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Dr. Oz linked health to astrology — and this doctor isn’t having it

Dr. Oz attends The Hollywood Reporter's Most Powerful People In Media 2018 on April 12, 2018. Ben Gabbe/Getty Images

For many years, physicians and researchers have called celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz’s medical advice into question. In fact, doctors at the University of Alberta put four months’ worth of his claims to the test and received less than encouraging results.

From Chinese facial readings to determine health to medical intuitives, Dr. Oz hasn’t shied away from exploring some highly questionable medical tactics and techniques. But in one doctor’s opinion, he simply went too far earlier this week.

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On June 6, the host of the eponymous Dr. Oz Show tweeted a picture of a page from the book Your Body and the Stars by Rebecca Gordon, an astrologist. He wrote: “For centuries, we have used astrological signs to examine our personality and how we interact with those around us, however, these signs may reveal a great deal about our health as well. Discover what your astrological sign can tell you about your health.” (The tweet has since been deleted.)

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He followed it with another tweet about a guest scheduled to appear on his show who would extol the benefits of the health horoscope.

https://twitter.com/DrOz/status/1004332074319466501

But this proved to be too much for Dr. Jennifer Gunter, a Canadian-born, U.S.-based OB/GYN who has made both Oz and Gwyneth Paltrow, and their farcical philosophies on health and wellness, the focus of her scorn in the past.

Her first tweet implored Oz to “just stop” promoting the notion that health and one’s astrological sign are in any way correlated. (It’s unclear if this was the tweet that prompted Oz to delete his original one.)

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After Oz sent out his tweet promoting his guest and the health astrology topic of the day, it proved too hard for Gunter to resist.

Her last humorous musing on the topic saw the board-certified Gunter wondering how she could apply the principles of health astrology to her patients who are trying to decide on the best form of contraception.

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This isn’t the first time Gunter has targeted Oz. In May, she chastised him for promoting “scam” psychics in a blog post titled How to avoid getting scammed by fake psychics and criticized his claim that fake psychics can be easily spotted if they “come from places like Romania who are notorious for tricking people.” (That reference was deleted from Oz’s post the following day.)

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She has also been a very vocal critic of Paltrow, whose Goop website is known for espousing outlandish wellness practices and doling out potentially dangerous health advice. Gunter has admonished the Oscar-winning actress for promoting bizarre practices like inserting a jade egg in your vagina for “sexual energy,” and claiming that there could be a connection between wearing a bra with underwire and breast cancer.

In January, Gunter took aim at Goop’s latest Beauty and Wellness Detox Guide that included colonics and an at-home coffee enema system, which the star claims will “supercharge your detox.”

Among other things, Gunter took issue with the fact that Paltrow and Goop often seek out one vaguely legitimate medical source to back up their claims, and that in this case in particular, the source didn’t have sufficient evidence to support his arguments.

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“The interview with Dr. [Alejandro] Junger is filled with information that is unsupported by both the medical literature and by human anatomy and physiology. There is no data to suggest that a ‘colonic helps with the elimination of the waste that is transiting the colon on its way out,'” she wrote. “That is what bowel movements do. There are no toxins to be cleansed or irrigated. That is fake medicine.”

Here’s hoping Gunter continues on her crusade to bring truth back to celebrity medicine.

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