about this, and we won't ask. We actually need you to volunteer that. One more time, reiterate the side effects of these pills. Well, many women first find out about it because they are having this horrible burning on the outside of the vagina, painful intercourse, stabbing, tearing. And a lot of times, if they actually take a look, and women should take a look, sometimes it's going to look normal, but sometimes you're actually going to see some bright red, fiery patches right at the opening of the vagina. And who's most at risk? Well, it's young women, and that's, again, why it has gone undiscovered, why it's so striking. We're looking at women in their teens, in their 20s, in their 30s. And in fact, new research has shown that if women start taking a birth control pill below the age of 17, that they are at greater risk of developing this syndrome. And in addition, it's the low-dose pills. And we all are recommending low-dose pills because they're better in terms of side effects like blood clots and all of that. But it's in the very low-dose pills in young women that we're primarily seeing this. Maybe if I can show you what Dr. Stryker is speaking to, specifically what seems to be going on. So let's just say you've got a gene that's really efficient, right? And then you have a gene that's really inefficient at using testosterone. And let's play it this way. You have a SUV, gas guzzler, and you've got a little, small little car there that is super efficient. Now, if you have enough gas, which is in the body, testosterone, both cars move along, and they both move at a good enough speed that they get where they need to be. Well, let's go back to the beginning. If you're running low on gas, it changes everything. Now, the big car runs short quickly. The small car gets where you need to be. You have no symptoms. But this poor woman, because she's got a gas guzzler gene, doesn't have enough testosterone, can't use it efficiently enough, and that's when the woman's body begins to break down. So, Dr. Stryker, what's the tip-off that your body's rejecting the pill? Well, essentially, if you're a young woman who had no problem at all, and then you start taking a low-dose pill, and you find, after a few months, that you're having painful sex, maybe you have low libido, this could be what's going on. In addition, you have to keep in mind that testosterone does lots of other things in the body. It's not just about vaginal pain and dryness. We know that we need testosterone for healthy bones, for muscles, even mental health. And so many women say, I can't really tell you why, but I just don't feel right when I'm on the pill. I just don't feel good. That may be what's going on. A lot of women right now can hear your voice. We're thinking, you know what? A lot of these symptoms remind me of the problem we're describing here. Yeah. If I go off the pill, how long will I have to stay off it before I'm back to normal? Well, it's not going to be immediate. And we know that it may be four to six months for the vagina to get healthy again. And a lot of women also need to actually use either an estrogen or testosterone cream to facilitate the healing. So what do you do? If a woman has a bad reaction to the pill, what option do you recommend? Well, fortunately, we have another very, very good option. An IUD is one of the most underutilized forms of contraception in this country. And not only is it not going to have this effect, because there are no systemic hormones, but it works incredibly well. In fact, better even than if you have your tubes tied. It's reversible. It's better than having your tubes tied? It's better than having your tubes tied. It is 99% effective, but it's reversible, which, of course, having your tubes tied is not. And even young women can use an IUD. And a lot of people aren't aware of that. Very, very good advice. Thank you, Dr. Stryker. I'll be right back. Coming up, are you ordering more than you need? Can menus mislead you into overeating? Don't get duped at the diner. Learn to decode the menu. What to look for and what to look over. Coming up next. Shut down your sugar cravings in no time. Stop feeling fat, tired, and sick. The no-fail plan to break the grip that sugar has over you. The easy routine to reprogram your brain. Plus, many believe in the power of prayer. I do believe that there is something more. How it can cure disease and add years to your life. All new Dr. Oz. That's coming up tomorrow. You think when you order a meal in a restaurant, you're using free will. Well, think again. That menu is actually designed to make you eat more. Karen Page, author of Dining Out, is here to tell us exactly how to avoid getting duped the next time we go out for dinner. So how is it that these menus trick us so badly? Well, believe it or not, there's a whole industry that's evolved called menu engineering. That's really based on the principles of design and the principles of consumer psychology. And it's a way that restaurants, which are profit-making businesses, that want to make you order the most profitable items on the menu, will get you to do just that. So you might think you're going to walk in and order a salad, and you find yourself ordering something really unhealthy. That might be the reason why. You guys curious? Hear some more? Come on over. Let's get to the ways menus can mislead us into eating more, despite our best intentions. The first lesson that you teach us is to be aware of the upper right-hand corner over here. These are the featured items. So what's so problematic there? Well, the problem with the upper right-hand corner is that whether you're reading a newspaper or scanning a menu, it tends to be the first place your eye will go, but it also tends to be the last place you're ever going to find a healthy menu item. So the thing you want to remember is not to go where your eye goes first, but to really scan the entire menu so that you're looking for the most helpful choices. Next lesson, pay attention carefully. You want to avoid the bundle. That's the prefix area, where they put all the foods together in categories. You can buy everything at once. Exactly, and that's something that fast-food restaurants have been doing for years. They'll bundle together a sandwich, fries, and a drink, but they're doing it more often at full-service restaurants now, where you'll get several dishes for the same price. And I think a lot of restaurant menus can be overwhelming. There's so many choices. You want to narrow in on something. And so sometimes consumers think that it's going to be the easy choice to go for the bundle and to maybe save a few cents, but in reality, you tend to order a lot more food than you would otherwise. So while you might be satisfied with just one dish, you can go ahead and create your own bundle. If you're still hungry, order something else. And if you've already ordered dessert and paid for it, you're probably going to eat it, which goes, you know, it's metabolic suicide when you do that stuff. Okay, let me ask a question to everybody. Raise your hand if you go into a restaurant with the intention of ordering something healthy, but they ended up with something more like a bacon cheeseburger with a donut. Yeah, everybody. A few folks weren't paying attention. Everyone else put their hands up. All right, Karen says that happens for on purpose. You're being duped by the bold font. For example, the chef special might be an example of that. Exactly. And what happens is that you want to, whenever you see a bold font, you'll see colorful font, you might see pictures on certain menus or a box around a certain area of the menu. That's where the restaurant menu engineers want to draw your attention because you're going to be able to order these items. But especially when you see red, red in the field of color psychology is color that tends to stimulate your appetite. So you might have thought you wanted a salad and you find yourself ordering something like the chicken fried steak and you don't know why, the color red might be the reason behind that. Next little area, which I've fallen prey to myself, descriptive language that can be misleading. I don't know about you guys, when I go to a place and I travel a lot to visit everybody, sometimes you'll notice things like Maryland style crab cake. It is so unique to the area, I have to get it. You're saying it's a lot of words that dupe me. You know, as a bestselling author, I know the power of words, but unfortunately so do those menu engineers. They can come up with words, whether they're sentimental or sensory, that really encourage you to order certain dishes. And in this case, you might see something like mom's secret recipe or grandma's secret recipe or aunt Martha's Maryland style crab cake. In any case, they're going to try to get you by tugging your heart strings and making you think this is special, that you can't get it anywhere else. The other thing you want to watch out for is other words like the word buttery. The word buttery alone will add 100 calories on average to a particular dish. Even without the butter. And then other words like crispy or crunchy, what they're really saying is that a dish is deep fried in most cases and that's going to have you ending up with a lot more fat and a lot more calories than you ever bargained for. So now here's the big announcement today. I'll give you the bottom line. How do you order healthiest on a menu? And pay attention because this is the opposite of what I would have thought. Are you ready? It is to order from the middle. The middle of the menu. That's exactly right. In some cases they used to put a little heart icon on different menu items saying this is something that's low in calories, this is something that's low in fat. But they found out that that wasn't really working to move the sales of those things. It's the opposite. You think it doesn't taste good. People think that it's lacking flavor which is my middle name. What you want to do is to really go to the middle of the menu. That's where you're likely to find more of the salads, more of the vegetable driven dishes that are going to be the most nutrient dense options featuring lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, things like that. And there's another added bonus which I think is wonderful. Which is that as any top chef can tell you, a restaurant dish's flavor profile is really driven by the vegetables, the herbs and the spices in the dish. You're going to get a flavor bonus too because these tend to be some of the most flavorful dishes on the menu. So this is the opposite of what would happen in a supermarket where you always say shop the outside in the menu. You're going to shop the middle. For more ways not to be misled by menus in the reading excerpt of Karen's new book The Vegetarian Flavor Bible, you go to DrAz.com. I'll be right back. How do you make sure that you don't overeat at a restaurant? I always have a little snack right before I leave my house. Usually I'll have a cup of pistachios or a smoothie. That way I'm not quite as ravenous when I arrive. Share your story on Dr. Az's Facebook page. Coming up next, just when you think you're suffering from a bug, your gut could be telling you something different. That pain in your stomach could be appendicitis, the crucial symptoms you need to recognize. That's next on The Dr. Az Show. Shut down your sugar cravings in no time. Stop feeling fat, tired and sick. The no-fail plan to break the grip that sugar has over you. The easy routine to reprogram your brain. Plus, many believe in the power of prayer. I do believe that there is something more. How it can cure disease and add years to your life. All new Dr. Az. That's coming up tomorrow. You have a fever or you're nauseated and your stomach hurts you. Is it the stomach flu or could it be appendicitis? Today, I'm going to tell you how to know. But first, I need a little bit of help from my assistant of the day. Who wants to be assistant of the day? C81. 81. We got a winner. She's winning it all. Congratulations. I love this. I'm so happy. What's your first name? Elizabeth. Who are you up there with, Elizabeth? Christine. Thank you, Christine, for bringing Elizabeth here. So, I'm talking about appendicitis today. You know much about it? No. Has anyone you know ever had it? My brother had it. He did? Yes, when he was young. And he did okay with it? He did okay. He was in a lot of pain. Remember the pain he had? Where was it? I don't remember. I just remember he was in pain. What we're going to do today, because it's one of the most important decisions we have to make, is when we get that belly pain, is it important stuff, or is it just that usual irritation in your gut? So I'm going to walk you through this, and you're going to have to teach everybody. You want to dance over here? Let's go. Hey! She's dancing with her appendicitis. She's celebrating it up. Now, I got you something that you're going to love. I know you want those purple gloves on you. Where are you from, by the way? Mount Vernon, New York. Mount Vernon, New York. Good for you. The assistant didn't say Westchester County. No. It doesn't matter. That's right. I mean, not the assistant. The comedian. Yeah, the comedian. You find the show comedian funny? Yes, he's very funny. Alright, just making sure. Alright, that is your intestines. Now, let me orient you. The food comes in through here to the mouth, and it comes out there when you go poop. It's pretty simple, straightforward. It's like a tunnel. Now, here's the thing. The appendix is a very small structure. You would never find it if I turned you loose in here, but I'm going to show it to you. We used to think your appendix is really important to keep your immune system strong. And here it is. See that little tiny thing there? Hold that in your hands. You feel that? Rubbery. Now, here's the large intestine, this big structure here. And see the appendix is coming off the edge there? Can you all see that? So it was thought when you had bad diarrhea, bad infection, a little bacteria would hold up in here like a little camp, and it would wait, and then when the diarrhea passed, you'd push bacteria into the colon to make you better again. But sometimes a piece of food gets stuck right there. Imagine something not so good for you. It gets stuck in there, and it blocks off all the blood supply of this little piece of tissue. It would be like a balloon. You know those clown balloons? You blow it up bigger and bigger, and it would explode in your intestine. So that can lead to swelling and inflammation. That's what we call appendicitis. You don't want that. Here's the tricky part. Here's what you can help everybody with. It seems a lot like a stomach bug when you get it. Have you had a stomach bug? What's that like? Not good. In the bathroom a lot. You get the runs. But describe the discomfort you get in your belly when you have a belly infection. Just a lot of pain. Just comfort. Here's the thing. The stomach is right here, so it's not that far from the appendix. We've got to figure out, and this is what doctors spend a lot of time trying to figure out, but you can help us a lot. Is it from your stomach, or is it from the appendix here? Frankly, it's not your stomach usually. It's usually all these intestines that get messed up. Right along here all this craziness has happened, and next door is the appendix. It's a big issue because the two have the same symptoms. Take your gloves off. We're going to have to do a little challenge over here. Are you a good painter? No. We're going to challenge your painting ability. I bet you're better than you think you are. How do you know if it's appendicitis or stomach bug? Are you ready? We're dancing the whole way. Medicine. You've got to celebrate life with medicine. We have an assistant like you. You've got to do it now. 24 hours. That's the key window of time. 24 hours. For all the moms out there, particularly the kids, the risk of the appendix rupturing is in that first 24 hours. When that happens, it spills poop all over your gut. You don't want that. We're going to walk you through the first 24 hours of symptoms. Put your gloves on. What you're going to do is do a little graffiti. I built you a human body over there. You're going to walk me through all the symptoms. The first symptom that people have, obviously, is stomach pain, but it's sort of a vague pain. Grab your spray gun over here. There you are. Grab your spray gun. Come on over here. I want you to spray all around the belly. You're dancing everywhere. Spray all over there. I'm a lefty. You're a lefty? Take it away. All over. Perfect. That's perfect. If I were you, actually, that is ideal. It's sort of around the belly button, but it's not very specific. It's very similar to what it feels like with the flu. Come on back. That's one of the first things that happens. Soon after that, you're going to lose your appetite. Put your sponge in there. Here's the thing. Almost everybody who gets appendicitis loses their appetite. It's the first question I ask. Come on over here. If you're hungry, you don't have appendicitis. I'm always hungry. You are, so you don't have appendicitis. All right. Put some marks on there, just around that little line that you had there. You can put them anywhere you want. All over the belly. That just signifies the fact that you don't have an appetite anymore. That's good. Put one up here, maybe. That's too high. Come on up here. You're good. I like a discerning artist. Then, about three-quarters of folks with appendicitis actually, interestingly, have nausea. Again, you're still within the 24 hours? You're very kind. Go ahead and grab this. I'll walk over with you. You're going to be like one of those spray painters. I want you to throw it right in there. Nausea all over the place. Just throw it in there. One more time. Oh, jeez. I got you. Well done. That was good. I got you. I like it. All right. Now, things begin to heat up a little bit. Literally, you get a fever. Go ahead and take that and dip it in there. I'm a lefty. You're a lefty. That's right. Of course you're a lefty. What else would you be? Come on over here. Get the face, the neck, because the fever's going to be apparent up top here. Neck area, all those areas. Right there. Messed up over there. A little bit more head there. I think you're right. I think you got it all. She's going to be messed up for sure. Let me see. That's the main place. Don't go crazy with that. Here's the thing. Remember, 101 degrees is the sort of temperature we look for, and then it comes down to this. It begins to pinpoint to one spot. Go ahead and take this, and I want you to mark with an X right here, because that's where it's going to go. You're going to feel that pain down the right lower part. Take it with you. Take a big X down there. Boom. Boom. Perfectly done. That X marks the spot where you'll finally have symptoms. When you start to feel that, then we know we've got to go in there. Pop your gloves off. You have one last test you've got to do. If you think that you might have appendicitis, come forward here. The first thing you're going to do, literally, is you're going to try to jump like this. Jump, jump, jump. Oh, doc. Okay. Oh, excuse me. So when you jump, when you jump, that appendix that I showed you there, that appendix, if it's irritated, will feel pain right down here. You can cough if you don't want to jump. Okay, thank you. The last little test is you're going to have to lie on the ground. Oh, boy. You're going to do this. You're going to be so good, I can't tell you. I hope my grandkids don't see this. Oh, they will. Put your feet down there. This is the last test you can do on those grandkids. Oh, Lord. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get up. Oh, Jesus. Now lie on your left side. Your left side. That's easier. Hold on, doc. I've got a lot going on over here. All right, let's go. I'm sorry. Later. Be careful. You're going to take your right leg and someone's going to pull it back like that, keep your knee straight, and if that hurts you right here, that's one of the last signs. You have it there? No, that's a sign of being old. You are the absolute best. Thank you. I need help. It's an emergency. Go to the door. I'll be right back. You're a gentleman. Thank you. Coming up, following her open heart surgery, a remarkable young girl gives back a special gift of compassion for kids overcoming the same journey. Her heartwarming story has touched many and a special surprise she doesn't see coming is next. Have a health question? Ask on DrOz.com and get answers directly from Dr. Oz and his team of experts. No question is off limits. It's time for Everyday Health Heroes. Today, a remarkable young girl who after open heart surgery found a way to make other children going through the exact same thing feel a little better. Meet Lorelai. My absolute favorite is the puppy. Lorelai may have been born missing half of her heart, but she's got so much heart to give the entire world. Since the day Lorelai was born, we knew she was a fighter. As soon as she was delivered, they confirmed that she was missing her left ventricle, and a day and a half later, she underwent her first open heart surgery. Lorelai has had 16 procedures, including three open heart surgeries. Her third open heart surgery came with some complications. She started to develop some fluid around her heart and her lungs. My mother brought along my grandfather's compression heart pillow from when he had had a quadruple bypass surgery. She was supposed to hug it, and it would help her to be able to relieve some pain. It was too big, so that's when I got the idea of making heart hugs. When Lorelai was five years old, she came and asked me if she could learn how to sew. She started making the pillows in shapes of hearts for other children. I don't want the other kids to feel the pain that I felt in not only this heart, but in her heart for love. Lorelai made one pillow a day to start with, and then we would just collect the pillows and bring them to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia so that they could be handed out to the other cardiac patients. We have made over 1,700 pillows. Lorelai has managed to forge some really meaningful relationships. She has another little girl who's also missing half of her heart. Cora is truly my bestest friend. Also, more like my twin. I was so surprised that at such a young age, Lorelai was so interested in wanting to help other kids, and that it was going to make such a big difference. The change that she's making every single day makes her a health hero in my book. Please welcome Lorelai and her mother Shelly. Oh, it's for me? I have a little heart. Lorelai, thank you very much. Come on over. Come on, let's talk. Hey, Mom, how are you? I'm great. Beautifully done. So I love this. What gave you the idea of making these little hearts? Well, I had it was too big. So you had a pop-ups heart pillow, right? Yeah. Can I show you something? So, you know, I'm a heart surgeon. So I do the kinds of operations that you had. So I would always give this to my patients. Does that look like your grandfather's pillow? So this is a pretty good idea, I think. Was it hard to make the first one? Actually, I'm not that sure. That's a good sign if you don't remember how hard it was. How long does it take for you to make each of these hearts? Well, I guess it varies. Um, making heart pillows are very, that's very difficult. Oh, it is? Yes. So where do you start? With the fabric or the inside? Well, I have help. Who helps you? Um, volunteers and my mom. And your mom and volunteers. That's fantastic. This one here is actually a memorial pillow. Those are given to families if one of the cardiac patients passes away. And so those go, they're ornaments. And so they go up on trees or around the house. And then these are the pillows that she makes for the pediatric open heart patients. Are you proud of these pillows? Yes. We sew these parts and then I stuff them up. And then I have help from my mom stitching the rest up. Well, they are very beautifully made just like you are. I'm very happy for that. You must make a lot of friends with these pillows. Yes. We don't meet any of them. In reality, we drop them off at the nurse's office, but they're always so happy to get their pillows. Well, you talked about that little girl that you thought was your twin, your best friend. You mean Cora? We haven't even met her? No, but we talk on the phone. That is so cute. In fact, what I really want to do most in life right now is to have you meet Cora. Is that okay? Come on out, Cora and her mom Valerie. So what do you think, Cora? Does she look like what you thought? Yeah. So what do you have to say to Cora, Lorelai? Cora, I'm excited to really meet you in person. Me too. Absolutely priceless. Are you surprised? Yes. Yes, I love it. Mom, are you guys okay? You were surprised too. We're best friends too. Oh, you are? We've never met. You haven't ever met either? We couldn't tell Mom because the kids would find out. If you know someone who's making a difference and deserves to be honored as one of everyday health heroes, we want to hear from you. Go to DrOz.com to tell us about it. We'll be right back. Many believe in the power of prayer. I do believe that there is something more. How it can cure disease and add years to your life. All new Dr. Oz. That's coming up tomorrow. Shut down your sugar cravings in no time. Stop feeling fat, tired and sick. The no-fail plan to break the grip that sugar has over you. The easy routine to reprogram your brain. Plus, many believe in the power of prayer. I do believe that there is something more. How it can cure disease and add years to your life. All new Dr. Oz. That's coming up tomorrow. First, the new ways to slash your cancer risk. One of the most deadly cancers that I want everyone to know the risk for is stomach cancer. The new way to slash your risk is to eat less salt. Canned and processed foods are loaded with the stuff, so when you're cooking at home, either rinse your canned foods in water or some great alternatives for salt. Garlic powder is fantastic. You can use nutmeg, cumin, but paprika is the real secret for a lot of folks that they don't pay attention to. It doesn't taste the same as salt, but it's, I think, tasty independent of the salt and will help avoid that risk. The other cancer I'm really worried about is pancreatic cancer. You can slash that risk by getting these low glycemic foods into your diet. I particularly am a fan of sweet potatoes. They are shaped like a pancreas, so it's actually very easy to tell that it's for the pancreas. And you can bake them, you can roast them, you can steam them. Make them the right way. Don't fry them up and don't boil them. By making them those ways, you preserve the beneficial effects that they have on the body. Next is your body rejecting the birth control pill. A genetic inefficiency makes some women react negatively to oral contraceptives. Here are the warning signs. Pain during intercourse and pain with pressure. This can be, I think, often a problem with folks if you have difficulty using tampons, if you're wearing tight clothing, if you're sitting for long periods of time. If that bothers you and if you're taking the pill and you're experiencing these issues, you've got to talk to your doctor about maybe using an IUD. It's actually the most common birth control technique used by OBGYNs. It's not the pill, it's the IUD. It's actually more effective than having your tubes tied. We also learned about how to beat misleading menus that are making you eat more. One of my favorite tips is to beware of the upper right-hand corner of the menu. This is the place where your eyes first go. It's true for newspapers, it's true for menus, and it's usually the last place for healthy menu options. Instead, read the menu from the middle, right across here. The opposite of what you do in a supermarket where you start in the outside. Healthier entrees are likely to be here. They're surrounded by appetizers and side dishes. What I personally do is I often order a side dish as my appetizer, because I know it's made pretty purely, and then the entree becomes the entree, and I can skip the appetizer completely. Let me close with a warning. Please be careful about what you buy online, especially weight loss pills. There are some dubious people online that prey on folks like you who are trying to do the right thing for your health. Sometimes, they make it seem like I'm trying to endorse their products. I don't. To see a full list of our trusted sponsorship partners, go to DrRoz.com, and I'll see you next time.